Carmilla von Karnstein: What's in a Name?

Burg Hochosterwitz, Carinthia Styria Kärnten/Carantania/Carinthia

© Rika Ohara, 2011 Pomegranate Khotan rug, 20th century Gislebertus, Cathedral St. Lazare, Autun

I began my research by looking for the Karnsteins: If a family bearing that name did exist, one could learn so much from who they were, where they were from, what they did and what they believed in. And by guessing at why Le Fanu chose that name and/or that family, more could be understood of his thought process. It wasn't long before I hit a wall, however –– my search engine was turning up only B-movies and gothchicks. In desperation, I turned to the Austrian Telefonbuch, where I found Kärnten, the region southwest of Styria, where Le Fanu's narrative takes place.

Laura, the narrator of Carmilla, drops a hint as to the location of the Karnstein estate in relation to her father’s schloss, which is in Styria:

“I have said ‘the nearest inhabited village,’ because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf's schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town.”

Then again, after meeting Carmilla:

“What she did tell me amounted –– in my unconscionable estimation –– to nothing. It was all summed up in three very vague disclosures: First, her name was Carmilla. Second, her family was very ancient and noble. Third, her home lay in the direction of the west.”

Next, Wikipedia provided a handy etymology. Two roots for Carantania, from which the German Kärnten derives, have been proposed: One is from the pre-Indo-European root "karra," meaning "rock"; the other, from the Celtic "karantos," meaning "friend" or "ally." It is worth noting that Le Fanu gave his narrator Laura a tribal affiliation with the Karnsteins –– Laura's mother was a descendant of the noble family.

Robert Tracy, in his introduction to the Oxford Press edition of In a Glass Darkly (1999), compares Carmilla to the Irish Banshee, "a family ghost."

Carmilla is at once vampire and Irish banshee, ban sí, woman of the sí, of the tumulus or mound –– a woman who dwells in one of the ancient burial mounds so common in the Irish countryside, a woman of the dead. In comparatively recent tradition, the banshee is a highly respectable appendage of certain old families, a wailing spirit who foretells or announces and laments the deaths of family members. In an earlier tradition, she is seen by doomed warriors on their way to battle, washing corpses or bloodied shirts. Other legends describe intermarriage between a mortal man and woman of the sí. Conn the Hundred-Fighter is seduced by such a woman, as is Muircertach mac Erca and the poert-warrior Oisin. These relationships are seldom happy or long-lasting; sometimes the human partner begins to waste away. [1]

Adding to the suggestions of earth and blood kinship, Le Fanu must have liked the predatory sound of "Karn-." Also by turning the "-ten" ending to "-stein," he emphasized the possible meaning of "rock" or a "foundation stone." This also connects back to the vampire's attachment to the soil and land.

And now I have discovered that Carmilla’s first name could be a variation of Carmela, from carmel, Hebrew for "orchard" or "garden."