Emily Gerard (1849-1905) – Scottish Writer and Anthropologist
The Town Gate of Hermanstadt, Frontispiece to Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest, 1888, Illustrated by Elizabeth Thor
For her Piece of Stuff this week Tracey talked about Vlad Draculea, aka Vlad the Impaler, whose name was the inspiration for the most famous vampire novel ever – Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula. Stoker took the name, the reputation for evil, and not much else from the actual history of Vlad Draculea, so I was curious to know where he had found other inspiration for the blood-sucking count. As it turns out Stoker’s imagination was amply supplied with source material about gruesome details such as the bloodlust, garlic, and the stake through the heart by a Scotswoman named Emily Gerard. Gerard found herself by virtue of being married to a Polish officer serving in the Austo-Hungarian army, living in two of the Transylvanian towns mentioned in this week’s podcast – Hermanstadt, or Sibio, where Vlad’s tax receipt we discussed is located, and Kronstadt, today Brasov, where Vlad is supposed to have impaled 30,000 Saxons who had supported his rival. Gerard first wrote an essay in 1885 “Transylvanian Superstitions,” and then followed this up in 1888 with a two volume work, The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures and Fancies from Transylvania.
Gerard was born in Chesters, Jedburgh, Scotland om May 7th, 1849, the oldest daughter of Colonel Archibald Gerard and Euphemia Erskine (whose names are themselves gothic-novel-worthy). Hers was a learned and literary family. Her maternal grandfather was the inventor Sir John Robinson, who gave the world tapered wood screws, furniture casters and the pneumatic cheese press. Other relatives published and taught in physics, mathematics, philosophy, and theology. Her sister, Dorothea, was a notable novelist in her time, and the two collaborated on novels before their respective marriages separated them. Gerard had a knack for foreign languages, and she finished her education at the convent of Sacré Coeur at Riedenberg in Austria. In 1869, Gerard married Ritter Miecislaus von Laszowski, a cavalry officer, with whom she had two children.
I learned about Emily Gerard from an article in The Guardian, written by Libby Brooks, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula inspired by writings of a maverick Scotswoman.” This presents quite a heartwarming story given the subject matter, as it details the search by Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, to find out more about the Scotswoman who had inspired his celebrated relative. Dacre Stoker followed up a clue that Bram had dropped in the magazine, British Weekly, about an essay he had read of Gerard’s in the magazine Nineteenth Century. This took Dacre to Philadelphia, in the United States to the Rosenbach Museum, where Bram Stoker’s notes are kept. Dacre Stoker remarks: “It must have taken courage for a young lady to travel to the countryside and interview people about these beliefs, and then get an article published in the Nineteenth Century, which was a formidable magazine in London, and then get a two-volume book published.”
Having been able to find Emily Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest at Project Gutenberg, I think it only fair to give Gerard her due and quote her comments about vampirism in Transylvania in full:
More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian [sic] peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell. There are two sorts of vampires, living and dead. The living vampire is generally the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons; but even a flawless pedigree will not insure any one against the intrusion of a vampire into their family vault, since every person killed by a Nosferatu likewise becomes a vampire after death, and will continue to suck the blood of other innocent persons till the spirit has been exorcised by opening the grave of the suspected person, and either driving a stake through the corpse, or else firing a pistol shot into the coffin. To walk smoking around the grave on each anniversary of the death is also supposed to be effective in confining the vampire. In very obstinate cases of vampirism it is recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave.
That such remedies are resorted to even now is a well attested fact, and there are probably few Roumanian villages where such have not taken place within the memory of the inhabitants. There is likewise no Roumanian village which does not count among its inhabitants some old woman (usually a midwife) versed in the precautions to be taken in order to counteract vampires, and who makes of this science a flourishing trade. She is frequently called in by the family who has lost a member and requested to “settle” the corpse securely in its coffin, so as to insure it against wandering. The means by which she endeavors to counteract any vampire-like instincts which may be lurking are various. Sometimes she drives a nail through the forehead of the deceased, or else rubs the body with the fat of a pig which has been killed on the Feast of St. Ignatius, five days before Christmas [which would be the Winter Solstice!]. It is also very usual to lay the thorny branch of a wild-rose bush across the body to prevent it from leaving the coffin.
“Emily Gerard” Wikipedia accessed August 15, 2023 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Gerard
Emily Gerard, “Transylvanian Superstitions,” The Nineteenth Century 18 (1885), 128-44.
Emily Gerard, The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures and Fancies from Transylvania (New York: Harper Brothers, 1888). Accessible on-line at Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57168/57168-h/57168-h.htm#CHAPTER_XXV
Libby Brooks, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula Inspired by the Writings of a Maverick Scotswoman,” The Guardian, June 6, 2023. Accessed August 15, 2023 at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/06/bram-stokers-dracula-inspired-by-writings-of-maverick-scotswoman