Now who would have thought Jonathan Harker is a walking target for vampires before he even met the illustrious Count? Would that not bore a little hole into his exuberant rational attitude while he travels towards Transylvania? One would certainly think that his previous experience with the un-dead would give him a little clue as to how to cope with his ordeals.
Well, if you are to take the Coleridge prescription and bear with Mr. Stoker, then you are treated with a great short story about creatures of the night. It is all part of the BBC Radio 7 series A Short History of Vampires. The first episode is taken from a Bram Stoker story Dracula's Guest, published in 1914. The dramatization, like any other Radio 7 production, is just superb. It will keep you fixed to the chair, your ears locked and your blood chilled.
The plot begins with an Englishman, presumably Jonathan Harker, traveling through Munich on his way to Transylvania. He had stopped at Munich and was rather eager for a little sight seeing. The innkeeper had warned him that it was Walpurgisnacht, the night of the witches. He was rather put off by warnings of local superstitions and was eager to prove his English mettle against the ignorance fo the local yokels.
Having stepped out with a guide for the sight seeing, he questioned him extensively about the area. The guide, Johann, was rather reluctant to go to certain places- abandoned villages that had not been lived in for centuries. The Englishman's curiosity was piqued and he asked to see the village. Johann replied that the places were cursed and “unholy”. Dismissing the man's concerns as nonsense and ignoring his pleas to return to Munich before sundown (it was Walpurgisnacht, after all!) the young man carried on exploring and asking questions.
What he gleaned from Johann was the following: long ago, people were buried but sounds were heard from the grave and when they were opened up the men and women were found alive. People fled from the village and moved to other places where the living lived and the dead stayed dead and not un-dead.
The young man wanted to explore the village but Johann insisted that they leave. After a brief argument, Johann left him and took the carriage back to Munich. But as he was leaving, he was accosted by a stranger and the horses took fright at the sight of him and galloped away, with Johann barely able to hold on to them. But as the young man looked for the stranger, he seemed to have disappeared. He continued his trek into the accursed village.
A snowstorm had begun to gather while this was happening all around him. He could hear the cry of the wolves- although this part of Germany was not known as a habitat for the lupine population. He was faced with the problem of worsening weather and lack of shelter and he went seeking shelter among the abandoned village.
He discovered himself in a graveyard and found a large tomb where he came across a beautiful woman, sleeping on a bier. The inscription on the tomb was an enigmatic phrase: the dead travel fast. To his horror, he saw the woman rise from the tomb and he lost consciousness.
If I tell you the rest, then I would give the story away. What would happen to the young man? Would he fall prey to the un-dead? It might be safe to assume that he may be rescued from his plight otherwise he may not be bale to make his journey to Castle Dracula. However, rest assured that the un-dead in the story has nothing to do with the name of the story. Count Dracula is involved in the story in an indirect but significant manner- although he has nothing to do with the un-dead of Walpurgisnacht.
Dracula's Guest is available on BBC 7 as part of the A Short History of Vampires series and was aired on February 13, 2011.
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