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Dr. Elizabeth Miller, Professor of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland, is an internationally renowned expert on Dracula. She has published four books and dozens of articles on the subject, including the controversial Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (2000). President of the Canadian Chapter of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, she has been interviewed extensively by various media around the world, and has lectured in Canada, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Poland and Romania.
Bite Me: What inspired you to write your book Dracula: Sense & Nonsense?
Elizabeth Miller: Since I began working on Dracula as a literary scholar, I have become increasingly alarmed at how many misconceptions and inaccuracies have appeared in print (and on television documentaries) about Bram Stoker and his famous novel. I wish to stress that I have no problem with speculation--indeed, without it, few advances in scholarship would occur. But I do feel an obligation to challenge speculation that is presented to us as fact. That there as been such proliferation of questionable 'scholarship' and downright errors indicates to me a cavalier attitude towards Dracula, coupled with a greater interest in sensationalism than in accuracy. Dracula: Sense & Nonsense was written to set, where possible, the record straight.
Bite Me: Do you ever feel you are ruining the fantasy for millions of people over the world?
Elizabeth Miller: To begin with, I doubt if millions will read my book! But my answer is a resounding NO. The novel is a fantasy. The people who are ruining the fantasy are those who insist that everything in the novel had to be based on someone or something. Bram Stoker was a novelist--the book is a work of fiction, and a wonderful one at that. Why does Count Dracula have to be based on anyone? Why does there have to be a model for Castle Dracula? We are dealing with creations of a writer's imagination. However, there are things about Stoker and the writing of the novel that we do know, thanks in part to the existence of his working notes for the book (which I have examined) and, of course, the text itself. It is the obligation of scholars to separate the facts about the author and his book from the preponderance of fabrication with which we have been bombarded.
Nowhere in my book do I challenge interpretations of the novel, unless these use unsubstantiated 'facts' as proof. And I certainly would not want to deprive anyone of the pleasure of watching a Dracula movie or reading a new adaptation of the Dracula legend. In fiction (be it a novel or a film), anything goes. But non-fiction is a different matter. The factual errors raise my blood pressure!
Bite Me: What singular misconception would you like to change most?
Elizabeth Miller: Oh, that's easy. All of the nonsense about the so-called 'connection' between Count Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. I devote a full section (close to 50 pages) to that in the book. Never has so much been written by so many about so little. Outrageous claims range from statements that Stoker based his castle Dracula on a fortress built by Vlad in Wallachia to the 'fact' that Stoker's use of wooden stakes as a means of destroying vampires was based on his knowledge that the historical Dracula impaled his foes on stakes. According to existing evidence, Stoker knew very little about Vlad (he most likely did not even know his name was Vlad, nor is there any evidence that he knew about Vlad's atrocities). He stumbled across the name 'Dracula' in a couple of paragraphs in an obscure book at the Whitby Public Library. He liked the name, and appropriated it for his already created vampire character. No proof has been found that he knew any more about the historical figure than a few scraps of information found in the book in Whitby (the he was a Wallachian voivode who crossed the Danube, fought the Turks, and was ultimately defeated and replaced). Given the paucity of evidence, how can we say that Vlad the Impaler was the inspiration of the novel?
Bite Me: What are your views on vampires? Do they exist?
Elizabeth Miller: That depends on your definition of 'vampire'. If you mean a revenant who returns from the grave to feed on the blood of the living, or a supernatural being who lives forever on blood, then my answer is no. There are, however, people who for one reason or another (ranging from psychiatric obsession to a matter of choice) drink human blood; maybe one can call these people 'vampires', using a very loose definition. And of course, there are vampire bats (but not in Transylvania, as some writers have claimed).
Bite Me: What aspect of vampirism interests you the most?
Elizabeth Miller: The novel Dracula. It fascinates me. I have read it many times, and have read just about everything that's been written about it. I am especially interested in the genesis of the novel, as well as how it has permeated our culture since its first appearance in 1897.
Bite Me: Any research you have found about Scotland?
Elizabeth Miller: Only bits and pieces about the Cruden Bay connection (dealt with later). I know of no vampires in Scottish folklore. But then, I am not a folklorist and have not investigated that aspect of the subject.
Bite Me: How did you first become interested in vampires?
Elizabeth Miller: You can blame it on Lord Byron! About ten years ago, I was looking for a new field of scholarly research and decided to go back to the subject of my M.A. thesis, the poetry of Lord Byron. It was then that it struck me that the first vampire fiction in English literature was written by Byron's personal physician, John Polidori (a graduate of Edinburgh University). That led me quite naturally to Dracula--and I was hooked!
Bite Me: What have been the highlights of your Dracula studies?
