Michael E. Bell (1) (1943–)
Autor von Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires
Andere Autoren mit dem Namen Michael E. Bell findest Du auf der Unterscheidungs-Seite.
Über den Autor
Michael E. Bell is the Consulting Folklorist for the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission
Werke von Michael E. Bell
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Bell, Michael Edward
- Geburtstag
- 1943-06-28
- Geschlecht
- male
- Wohnorte
- Pawtuxet, Rhode Island, USA
- Ausbildung
- Indiana University at Bloomington (PhD - Folklore)
University of California, Los Angeles (MA - Folklore and Mythology)
University of Arizona, Tucson (BA - Anthropology and Archaeology) - Berufe
- folklorist
- Organisationen
- Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission
Mitglieder
Rezensionen
Auszeichnungen
Dir gefällt vielleicht auch
Statistikseite
- Werke
- 1
- Mitglieder
- 165
- Beliebtheit
- #128,476
- Bewertung
- 3.6
- Rezensionen
- 3
- ISBNs
- 9
The condensed version: In New England (there are cases from upstate New York and Chicago) between 1793 and 1892 a number of corpses were disinterred, and something was done to the body (usually burning the heart). The deceased had died of “consumption” (assumed, almost certainly correctly, to be tuberculosis), and now one or more of the deceased’s immediate relatives had also come down with the disease. The surviving family (sometimes at the urging of neighbors) blamed things on the corpse “feeding” off the living. The grave of the last known case (Mercy Brown, Exeter, Rhode Island, 1892) has become something of a local tourist attraction; on Halloween it’s impossible to park within a mile of the cemetery and three police officers patrol to keep sightseers from breaking off parts of her tombstone or trying to excavate her. (Bell coins the useful term “legend trip” to describe situations like this).
Bell’s researches note the contamination of traditional folklore by modern media influence. None of the contemporary accounts ever use the “V” word, suggest that the corpses left their graves, or that they bit victims, yet locals he interviews describe the revenants as “vampires” that “walked at night” and “sucked the blood of the living”. Despite his disjointed presentation I do feel sorry for him; he describes appearing on various television programs trying to explain things and is invariably trapped or edited into seeming to say he believes in vampires. (He even self-deprecatingly describes his most recent encounter by writing “This time I thought it would be different”. He then, in a case of being cruel to be kind, allows his grad student intern to be interviewed, to forewarn him of what’s going to happen).
It was interesting to find that another Rhode Island resident must have done some research into these cases. One of the families involved were the Tillinghasts, with Sarah Tillinghast as the putative revenant. “Crawford Tillinghast” appears in the H.P. Lovecraft story “From Beyond”. A member of the Corwin family was disinterred around 1830; “Joseph Curwen” appears as the evil ancestor in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. When this was made into a movie (The Haunted Palace), Roger Corman demonstrated he’d read some Rhode Island folklore too, by making Ward/Curwen’s mistress the reanimated Hester Tillinghast.
Interesting enough if you are willing to put up with the disjointed presentation. A few maps, some pictures, a good bibliography, a chronological lists of the cases, and a list of the children of Stukely and Honor Tillinghast.… (mehr)