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{{short description|Undead creature from folklore}} | |||
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{{Other uses}} | |||
{{dablink|For a closer look at vampires in modern fiction, see ] and ]. For the bats that subsist on blood, see ]. For other uses, see ].}} | |||
{{Featured article}} | |||
], ''The Vampire'', 1897]] | |||
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'''Vampires''' are ] or ] beings that are renowned for ] on human ] or lifeforce, but in some cases may prey on animals. Vampire lore stems from ancient ] and ] roots; beings with vampiric abilities have been recorded from the earliest cultures and folklore the world over. Though vampires have widely varying characteristics, they are described for the most part as reanimated ] who feed by draining and consuming the blood of living beings. The term was popularised in the early 18th century and arose from the folklore of southeastern Europe, particularly the ] and ].<ref name="SU223"/> Folkloric vampires were depicted as ]s who visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were living. They wore shrouds, did ''not'' bear fangs and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or darkened countenance. | |||
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}} | |||
{{Use British English|date=September 2024}} | |||
], 1897|alt=A black and white painting of a man lying on a table, while a woman is kneeling over him.]] | |||
A '''vampire''' is a ] that subsists by feeding on the ] (generally in the form of ]) of the living. In ], vampires are ] that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore ]s and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. | |||
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of '']'' (]) by ]. The wild life of ] became the model for Polidori's undead protagonist ] after Polidori became Byron's personal physician. The story was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.<ref name="SU378">Silver & Ursini, p. 37-38</ref> However it is the 1897 novel '']'' which is best remembered as the quintessential vampire novel. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire ], still popular in the 21st century. Though ]s and ] of the genre have portrayed vampires with ] markedly distinct from those of original folkloric vampires, some folkloric traits such as aversion to ] and vulnerability to staking have been simply incorporated. | |||
Vampiric entities have been ]; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century ] of a pre-existing folk belief in ] and ] that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Karina |title=Decomposing Bodies in the 1720s Gave Birth to the First Vampire Panic |journal=] |date=October 23, 2020 |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decomposing-bodies-1720s-gave-birth-first-vampire-panic-180976097/ |access-date=29 October 2024}}</ref> | |||
==Etymology== | |||
Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as '']'' in ], '']'' in ] and '']'' in ], cognate to Italian ''strega'', meaning ']'. | |||
The word ''vampire'' appeared in the '']'' in 1734 | |||
<!-- The 1st edition of the OED didn't get to letter "V" until the 20th century (see Wiki article). I'll research this more. --> | |||
as much was appearing in ] literature on the subject. After the 1718 ] where parts of Serbia and Wallachia came under Austrian control, the Austrian officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires". These reports prepared between 1725 and 1732 received widespread publicity.<ref>{{cite book |last=Barber |first=P |authorlink=|title=Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality|year=1988|publisher=Yale University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-300-04126-8|pages=5 |chapter=}}</ref> Several theories of the word's origin exist.<ref name=Tokarev>{{cite book |last=Tokarev |first=S.A. |authorlink= |title=Mify Narodov Mira ("Myths of the Peoples of the World") |year=1982|publisher= |location= |isbn= |pages= |chapter=}}</ref> The English term was derived (possibly via ] ''vampyre'') from the German ''Vampir,'' in turn thought to be derived in the early 18th century<ref name=Grimm>{{de icon}} {{cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GV00025|title = Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Bde. (in 32 Teilbänden). Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1854-1960|accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref> from ] вампир/''vampir'',<ref name=MW>{{cite web|title=Vampire|publisher=] Online Dictionary|url=http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/vampire|accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref><ref name=Tresor>{{fr icon}} {{cite web|url=http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/fast.exe?mot=vampire|title = Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé|accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref><ref>{{fr icon}} {{cite book |last=Dauzat |first=A. |authorlink= |title=Dictionnaire étymologique |year=1938|publisher=Librairie Larousse |location= |isbn= |pages= |chapter=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Weibel|first=Peter|title = Phantom Painting - Reading Reed: Painting between Autopsy and Autoscopy|publisher=David Reed's Vampire Study Center|url=http://thegalleriesatmoore.org/publications/vampirestudy/weiben12.shtml|accessdate=2007-02-23}}</ref> or ] ''vámpír''.<ref name=COD>{{cite book |last= |first= |authorlink= |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English |year=1955|publisher= |location= |isbn= |pages= |chapter=}}</ref><ref name=OED>{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=v|title=Online Etymology Dictionary|accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref> The Serbian and Hungarian forms have parallels in virtually all ]: ] вампир (''vampir''), ] and ] ''upír'', ] ''wąpierz'' and (perhaps ]-influenced) ''upiór'', ] упырь (''upyr<nowiki>'</nowiki>''), ] упыр (''upyr''), ] упирь (''upir<nowiki>'</nowiki>''), from ] упирь (''upir<nowiki>'</nowiki>''). (Note that many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" secondarily from the West). Among the proposed ] forms are *{{Unicode|ǫpyrь}} and *{{Unicode|ǫpirь}}.<ref name=Vasmer>{{ru icon}} {{cite web|url=http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm|title = Russian Etymological Dictionary by ] |accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref> The Slavic word might, like its possible cognate that means "bat" (] ''netopýr'', ] ''netopier'', ] ''nietoperz'', Russian нетопырь / ''netopyr' '' - a species of bat), contain a ] root for "to fly".<ref name=Vasmer>{{ru icon}} {{cite web|url=http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm|title=Russian Etymological Dictionary by ] |accessdate=2006-06-13}}</ref> | |||
In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures (such as the '']'') still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of ] after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. ] was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|title=Born to the Purple: the Story of Porphyria |last=Lane |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Lane |date=16 December 2002 |magazine=] |publisher=]|location=New York City|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126142231/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|archive-date=26 January 2017|url-status=live|access-date=26 January 2017}}</ref> | |||
The first recorded use of the Old Russian form Упирь (''Upir<nowiki>'</nowiki>'') is commonly believed to be in a document dated 6555 (1047 AD).<ref>{{cite book |last=Melton |first=J.G. |authorlink= |title=The Vampire Book - The Encyclopedia of the Undead. 2nd Edition |year=1999|publisher=Visible Ink Press |location= |isbn=1-57859-071-X|pages=xxxi |chapter=Chronology}}</ref> It is a ] in a manuscript of ] written by a priest who transcribed the book from ] into ] for the ]ian Prince ].<ref name=Bible>{{ru icon}} {{Citation|first=A. I.|last=Sobolevskij|title = Slavjano-russkaja paleografija|year=|pages=|publisher=|url= http://www.textology.ru/drevnost/srp2.shtml}}</ref><ref>http://www.stsl.ru/manuscripts/book.php?col=1&manuscript=089 The original manuscript, Книги 16 Пророков толковыя</ref> The priest writes that his name is "''Upir' '' ''Likhyi'' " (Упирь Лихый), which would mean something like "Wicked Vampire"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://slav.su.se/jubileum.html|title=Löfstrand, Elisabeth. V nacale bylo slovo - om språkhistorisk forskning vid Institutionen för slaviska och baltiska språk. Föreläsningar hållna vid Institutionens för slaviska och baltiska språk femtioårsjubileum 1994|accessdate=2007-02-28}}</ref> or "Foul Vampire."<ref name=Opir>{{cite journal|last=Lind |first=John H |title=Varangians in Europe’s Eastern and Northern Periphery |journal=ennen & nyt |issue=4|date=2004 |url=http://www.ennenjanyt.net/4-04/lind.html |id=ISSN: 1458-1396 |accessdate=2007-02-20}}</ref> This apparently strange name has been cited as an example of surviving ] and/or of the use of nicknames as personal names.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ndce.ru/fulltext/pdf/1000292.pdf |title=Ванькова А.Б., Родионов О.А., Долотова И.А. История России. 6-7 кл : Учебник для основной школы: В 2-х частях. Ч. 1: С древнейших времен до конца XVI века.- М.: ЦГО, 2002.- 256 c. : ил.; 60х90/16 .- ISBN 5-7662-0149-4 (В пер.) , 1000 экз. (тир.) УДК 371.671.11:94(47).01/04.. ББК 63.3(2)4я721.|accessdate=2007-02-28}}</ref> However, in 1982<!--http://slav.su.se/jubileum.html (in Swedish)-->, Swedish Slavicist Anders Sjöberg suggested that "Upir' likhyi" was in fact an Old Russian transcription and/or translation of the name of ], a well-known Swedish rune carver. Sjöberg argued that Öpir could possibly have lived in Novgorod before moving to Sweden, considering the connection between Eastern Scandinavia and Russia at the time. This theory is still controversial, although at least one Swedish historian, Henrik Janson, has expressed support for it.<ref name=Opir/> Another early use of the Old Russian word is in the anti-pagan treatise "Word of Saint Grigoriy," dated variously to the 11<sup>th</sup>—13<sup>th</sup> centuries, where pagan worship of ''upyri'' is reported.<ref>{{cite web|url =http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000031/index.shtml|title=Рыбаков Б.А. Язычество древних славян / М.: Издательство 'Наука', 1981 г. |accessdate=2007-02-28}}</ref><ref name=period>{{cite journal|last=Зубов |first=Н.И. |title=Загадка периодизации славянского язычества в древнерусских списках “Слова св. Григория … о том, како первое погани суще языци, кланялися идолом…” |journal=Живая старина |issue=1(17) |date=1998 |url=http://kapija.narod.ru/Ethnoslavistics/zub_period.htm |accessdate=2007-02-28}}</ref> | |||