Elizabeth Miller: That's a difficult one. There have been so many. Certainly one highlight occurred in 1995 when the Transylvanian Society of Dracula in Romania conferred upon me the honourary title 'Baroness of the House of Dracula'. Other exciting moments include reading a paper on Dracula at the Romanian Embassy in Washington D.C.; being interviewed for a TV documentary by the Learning Channel (U.S.) For their "Great Books: Dracula"; the launch of Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (actually my third book on Dracula) in Romania last year; and attending as guest lecturer the world premiere of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's 'Dracula'.
Bite Me: In the UK at present there is debate over the location of the model of inspiration for Dracula's--castle between Whitby and Cruden Bay. Which one would you say it was? Or is it neither?
Elizabeth Miller: Neither. There is no doubt that Bram Stoker spent time in both places while he was working on Dracula. The influence of Whitby on the novel is clear: three chapters are set there; Stoker's Notes for the novel (located at the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia) contain several pages of material about the town; and it was in Whitby that he found the name 'Dracula'. Cruden Bay (including Slains Castle) is not mentioned in either the Notes or the novel. Some have suggested that Slains is the model for Dracula's Castle. I do not accept that. In my view, Castle Dracula exists in only one place--the pages of Stoker's novel. He knew what castles looked like; he was certainly aware of the conventional castle of earlier Gothic fiction. He hardly needed a model.
Bite Me: What are you working on now?
Elizabeth Miller: Actually, my fourth book on the subject is just out. Entitled Dracula, it is an elaborate coffee-table art book with over 130 illustrations covering the whole range of Dracula/vampires. I have also recently completed A Dracula Handbook, an in-house publication of the Canadian Chapter, Transylvanian Society of Dracula. I am also working on a couple of scholarly articles, and I keep active as editor of the Journal of Dracula Studies.
[from Bite Me issue 6 (Glasgow, Scotland), 2001, pp. 12-13]
You may take exception to what I have to say and that is fine but geesh I am getting so tired of a few speaking for the many and their views don't always match what many others believe so therefore I wanted to say what I think. This is all it is from my personal experiences and this is why I won't go to vampire meetups because most who show up are NOT. I went to Pagan meet ups and some came there and avoided the other just as I did. I have friends in Las Vegas with Houses and I physically went there to meet people, but there are factions there as well...sighs, just how it is.
I am going to take what she says and tell what I think or know about what she is saying. I know she has taken it upon herself by writing books and speaking and trying to be the guru of the vampyre subculture and more than Sabastiaan. I know he grates with some people but I have chatted with him and he is basically a funny guy, lol. He doesn't care what others think of him he says but I honestly think he does care by reactions to things he has shown. It is just that these two decided to make up a tradition and expect people to follow what they decided was fact. There are a few others involved. Some have followed along like sheep and they are living and doing what the two are describing and following their Black Veil which has nothing wrong with it but it was originally only a suggested guideline for the Sanguinarium and not all but for some reason it snowballed. It's not that I don't follow it or anything it's just that I find it inane for someone to write things down that are common sense and tout it like they are some genius. I would never make a value judgment as to their state of being or say they aren't nice well meaning people but they have tried to control certain views by writing and doing what they do for the sake of education which may be their actual motive but it still has to be taken with a grain of salt as a one-world view that not all agree with. They have no inner line of knowledge...they only know what they experienced personally interacting with others in the MODERN community of about 30 years or so.
I find it insulting that the culture is reduced to a social club in some aspects. Are we all stupid and need our hands held? When you do things like this you become a cult. Yes all of this makes me angry. (This was in 2008) Note: The interview with Laycock is actually in Lotsa Thoughts...sorry for that...grins...I forgot.
An interview with a Vampire
by Joe Pelletier
QU students received a bloody taste of the vampire underground last Wednesday night as self-proclaimed "psychic vampire" Michelle Belanger spoke in Alumni Hall. After giving students a history of both the media-built vampire and the modern day vampire, she sat down with The Chronicle to discuss the "tragic outsider," as she called it, in American culture.
Chron: So you consider yourself a vampire?
MB: Yes.
Chron: What sort of a vampire?
MB: I'm a psychic vampire. I use the word only because it's the best word we have in the English language for somebody who needs to regularly and actively take vital energy, or vitality.
Chron: How do you define a vampire--what exactly is a vampire?
MA: At this point, a real vampire is generally somebody who, for one reason or another, identifies with the vampire archetype; that may be because they drink blood, it may be because they take energy, it may be just because they like dressing up.
