VAMPIRIC NUMERICS

I’M NOT PARTICULARLY INTO BLOODY TALES; I love garlic; and I’m not adverse to mirrors nor crosses. But by training I am a mathematician and can thus understand arithmomania, a compulsion to count. And, speaking of counts, I confess that my favorite Sesame Street character is Count von Count.

All this is preface to offering a collection of tidbits gleaned from a variety of sources, the common theme being vampiric numerics.

Image from The Odd Athenæum. 

I Vant to Count! The Odd Athenæum website writes, “One curious component of vampiric folklore in Slavic down through Greek cultures is the vampire’s obsessive compulsive need to count things. Vampires were said to have arithmomania and needed to count things and actions. People took advantage of this by scattering seeds, salt, grains of rice, or whatever else they had in tiny sizes & large numbers, on the floor of their houses. An intruding vampire would then have to count each seed/grain giving the homeowner time to escape or, if it took the vampire long enough, the sun would rise and vanquish the undead intruder.”  

“Similarly,” the website continues, “it was believed that vampires would count all of the holes in a fishing net leading some individuals to hang nets by the entrances of their homes. It was also tradition to spread seeds/grain in a cemetery on the grave of a possible vampire so, upon rising from the grave, they would be kept busy through the night counting and staying away from the living.” 

Italian Witches Too. The Odd Athenæum adds, “Strangely this obsession with counting wasn’t always limited to vampires. In parts of Italy it was believe that witches had a similar affliction. On the Eve of St. John’s Day you could defend yourself from a witch by giving her a red carnation because she would have to count the petals giving you time to escape. In America some believed witches had to count the holes in sieves, leading some to hang them by their doors.”

Sesame Street’s Count von Count. What’s more, the website says, “Ultimately this compulsion to count things is the joke behind Count von Count on Sesame Street. He’s a vampire who loves to count and teaches children numbers. Like the Slavic vampires of folklore he is driven to count anything he sees. It’s a joke hidden in plain site.”

Image from Vanderbilt University.

Vice Dean Chuck Sanders of Vanderbilt University conducts an annual Halloween interview and in 2023 he spoke with “a much loved and highly respected expert on teaching numerical skills to children.” Stephen Doster’s “Interview with a Vampire: Sesame Street’s Count von Count” is a delight. Here are two excerpts:

“CS: Why do you think whole numbers are so awesome?” “Count: Many aspects of life various shades of color. However, whole numbers are so definite. If you say there are five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the table, is nothing vague about that! So quantitative, so clear! You vill now ask me qvestion #3. Ah, ah, ah! [Thunder and lightning.]

“CS: When I was doing research to prep for this interview, I learned that there is ancient lore from both China and Europe that vampires are obsessed with counting things. In fact, in medieval Europe people would spread seeds over the graves of suspected vampires because it was believed that when they would start to claw their way out of the grave, they would encounter the seeds and would be so delighted by the task of counting the seeds that they would stay in the grave. Is a fascination with counting a general vampire trait?”

“Count: I remember seed trick. Vhat you should know is vampires have LOT of time on their hands and eventually seeds vould all get counted and vampire comes out of grave anyvay. But to answer question, arithmomania runs in vampire families as genetically recessive trait. Neither parent thrilled by numbers, but I have aunt and some cousins who are. Vhat about qvestion #4? Ah, ah, ah! [Thunder and lightning.]”

The rest is a delight as well. As might be expected, the Count is knowledgeable about bats’ TRP-V1 channels in their snouts, the difference between a platelet and an erythrocyte, and Dr. Charles Richard Drew, pioneer of modern blood banking (who was refused membership in the American Medical Association because he was Black).

Vampire Numbers (with Fangs!). The Count would certainly know about vampire numbers, as does Anushka Singh in “Let’s Talk Numbers,” The Tufts Daily, November 17, 2022.  “A vampire number,” Singh writes, “is a number that can be written as the product of two numbers (fangs) of the same length where all the digits of the vampire number are present in the fang numbers. Let’s look at an example:

This and the following image from The Tufts Daily.

Singh confirms, “It is clearly visible here that the vampire number (1,260) can be written as the product of two equal-length numbers, its fangs (21 and 60), which contain the same digits (2, 1, 6, 0) as the vampire number. However, there is a catch. A number cannot be categorized as a vampire number if its fangs contain trailing zeroes.”

Singh says, “There are numerous examples of vampire numbers. Some are more interesting than others.” 

One of my favorites is 117,067 = 167 x 701, both of its fangs being primes. Another is the Roman numeral: VIII = II * IV. 

Quid de illo! Vhat about that! [Thunder and lightening.] ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024