Dracula Superstition Quotes

It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to do?

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 1. As Jonathan Harker leaves his hotel to go to Castle Dracula, the hotel owner’s wife warns him against visiting the Count on that particular day. In Christian legend good triumphs over evil on that day, but according to Transylvanian superstition witches get together for occult ceremonies on this night and it is believed that evil may prevail over good. Harker doesn’t take the landlady’s warning seriously. Her warning is foreshadowing of the horrifying events to come.

It was all very ridiculous, but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 1. When the innkeeper cautions Jonathan to put off his meeting with Count Dracula for a few days, because of the evil things that happen on St. George’s Day, Jonathan feels uncomfortable. But he dismisses the warning as the superstition of a foreigner. And he decides that nothing will stand in the way of his job to help Dracula find a purchase a property in London.

I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were ‘Ordog’ – Satan, ‘pokol’ – hell, ‘stregoica’ – witch, ‘vrolok’ and ‘vlkoslak’ – both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either werewolf or vampire.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 1. As he boards the coach bound for Count Dracula’s castle, a crowd of peasants gathers and they mutter a lot of unsettling words about witches and devils and vampires at Jonathan Harker. This increases the uneasiness he already feels and is foreshadowing of evil things to come.

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me!

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 2. Jonathan Harker, to himself, as he prepares for bed on his first night in Count Dracula’s castle. He is scared of Dracula and he also fears for his fiancée Mina, whom the Count has developed an interest in. Jonathan’s western European attitudes have blinded him to the superstition of the east and made him oblivious to the supernatural elements occurring around him.

He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 10. Dr. John Seward about Prof. Van Helsing, who filled the ailing Lucy’s room with garlic flowers and had Lucy place a wreath of garlic around her neck. Van Helsing says the garlic is a protection against evil – he is a believer in the value of the old superstitions, but his former student Seward is a sceptic.

Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men’s eyes, because they know – or think they know – some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 14. Van Helsing criticizes the rational man of science Seward for being too narrow and prejudiced in his efforts to diagnose Lucy. Seward does not believe in vampires as there is no proof. Van Helsing on the other hand has an open mind and values the knowlege of the new and the old world. This speaks to the theme of modernity and the advances of science, which have blinded people to the dangers that their disgarded traditions and superstitions once protected them from.

We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was man’s faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 24. Rejecting modern sciences and methods, Prof. Van Helsing opts for the old superstitions in the battle to defeat Dracula. He knows that modern science and reason is not going to help them.

It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are very, very superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 27. Mina in her journal tells of her first trip outside of England, as she journeys with Van Helsing to Transylvania. She is fascinated by the people there and is intrigued by their superstitious beliefs and practices. When one woman sees the red mark on Mina’s forehead she crosses herself and points two fingers at her to ward off evil.
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