**This is NOT what the majority of people in the community believe. A real vampire is someone who needs energy from varying sources to sustain optimum health beyond eating food. Many believe there is a break in the auric field in fact a majority think this but I am not one of them because I simply don't know and I have other ideas. Most do not like those that dress up and play vampire and do NOT consider them "real vampires". Please read the Laycock interview below. Now as far as Sanguinarian vs psychic vampires go, the AVA found in their survey that there are many more beliefs on types. There are NOT just two and why does she use psychic anyway. It makes it sound like she gets psychic energy. What people take is prana, lifeforce from various sources depending on the person and a few from blood or so they say. No proof of that either. So it's no one's business how they feed unless they are harming others. I prefer to say Pranic meaning one feeds off of pranic energy (prana) or lifeforce from various means depending on the individual...you get rid of all this versus stuff. Some will say I am not pranic and if you aren't what are you calling the so-called lifeforce energy you are taking? There are many words for lifeforce such as Qi and Hado and others, what does it matter and Prana is more recognizable to the largest group of people. It really doesn't matter the source of it, that is personal but all take this energy one way or another. Most have reverse circadian rhythms; night to day rather then day to night and other anomalies. These things are not important because it varies from person to person and that is why the subculture bickers, lol**
Chron: Are you sometimes put off by these people who just dress up?
MB: Well, in the vampire community a lot of other people get really irritated at them. They call them posers, and have some pretty derogatory terms for them.
Chron: Like what?
MB: Mostly poser or lifestyler. I think that I'll end up hearing "fang-banger" a lot more now that "True Blood" came out. Personally, as long as they're respecting the archetype and acting in an adult and sane fashion, I don't have an objection to what they're doing.
**Most don't have an objection to roleplayers if they acknowledge they like the archetype which is usually the E. European Dracula like vampire and want to emulate it or they like Vampire:The Masquerade and like playing at being a Brujah or one of the other fictional clans. They don't like when these self-same people try to say they are "real vampires" because they are not. All of this is mixed together in the underground along with goths who may or may not be vampyres and those into BDSM which is just a personal interest and has no bearing on whether one is or isn't.**
Chron: How about your religion?
MB: I was raised Catholic. I'm best described as a universalist now, having studied so many world religions. My core religious view is that the divine is too big for one name or one religion, and is best described as a many-faceted jewel where we all have different perspectives of it.
**This is more like I believe but there are many more who are Neo Pagan and a few who are Christian**
Chron: You've talked about qi a lot-do you have any sort of a connection with Zen or Shinto?
MB: A lot of what started to make sense with vampirism for me was studying Chinese Daoism and Buddhism, and learning about their perception of energy and the way it flows in the universe-the positive and negative. I have a Chinese friend who is a first-generation American and his family imported a style of Daoist energy/healing techniques, and I asked him about if he had an explanation in his system for me. He said, "We have people who have too much qi and people who don't have enough qi. So they sit down and they share qi. We don't get hung up on this vampire thing."
So, really, my problem is I was raised in a culture that doesn't have a good context for vampirism.
**This is something I agree with, studied all of this in the 60s in college before she was born, and really the word vampire is sort of erroneous and gives people the idea of those who shapeshift, fly and have fangs...in other words Dracula. It is so far from the truth.**
Chron: You mentioned briefly in your presentation Satanism. Is there any connection between vampirism and Satanism?
MB: There are one or two groups that are influenced by the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set, which is another Left Hand Path satanic group. Those two specific groups have subgroups that sprang off of them. So for the Temple of Set, they have the "Order of the Vampire." They use the vampire as a magical archetype, and in a lot of ways are drawing from that darker, pop-cultural image of the vampire. So there is vampirism of a sort among certain Satanists, but they make a clear line between the community that I represent and their particular brand of things.
**I have read about this but don't know anyone that went into this sect of the Temple of Set who has totally divorced themselves from the CoS and they don't like to be referred to as Satanists. If I remember right you have to have climbed the ladder fairly high before you can choose that part of the Temple. I moved onto other things so I don't remember now.**
In Levan Satanism, psychic vampire is about the worst thing you can be. The only piece of hate mail I've ever gotten was from a Satanist (laugh). My life--I can't make this stuff up. In the Satanic bible, a psychic vampire is like the worst kind of soul-sucking person who's this little drama queen and attention whore.
**I never went into the ins and outs of the beliefs of the CoS but there are a lot of Satanists that believe themselves to be vampires. I know them and they are around so this is one thing some don't agree upon or they didn't know he said that, lol. I find it amusing because there is essentially no difference between so-called types except how they extract energy period. Those with certain beliefs combine their vampirism into that and some to a very dark left-handed way. To each their own. Some believe in vampire gods and have formed cultish groups. It makes them feel powerful and special I think but shrugs but everyone has their own path.**
Chron: So you're frequently on the show "Paranormal State." What is the best moment or experience you've had with it thus far?
