Nosferatu (word)

It was largely popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Western fiction such as the gothic novel Dracula (1897) and the German expressionist film Nosferatu (1922).

In very obstinate cases it is further recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave.

[5] Schmidt's article discusses Transylvanian customs and appeared in an Austro-Hungarian magazine, which Gerard could have encountered as a reviewer of German literature living in Austria-Hungary.

It is this, the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimately begotten people or the unfortunate spirit of one killed by a vampire, who can appear in the form of dog, cat, toad, frog, louse, flea, bug, in any form, in short, and plays his evil tricks on newly engaged couples as incubus or succubus– zburatorul – by name, just like the Old Slavonic or Bohemian Blkodlak [sic], Vukodlak or Polish Mora and Russian Kikimora.

That which was believed about this and used as a defense[6] more than 100 years ago is still true today, and there can hardly dare to be a village which would not be in a position to present a personal experience or at least hearsay with firm conviction of the veracity.

[7]Schmidt expanded on his 1865 article in an 1866 monograph, adding the observation that the vampire was the "uncanniest spawn of national-slavic fantasy" and that his description was the Romanian perception.

[9] Internal evidence in Dracula suggests that Stoker believed the term meant "not dead" in Romanian, and thus he may have intended the word undead to be its calque.

There is also evidence to suggest that Haining derived his citation for Roumanian Superstitions from a confused reading of an extract in Ernest Jones's book, On the Nightmare (1931).

One instance of a Greek word similar to νοσοφόρος, νοσηφόρος ("nosēphoros"), is attested in fragments from a 2nd-century AD work by Marcellus Sidetes on medicine plus another of the Ionic dialect variant νουσοφόρος ("nousophoros") from the Palatine Anthology.

As with νοσοφόρος, this supposed Slavonic word does not appear to be attested in primary sources, which severely undermines the credibility of the argument.