Arnold Paole

Paole

My interest in vampires continues on with possibly the world's most famous vampire.

He was born in the early 1700s in Medvegja, a small town in Serbia.

His name was Arnold Paole and this is his story.

Spring, 1727, Arnold Paole returned after being stationed in Turkish, Serbia to settle back in his home town of Medvegia.  He built a house and became part of the community.  Soon after this, he became engaged to his neighbor's daughter, and they married.  Paole confessed to his new bride that he was haunted by the fears of an early death.  He explained to her that while he was stationed at a military base in Greece, he was attacked by a vampire and that he had killed the vampire after he was bitten.

Paole

He was only married for a short while when he fell from the top of a hay wagon while working on a farm.  He was brought home but he was unconscious but alive.  It is believed that he had massive internal injuries, as well as a broken neck.  A few days later, Paole died.  He was buried in the town's cemetery.

It was less than a month after his "death" that people around town had been convinced that they had seen Paole.  No one was quite sure what to make of it or what he was even doing.  Turns out the very people who had claimed to see Paole, ended up dead!

The town's people wanted Paole's body exhumed and when his coffin was opened, there was a perfectly fresh body with no decomposition at all.  It is said that he even had grown new skin, nails, and hair.  Apparently, there was also blood on his lips.  The group of town folk decided to stake his body and when they did, blood spilled out and an audible cry was heard.  They left him staked to his coffin, and they burned his body.  Terrified by this, the towns people did the same with Paole's victims.

Things calmed down in Medvegia for about five years until there were more unexplained deaths.

The town's people sprung into action and went straight to the cemetery.  They opened the coffins of the 11 newly deceased people and found them to be in the same condition as they found Paole, no decomposition, new nails, new hair, and fresh blood.

This, of course, baffled the people of Medvegia.  The medical team and investigators had no explanation for what was considered a vampire outbreak.  One theory was that Paole had feasted on cattle/livestock during his vampire reign and anyone who ate said cattle/livestock, received the vampire qualities.  Another reason to be a vegetarian, just sayin'.  Paole was a real person, and his history is one of the most extensively documented "vampire" history ever recorded.

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