MB: We did an episode with a house in Pennsylvania, and an angry coal miner was the spirit there. So I was inciting the spirit and Chad Kalek (technical expert on "PRS") had a thermographic camera pointed at me. As I was feeling this spirit's presence around me, a handprint that nobody had placed showed up only in the eyes of the thermographic camera on the wall. And we had footage to prove I walked in, I walked over, and somehow this handprint just showed up there. That was one of the coolest moments.
**I found this funny, and I saw it but nothing more to say on the fact she was on this show**
Chron: You've also written three or four books, yes?
MB: Actually more than half a dozen now--yeah, I write kind of a lot. The book that's best known for psychic vampires is "The Psychic Vampire Codex," and it's pretty much an instruction manual on that for anybody who's interested in energy work.
The most recent one is "Walking the Twilight Path," and that book explores death, our cultural attitudes toward death, other cultural attitude towards death, and tries to develop a more integrative and healthy approach to how we look at death and dying.
**It's up to you if you want to follow what she says. Others have written books as well so be careful not to get to tied up in one person's world view**
Chron: I notice your wearing an interesting pendant, what's that?
MB: Oh, actually it's just something a friend bought for me. (chuckle) It makes good bling.
Chron: What do you want people to get out of presentations like this?
MB: I'm trying to teach people, first of all, tolerance. Especially in a college setting, you run across people of every shape size and description and its not just different belief systems, and its not just different ethnicities. One of the things about our culture is humanity pulls itself down into tribes and so we have new ethnicities and they are the hippies and the vegans and all of these different ways of identifying ourselves.
This (vampirism) is a much lesser known one and one that people are more inclined to dismiss as too wacky. So mostly I'm trying to build tolerance and awareness that these people are out there and they're serious.
**Yes they are serious, she is right about that one but there should be more than one person getting on the bandwagon to speak for thousands of people who never elected her to do so. There are cliques in the culture unfortunately**
Chron: So do you feel any weird energy here at the Quinnipiac campus?
MB: I haven't really gotten to see enough of the campus to get anything.
Chron: (sigh) Bummer. Also, you mentioned a boyfriend earlier.
MB: Currently not, actually.
Chron: Ah. Was he a vampire?
MB: Nope. Actually more often than not you'll have someone who's vampiric and someone who's not in a long term relationship. Two people who are vampiric trying to be monogamous to one another--well, someone always loses out.
**And why you ask, because most are sexual predators even if they say not. They one way or another, collect sexual energies. They don't have to have it but most will succumb to the draw and cheat. This is why many are in polyamorous relationships or have an understanding and I know many who are both vampyrics and have been together for years. It depends on the people really they aren't aliens. They are actually humans with the differences that are usually cited. We just don't know how it actually came to be except it has been around since antiquity and may not have been recognized or gone by other names. We always seem to need a name for things. You have the sun people and you have the moon people and that is that. Some things metaphysics can explain and others are beliefs from other forms of religion whether you believe in them or not. Vampyrism has a spiritual side to it for some but it is more a state of being, something integral in the person and how it is expressed for some is how they are influenced by the ideas of the modern subculture rather than the facts of the matter. I am not anymore knowledgeable than Michelle Belanger. All speak from personal experience or others try to track it and are left wanting with some formed idea of a history which is only something from superstitions or inuendo. It is here and it is serious and it doesn't require belief from those who are not vampyrics...simple as that. As far as religions, they are individual choices and nothing connected to vampirism. Some have chosen to create temples and things like that more specifically for those of like beliefs but still it is a choice one makes to join them and really not something that is a qualifier.**
Disclaimer: Some are trying to promote these interviews and since I belong to an organization, one of a few that deals with Madame X I am posting this. I do not vouch for anything they have to say. It is up to you to decide what you want to believe. The "scene" is made up of cliques. It just is and it truly is only the social side of things. Not everyone drinks blood and some who don't get accused of not really being a vampyre. Now they will recommend Reiki in the one vid. That is up to you because there are other healing and energy types of exchanges. That one is religious in orientation and because of its background I don't get involved with it. It became a fad. If you are a Christian then fine. I am delving into Hado instead...this is just me and my opinion and nothing more. M. X mentions some I feel have ingratiated themselves into the community because of doing YouTube and leave a little knot in my craw for their authenticity but hey everyone likes to be in the limelight or some do undeservedly so. Now we have fangsmiths instead of fangmasters...things change quickly I am telling you, lol. Most of this only maybe 35 years in nature, lol...yes I laugh about it. To be in the scene or not to be...makes no difference whatsoever unless you wish to hang with these people. Again my opinion. But many do not.
I understand this one very well. Fire is awesome but very dangerous as well.
