Eastern European Folklore and its Influences on The Tears of Artamon

However, the question I’m asked most often is ‘where did the inspiration for the drakhaouls come from’? Young Drakhaon Gavril Nagarian – on the death of his father – is possessed (as every Nagarian heir before him) by the drakhaoul, who eventually reveals to Gavril his secret name, Khezef. Later, Gavril comes to learn through Khezef that the drakhaoul was brought into the mortal world centuries earlier by a cult of priests worshipping a Serpent God with blood sacrifices. The drakhaoul is an aethyrial spirit and cannot survive for long without flesh to clothe it – and so it needs a mortal host. It gifts its host with extraordinary powers – the ability to shapeshift into a powerful dragon – but in return, the toll that it takes on its host’s body drives the host to seek out fresh human blood to replenish itself. Gavril, living in a rational age, finds it hard to believe, let alone understand, such a barbaric and horrific necessity. He determines that he must rid himself of the vampiric daemon – or die in the attempt. But the relationship between host and daemon is complicated and Gavril finds it increasingly impossible to distinguish his own needs from those of his drakhaoul.

The name ‘drakhaoul’ is my own invention and draws on a number of sources : the Greek word ‘drakon’ meaning ‘serpent’ from which our word ‘dragon’ comes; ‘Dracul’ the name given to the fifteenth century Prince Vlad Tepes ‘The Impaler’ of Walachia which means ‘dragon’ and came also to mean ‘the Devil’ because of Vlad’s barbaric behaviour towards his enemies in war. (‘Dracula’ signifies ‘son of the dragon’).

There is also a suggestion of the word ‘ghoul’ embedded in the name, reminiscent of the ‘ghuls’ of Eastern legends, the desert spirits that prey upon the dead). The dragon/devil association occurs frequently in European mythology; Saint Michael defeating the dragon/Satan is the most commonly encountered representation of this eternal conflict between the forces of Light and Dark (the gilded statue on the slender spire of the Merveille at Mont Saint Michel is the most breathtaking interpretation I have seen). So, in creating the drakhaouls, it soon became obvious to me that they shared – as did Satan – the same heritage as the angels. The dragons encountered by Prince Vladimir’s knights in the byliny are often shapeshifters: Tugarin Zmeiovich, eventually defeated by the bogatyr Alyosha, the priest’s son, is described as a magician-dragon (Nederlander interprets Tugarin as symbolizing ‘the force of the Asiatic heathen gods originally worshipped by the Eastern Slavs.’)

The drakhaoul’s heritage, therefore is not only that of the Eastern European vampire, (like many dragons of legend, it requires its tribute of innocent blood) but that of the fallen angel. It was once a creature of light and Gavril comes to learn that the daemon that possesses him secretly yearns to return to that condition. The tortured, shifting relationship between man and dragon-daemon underpins ‘The Tears of Artamon’ and it is played out in the blizzards of the remote mountainous country of Azhkendir where creatures from myth and nightmare still lurk and the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead are blurred.

Sarah Ash
http://www.sarah-ash.com