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "]" by the English writer ]; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. ]'s 1897 novel '']'' is remembered as the quintessential ] and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author ]'s 1872 novel '']''. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire ], still popular in the 21st century, with books, ], television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the ] genre. | |||
==Folk beliefs== | |||
The notion of vampirism has been in use for millennia; cultures such as the ]ns, ], ], and ] had tales of demons and spirits including the ],<ref name ="GraveEmp">{{cite book |last=Graves |first=R |authorlink=Robert Graves |title=] |year=1955|publisher=Penguin |location=London |isbn=0-14-001026-2|pages=189-90 |chapter=The Empusae}}</ref> ],<ref name = "Gravlam">{{cite book |last=Graves |first=R |authorlink=Robert Graves |title=] |year=1955|publisher=Penguin |location=London |isbn=0-14-001026-2|pages=205-06 |chapter=Lamia}}</ref> and ],<ref name="Hurwitz"/> who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the ] was considered synonymous with the vampire in earlier times.<ref name="Marigny1">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=24-25 |chapter=Blood Lust}}</ref> However, despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity we know today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from Southeastern Europe.<ref name="SU223">Silver & Ursini, p. 22-23</ref> In most cases, vampires are ] of evil beings, suicide victims or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire itself. The legends of the vampire grew to such a height, that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires. Although the original lore has been distorted due to new fictional references such as '']'', there are many ways to destroy a vampire; decapitation, a stake to the heart, incineration and exposure to sunlight are commonly cited.<ref name="Bun66">Bunson, p. 66</ref> | |||
== Etymology and word distribution == | |||
===Description and common attributes=== | |||
The exact ] is unclear.<ref name="Tokarev">{{cite book |last=Tokarev |first=Sergei Aleksandrovich |author-link=Sergei Aleksandrovich Tokarev |title=Mify Narodov Mira |publisher=Moscow |year=1982 |location=Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya |language=ru |oclc=7576647}} ("Myths of the Peoples of the World"). Upyr'</ref><ref name="Vasmer">{{cite web |title=Russian Etymological Dictionary by Max Vasmer |url=http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060504222030/http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm |archive-date=4 May 2006 |access-date=13 June 2006 |language=ru}}</ref> The term "vampire" is the earliest recorded in English, Latin and French and they refer to vampirism in Russia, Poland and North Macedonia.<ref>Katharina M. Wilson (1985). ''The History of the Word "Vampire"'' Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 46. p. 583</ref> The ] term was derived (possibly via ] {{lang|fr|vampyre}}) from the ] {{lang|de|Vampir}}, in turn, derived in the early 18th century from the ] {{lang|sr|вампир}} ({{transl|sr|vampir}}).<ref name=Grimm>{{cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GV00025|title=Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Bde. (in 32 Teilbänden). Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1854–1960|access-date=13 June 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926215950/http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GV00025|archive-date=26 September 2007 |language=de}}</ref><ref name=MW>{{cite web|title=Vampire|publisher=Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary|url=http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/vampire|access-date=13 June 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614081137/http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/vampire|archive-date=14 June 2006}}</ref><ref name=Tresor>{{cite web|url=http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/affart.exe?44;s=2356384875;?b=0;|title=Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé|access-date=13 June 2006|language=fr|archive-date=30 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230114722/http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/affart.exe?44%3Bs=2356384875%3B%3Fb%3D0%3B|url-status=live}}</ref> Though this being a popular explanation, a pagan worship of ''upyri'' was already recorded in Old Russian in the 11–13th century.<ref>{{cite web |script-title=ru:Рыбаков Б.А. Язычество древних славян / М.: Издательство 'Наука,' 1981 г. |url=http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000031/index.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226063300/http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000031/index.shtml |archive-date=26 December 2010 |access-date=28 February 2007 |language=ru}}</ref><ref name="period">{{cite journal |last=Зубов |first=Н.И. |year=1998 |script-title=ru:Загадка Периодизации Славянского Язычества В Древнерусских Списках "Слова Св. Григория ... О Том, Како Первое Погани Суще Языци, Кланялися Идолом ..." |url=http://kapija.narod.ru/Ethnoslavistics/zub_period.htm |url-status=dead |journal=Живая Старина |language=ru |volume=1 |issue=17 |pages=6–10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070225025712/http://kapija.narod.ru/Ethnoslavistics/zub_period.htm |archive-date=25 February 2007 |access-date=28 February 2007}}</ref> Some claim an origin from ].<ref>Matthew Bunson: ''Das Buch der Vampire.'' Scherz Verlag, p. 273 and following</ref><ref>Norbert Borrmann: ''Vampirismus oder die Sehnsucht nach Unsterblichkeit''. Diederichs Verlag, p. 13</ref> Oxford and others<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Katharina M. |date=1985 |title=The History of the Word "Vampire" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709546 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=577–583 |doi=10.2307/2709546 |jstor=2709546 |issn=0022-5037}}</ref> maintain a Turkish origin (from Turkish ''uber,'' meaning "witch"<ref name=":2" />), which passed to English via Hungarian and French derivation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=vampire |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115137575#:~:text=The%20word%20comes%20(in%20the,an%20abbreviation%20of%20this%20word. |access-date=2024-09-14 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en |archive-date=14 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240914220052/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115137575#:~:text=The%20word%20comes%20(in%20the,an%20abbreviation%20of%20this%20word. |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=vampire |url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/vampire |website=Oxford Learner's Dictionary |access-date=14 September 2024 |archive-date=9 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240609224915/https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/vampire |url-status=live }}</ref> In addition, others sustain that the modern word "Vampire" is derived from the ] and ] languages form "онпыр (onpyr)", with the addition of the "v" sound in front of the large nasal vowel (on), characteristic of Old Bulgarian.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> Parallels are found in virtually all ] and ] languages: ] and ] {{lang|mk|вампир}} ({{transl|mk|vampir}}), ]: {{lang|tr|Ubır, Obur, Obır}}, ]: {{lang|tt|Убыр}} ({{transl|tt|Ubır}}), ]: {{lang|cv|Вупăр}} ({{transl|cv|Vupăr}}), ]: {{lang|bs|вампир}} ({{transl|bs|vampir}}), ] {{lang|fr|vampir}}, ] and ] {{lang|cs|upír}}, ] {{lang|pl|wąpierz}}, and (perhaps ]-influenced) {{lang|zle|upiór}}, ] {{lang|uk|упир}} ({{transl|uk|upyr}}), ] {{lang|ru|упырь}} ({{transl|ru|upyr'}}), ] {{lang|be|упыр}} ({{transl|be|upyr}}), from ] {{lang|orv|упирь}} ({{transl|orv|upir'}}) (many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West; these are distinct from the original local words for the creature). In ] the words {{lang|sq|lu(v)gat}} and {{lang|sq|dhampir}} are used; the latter seems to be derived from the ] words {{lang|aln|dham}} 'tooth' and {{lang|aln|pir}} 'to drink'.<ref>{{cite web |last=Husić |first=Geoff |title=A Vampire by Any Other Name |url=https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6213/vampire_exhibit_catalog_2010.pdf;jsessionid=5B6036D02A0A800372E52679CB932EA0?sequence=3 |access-date=21 April 2022 |archive-date=20 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220820024335/https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6213/vampire_exhibit_catalog_2010.pdf;jsessionid=5B6036D02A0A800372E52679CB932EA0?sequence=3 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Vasmer" /> The origin of the modern word Vampire (] means ], Vampire or ] in ] and ] myths.) comes from the term Ubir-Upiór, the origin of the word Ubir or Upiór is based on the regions around the ] and ]. Upiór myth is through the migrations of the ]-] people to the ] allegedly spread. The Bulgarian format is впир (vpir, other names: onpyr, vopir, vpir, upir, upierz).<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last1=Yaltırık |first1=Mehmet Berk |title=Turkish: Türk Kültüründe Vampirler, English translation: Vampires in Turkic Culture |last2=Sarpkaya |first2=Seçkin |publisher=Karakum Yayınevi |year=2018 |pages=43–49 |language=Turkish}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{in lang|bg}}Mladenov, Stefan (1941). Etimologičeski i pravopisen rečnik na bǎlgarskiya knižoven ezik.</ref> | |||
].]] | |||
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire though there are several elements common to many European legends. It is usually reported as bloated in appearance and ruddy, purplish or dark in colour, often attributed to drinking blood. Indeed, blood is often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one is seen in its shroud or coffin and his left eye is often open.<ref name="Barb412">Barber, p. 41-42</ref> Clothing often consisted of the linen shroud they were buried in and teeth, hair and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature.<ref name="Barb2">Barber, p. 2</ref> | |||