A Fire Dance
Note: Yes, sometimes I put things in more than one of my profiles, lol. Hopefully someone will read what I write. Seems like they do when I rant :)
Several hundred years ago a legend began about an infamous family in Scotland, whose leader was Alexander “Sawney” Bean (Beane). Sawney is the Scot name for Sandy. The legend has been re-told in many ways but the basic facts remain the same. Sawney Bean created a family of incestuous, human flesh eating monsters. Most often as stories go there is little documentation on the case and some believe it is mere urban legend.
Bean is believed to have been born in East Lothian anywhere from the 14th to the 16th Century depending on the source. Most state that he was born in the late 15th Century. His birth and early facts are sketchy at best and contradictory from account to account. East Lothian is located near Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was a laborer and would dig ditches and trim hedges to make his living. Sawney tried to follow in his father’s footsteps but found that the work wasn’t agreeable to him. Some say he was a tanner by trade but there is no corroborating evidence on any of these claims. Early on Sawney started to exhibit delinquent behaviors. He was cruel and cunning and it did not go unnoticed by his father. He did not respect authority of any kind and rebelled against any means to control his behavior.
Sawney Bean wanted an easier route to his fortune. He met a lady referred to by the locals as “Black Agnes Douglas,” who had the same aspirations. Sawney who was around 20 ran away with his lover and originally settled in Ballantrae. The couple got married (some say they were common law) and sought to make a home for themselves. This was short lived when Douglas was accused of witchcraft and they fled.
Since the couple had no money they set up home in a cave. The cave was located on the Ayrshire coast along the seashore of Galloway, in southwestern Scotland. There was no money so the easiest solution for them was to murder travelers and local inhabitants to support their needs. Ambushing the unsuspecting traveler became their modus operandi. What Sawney wanted was easy money so he could go into the nearest town and buy food and other supplies. They did keep watches and other items of value but they were careful not to try and sell them for fear that it would draw attention to their activities. When their numbers grew they no longer went into town for fear of attracting notice to themselves.
The family grew enough that the money they got from their pillages was not enough to support the needs of a growing brood. Most in the area did not usually carry much money around for fear of being robbed. Therefore under the circumstances, they began to eat human flesh about this time. They would pickle, salt and dry body parts of the people they killed to survive over the years, in fact twenty-five years. There was also some fish treated in this manner as well that they managed to catch from the sea. Their antics did not go without notice since they killed numerous people over time but the locals and the authorities were not aware that a large family lived in a cave in such a remote spot. Whenever they went on a search they found no one in the area. Their cave was well hidden.
Called a “gang,” their numbers grew to somewhere between 46 family members including sons, daughters and grandchildren; 48 counting the original parents. They became so brazen since no one had challenged their activities that they began to toss left over parts of the people they slaughtered into the ocean. These would wash ashore farther down the coast or sometimes quite far away. The authorities noticed this because it became more and more prevalent. Generally the Inn keepers were accused of the deaths of people who had disappeared. This was basically because they were usually the last person to see the victim before their demise or disappearance. A number of innocent people were executed for the crimes. They say anywhere from 30 to 100 people disappeared during the rampage of the Bean family and some accounts claim around 1000 and sometimes more. Innkeepers began to fear for their lives and moved out of the region to start a new career and the area became deserted and desolate.
The number of the family members kept increasing and they began to attack groups of people but never more than they thought they could over come. One night a man and his wife were coming home from a local fair and traveled along the shoreline on horseback. The cave had never been discovered because during high tide the water would come into the cave for about two hundred yards, but never all the way back as it went a mile or so into the hillside. This was a good cover for the family. The Bean family attacked the man and his wife but the husband had a sword and a gun and fought them ferociously. Unfortunately the wife fell off the horse and was immediately killed by the women in the family and torn apart. The husband was horrified and luckily for him others, about 30, from the fair also returning home used the same route and came upon him. The Bean family hurried off to the seclusion of their cave. The whole incident was relayed to the Magistrate in the city of Glasgow and King James IV became interested in the case. He took 400 men back to the scene of the crime where the man and his wife had been attacked and started to hunt for the culprits. They had no idea who they might be but they were going to hunt them down.
The hunting party came with bloodhounds and if it wasn’t for the dogs they would have missed the cave’s entrance and passed on by. The dogs could smell the flesh of the dead and it drew them to the cave. Inside the cave the men couldn’t believe their eyes. They found bodies hanging from the ceiling of the cave, limbs from people they had killed in pickling barrels. There were items that had been stolen around the cave and piles of money lying about. None of the Bean family could escape from their captures. They did put up a fight but they were outnumbered with no means of escape due to armed men blocking the exit to the cave. The family was chained and taken to a place called the Tolbooth in Edinburgh.
