Abhartach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abhartach is an early Irish vampire from the 5th century. He could be accounted to as one the the earliest "vampires" of dated record being older then the Slavic ones. Blood-drinking creatures (and in this case chieftens) were not uncommon in Celtic lore. Numbers of blood-sucking fairies do appear in Celtic folklore.
According to some Abhartach is a source for the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker. There are several versions of this folktale but the story goes that the local people wanted to kill the tyrant Abhartach and aked 'Catháin' (or Fionn depending on the version) to kill him. Having seen Abhartach return the protagonist asks a local druid or saint how to defeat the vampire and is told to impale him through the heart and bury him upside down. In the version with Fionn Mac Cumhaill as the protagonist he places his thumb between his teeth to learn Abhartach's weakspot.
It has been claimed that the Abhartach legend appears in the Foras Feasa. This is based on a misreading of 'The Undead' by Haining and Tremayne (1997). They stated on page 71 that P.W. Joyce translated Ceitinn's Foras Feasa ar Eirinn while on page 74 they point out that Joyce and several other 19th century antiquarians recorded the folktale.
The name 'Catháin', as mentioned in this piece, belonged to the forebearer of the O'Kane family, a name that is synonymous with the North Derry area. Ó Catháin, being the family of Catháin. Another point worth metioning, 'The man of bad blood', would translate in Irish as ' Fear na droch fhola', perhaps this term 'Droch fhola' (pronounced : Drockola) may add some weight to the Bram Stoker theory.
Links: Was Dracula Irish By Bob Curran [1] The legend of the Irish Vampire By Julia Stuart [2]