Czech linguist ] proposes Slovak verb {{lang|sk|vrepiť sa}} 'stick to, thrust into', or its hypothetical anagram {{lang|sk|vperiť sa}} (in Czech, the archaic verb {{lang|cs|vpeřit}} means 'to thrust violently') as an etymological background, and thus translates {{lang|cs|upír}} as 'someone who thrusts, bites'.<ref>MACHEK, V.: Etymologický slovník jazyka českého, 5th edition, NLN, Praha 2010</ref> The term was introduced to German readers by the Polish Jesuit priest ] in 1721.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Katharina M. |date=1985 |title=The History of the Word "Vampire" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709546 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=577–583 |doi=10.2307/2709546 |jstor=2709546 |issn=0022-5037}}</ref> | |||
Other attributes may vary greatly from culture to culture; some vampires, such as those found in Transylvanian tales, are gaunt, pale and have long fingernails, while ]n vampires only had one ],<ref name="Bun35">Bunson, p. 35</ref> while ]n vampires slept with thumbs crossed and one eye open.<ref name="Strange & Amazing">{{cite book |last=Reader's Digest Association Ltd |first= |authorlink= |title=Strange Stories, Amazing Facts |year=1988|publisher=Reader's Digest Services Pty Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-949819-89-1|pages=432-433 |chapter=Vampires Galore!}}</ref> ]n vampires only attacked victims naked and the vampires of ]n folklore wore high heeled shoes.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> As stories of vampires spread throughout the globe to the Americas and elsewhere, so did the varied and sometimes bizarre descriptions of them; ] vampires have a bare skull instead of a head,<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> ]ian vampires had furry feet and vampires from the ] only sucked blood with their noses from the victim's ears.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> Even broad descriptions were implemented, such as having red hair.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> So from these various descriptions across time, works of literature such as ]'s ''Dracula'' and the influences of historical figures such as ] and ], the vampire has developed into the stereotype we perceive today; over time, a selection of more common reported attributes from a huge variety of ancient and medieval stories have coalesced to form a contemporary vampire profile as seen in literature and film today. <ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> | |||
The word ''vampire'' (as ''vampyre'') first appeared in English in 1732, in news reports about vampire "epidemics" in eastern Europe.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Modern Vampire and Human Identity |date=2013 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-349-35069-8 |editor-last=Mutch |editor-first=Deborah |page=3}}</ref>{{efn|1=Vampires had already been discussed in ]<ref>{{cite book|first=Keir|last=Vermeir|date=January 2012|chapter=Vampires as Creatures of the Imagination: Theories of Body, Soul, and Imagination in Early Modern Vampire Tracts (1659–1755)|editor-first=Y|editor-last=Haskell|title=Diseases of the Imagination and Imaginary Disease in the Early Modern Period|publisher=]|location=Tunhout, Belgium|isbn=978-2-503-52796-3}}</ref> and ].<ref name=barber5/>}} After Austria gained control of northern ] and ] with the ] in 1718, officials noted the local practice of ] bodies and "killing vampires".<ref name="barber5">Barber, p. 5.</ref> These reports, prepared between 1725 and 1732, received widespread publicity.<ref name="barber5" /><ref name="Dauzat 1938">{{cite book |last=Dauzat |first=Albert |title=Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française |publisher=Librairie Larousse |year=1938 |location=Paris, France |language=fr |oclc=904687}}</ref> | |||
====Creation beliefs==== | |||
It is commonly accepted in modern cultural depictions that one is likely to become a vampire if bitten by one. However the causes were far more varied in original vampire folklore. In Slavic and also Chinese traditions any corpse which was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or cat, would become one of the undead.<ref name="Barb30">Barber, p. 33</ref> If a body had a wound which had not been treated with boiling water. And in Russian mythology, vampires were said to have once been witches while they were living, or people who rebelled against the church. <ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> | |||
== Folk beliefs == | |||
Practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was a common prevention method, as well as placing earthly objects, such as ]s or ]s,<ref name="Barb5051">Barber, p. 50-51</ref> near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method is similar to the ancient Greek practice of placing a ] in the corpse's mouth so that they may pay their way across the ] in the underworld; it has been argued that instead, the obolus was intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body and this may have influenced later mythology surrounding the vampire. This Greek tradition was continued on in regard to modern Greek folklore about the '']'', the equivalent of a modern vampire, in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body becoming a ''vrykolakas''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lawson |first=JC |title=Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion |pages=p. 405-06|year=1910 |publisher=Cambridge }}</ref> Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the tendons at the knees or placing poppy seeds, millet or sand on the ground at the gravesite of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains.<ref name="Barb49">Barber, p. 49</ref> In similar Chinese narratives about vampire-like beings, it is stated that if one of these creatures comes across a sack of rice, he will have to count all of the grains; this is a theme similar to myths recorded on the Indian subcontinent as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.<ref name=Jaramillo>{{cite book |last=Jaramillo Londoño |first=Agustín |authorlink= |title=Testamento del paisa |year=1967|publisher=Medellín |location=Editorial Bedout |isbn= |pages= |chapter=}}</ref> | |||
{{see also|List of vampiric creatures in folklore}} | |||
The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia. Cultures such as the ]ns, ], ], ] and ] had tales of ]s and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampiric creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century ],<ref name="SU223">{{cite book|first1=Alain|last1=Silver|first2=James|last2=Ursini|date=1997|title=The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Interview with the Vampire|pages=22–23|location=New York City|publisher=]|isbn=978-0-87910-395-8}}</ref> when ] of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are ]s of evil beings, ] victims, or ], but they can also be created by a ] ] a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even ]s of people believed to be vampires.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}} | |||
=== Description and common attributes === | |||
====Identifying vampires==== | |||
]'' (1895) by ]|alt=A painting of a woman with red hair.]] | |||
The rituals behind identifying a vampire were in most cases elaborate, with several methods arising throughout Eastern Europe and other areas where vampire legends became prominent. In some Eastern European instances, the method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin, black stallion; the tomb which the horse stopped at first was said to be that of the vampire's.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism.<ref name="Barb125">Barber, p. 125</ref> Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition.<ref name="Barb109">Barber, p. 109</ref> In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face.<ref name="Barb1145">Barber, p. 114-15</ref> Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours; folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor ]-like activity and ] on people in their sleep. | |||
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire, though there are several elements common to many European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and ruddy, purplish, or dark in colour; these characteristics were often attributed to the recent drinking of blood, which was often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one was seen in its shroud or coffin, and its left eye was often open.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=41–42}} It would be clad in the linen shroud it was buried in, and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=2}} Chewing sounds were reported emanating from graves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wh9wDwAAQBAJ&dq=It+is+an+opinion+widely+spread+in+Germany%2C+that+certain+dead+persons+chew+in+their+graves%2C+and+devour+whatever+may+be+close+to+them%3B+that+they+are+even+heard+to+eat+like+pigs%2C+with+a+certain+low+cry%2C+and+as+if+growling+and+grunting.&pg=PA460 |title=The Phantom World |date=2018 |orig-date=1751 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-7340-3275-2 |language=en}}</ref> | |||
==== |
==== Creating vampires ==== | ||
]'s '']'' |
]'s '']'' (1934)|alt=An image of a woman kissing a man with wings.]] | ||
A common theme is the use of ]s to ward the revenants off, namely mundane or sacred items or things such as ],<ref name=""Barb63">Barber, p. 63</ref> sunlight or ]. Items vary from region to region; a branch of ] is said to harm vampires as well as the ] plant; in Europe, sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of a house was said to keep vampires away.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mappin |first=J. |authorlink= |title=Didjaknow: Truly Amazing & Crazy Facts About... Everything |year=2003|publisher=Pancake |location=Australia |isbn=0-330-40171-8|pages=50 |chapter=}}</ref> Other apotropaics include sacred items, for example a ], ] and the aforementioned holy water; vampires are said to be unable to walk on consecrated ground, such as those of churches or temples or cross running water.<ref>Burkhardt, p. 221</ref> In Asian legends, vampiric creatures are often warded by holy devices such as Shintō seals.<ref name=EoOc>{{cite book |last=Spence |first=Lewis |authorlink= |title=An Encyclopaedia of Occultism |year=1960|publisher=University Books, Inc. |location= |isbn= |pages= |chapter=}}</ref> In South American superstition, '']'' hung backwards behind or near a door has the same function.<ref name=Jaramillo>Jaramillo Londoño, Agustín: ''Testamento del paisa''. Medellín. Editorial Bedout, 1967.</ref> Although not regarded as a vampire apotropaic, mirrors have been used to ward off vampires when placed facing outwards on a door; it's a well known myth that vampires do not have a reflection and in some cultures, do not cast shadows either, perhaps to express the vampire's lack of a soul.<ref name=EoOc/> This attribute, although not universal as the Greek ''vrykolakas/tympanios'' was capable of both reflection and shadow, was utilized by Bram Stoker in ''Dracula'' and has since remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers.<ref name="SU25">Silver & Ursini, p. 25</ref> In addition to apotropaics, some traditions hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner, although they only have to be invited once as after this they can come and go as they please without further permission.<ref name=EoOc/> | |||