“During its existence over five centuries, the Tolbooth, situated next to St Giles Cathedral, was used as the city's council chambers, and it was the site of the Scottish Parliament and the High Court. Latterly, it became the old town jail.”3 The next day they were transported to Leith. This was a burgh in the northern part of Edinburgh.
The nature of the crimes of the Bean family was so outrageous that the people cried out for a much more gruesome form of execution. They were not even given a trial by judge and jury because they were considered so loathsome it wasn’t warranted in their case. An alternate to this is that they were given a very speedy trial on August 31, 1590 and convicted of murdering over 1000 people. The verdict was death. The women were forced to watch the men die as they had their hands and feet amputated (some say both legs). They were then left to bleed to death. None of them were penitent but shouted out curses and reproaches until their last breath. The women and children were all burned at the stake in a large bonfire. There are no records of this case that have been found, only folklore. The books from the jail have had pages cut out and other destruction of its contents. Therefore these incongruences have left doubt in the minds of those that recall the legend as to whether it was fact or fiction.
Fiona Black who was a lecturer that contributed to the “The Polar Twins” had this to say:
The monstrous figure of Sawney, as written history, was probably an English invention. Cannibalism has a long history as a means of political propaganda used by a dominant culture against those they want to colonise; as an English invention Sawney may be considered as a colonial fiction written to demonstrate the savagery and uncivilised nature of the Scots in contrast to the superior qualities of the English nation. 2
This idea is only conjecture as well because there are no records to prove this is correct either. It remains an enigma and part of many legends in the British Isles that cannot be proven by the lack of information. This is one of many theories by scholars and historians. It is known that there were instances of cannibalism in Scotland during the famine of the 15th Century, but the span in dates is so wide it is hard to really pin down exactly what century this was suppose to have taken place. Some have written commentaries that are very distinct in dating but with no information concerning where the dating was extracted.
According to Sean Thomas in an article for Fortean Times:
Viewed in this light, it is arguable that the Bean story may have a basis of truth but the precise dating of events has become obscured over the years. Perhaps the dating of the murders was brought forward by the editors and writer of the broadsheets, so as to make the story appear more relevant to the readership ... To add to the intrigue, we do know that cannibalism was not unknown in mediæval Scotland, and that Galloway was in mediæval times a very lawless place; perhaps nothing on the scale of the Bean legend took place, but every story grows and is embroidered over time.4
The legend has an interesting twist to its gruesome ending. Sawney Bean is supposed to have cursed the cave where the family had been living. Ever since his death there have been stories of unusual happenings in and around the cave beneath Bennane Head. There have been reports in modern times to the authorities by those driving by the area of unusual occurrences. Some have stated they had to break hard to avoid specter-like figures in the road. This legend was the inspiration for Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes.”
The tale has been told and re-told and when some breathe a sigh of relief it rears its ugly head to again be re-told in popular paranormal magazines or tabloids. Many have tried to debunk the tale but for lack of information on either side it remains a very colorful, grisly and interesting legend from Scotland.
This is something I never heard on American Idol. The kid did not do himself justice. I saw another video where you can actually hear him singing in another musical show. This one is from Brigadoon of which I have seen the movie and a live showing in the round of this show. I cannot believe he can sing like this. His choices in music leave a lot to be desired on the show. I would have never believed he could sing like this at ALL. I have changed my views about his singing.
Il Divo, (Italian for "star" or "celebrity") is a multinational operatic pop vocal group created by music manager, executive, and reality TV star Simon Cowell. They are also signed to Cowell's Record label, 'Syco music'. Il Divo is composed of singers Carlos Marín, Urs Bühler, David Miller, and Sébastien Izambard.
Urs Toni Bühler (born 19 July 1971 in Willisau, Lucerne, Switzerland) is a classically-trained tenor and member of the operatic pop musical quartet,
Sébastien Izambard (born March 7, 1973) is a French member of the operatic pop musical quartet Il Divo. Izambard is the only member of the group who is not classically trained. Although he is a tenor in pitch, his voice is classified as vox populi.
David Miller, born April 14, 1973, is an American tenor and member of the operatic pop musical quartet Il Divo.
Carlos Marín (born October 13, 1968) is a Spanish baritone and member of the operatic pop musical quartet Il Divo.
American tenor, French pop singer,Swiss tenor, Spanish operatic baritone.
Nights In White Satin
The idea behind Il Divo's creation came to Cowell after listening to Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's rendition of Con te partirò. Aware of this new appreciation for lyrical voices and classical music, he decided to form a multinational quartet (the members hail from Spain, Switzerland, France, and the United States, and the name being in Italian) that tried to recreate the style of The Three Tenors.
