The Story of Abhartach the Blood Drinker

We love a vampire comedy called What We Do in the Shadows. Most people know all about this show, but here’s the trailer from the first season. 

The story follows the lives of four vampire housemates and a young man who hopes to one day be made a vampire. The show was created by Jemaine Clement, who is, among many other accomplishments, a vampire expert, which I didn’t know was a thing until preparing to write this post. 

Vampirian scholars say the mystical rules and restrictions on vampires started with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. However, Stoker didn’t know very much about Vlad the Impaler or Transylvania when he wrote about vampires in 1890. 

What he did know were Irish stories about undead bloodsuckers. If you look up Irish vampires, you’ll find the legend of Abhartach, and the origin story of the Slaghtaverty Dolman.

I looked up some of these stories, but I didn’t like them. In these stories Abhartach is an evil wizard dwarf— abhartach means “dwarf” —who must be killed because he is evil. He comes back from the dead and demands that people feed him bowls of blood, returning and demandingrepeatedly until people bury him under a stone upside down with a stake in his heart.  

So I wrote my own Irish blood-drinker story. 

A long time ago, people lived together on small farmsteads, in their few wattle houses encircled by stone and dirt walls that can still be seen today. People call them Fairy Forts. 

There was a valley in Derry, where instead of getting along with their neighbors, the head of every household was always falling out with his equals, and setting himself up as King and Chieftain and inciting young men to make war on each other. The strongest and bravest men were too frequently harmed in the ceaseless, senseless combat, maimed and unable to work, or killed and leaving fatherless children.

The people wearied of petty wars and their considerable destruction. Then rose up from the people a great man to lead them. Abhartach had the gift of language, beguilement, exhortation, and charm. Under his influence, lesser men desired to cooperate in planting and lend their labor to the harvest of a neighbor, and thus grew in standing. The people built sacred circles to honor ancestors and gathered there for contests, trade, and dancing. At the end of every season’s festivities, Abhartach passed the bowl of friendship.

And so did Abhartach became a true king and chieftain, and the people were no longer contentious.

Eventually Abhartach grew old and died, and the people mourned him. They buried him standing up, with the bowl of friendship in one hand, his shield in the other, and his sword at his feet. In death he stood ready to return and bring peace in the time of need. 

Not long after, a small-minded man from the West incited acrimony among the people, and the fighting began again. 

Abhartach’s people needed him. At sunset they killed a pig and poured a bowl of blood on his dolman. With a roar Abhartach came to life, tossing the giant stones above him like hazel shells. He dropped the bowl and threw the shield from his hands. He picked up the sword at his feet. Above his head he raised his terrible blade to defend his people. 

Through the long dark night, Abhartach crossed the fields until he found the house of the upstart king, split his head, and covered the ground with the dark red blood.

Abhartach returned to his people’s place, and stepped into the grave under the dolman, silent and dead. He held his bowl and shield, his sword at his feet. So did he appear to the people as they piled stones atop him.

Abhartach’s people then lived in peace, until small-minded man from the East came to believe that the fields of Abhartach’s people were more fertile than his own. He raised a war band and attacked.

At sunset Abhartach’s people killed a pig, and poured a bowl of its blood on the dolman. The sky grew dark, as they waited for their Champion to return. But the great stones remained still and silent.

The people killed another pig, and poured another bowl of blood on the dolman. With the last drop, the stones flew asunder, and Abhartach stepped out, sword in hand. He ran over the fields and found the warriors asleep in the small-minded man’s house. He killed them all, soaking the ground with blood. Abhartach burnt the house over their bodies, and the place where the blood was spilled and the bodies lay buried became the most fertile field in the land.

Abhartach’s people knew peace for three hundred years.

Then from the North a fearsome people arrived on the island. They refused to share it as had other newcomers, and all of country was pillaged and burned. Abhartach’s people gathered at sunset, killed three pigs—adding one because the remembered the last time—and poured three bowls of blood upon the stones. But the stones of Abhartach’s dolman remained still.

That is when a young man, full of the promise of a long life ahead of him, strong and good, stepped forward and said, “I know what must be done. Slay me now, and give my blood to the old king, that he may defend our people.”

With tears in their eyes, all the people of the tribe raised their knives and killed the brave young man, the best of all his brothers. They poured bowl after bowl of his innocent blood upon the dolman.

And just as before, Abhartach burst aside the stones, leapt over the gathered people, sword in hand. He ran away to the north, and all that night he slew northern enemy.

When Abhartach returned from his victory, he fell to his knees and implored the people to never summon him again, for the price of war with their neighbors was too great.

So the people buried Abhartach once again. But this time, they buried him upside down, both hands around the cup of friendship.

And the next time when some ee-jit rose up against them, they did not summon their old king, and they did not send their sons to fight and shed blood on the green fields of Ireland. They met on a low hill. They raised their voices, fiddles, and drums in song. They taught their enemy to dance. They danced together until the top of the hill was flattened, and that is why that place is called Cnoc na Rinca.