The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In ] and ], any corpse that was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=33}} A body with a wound that had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In ], vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the ] while they were alive.<ref name="Strange & Amazing">{{cite book|author=Reader's Digest Association|title=The Reader's Digest Book of strange stories, amazing facts: stories that are bizarre, unusual, odd, astonishing, incredible ... but true|year=1988|publisher=]|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-949819-89-5|pages=432–433|chapter=Vampires Galore!}}</ref> | |||
Traditional methods of destroying vampires were varied, with staking the most commonly cited method. This was most common in southern slavic cultures.<ref name ="Barber73">Barber, p. 73</ref> The preferred wood is ] in Russia and the Baltic states,<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite book |last=Alseikaite-Gimbutiene |first=Marija |authorlink=Marija Gimbutas |title=Die Bestattung in Litauen in der vorgeschichtlichen Zeit |year=1946 |location=Tübingen}}</ref> or ] in Serbia,<ref name="Vuk59">{{cite journal |last=Vukanovic |first=TP |year=1959|title=The Vampire |journal=Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society |volume=38 |pages=111-18}}</ref> with a record of ] in ].<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite journal|author=Klapper, Joseph |title=Die schlesischen Geschichten von den schädingenden Toten|journal=Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde| volume=11 |pages=58-93 |year=1909}}</ref> Potential vampires were most often staked though the heart, though the mouth was targetted in Russia and northern Germany,<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite book|last=Löwenstimm|first=A|title=Aberglaube und Stafrecht |pages=p. 99|year=1897|publisher=Berlin}}</ref><ref>{{de icon}}{{cite book|last=Băchtold-Staubli|first=H|title=Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens|year=1934-35|publisher=Berlin}}</ref> or the stomach in northeastern Serbia.<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite journal|last=Filipovic|first=Milenko|year=1962 |title=Die Leichenverbrennung bei den Südslaven|journal=Wiener völkerkundliche Mitteilungen |volume=10|pages=61-71}}</ref> Unlike today's cloaked and suave vampires, the original revenants were described as largely bloated. Thus the act of piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the vampire; this is similar to the act of burying sharp objects, such as sickles, in with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently whilst transforming into a revenant.<ref name="Barb158">Barber, p. 158</ref> ] was the preferred method in German and western slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body.<ref name="Barb73">Barber, p. 73</ref> The act of cutting off the head was also seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul from the body, which in some cultures, was said to linger in the corpse for a prolonged amount of time before dispersing. Other than being decapitated, the vampire's head, body or clothes could be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising.<ref name="Barb157">Barber, p. 157</ref> Gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In the Balkans a vampire could also be shot or drowned, as well as having the funeral service repeated, or by the sprinkling ] on the body, or ]. In Romania garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the coffin was taken. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. Even a lemon was placed in the mouth of suspected Saxon vampires in Germany.<ref>Bunson, p. 154</ref> | |||
In ], the ] is the hybrid child of the {{transl|sq|]}} (a ] creature with an iron ] shirt) or the {{transl|sq|]}} (a water-dwelling ] or monster). The dhampir sprung of a ''karkanxholl'' has the unique ability to discern the ''karkanxholl''; from this derives the expression ''the dhampir knows the lugat''. The lugat cannot be seen, he can only be killed by the dhampir, who himself is usually the son of a lugat. In different regions, animals can be revenants as lugats; also, living people during their sleep. {{transl|sq|Dhampiraj}} is also an Albanian surname.<ref>{{cite book |last=Albanologjike |first=Gjurmime |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5biAAAAMAAJ&q=dhampiri |title=Folklor dhe etnologji |date=1985 |volume=15 |pages=58–148 |language=sq |access-date=12 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160519060955/https://books.google.com/books?id=O5biAAAAMAAJ&q=dhampiri |archive-date=19 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
Vampires are sometimes endowed with special abilities when described in folklore; some are given great strength, while others the ability to ] not only into a bat, as is often depicted in modern cartoons and film, but rather other familiars such as rats, dogs, wolves, spiders and even moths. An attribute shared by the 19th century literary vampires ] and ] was the ability to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore.<ref name="SU389">Silver & Ursini, p. 38-9</ref> Though folkloric vampires thought more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to sunlight. This vulnerability has developed with subsequent vampire fiction.<ref name="SU325">Silver & Ursini, p. 25</ref> | |||
=== |
==== Prevention ==== | ||
Cultural practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such as ]s or ]s,{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=50–51}} near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method resembles the ] practice of placing an ] to pay the toll to cross the ] in the underworld. The coin may have also been intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body, and this may have influenced later vampire folklore. This tradition persisted in modern Greek folklore about the '']'', in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "] conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body from becoming a vampire.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lawson|first=John Cuthbert|title=Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion|url=https://archive.org/details/moderngreekfolkl00laws|pages=–06|year=1910|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, England|oclc=1465746|isbn=978-0-524-02024-1}}</ref> | |||
].]] | |||
Tales of the undead consuming the blood or flesh of living beings have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries.<ref>{{cite book|last=McNally |first=Raymond T. |coauthors=Radu Florescu |title=In Search of Dracula |year=1994 |id=ISBN 0-395-65783-0 |pages= 117 |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote = }}</ref> Today we know these entities predominantly as vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire didn't exist; blood drinking and such like was referred to as the work of ]s or ], such as ], ], ] and other monsters; vampires and the devil were closely linked in many cultures as well. Modern vampire mythology spread from Eastern Europe, however, early vampiric creatures have been described throughout the world — from Europe to Asia, from the Americas to the Pacific. Almost every nation has associated blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon. Indeed, some of these legends could have given rise to the Eastern European folklore, though they are not strictly considered vampires by historians when using today's definitions.<ref name="Marigny3">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=14 |chapter=Blood Lust}}</ref><ref name=Summers1>{{cite book |last=Summers |first=M |authorlink=Montague Summers |title=The Vampire in Europe|year=1968|publisher=University Books Inc|location=New York |isbn=|pages=1-77 |chapter=Chapter I: The Vampire in Greece and Rome of Old}}</ref> | |||
====Mesopotamia==== | |||
The ]ns were one of the first civilizations thought to have tales of blood-drinking demons; creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated pottery.<ref name="Marigny3"/> Ancient ] had tales of the mythical ], synonymous with Lilith (] לילית) and her daughters the ] from ] ] who were derived from their Babylonian counterparts. Lilitu was considered as a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies. However, the Jewish Lilu and their mother Lilith, were said to feast on both men and women, as well as newborns.<ref name="Hurwitz">Siegmund Hurwitz, ''Lilith, die erste Eva: eine Studie uber dunkle Aspekte des Wieblichen''. Zurich: Daimon Verlag, 1980, 1993. English tr. ''Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine'', translated by Gela Jacobson. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1992 ISBN 3-85630-545-9.</ref> The legend of Lilith was originally included in some traditional Jewish texts, she was considered to be ]'s first wife before ] according to the medieval folk traditions.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Alphabet of Ben Sira Question #5 (23a-b)|url=http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/alphabet.html}}</ref><ref name="Marigny4">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=17-19 |chapter=Blood Lust}}</ref> In the these texts, Lilith left Adam to become the queen of the demons and much like the Greek ], would prey on young babies and their mothers at night, as well as males. This practice of blood drinking performed by Lilith was considered exceptionally evil in Jewish tradition due to the ] which absolutely forbade the ] or the drinking of any type of blood. To ward off attacks from Lilith, parents used to hang ]s from their child's cradle.<ref name="Marigny4"/> | |||