Simon Cowell conducted a worldwide search for young singers who were willing to embark on the Il Divo project, which lasted two years, from 2001 until December 2003, when the fourth member of Il Divo, American tenor David Miller, was signed. The well-established formation of Il Divo comprises a renowned Spanish opera and Spanish baritone, Carlos Marín; two classically trained tenors, Swiss Urs Bühler and American David Miller; and a French pop singer, Sébastien Izambard.
Il Divo sings in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Latin. Il Divo was named the Most Multinational UK No.1 Album Group in the 2006 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
On 25 April 2007, Il Divo performed on American Idol in one of the "Idol Gives Back" episodes, which raised money for children in the U.S. and Africa. For every vote cast during that show, Idol sponsors Coca-Cola, AT&T, and others donated money to Charity Projects Entertainment Fund (CPEF) and other groups such as Save the Children and America's Second Harvest. [2]
On December 12, 2008, Il Divo performed their new song at the Swedish Idol 2008 finale in the Globen Arena in Stockholm. This has been deleted so I exchanged it for this performance in Spain.
This is absolutely beautiful.
Here is I Believe in You with Celine Dion and Il Divo with scenes from Lion King. This song is another beauty.
J. M. Barrie, was a playwright and dramatist born in 1860, in Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland whose major claim to fame is the play, “Peter Pan.” His actual full name was Sir James Matthew, Baronet Barrie. He was the ninth in a family of ten children. When his next to oldest brother died in a skating accident, his Mother was devastated as all Mothers would be except this son, David, who would have turned fourteen two days later, was her favorite.
Barrie’s Mother became so depressed that she no longer had any interest in her other nine children. James tried to gain his Mother's attention even by dressing up like his dead brother but it was to no avail. It is said due to the trauma of his youth and experiences with his Mother and her lack of interest that he grew to no more than four-foot ten inches tall. This has been called “Psychogenic dwarfism, also known as Psychosocial dwarfism, Psychosocial short stature, Stress dwarfism, or Kaspar Hauser Syndrome (after the first person it was identified in) is a growth disorder that is observed between the ages of 2 and 15, caused by extreme emotional deprivation or stress.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogenic_dwarfism
While growing up, Barrie was fond of Penny Dreadfuls and was an avid reader. These were serialized stories of a lurid nature mostly read by adolescents in booklet form.
He went to University in Edinburgh and wrote for a newspaper for a couple of years. He wanted to pursue writing as his career. Therefore he felt to accomplish this he should move to London. He gained some acclaim and married Mary Ansell who was an actress in 1894. He really had no interest in the marriage and they were divorced in 1910, childless. They did have a big Saint Bernard dog they called Porthos.
During his lifetime Barrie received numerous awards including his Baronet title in 1913. He traveled in literary circles with such notables as George Meredith, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, and Hugh Clifford, just to name a few.
He even started a cricket team. He sometimes would stay at Stanway House and he paid for the pavilion there to play cricket with his friends. Some who played on the team included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, Jerome K. Jerome, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, Walter Raleigh, A. E. W. Mason, E. V. Lucas, Maurice Hewlett, E. W. Hornung, P. G. Wodehouse, Owen Seaman, Bernard Partridge, Augustine Birrell, Paul du Chaillu, and the son of Alfred Tennyson, all at varying times.
He also was interested in world explorers and was friends with Joseph Thomson who was an African Explorer. Besides Thompson, he was friends with the Antarctic Explorer, Robert Falcon Scott and was the godfather to his son Peter. Scott wrote to seven people in his final days exploring the Antarctic one of which was Barrie. Scott died on his second but successful expedition he named the Terra Nova Expedition between 1910 and 1930 It was on their return from the South Pole that they succumbed to fatigue, starvation and basically the extreme cold.
“The first appearance of Peter Pan came in The Little White Bird, which was serialised in the United States, then published in a single volume in the UK in 1901. Barrie's most famous and enduring work, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, had its first stage performance on December 27, 1904. It has been performed innumerable times since then, was developed by Barrie into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, and has been adapted by others into feature films, musicals, and more.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._Barrie
There were actually five children and the youngest; Nico is not portrayed in the movie “Finding Neverland.” He met some of the boys in Kensington Gardens with their nurse. He later met their Mother at a dinner party. She was the daughter of the writer and cartoonist, George du Maurier and the Aunt of the later famous author Daphne du Maurier who wrote "Rebecca" which was adapted to a film and won best movie of 1941. She is also known for her adaptations of her short stories “Don’t Look Now,” ”Jamaica Inn” and one in particular, a classic Hitchcock thriller, “The Birds.”
It is true Barrie adopted the boys upon their Mother's death due to Cancer. It was in 1910, the same time period in which Barrie got his divorce. It is sketchy as to whether this was the plan of their Mother or something he contrived through forgery of her will. No one really knows.
