Haidam

(HADE-em)

In 1720, Count de Cadreras was ordered by the emperor to send investigators to a town called Haidam near the Hungarian border to look into reports of vampiric activity. It was said that some of the undead sighted had died some thirty years previously. The Count ordered the bodies of several of the accused exhumed and examined for signs of UNDEATH. None of the bodies of the accused showed signs of decay, and when cut open they oozed with ample fresh blood. The Count ordered that all the bodies of those accused vampires be gathered together, beheaded, and burned to ash.

A report was written, submitted, and is still on file at the University of Fribourg. Unfortuately, the town was never properly identified nor has it ever been seen on a map or proven to exist by being mentioned on any official documentation beyond the report filed by Count de Cadreras.

What is interesting is that the Ukrainian word for "outlaw" and "freebooter" is haidamak. To be haidamak was to be a member of a society of loosely organized individuals who survived off the land by any means necessary. Eventually, they were hired to be guardians of the frontier. It is possible that there was a miscommunication as to what or who was attacking the town. It could be that those who were attacking the village were socially dead, a haidamak, and not literally dead.

Source: Fanthorpe, World's Most Mysterious Places, 238­39; Summers, Vampire in Lore and Legend, 107; Wilson, Occult, 446 ­77