An alternate versions state, the legend of Lilith/Lilitu (And a type of spirit of the same name) originally arose from ], where she was a described as an infertile "beautiful maiden" and was believed to be a harlot and vampire who, once had chosen a lover, would never let him go.<ref>Raphael Patai p222, The Hebrew Goddess 1978, 3rd enlarged edition from Discus Books New York.</ref> Lilitu or the Lilitu spirits were considered to be ] bird-footed, wind or night demons and were often described as subsisting on the blood of babies, their mothers, and being highly sexually predatory to men.<ref name="Marigny4"/> Other Mesopotamian demons such as Babylonian goddess ], (Sumerian Dimme) and ] of the ] group are mentioned as having vampiric natures.<ref>Siegmund Hurwitz, p.40 ''Lilith, die erste Eva: eine Studie uber dunkle Aspekte des Wieblichen''. Zurich: Daimon Verlag, 1980, 1993. English tr. ''Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine'', translated by Gela Jacobson. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Daimon Verlag, 1992 ISBN 3-85630-545-9.</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Encyclopædia Britannica Article: Lamashtu|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9046921/Lamashtu}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
Lamashtu, is a historically older image that left an mark on the figure of Lilith.<ref>Hurwitz p.34-35</ref> Many incantations against Lamashtu invoke her as a malicious "Daughter of Heaven" or ] and she is often depicted as a terrifying blood-sucking creature, with a lion's head and the body of a donkey.<ref>Hurwitz p.36</ref> Akin to Lilitu, Lamashtu's primary victim's consisted of the newborn and their mothers.<ref>{{cite web|title=Lamashtu-Ancient Near East|url=http://www.ancientneareast.net/religion_mesopotamian/demons/lamashtu.html}}</ref> She was said to watch pregnant women vigilantly, particularly when they went into labor. Afterwards, she snatched the newborn from the mother to drink it's blood and eat it's flesh. In the ''Labartu'' texts she is described; "Wherever she comes, wherever she appears, she brings evil and destruction. Men, beasts, trees, rivers, roads, buildings, she brings harm to them all. A flesh-eating, bloodsucking monster is she."<ref>Hurwitz p.36</ref> Similary, Gallu was a demon closely associated with Lilith. Occasionally, Gallu, like that of Uttuku, is used as a general term for demons, and these are "evil Uttuke" or "evil Galli".<ref>Hurwitz p.40</ref> One incantation tells of them as spirits that threaten every house, rage at people, eat their flesh, and as they let their blood flow like rain, they never stop drinking blood. In amulet texts, sometimes its Lamashtu, sometimes Lilitu, and at other times its Gallu, who is invoked and conjured. Gallu is inherited in Graeco-Byzantine myth, as Gello, Gylo, or Gyllo and appears as an child stealing and child killing female demon,<ref>Hurwitz p.41</ref> like that of Lamia and Lilith. | |||
Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the ] or placing ] seeds, ], or sand on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains,{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=49}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Abbott |first=George |year=1903 |title=Macedonian Folklore |url=https://archive.org/details/macedonianfolkl01abbogoog/page/n226/mode/2up |page=219|publisher=Cambridge, University press }}</ref> indicating an association of vampires with ]. Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampiric being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain; this is a theme encountered in ], as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.<ref name=Jaramillo>{{cite book|last=Jaramillo Londoño|first=Agustín|title=Testamento del paisa|year=1986|orig-year=1967|edition=7th|publisher=Susaeta Ediciones|location=Medellín|isbn=978-958-95125-0-0|language=es}}</ref> | |||
====Ancient Egypt==== | |||
The ]ian goddess ] was associated with bloodlust, death and vampiric behaviour. Possessing the head of a lion, Sekhmet was considered the greatest hunter known to the Egyptians and was originally the warrior goddess of ], who devoured humans and drank blood after battle. In Egyptian mythology Sekhmet was closely related with the warrior goddess ], although was often depicted as the fiercer of the two with names such as ''Lady of Slaughter'', ''Mistress of Dread'', ''Avenger of Wrongs'' and the ''Scarlet Lady'', references to her bloodlust. She was seen as a special goddess for women and was patron god of ]. Usually shown in red to represent blood, Sekhmet was first noted for her bloodlust in an ancient myth about the ]; to avert excessive flooding during the inundation of the Nile river at the beginning of each year Sekhmet was said to swallow the excess water that overflowed the river's banks. However, the water at this time of the year is laden with sand and silt from upstream, thus giving it a red, blood-like appearance. | |||
==== Identifying vampires ==== | |||
A variant on this myth is that Sekhmet only drank the Nile river after being deceived by the sun god ]. In this version, her bloodlust was not quelled at the end of battle by her devouring of human flesh and blood, so the goddess decided to turn on man to sate her thirst. After nearly destroying all of humanity, Ra tricked her by turning the Nile red like blood so that Sekhmet would drink it. However, the red liquid was not blood, but ] mixed with ] juice, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter. This association with Sekhmet explains the goddess' depiction as a vampiric being in later mythology, and a festival to reinact this blood drinking was held at the beginning of each year to coincide with the Nile's flood cycle. At the festival, all the ] was coloured red in honour of Sekhmet and thousands were recorded as attending the festivities.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15475319/ |title=Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites: Archaeologists find evidence for ancient version of 'Girls Gone Wild' |author=Boyle, A. |publisher=MSNBC |accessdate=2006-10-30}}</ref> | |||
Many rituals were used to identify a vampire. One method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin stallion—the horse would supposedly balk at the grave in question.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> Generally a black horse was required, though in Albania it should be white.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=68–69}} Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=125}} | |||
Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=109}} In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=114–115}} Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours. Folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor ]-styled activity, such as hurling stones on roofs or moving household objects,{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=96}} and ] on people in their sleep.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=168–169}} | |||
====Ancient Greece==== | |||
The Ancient Greeks had several precursors of modern vampires, though none were considered undead; these included the ], ] and ] (] in Ancient Roman mythology). Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess ] and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. She would feast on blood by transforming into a young woman and seducing men as they slept before drinking their blood.<ref name ="GraveEmp"/> Lamia was the daughter of ] and secret lover of the Greek god ]. However Zeus' wife ] discovered this infidelity and killed all Lamia's offspring; Lamia swore vengeance and preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood.<ref name ="Gravlam"/> Like Lamia, the ''striges'', feasted on children, but also preyed on young men. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds and were later incorporated into Roman mythology as ''strix'', a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Oliphant |first= Samuel Grant|year=1913|title= The Story of the Strix: Ancient|journal= Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association|volume=44 |issue= |pages=133-49}}</ref> The Romanian vampire breed '']'' has no direct relation to the Greek ''striges'', but was derived from the Roman term ''strix'', as is the name of the ]n '']'' and the ] '']'', though myths about these creatures are more similar to their Slavic equivalents.<ref name="Marigny5">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=15-17 |chapter=Blood Lust}}</ref><ref name=Summers1/> | |||
==== |
==== Protection ==== | ||
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In ], tales of ]s, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old ] ]. A prominent story tells of King ] and his nightly quests to capture an elusive vetala. The vetala legends have been compiled in the book '']''. The vetala is an undead creature, who like the bat associated with modern day vampirism, hangs upside down on trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Burton |first=Sir Richard R.|authorlink=Richard Francis Burton |title=Vikram and The Vampire:Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance |year=1870 |publisher= |location= |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/vav/vav00.htm|accessdate=2007-09-28}}</ref> '']'' are other creatures who resemble vampires to an extent. Since Hinduism believes in ] of the soul, it is supposed that leading an unholy or immoral life, sin or suicide, will lead the soul to reincarnate into such evil spirits. This kind of reincarnation does not arise out of birth from a womb, but is achieved directly, and such evil spirits' fate is predetermined as to how they shall achieve liberation from that '']'', and re-enter the world of mortal flesh in the next incarnation. | |||
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| footer = Garlic, Bibles, crucifixes, rosaries, holy water, and mirrors have all been seen in various folkloric traditions as ] or identifying vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=6}}<ref name="Burkhardt221"/> | |||
