I heard an interesting tale last night from an Australian doctor. She told me a story of a friend who came from Transylvania. One evening he explained that his grandmother had asked that her head be cut of after she had died (not before). He also told of how the vampire myth came about during the plague. Apparently many victims (in the interests of hygiene and the common good) were buried before they had quite died, and some dug themselves out to walk the earth again. The good doctor told of his convincing Transylvanian accent and theories that Vampires had colonised every film genre. I realised I was being obtuse so I didn’t bring up my theory that a Vampire would make a very poor cowboy, turning up at high noon only to disappear in a puff of smoke.
