There is sometimes mention of Walter of Malmesbury as a teller of vampiric tales, a mention that appears to stem from Montague Summers’ The Vampire in Europe. However, Summers had the exasperating habit of not citing his references, and his writing causes considerable confusion in that there is scarcely any indication of when he leaves off quoting, or quotes from a difference source, or whether he has actually seen the source from which he is purportedly quoting. An exhaustive search of Malmesbury’s writings has to date brought no such tale to light.

Yet another purported source for evidence of vampires in England’s Anglo-Saxon history is shown to be entirely unsupported. Dudley Wright, in his book Vampires and Vampirism published in 1914, mentions “… an Anglo-Saxon poem with the title A Vampyre of the Fens”. Wright appears to have assumed this poem existed on the basis of a reference in an article in Household Words (1855, edited by Charles Dickens), but clearly did not verify it. Not only does no such Anglo-Saxon poem exist, but it could not possibly have existed – the word “vampire” or “vampyre” or any such permutation did not enter the English language until 1732.

The Flückinger Report in Europe

During the 1700s, a military campaign was launched by the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Ottomans (Muslim Turks) occupying much of the Balkan Peninsula. It was the first time these Austro-Hungarian soldiers had ever encountered the vampire cult of the Slavs, and they were “horrified and fascinated” (Guiley, p. 18). The researchers (including theologians), who travelled to the Balkans to investigate the horrific practice of exhuming and impaling dead bodies, found it a fruitful subject for their writing.

In 1732 came the most influential report of all, translated from German into French into English. It was a report comprising a vampire anecdote and autopsy findings dated 7th January 1732, by Regimental Field Surgeon Johannes Flückinger, who was sent to Medvegia (Serbia, but at that time part of the Austrian Empire), to investigate the claims of vampire-caused plagues there. Flückinger forwarded his report to the Austrian Emperor, and it was rapidly published in a treatise for the public mere weeks later. The report is quoted below. It certainly stimulated fourteen subsequent treatises and four dissertations in Germany alone – the vampire craze of the West had begun.