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]—items able to ward off ]s—are common in vampire folklore. ] is a common example;{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=63}} a branch of ] and ] are sometimes associated with causing harm to vampires, and in Europe, ]s would be sprinkled on the roof of a house to keep them away.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mappin|first=Jenni|title=Didjaknow: Truly Amazing & Crazy Facts About ... Everything|year=2003|publisher=Pancake|location=Australia|isbn=978-0-330-40171-5|page=50}}</ref> Other apotropaics include sacred items, such as ], ], or ]. Some folklore also states that vampires are unable to walk on ], such as that of churches or temples, or cross running water.<ref name="Burkhardt221">{{cite book |last=Burkhardt |first=Dagmar |title=Beiträge zur Südosteuropa-Forschung: Anlässlich des I. Internationalen Balkanologenkongresses in Sofia 26. VIII.-1. IX. 1966 |chapter=Vampirglaube und Vampirsage auf dem Balkan |year=1966 |publisher=Rudolf Trofenik |location=Munich |oclc=1475919 |language=de | page=221}}</ref> | |||
<!--The most famous Indian deity associated with drinking blood is ], who has fangs, wears a garland of corpses or skulls and has four arms. Her temples are located near cremation grounds. She and the goddess ] battled the demon Raktabija (''Sanskrit: Blood Seed'') who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing him.--> | |||
Although not traditionally regarded as an apotropaic, ]s have been used to ward off vampires when placed, facing outwards, on a door (in some cultures, vampires do not have a reflection and sometimes do not cast a shadow, perhaps as a manifestation of the vampire's lack of a ] or their weakness to silver).<ref name=EoOc>{{cite book|last=Spence|first=Lewis|title=An Encyclopaedia of Occultism|year=1960|publisher=University Books|location=New Hyde Parks|oclc=3417655|isbn=978-0-486-42613-6}}</ref> This attribute is not universal (the Greek ''vrykolakas/tympanios'' was capable of both reflection and shadow), but was used by Bram Stoker in ''Dracula'' and has remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=25}} | |||
===Medieval and later European folklore=== | |||
Some myths of vampires arose out of the folk traditions of the Jews in medieval Europe. In fact, it can be speculated that the legend of Lilith may have given rise to the vampire myth. <ref> Schwartz p.15</ref> Lilith possesses several characteristics of and in common with that of a vampire; the ability to transform herself into an animal, usually an cat, and she makes attempts to diabolically do harm, often charming her victims into believing that she is benevolent or irresistible, at first.<ref> Schwartz p.15</ref> The vampire motif seems to be replaced a bit by Lilith and her daughters, who usually strangle their victims rather than drain the life out of them. However, in the ], Lilith retains many attributes found in vampires. A late 17th or early 18th century Kabbalah document was found in one of the ] copies of Jean de Pauly's translation of the ]. The text contains two amulets, one for male ('lazakhar'), the other for female('lanekevah'). The invocations on the amulets mention Adam, Eve, and Lilith, 'Chavah Rishonah', the angels - Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari'el, and Hasdi'el (the merciful). A few lines in ] are shown as dialog between the prophet ] and Lilith, in which Lilith has come with a host of demons to kill the mother and take her newborn and 'to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh'. She precedes to tell Elijah that she will lose power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end.<ref>{{web cite|title=J.R. Ritman Libary: Lilith Amulet |url=http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/c/p/exh/kabb/kab_pheb_25.html}}</ref> Other Jewish stories depict vampires in a more traditional way. In "The Kiss of Death", the daughter of the demon king ], snatches the breath of a man who has betrayed her, in away strongly reminiscent of a fatal kiss of a vampire. In another rare story found in ''Sefer Hasidim'' #1465, an old woman vampire named Astryiah, uses her hair to drain the blood from her victims. A similar tale from the same book describes staking a witch through the heart to ensure she does not come back from the dead to haunt her enemies.<ref>Schwartz p. 20 Note: 38</ref> | |||
Some traditions also hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner; after the first invitation they can come and go as they please.<ref name=EoOc/> Though folkloric vampires were believed to be more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to ].{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=25}} | |||
The ] ] historians and chroniclers ] and ] recorded accounts of ],<ref>{{cite web | author = William of Newburgh | coauthors=Paul Halsall | authorlink = William of Newburgh | title = Book 5, Chapter 22-24 | work = Historia rerum Anglicarum | publisher = Fordham University |date=2000 | |||
| url = http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.html | accessdate = 2007-10-16}}</ref> though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant.<ref name = "Jones121">Jones, p. 121</ref> These tales are similar to the later folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the 18th century, and it was from these that the vampire legend entered Germany and England, where it was subsequently embellished and greatly popularised into the modern fictional vampire. | |||
Reports in 1693 and 1694 concerning citings of vampires in Poland and Russia claimed that when a vampire's grave was recognized, eating bread baked with its blood mixed into the flour,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1GqcY9ow3QC&dq=There+proceeds+from+his+body+a+great+quantity+of+blood%2C+which+some+mix+up+with+flour+to+make+bread+of%3B+and+that+bread+eaten+in+ordinary+protects+them+from+being+tormented+by+the+spirit%2C+which+returns+no+more.&pg=PA273 |title=The Phantom World: The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, &c., &c |date=1850 |publisher=A. Hart |page=273}}</ref> or simply drinking it, granted the possibility of protection. Other stories (primarily the ] case) claimed the eating of dirt from the vampire's grave would have the same effect.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1GqcY9ow3QC&dq=but+that+he+had+found+means+to+cure+himself+by+eating+earth+from+the+grave+of+the+vampire%2C&pg=PA265 |title=The Phantom World: The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, &c., &c |date=1850 |publisher=A. Hart |page=265}}</ref> | |||
During the 18th century, there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires. The panic began with an outbreak of alleged "vampire" attacks in ] in 1721 and in the ] from 1725 to 1734. Two famous vampire cases (which were the first to be officially recorded) involved ] and ] from ]. Plogojowitz was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When he refused, the son was found dead the following day. Plogojowitz soon returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.<ref name ="Barb5to9">Barber, p. 5-9</ref> In the other famous case, Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while ]. After his death, people began to die, and it was widely believed that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours. | |||
==== Methods of destruction ==== | |||
These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined (and wrote reports of) the cases and the bodies, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe.<ref name ="Barb1521">Barber, p. 15-21</ref> The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-claimed vampire attacks, with locals digging up bodies. Many scholars said vampires did not exist, and attributed reports to premature burial, or ]. Nonetheless, ], a well-respected French ] and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746, which was at least ambiguous concerning the existence of vampires, if not admitting it explicitly. He amassed reports of vampire incidents and numerous readers, including both a critical ] and supportive ]s, interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires exist. In his ''Philosophical Dictionary'', Voltaire wrote on the vampires: | |||
] | |||
Methods of destroying suspected vampires varied, with ] the most commonly cited method, particularly in South Slavic cultures.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=73}} ] was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states,<ref>{{cite book|last=Alseikaite-Gimbutiene|first=Marija|author-link=Marija Gimbutas|title=Die Bestattung in Litauen in der vorgeschichtlichen Zeit|year=1946|location=Tübingen|oclc=1059867|language=de}} (thesis).</ref> or ] in Serbia,<ref name="Vuk59">{{cite journal|last=Vukanović|first=T.P.|year=1959|title=The Vampire|journal=Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society|volume=38|pages=111–18}}</ref> with a record of ] in ].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Klapper|first=Joseph|title=Die schlesischen Geschichten von den schädingenden Toten|journal=Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde|volume=11|pages=58–93|year=1909|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2016|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|page=7|date=30 December 2015|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref> ] was also used for stakes, as it was believed that ] was made from aspen (aspen branches on the graves of purported vampires were also believed to prevent their risings at night).<ref>{{cite book|author=Theresa Cheung|title=The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires|publisher=HarperCollins UK|year=2013|page=35|isbn=978-0-00-752473-0}}</ref> Potential vampires were most often staked through the heart, though the mouth was targeted in Russia and northern Germany<ref>{{cite book|last=Löwenstimm|first=A.|title=Aberglaube und Stafrecht|page=99|year=1897|publisher=Berlin|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Bachtold-Staubli|first=H.|title=Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens|year=1934–1935|publisher=Berlin|language=de}}</ref> and the stomach in north-eastern Serbia.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Filipovic|first=Milenko|year=1962|title=Die Leichenverbrennung bei den Südslaven|journal=Wiener Völkerkundliche Mitteilungen|volume=10|pages=61–71|language=de}}</ref> Piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the bloated vampire. This is similar to a practice of "]": burying sharp objects, such as sickles, with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently while transforming into a revenant.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=158}} | |||
