day of the week on which a vrykolakas rests in his grave and cannot walk abroad.
It may be remembered that Saturday was the one day of the week which was particularly avoided by witches for their assemblies, and that no Sabbat was held on this day, for Saturday is sacred to the Immaculate Mother of God.[63] “It is well known,” says that great Doctor S. Alphonsus,[64] “that Saturday is dedicated by Holy Church to Mary, because, as S. Bernard tells us, on that day, the day after the death of Her Son, She remained constant in faith.” (Per illud triste Sabbatum stetit in fide, et saluata fuit Ecclesia in ipsa sola; propter quod, aptissime tota Ecclesia, in laudem et gloriam eiusdem Uirginis, diem Sabbati per totius anni circulum celebrare consueuit.)[65] In England this excellent practice of devotion was known as early as Anglo-Saxon times, since in the Leofric Missal a special mass is assigned to Saturdays in honour of Our Lady.
Mr. G. F. Abbott, in his Macedonian Folklore,[66] relates that in Northern Greece “People born on a Saturday (hence called Σαββατιανοὶ or Sabbatarians) are believed to enjoy the doubtful privilege of seeing ghosts and phantasms, and of possessing great influence over vampires. A native of Socho assured the writer that such a one was known to have lured a vrykolakas into a barn and to have set him to count the grains of a heap of millet.[67] While the demon was thus engaged, the Sabbatarian attacked him and succeeded in nailing him to the wall … At Liakkovikia it is held that the Sabbatarian owes his power to a little dog, which follows him every evening and drives away the vrykolakas. It is further said that the Sabbatarian on these occasions is invisible to all but the little dog.”
The priests then on a Saturday go in procession to the grave where lies the body which is suspect. It is solemnly disinterred, “and when they find it whole, they take it for certain that it was serving as an instrument of the Devil.”
This abnormal condition of the dead is held to be a sure mark of the vampire, and is essential to vampirism proper. In the Greek Church it is often believed to be the result of excommunication, and this is indeed an accepted and definite doctrine of the Orthodox Church, which must be considered in turn a little later.
