Abhartach

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Abhartach/Dracula is an early Irish vampire from the 5th century. He could be accounted to as one the earliest "vampires" of dated record, being older then the Slavic ones. Blood-drinking creatures (and in this case chieftains) were not uncommon in Celtic lore. Numbers of blood-sucking fairies do appear in Celtic folklore.

According to some Abhartach is a source for the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker. There are several versions of this folktale but the story goes that the local people wanted to kill the tyrant Abhartach and asked 'Catháin' (or Fionn depending on the version) to kill him. Having seen Abhartach return the protagonist asks a local druid or saint how to defeat the vampire and is told to impale him through the heart and bury him upside down. In the version with Fionn Mac Cumhaill as the protagonist he places his thumb between his teeth to learn Abhartach's weakspot.

It has been claimed that the Abhartach legend appears in the Foras Feasa. This is based on a misreading of 'The Undead' by Haining and Tremayne (1997). They stated on page 71 that P.W. Joyce translated Ceitinn's Foras Feasa ar Eirinn while on page 74 they point out that Joyce and several other 19th century antiquarians recorded the folktale.

The name 'Catháin', as mentioned in this piece, belonged to the forebearer of the O'Kane family, a name that is synonymous with the north Derry area. Ó Catháin, being the family of Catháin. Another point worth mentioning, 'The man of bad blood', would translate in Irish as 'Fear na droch fhola', perhaps this term 'Droch fhola' (pronounced : Drockola) may add some weight to the Bram Stoker theory.

Alternative Origin of Dracula

It has always been assumed that the original Dracula story, written by the Irishman Abraham (Bram) Stoker in 1897, was based on the Transylvanian folk hero Vlad III Tepesh Dracula, known as “the impaler” because of his favourite method of punishment. However, an intriguing alternative inspiration for the Dublin civil servant’s story has been put forward by Bob Curran, lecturer in Celtic History and Folklore at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, in the summer edition of History Ireland, a sober academic journal edited by historians from the University College, Cork. In the district of north Derry known as Glenullin (Glen of the Eagle), between Garvah and Dungiven, lies the remote townland of Slaughtaverty. Here, in the middle of a field, can be found the remains of a megalithic monument known (like many all over Ireland) as the “Giant’s Grave.” This one also has the more specific name of Leacht Abhartach (Abhartach’s sepulchre). According to folk tradition, Abhartach was a fifth or sixth century petty king or chieftain with an evil reputation for sorcery. His terrified subjects prevailed upon Catha’n, a neighbouring chieftain, to get rid of him. Catha’n slew the wizard and buried him standing up in an isolated grave; but Abhartach returned the following day and demanded a bowl of blood, drawn from his subjects’ veins, to sustain his corpse. Catha’n killed and buried him again, but the indefatigable man reappeared, demanding his cup of blood as before. Catha’n now consulted either a local Druid or a Christian saint–there are variation in the tale–and was told that Abhartach had become one of the neamh-mhairbh (the undead) and a dearg-diu’lai’ (a drinker of human blood). He could not be killed, but could be put under restraint. He had to be run through with a sword made from yew wood, buried upside-down surrounded by thorns and ash twigs, and his grave surmounted by a heavy stone. Catha’n followed these instructions and the people of Glenullin ceased to be unwilling blood donors. In 1997, attempts were made to clear the land; in conformity with folklore, workmen who attempted to cut down the thorn tree arching across Abhartach’s sepulchre allegedly had their chain saw malfunction three times. While attempting to lift the great stone, a steel chain snapped, cutting the hand of one of the labourers, and ominously, allowing blood to soak into the ground. Mr Curran himself suffered “a severe and inexplicable fall” after visiting the site. During a lecture in 1961, the Registrar of the National Folklore Commission, Sea’n O’ Suilleabha’in, mentioned a site which he called Du’n Dreach-Fhoula (pronounced droc’ola) or Castle of the Blood Visage. This was allegedly a fortress guarding a lonely pass in the Magillycuddy Reeks in Kerry, and inhabited by blood-drinking fairies. He did not give its exact location, and cultural historians have spent years hunting through archives for more specific information. Droch-fhoula pronounced droc’ola, can also mean “bad” or “tainted blood” and while it is now taken to refer to “blood feuds,” it might have a far older connotation. It might indeed have been the inspiration for the name Dracula rather than Vlad Dracul. Stoker, after all, never visited Eastern Europe and relied entirely on travellers’ accounts. “There is no tradition of vampires here (in Romania),” said Prof Sabina Ispas, director of the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest, addressing the World Dracula Congress held in Transylvania last May. “Bram Stoker presented his fiction with a special identity of his own making . . . Until 10 years ago, we Romanians hadn’t even heard of the Dublin writer or his character, Dracula . . . Dracula did not live in Romania, there are no vampires in our mythology and no vampiric castle.” Abhartach is only one among many blood-drinking noble and chieftains that populate Irish folklore; and the blood-drinking undead feature in Geoffrey Keating’s History of Ireland, written in 1626-31. Stoker may well have read the legend of Abhartach in another History of Ireland, written by Patrick Weston Joyce and published in 1880. Around the same time, manuscript copies of Keating’s work were on display in the National Museum in Dublin.