] was the preferred method in German and western Slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the ] or away from the body.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=73}} This act was seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul, which in some cultures was said to linger in the corpse. The vampire's head, body, or clothes could also be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=157}} | |||
{{quotation|These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer.}} | |||
] | |||
According to some recent research, and judging from the second edition of the work in 1751, Calmet was actually somewhat skeptical towards the vampire concept as a whole. He did acknowledge that parts of the reports, such as the preservation of corpses, might be true.<ref name=Introvigne>{{cite web|url=http://www.cesnur.org/testi/vampires_wdc.htm|title = Introvigne, Massimo. 1997. ''Satanism Scares and Vampirism from the 18th Century to the Contemporary Anti-Cult Movement''. A paper presented at the World Dracula Congress, Los Angeles 1997.|accessdate=2006-06-17}} </ref> Whatever his personal convictions were, Calmet's apparent support for vampire belief had considerable influence on other scholars at the time. | |||
] drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. In a 16th-century burial near ], a brick forced into the mouth of a female corpse has been interpreted as a vampire-slaying ritual by the archaeologists who discovered it in 2006.<ref>Reported by Ariel David, "Italy dig unearths female 'vampire' in Venice", 13 March 2009, ] via ], ; also by Reuters, published under the headline "Researchers find remains that support medieval 'vampire'" in ''The Australian'', 13 March 2009, with photo (scroll down).</ref> In ], over 100 skeletons with metal objects, such as ] bits, embedded in the torso have been discovered.<ref name="bulg">{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106 | title='Vampire' skeletons found in Bulgaria near Black Sea | work=BBC News | date=6 June 2012 | access-date=22 October 2019 | archive-date=24 April 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424154013/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106 | url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In Southeastern Europe, a vampire could also be killed by being shot or drowned, by repeating the funeral service, by sprinkling ] on the body, or by ]. In Romania, garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the ] was taken. For resistant cases, the body was ] and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. In ] of Germany, a ] was placed in the mouth of suspected vampires.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=154}} | |||
Eventually, Empress ] sent her personal physician, ], to investigate. He concluded that vampires do not exist, and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. By then, though, many knew about vampires, and soon authors would adopt and adapt the concept of vampire, making it known to the general public. | |||
=== |
=== Ancient beliefs === | ||
]'', 1887 by ]. Stories of Lilith depict her as a demon drinking blood.|alt=A painting of a naked woman with a snake wrapped around her.]] | |||
The vampire legends of various Slavic peoples do have some common characteristics, but are on the whole rather varied. Some of the more common causes of vampirism include being a magician or an immoral person; suffering an "unnatural" or untimely death such as suicide; ]; improper burial rituals; an animal jumping or a bird flying over the corpse or the empty grave (in ]ic folk belief); and even being born with a ],<ref>Burkhardt, p. 225</ref> teeth or tail, or being conceived on certain days. In southern Russia, people who were known to talk to themselves were believed to be at risk of becoming vampires.<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite journal |last=Jaworskij |first=Juljan |year=1898 |title=Südrussische Vampyre |journal=Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde |volume=8 |pages=331-36}}</ref> Slavic vampires were able to appear as butterflies,<ref>{{de icon}} {{cite book |last=Kanitz |first=F |authorlink= |title=Donaubulgarien und der Balkan |year=1875|publisher= |location= |isbn=|pages=80 |chapter=}}</ref> echoing an earlier belief of them symbolizing departed souls.<ref>Jones, p. 107</ref> Some traditions spoke of "living vampires" or "people with two souls", a kind of ]es capable of leaving their body and engaging in harmful and vampiric activity while sleeping.<ref name=levk>Levkievskaja, E.E. La mythologie slave : problèmes de répartition dialectale | |||
Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McNally|first1=Raymond T.|last2=Florescu|first2=Radu|title=In Search of Dracula|year=1994|publisher=]|location=Boston, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0-395-65783-6|page=|url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofdracul00mcna/page/117}}</ref> The term ''vampire'' did not exist in ancient times. ] and similar activities were attributed to ]s or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the ] was considered synonymous with the vampire.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=24–25}} Almost every culture associates blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, or in some cases a deity. In India tales of ], ghoulish beings that inhabit corpses, have been compiled in the '']''; a prominent story in the '']'' tells of King ] and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burton|first=Sir Richard R.|author-link=Richard Francis Burton|title=Vikram and The Vampire: Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance|orig-year=1870|year=1893|publisher=Tylston and Edwards|location=London|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/vav/vav00.htm|access-date=28 September 2007|isbn=978-0-89281-475-6|archive-date=7 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107164840/http://sacred-texts.com/goth/vav/vav00.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> '']'', the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=200}} | |||
(une étude de cas : le vampire). Cahiers slaves n°1 (septembre 1997). </ref> | |||
The most famous Serbian vampire was ], famous from a folklore-inspired novel by ].<ref>], "Posle devedeset godina" (''Ninety Years Later'')</ref> | |||
The ] were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated ] shards.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|p=14}} Ancient ] and ] had tales of the mythical ],<ref name="Hurwitz"/> synonymous with and giving rise to ] (] לילית) and her daughters the ] from ]. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies,<ref name="Hurwitz">{{cite book |last=Hurwitz |first=Siegmund |others=Gela Jacobson (trans.) |pages=39–51 |year=1992 |orig-year=1980 |title=Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine |location=Einsiedeln, Switzerland |isbn=978-3-85630-522-2 |publisher=Daimon Verlag}}</ref> and ], female shapeshifting, blood-drinking demons, were said to roam the night among the population, seeking victims. According to ], estries were creatures created in the twilight hours before ]. An injured estrie could be healed by eating bread and salt given to her by her attacker.<ref>{{cite web|last=Shael|first=Rabbi|url=http://shaelsiegel.blogspot.com/2009/06/vampires-einstein-and-jewish-folklore.html|title=Rabbi Shael Speaks ... Tachles: Vampires, Einstein and Jewish Folklore|website=Shaelsiegel.blogspot.com|date=1 June 2009|access-date=5 December 2010|archive-date=5 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005071949/http://shaelsiegel.blogspot.com/2009/06/vampires-einstein-and-jewish-folklore.html|url-status=live}}</ref><!-- covers previous two sentences --> | |||
One Serbian ritual is as follows; after the deceased was taken out of the house, a nail was driven into the floor beneath the bier, and an egg was broken. Two or three elderly women would come to the grave the evening after the funeral, and stick five hawthorn pegs or old knives into the grave: one at the position of the chest of the deceased, and the other four at the positions of his arms and legs. Alternately, they may surround the grave with a red woolen thread, ignite the thread, and wait until it was burnt up.<ref>Vukovic, p. 58</ref> | |||
] described the ]e,{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=189–190}} the ],{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=205–206}} the ]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html |title=Philostr Vit. Apoll. iv. 25; Suid. s. v. |access-date=24 October 2020 |archive-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027063134/https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and the ]. Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess ] and was described as a demonic, ]-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood.{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=189–190}} The Lamia preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood, as did the ''gelloudes'' or ].{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=205–206}} Like the Lamia, the ''striges'' feasted on children, but also preyed on adults. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds in general, and were later incorporated into Roman mythology as ''strix'', a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Oliphant|first=Samuel Grant|date= 1913|title=The Story of the Strix: Ancient|journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association|volume=44|pages=133–49|doi=10.2307/282549|issn=0065-9711|jstor=282549}}</ref> | |||
By one of the customs intended to protect a village from vampires and diseases, twin brothers yoked twin oxen to a plow, and made a furrow with it around the village. | |||
