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Over dinner one night, a witch friend and I were discussing the Russian Easter liturgy which the two of us had recently attended

(No, we hadn't gone to collect hosts to desecrate—Orthodox don't use hosts—but rather to observe and be instructed by a liturgical masterpiece, one of humanity's truly great rituals. If you want to experience what the Mysteries of Eleusis felt like, you really need to check out Orthodox Easter.)

Memorably, the service is punctuated again and again by the Resurrection troparion, the holiday's leitmotif:

Christ is risen from the dead,

trampling down Death by death,

and upon those in the tombs

bestowing life.

By the end of the four-hour service, you've heard this chant scores, if not hundreds, of times. You really can't help but know it.

Rising to get something from the kitchen, my friend spontaneously improvises a parody troparion:

The old Norse didn't believe in ghosts per se.

Instead, they knew of a being called a draugr: a revenant, an un-dead, an animated corpse that will not lay still, but instead walks, wreaking ill, to trouble the lands of the living.

The Norse said DROW-ger. In Iceland today, they say DROY-goor. If (there's no evidence that they did) the English-speaking ancestors had known of such wights (or rather, un-wights) and had called them by an equivalent name, we would today name them drows (as drowse).

When the southron shavelings came in and started vaunting about their new god, you can't tell me that people didn't nod in recognition and say: Aha.

Come to think of it, this actually explains quite a bit about the history of the last thousand years, and (alas) much ill-wreaking that still goes on today.

I will absolutely never top the 2008 Halloween that I spent in eastern Romania on the Dracula Tour. I have told this tale many times with a fondness and nostalgia only paralleled by the idyllic childhood that I experienced living out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the woods. Knowing this, the best that I could hope to do is to attempt to recreate some of the highlights of my revered trip with my dear friend, Michael Hora. So here's my best (pardon the pun) stab at it.

Michael and I ate very well when we were there. The included continental breakfasts were anything but a wimpy box of cornflakes, or a lukewarm dollop of canned sausage gravy on a stale biscuit. We stayed at many very pleasant hotels on our journey: in Bucharest, Brasov, Sighisoara, Sibiu. The included breakfast buffets alone were like something out of dream: plates of every succulent homemade pastry you could imagine, hot plates of eggs, sausages, potatoes, cold plates of cured meats, pickles, olives, several artisan cheeses, fresh vegetables and fruits, blintzes, juices, and well-made strong coffee. The dinners were nothing to sneeze at, either. Yes, Romanians know how to eat! But I digress. The best way to describe this fare would be a mix of Serbian, Russian and Greek-style dishes – hearty and well-seasoned.

In planning your Dracula dinner menu, why not stir up some homemade Hungarian "ghoull-lash" with extra garlic toast and cheese on the side? If you're feeling ambitious, grill some steak kababs (get it, steaks/stakes). Have several appetizer platters of the cold snacky fare mentioned above. Finish off with some "Vampire Bite Marshmallows," roasted over a big bonfire in your backyard. To achieve this effect, dip your toasting fork in some dry cherry wine to start. Impale the hapless marshmallow twice, and roast to your liking. When ready to eat, dip the half of the marshmallow below the bite marks in some more of the wine, then sink your own teeth in.

Besides knowing how to eat, the Transylvanians instilled in me a love for highly potent fermented pure fruit beverages. The ones to get a hold of are pálinka (apricot brandy) and Țuică  (double distilled plum brandy). Beware, as these little firebombs will kick you in the butt and keep one partying all night long. For some more mellow stylings, opt for the always popular Vampire wines, available in pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot. This is not a night for white wines.

If you do not know any local gypsies in your area to play around the fire, download some atmospheric and authentic gypsy music, such as: "Authentic Gypsies," by Laszlo Borteri & Niko Radic. Gypsy Kings and/or gypsy jazz are probably a bit too upbeat for this affair, but in the end you must go where the spirit moves you. At some point, play the ultimate vampire crowdpleaser, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," by Bauhaus. Invite people to perform gothy interpretive dances.

As far as dress, I'd suggest folks attend as their personal favorite fanged one – there are so many to choose from! Have a steady stream of beloved bloodsucker flicks playing on the telly. Visually, they are always a treat. A word to the wise: this kind of event may inspire spontaneous biting. Consider yourselves warned, children of the night.

REFERENCES

http://www.dractour.com/

http://www.budapestbylocals.com/hungarian-goulash.html

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/75133/roasted-garlic-bread/

https://vampire.com/

We had to banish a vampire from our community. She came last year and was charming and likeable. She was allergic to garlic and once she moved in, we couldn’t cook with garlic anymore, not without all the windows open and her safely away in another room. Of course the connection between garlic and this vampire was a coincidence, and at any rate, she was allergic to many foods. But she was, indeed, a vampire.

I just had a thought-vampire stories involve a woman falling in love with a competent, but dangerous, man.  Dracula came out in 1897, when the women's movement was strong, soon to result in women's suffrage.   Vampire stories often involve a woman giving up her independence and competency to be with a man.  She's hypnotized, can't look away, and he by turn, wants her lifeblood-that which keeps her alive and functioning.   Is this a perspective on the rights of women?  Is it possible that there is fear that a man will take a woman's right to live away from her? If not by force, than by stealth?  That even so, a woman's nature isn't strong enough to resist?  Are vampire stories in general just reinforcements of patristic ideas?