Sunday 6 January 2013

Irish Mythology Post: An Dearg-Due

I have a very interesting little story for you guys this week. It's an old Irish legend about a young lady with a penchant for the blood of those unfortunate enough to have wronged her...

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The story goes that she was a young maiden (whenever I hear the word maiden I always assume they're clad in white and go around with their hand to their forehead in a damsel in distress kind of way...) who found love with a peasant from her local town. Her father was less than impressed and decided to marry her off to a wealthy man who treated her horribly. 

What's a girl to do?

Why commit suicide and come back one year later to suck the blood out of your greedy father and abusive husband, what else! It is reputed that she is buried in a small churchyard in Waterford and rises from her grave a few times a year to seduce men and drain their blood. Some versions of the story say that she drains life breath, kind of like Demontors in Harry Potter, and others say that she can turn into a bat. 

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The only way to defeat an Dearg- Due (means 'Red Blood Sucker) is to pile stones on her grave in order to trap her in the earth. 

Hope you guys enjoyed this story.
Rebecca :) 

9 comments:

AsylumAlice said...

Mythology is the best! Especially Irish Mythology!

linnea-maria said...

Wonderful story! But I guess her grave would be known if someone tries to pile rocks on it. But if it's not, beware young men!

Chris Hewson said...

This sounds familiar to other vampire lore, like the whole 'stick a large stone in a potential vampires mouth and they won't come back to life' thing.

I seriously LOVE foreign vampire lore! They're all so different to Stoker vampires! One vampire type from...somewhere, if I remember correctly, is an invincible vamp, that looks like Count Orlok, but part mosquito, and it can seperate its body in half so it goes faster than mere mortals, but if it doesn't reconnect before dawn, it'll shrivel up and die!

Caity said...

That's an awesome story.

Margaret said...

Oh wow, that's a very impressive story! Very similar to vampire folklore too, but also different of course :3

The Phantom Cat said...

@ Alice I love mythology its all so interesting. Yeah I never realised how much cool mythology we have before I started researching for this blog, been cool finding out!

@ Linnea hehe I'm glad you enjoyed and hopefully the men of the area are safe for the time being at least! :)

@Chris yeah that's a good point actually. That was a thing they did during the plague. Oh wow thats awesome!! Any idea where thats from? I LOVE vampire mythology its all so interesting. Have you read 'vampire forensics' by Mark Collins Jenkins? Fun read :)

@Caitlin it is pretty awesome! I love little stories like that, cool to know.

@Bazinga yeah I love reading all these little stories to see how they tie into the more general vampire concept but also how they differ in their own ways. So interesting!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment everyone, I really mean it.

Rebecca :) x

Chris Hewson said...

Yes, I just looked it up, it's called the Manananggal!

As for the mosquito vamp, I think I was getting confused with a totally different kind of vampire, one which I don't know the name of.

By the way, I've just been reading about a vampire type called Krasue, which takes the form of a woman's head which drags its hanging-out intestines behind it! haha! That's ooky, gruesome and original!

Chris Hewson said...

Oh, and no, I haven't read Vampire Forensics. What's it about? :)

Laura Morrigan said...

Well that's a fairly decent revenge I guess! I like that story!