Barrie paid Sir George Frampton to create a statue of Peter Pan which can be found in Kensington Garden in London where he initially met the Davies boys.
Some have accused him of being a pedophile but there seems to be no basis in fact in this assumption. It appears that he stayed a child at heart and loved to play games and tell stories to children. His character of Peter Pan was actually not based after Peter Llewelyn Davies other than name but characterized after Michael Llewelyn Davies. When Barrie died he did not bequeath his wealth to any of the Davies boys who were still living at the time. He left most of his estate to his secretary, Cynthia Asquith, when he died in 1937, in London, England. The rights to "Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" was left to a children's hospital. He was buried next to his parents and two of the other children of the family in Kirriemuir. The home where he grew up is now a museum in Scotland.
The notoriety followed Peter since he was the inspiration for "Peter Pan" and Barrie used his name for the character of the story. He later became a publisher. Supposedly Peter referred to "Peter Pan," as "that terrible masterpiece."
"Peter's son Ruthven once wrote, 'My father had mixed feelings about the whole business of Peter Pan. He accepted that Barrie considered that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan and it was only reasonable that my father should inherit everything from Barrie. That was my father's expectation. It would have recompensed him for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan — something he hated.'"
Peter's brother John died in 1959 and seven months later, Peter committed suicide by throwing himself onto a train track as the train was slowing to stop at the train station at Sloan Square in London, England. He was 63 at the time.
All rights to "Peter Pan" are owned by the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. A special copyright enactment was created especially for this charitable institution so as to keep the copyright active forever giving them royalties from all stage performances or adaptations thereof the play.
One of my favorite lines from Peter Pan is this one:
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."
THE BOY CASTAWAY
A slide show of J M Barrie's 1901 photographs of George, Jack and Peter Llewelyn Davies boys, taken from the sole surviving copy of "The Boy Castaways". Barrie cited this book as being one of the origins of “Peter Pan"
The Trailer to the movie with Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp
This was written by me and not taken from a website.
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to Vamp It Up in 'Dark Shadows'
by Matt McDaniel July 29, 2009
Three of the most talked-about things at Comic-Con last week were vampires ("New Moon" and "True Blood"), another movie pairing director Tim Burton and Johnny Depp ("Alice in Wonderland"), and updates of cult '60s TV shows ("Doctor Who" and "The Prisoner"). So how excited fans would get if all of those elements could be combined into one movie?
Apparently, we'll find out when Burton and Depp team up for the big-screen adaptation of "Dark Shadows," the Gothic soap opera about vampires, ghosts, and monsters that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. Burton confirmed this last Thursday when he presented footage from "Alice in Wonderland" to a capacity crowd at Comic-Con's cavernous Hall H. He said "Dark Shadows" would be his next project, "if I ever finish this one here."
Before Lestat, Angel, and Edward Cullen, there was Barnabas Collins, a 175-year-old vampire who stalked the town of Collinsport, Maine pining for his lost love. Originally, the character of Barnabas, played by Jonathan Frid, was only intended for a 13-week story arc on "Dark Shadows," but he caused such a sensation with viewers he became the lead character for the next four years. The show spawned two movies in the early '70s, a revived series in 1991, and a pilot that was not picked up for series in 2004.
Depp would play Barnabas, a role he told Collider.com has been "a lifelong dream for me." Depp has said he loved the show as a child: "I was obsessed with Barnabas Collins. I have photographs of me holding Barnabas Collins posters when I was five or six." Depp has been pursuing the movie adaptation for years, buying the remake rights through his production company, Infinitum-Nihil.
Burton has also spoken about his fascination with the original show. He told the Los Angeles Times, "It had the weirdest vibe to it. I'm sort of intrigued about that vibe." He also spoke about the recent influx of vampire movies: "It's like any great fable or fairytale, it's got a power to it... There's something symbolic about it that touches people in different ways."
While both Depp and Burton seem excited to start work on what will be their eighth collaboration, production might have to wait until after Depp finishes work on the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Disney's Head of Production Oren Aviv said in an interview with ComingSoon.net that filming will start in April or May of next year, with a release planned for 2011. Aviv says the intention for the next movie is to "scale it down, because we can't get bigger... I want to kind of reboot the whole thing and bring it down to its core, its essence, just characters."
So it may be a while before Depp bares his fangs as a vampire. If "Dark Shadows" also hits theaters in 2011, it could be up against the final "Twilight" film, "Breaking Dawn." But if it's delayed another year, audiences might be over their bloodsucker addiction. Still, it seems that if anyone can create a dark, atmospheric, and entrancing vampire tale, it would be Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. To preview the fantastic sights of their version of "Alice in Wonderland" coming next March, watch the teaser trailer below:
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