Case file · Folklore / legend
Leo Allatius describes the vrykolakas of Chios
In 1645 the Chios-born Vatican librarian Leo Allatius published one of the first Western descriptions of the Greek vrykolakas, the bloated walking dead who knocks on doors at night.
1645 CE · 38.37, 26.14 · status: account
The account
His treatise on Greek popular beliefs described corpses found undecayed and swollen 'like a drum' and the practice of cutting out and burning their hearts. Unlike later travellers he tended to accept the stories, which gave them weight in learned debate.
The sceptical view
The undecayed, swollen corpse is a normal stage of decomposition in some burial conditions.