The Legendary Arnold Paole

What? Never heard the name before? Shame, since he is one of the most famous vampires in history, his story got a lot of press coverage back in the 1700’s and is still renowned even now.

The case of Arnold Paole took place in 1727-1728 in the Serbian village Meduegna. Arnold Paole was a soldier in the Austrian army that had come home from war in the spring of 1727.  But while on tour with the army something happened while he was stationed in Greece, he was attacked by a vampire. That was what he said at least, he then said he killed the vampire but not after the beast bit him.

Paole returned home feeling cursed but he went on living his life anyway. He ended up working on a farm and one day he suffered a severe fall from a hay-wagon, cracking his noggin open. Paole lingered for a few days but finally succumbed and died. A short time after his burial, strange reports began to circulate around town that Paole had been seen in several locations near by. Remember how I said when he was alive he told people he had been attacked by a vampire? Well that mixed with vampire fears of the times caused a hell of a lot of panic in the village of Meduegna.  The people of the village called on their leaders to look into this possible vampire case.

Forty days after Arnold Paole was buried his grave was opened. Officers were summoned from Belgrade to watch over this exhumation and what they found was that the corpse was extremely fresh, the body had moved to one side of the grave and it had blood trickling from its mouth. There was no explanation for this at the time and the corpse was declared a vampire on the spot. Arnold Paole’s body was then staked and according to legend, it screamed and gushed out mass amounts of blood (again I think of True Blood stakings). Then the head was chopped off and the entire body was burned. That was the end to that vampire.

Yes, Arnold Paole was a real person and this is a real event that happened. But was he a real vampire or was this more superstitious nonsense caused by ignorance? That answer is entirely up to you.

- Moonlight