Countess Elga: The Legend of a Vampire

On June 10, 1909, the news that tells the account of an alleged vampire surfaced the pages of Neues Wiener Journal, a popular Vienna newspaper. It was related to the deaths of the number of children, which they blamed on a vampire.  They believed that Countess Elga became a vampire and was responsible for the surprising number of death. The number of fatalities that year at the Carpathian Mountains is beyond the average rate.

 

Franz Haartman Testimony on Countess Elga

 

Based on account of Franz Hartman, who lived in a town not far away from the said castle:

 

"Two years ago I was living at Hermannstadt, and being engaged in engineering a road through the hills, I often came within the vicinity of the old castle, where I made the acquaintance of the old castellan, or caretaker, and his wife, who occupied a part of the wing of the house, almost separate from the main body of the building. They were a quiet old couple and rather reticent in giving information or expressing an opinion in regard to the strange noises which were often heard at night in the deserted halls, or of the apparitions which the Wallachian peasants claimed to have seen when they loitered in the surroundings after dark. All I could gather was that the old Count was a widower and had a beautiful daughter, who was one day killed by a fall from her horse, and that soon after the old man died in some mysterious manner, and the bodies were buried in a solitary graveyard belonging to a neighboring village. Not long after their death an unusual mortality was noticed among the inhabitants of the village: several children and even some grown people died without any apparent illness; they merely wasted away; and thus a rumor was started that the old Count had become a vampire after his death. There is no doubt that he was not a saint, as he was addicted to drinking, and some shocking tales were in circulation about his conduct and that of his daughter; but whether or not there was any truth in them. I am not in a position to say."

 

More Strange Occurrences

 

After some time, the property became a possession of a family relative, but it was believed that he did not reside in the castle.  He just instructed someone to maintain the house and make sure it is still in its best form.  One day two men came to visit the castle, a young lawyer and a man of literature.  There was nothing so remarkable in the old place since most of the stuff was sold.  But when they come across this old painting, the young lawyer claimed that the oil painting blinked its eyes and was smiling.  On the same night, the visitors formed a ring on the table, and the table started to move and formed the word ELGA; they asked the person that maintained the castle about some information regarding Elga and was surprised to know that the person in the painting they just saw was that of Countess Elga.

 

 

Countess Elga's spirit also manifested in the writer's presence. It was also followed by unexplained experiences by the servants inside the castle.  The writer also received an invitation to Countess Elga.  He hired a policeman to investigate the incident, and the police reported that he saw nothing but a black carriage as if waiting for someone to arrive. Shortly after the report went public, the terrified public burned the castle to cinders. Strangely, the high mortality rate among kids also ceased after that incident.