Elye ha-novi and the vampire in Old Yiddish (and Judeo-Italian). A historiola and its history

Abstract

There are a number of Yiddish manuscripts – some also with Hebrew or Judeo-Italian – and printed books that evince the existence of magical practices among Ashkenazi Jews in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. In this paper, I wish to present the development of a particular historiola attested in Yiddish from the 15th-16th centuries. The narrative, in which Elijah the Prophet adjures a vampire not to harm a human being, has parallels both in ancient traditions of magic, attested notably in Aramaic and Greek, and in Medieval European culture, and has a broad tradition in the Jewish world, in collections of recipes, in prayer books and in material culture. In this paper, I wish to present some extant examples of this historiola in Yiddish and Judeo-Italian in their different contexts, such as collections of charms and medicaments, and books of prayers.