THE VAMPIRE, JURE GRANDO

Jure Grando was the first documented vampire. Born in 1579, he was an Istrian peasant who died in 1656. After his “first” death, villagers saw Grando’s silhouette walking the streets at night with a dead sheep on one shoulder and a dead cat on the other, knocking on doors. The people who lived in these houses almost always died a few days later. That is why, sixteen years later, he was exhumed so that an ash stake could be planted in his heart. But upon opening the coffin, the village chief and local priest found a perfectly preserved body instead of a decomposed corpse. Therefore, they beheaded Jure Grando, the vampire, with an axe.