Ireland's most famous vampirologist came under attack at the World Dracula Congress held in Transylvania yesterday for portraying Romania as rife with the blood-sucking creatures.
Speaking to a gathering of philosophers, writers and academicians from the United States, US, Denmark, Italy and England in the serene town of Poina Brasov amidst the conifer-lined Carpathians, Prof Sabina Ispas, director of the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest, said:
"There is no tradition of vampires here. Bram Stoker presented his fiction with a special identity of his own making, a view of eastern Europe that was exotic, but he was not well informed about our folklore. In contrast, Jules Verne knew more and it shows in his book, The Castle in the Carpathians."
She added: "Until 10 years ago, we Romanians hadn't even heard of the Dublin writer or his character, Dracula. Now we are obliged to respond to the picture he painted of this region of the world. Dracula did not live in Romania, there are no vampires in our mythology and no vampiric castle. Fiction and historical fact must be placed in order."
Acknowledging, however, that the novel had been extremely successful worldwide, she said: "We cannot be too angry with the Irishman. As an author of fiction he has a right to write as he wishes."
While vampires do not exist in Romanian tradition, superstitions do, she said.
"We have a tradition of disinterring the bodies of our family members after seven years and washing their bones in holy oil and wine. If the body has not decomposed, we have special rituals we perform over them to help the soul reach heaven," she said.
Paul Wiffen, from England, also spoke at the conference about a DVD entitled Daughters of Darkness based on the vampire novella Carmilla by 19th century Irish writer J. Sheridan LeFanu.
Speakers at the conference agreed that figures such as the vampire have become even more attractive and intriguing for many.
Sean Hillen is the author of the book Digging for Dracula