Vikram and the Vampire (Illustrated‪)‬

Once upon a time there was a king named Vikram who ruled Pratisthana on the river Godavari. He was a mighty and glorious king. Every day, when he held public court, a beggar would come along and present the king with a fruit. This went on for a couple of years when finally, the king's curiosity was aroused. He asked his treasurer about the fruit and the treasurer, upon examining the accumulated fruit pile, was surprised to see the storage full of emeralds and pearls, while the fruit had disintegrated. 


He reported this to his master and the following day, the king questioned the beggar about this. In response, the beggar requested help from the king for a magic spell he was going to perform. He asked the king to meet him at nightfall of the fourteenth night of the dark moon near the cremation grounds. 


The king did as requested and found the beggar on the cremation grounds. He was drawing a magic circle and all around could be heard the howling of vampires, ghosts and other night creatures. The beggar asked the king to go further deep into the woods and bring out a corpse, which was hanging upside down in a tree.


The king found the corpse but, as he started taking it down, he realized that it was possessed by a vampire...


So begin the famous Vikram-Betaal stories, originally written in Sanskrit. Several English translations exist, based on Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil, and Marathi versions. Probably the best-known English version is that of Sir Richard F. Burton's, presented here with 30+ original illustrations by Ernest Griset.