In ], an ''ubır'' is a vampiric creature characterized by various regional depictions. According to legends, individuals heavily steeped in sin and practitioners of ] transform into ubırs upon their death, taking on a bestial form within their graves. Ubırs possess the ability to shape-shift, assuming the forms of both humans and various animals. Furthermore, they can seize the soul of a living being and exert control over its body. Someone inhabited by a vampire constantly experiences hunger, becoming increasingly aggressive when unable to find sustenance, ultimately resorting to drinking human blood.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2023-08-25 |title=Ubır: A Vampire-Like Creature in Turkic Mythology and Folk Beliefs |url=https://ulukayin.org/ubir-english/ |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=ULUKAYIN English |language=en-US |archive-date=26 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240126093031/https://ulukayin.org/ubir-english/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
If a noise was heard during night, suspected to be made by a vampire sneaking around someone's house, it was shouted, "Come tomorrow, and I will give you some salt," or "Go, pal, get some fish, and come back."<ref>Vuković, p. 213</ref> | |||
=== Medieval and later European folklore === | |||
South Slavic legends had a number of characteristics that set them apart from the others; a vampire was believed to pass through several distinct stages in its development. The first 40 days were considered decisive for the making of a vampire. It started out as an invisible shadow and then gradually gained strength from the blood it had sucked, forming a (typically also invisible) jelly-like, boneless mass, and eventually building up a human-like body nearly identical to the one the person had had in life. This development allowed the creature to ultimately leave its grave permanently and begin a new life as an ordinary human. The vampire (who was usually male) was also sexually active and could have children, either from his widow or from a new wife. These could become vampires themselves, but could also have a special ability to see and kill vampires, allowing them to become ]. The same talent was believed to be found in persons born on ].<ref name=levk>Levkievskaja, E.E. La mythologie slave : problèmes de répartition dialectale | |||
{{main|Vampire folklore by region}} | |||
(une étude de cas : le vampire). Cahiers slaves n°1 (septembre 1997). </ref> | |||
] | |||
Many myths surrounding vampires originated during the ]. With the arrival of ] in ], and other parts of ], the vampire "began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics."<ref name="Hansen2011">{{cite book|author=Regina Hansen|title=Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery|date=3 May 2011|publisher=]|language=English|isbn=978-0786464746|quote=After the arrival of Christianity in Greece, however, the vampire began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics. The vampire was now no longer a demon from a supernatural realm but a reanimated corpse, a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had arisen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers. The transformation of vampire myths to include Christian elements happened throughout Europe; as various regions converted to Christianity, their vampires also became "Christianized" (Beresford 42, 44–51).}}</ref> As various regions of the continent ], the vampire was viewed as "a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had risen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers."<ref name="Hansen2011"/> In the ], the ]es reinterpreted vampires from their previous folk existence into minions of ], and used an ] to communicate a doctrine to ]: "Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself."<ref name="Joshi2010">{{cite book|author= S. T. Joshi=|title=Encyclopædia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture|date=4 November 2010|publisher=]|language=English|isbn=978-0313378331|quote=The church had by this time co-opted vampires from their previous folk existence and reinterpreted them as minions of the Christian devil, so it was an easy enough analogy to draw: Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author= Regina Hansen|title=Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery|date=3 May 2011|publisher=]|language=English|isbn=978-0786464746|quote=Perhaps the strongest link between vampires and Christianity is the importance of blood in the Christian, especially the Roman Catholic, tradition. Just as the vampire must consume blood in order to continue its unnaturally eternal life, so Christians must consume the blood of Jesus to be granted salvation and life after death.}}</ref> The interpretation of vampires under the Christian Churches established connotations that are still associated in the vampire genre today.<ref name="LarssonSteiner2011">{{cite book|author= Mariah Larsson, Ann Steiner|title=Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media and a Contemporary Cultural Experience|date=1 December 2011|publisher=Nordic Academic Press|language=English|isbn=978-9185509638|quote=The fear of vampirism embodied in these early conceptions was used by the Church in order to impose its fundamental values on soviety. The Church therefore changed some of the typical vampire traits and gave them more religious connotations that are still very much in evidence in the vampire genre today. For example, the destruction of the vampire became a religious rite; crucifixes and holy water bestowed protection; and drinking the blood of a sinner strengthened the power of the Devil, while taking Communion afforded the communicant protection. Besides their roots in folklore and the influence of Christianity, vampire traits were shaped in the development of vampire literature.}}</ref> For example, the "ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association."<ref name="Stevenson2003">{{cite book|author= Gregory Stevenson|title=Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer|year=2003|publisher=]|language=English|isbn=0761828338|quote=If so, then the ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association.}}</ref><ref name="Holte1997">{{cite book|author= James Craig Holte|title=Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations|year=1997|publisher=]|language=English|isbn=0313292159|quote=Christian belief played an important part in the development of vampire lore. According to Montague Summers, who describes the Christian position in detail in ''The Vampire: His Kith and Kin'', Christianity accepts the existence of vampires and sees the power of the devil behind their creation. Since vampires are servants of Satan, the Church has power over them. Thus vampires flee from and can be destroyed by the crucifix, relics of saints, the sign of the cross, holy water, and above all, a consecrated host.}}</ref> | |||
The 12th-century British historians and chroniclers ] and ] recorded accounts of revenants,{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}}<ref>{{cite web|author=William of Newburgh|author2=Paul Halsall|author-link=William of Newburgh|title=Book 5, Chapter 22–24|website=Historia rerum Anglicarum|publisher=Fordham University|year=2000|access-date=16 October 2007|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.html|archive-date=19 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219150159/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.html|url-status=live}}</ref> though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant.{{sfn|Jones|1931|p=121}} The ] '']'' is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to vampires.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Ármann | last=Jakobsson |year=2009 | title=The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic ''Draugr'' and Demonic Contamination in ''Grettis Saga'' | journal=Folklore | issue=120 | page=309}}</ref> Vampiric beings were rarely written about in Jewish literature; the 16th-century rabbi ] (Radbaz) wrote of an uncharitable old woman whose body was unguarded and unburied for three days after she died and rose as a vampiric entity, killing hundreds of people. He linked this event to the lack of a '']'' (guarding) after death as the corpse could be a vessel for evil spirits.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law|last1=Epstein|first1=Saul|last2=Robinson|first2=Sara Libby|journal=Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural|year=2012|volume=1|issue=2|pages=232–51|doi=10.5325/preternature.1.2.0232|issn=2161-2188}}</ref> | |||
A special feature of ]ic beliefs, according to ] E. Levkievskaya, is that they tend to stress that becoming a vampire is determined by fate and can be predicted on the basis of physical traits. In the ] area, the northern regions (i.e. most of ]) are unique in that their undead, while having many of the features of the vampires of other Slavic peoples, don't drink blood and don't bear a name derived from the common Slavic root for "vampire". ] and ]ian legends are more "conventional", although in Ukraine the vampires may sometimes not be described as dead at all,<ref>Словник символів, Потапенко О.І., Дмитренко М.К., Потапенко Г.І. та ін., 1997.</ref> or may be seen as engaging in vampirism long before death. During ] epidemics in the 19th century, there were cases of people being burned alive by their neighbours on charges of being vampires.<ref name=levk>Levkievskaja, E.E. La mythologie slave : problèmes de répartition dialectale | |||
(une étude de cas : le vampire). Cahiers slaves n°1 (septembre 1997). </ref><ref>Франко И., Сожжение упырей в Нагуевичах (Кіевская старина. — 1890. — Т.29. — №4. — С.101-120.) </ref> | |||
In 1645, the Greek librarian of the Vatican, ], produced the first methodological description of the Balkan beliefs in vampires (Greek: vrykolakas) in his work ''De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus'' ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks").<ref>{{cite book| last = Melton| first= J. Gordon | title= The Vampire Book: The encyclopedia of the Undead | pages=9–10 | isbn=978-1-57859-350-7| publisher= Visible Ink Press | year= 2010}}</ref> Vampires properly originating in folklore were widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}} An early recording of the time came from the region of ] in modern ], in 1672; Local reports described a panic among the villagers inspired by the belief that ] had become a vampire after dying in 1656, drinking blood from victims and sexually harassing his widow. The village leader ordered a stake to be driven through his heart. Later, his corpse was also beheaded.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bohn |first1=Thomas M. |title=The Vampire: Origins of a European Myth |date=2019 |publisher=Berghahn Books |location=Cologne |isbn=978-1-78920-293-9 |pages=47–49}}</ref><!-- cites previous 3 sentences --> | |||
====Romanian==== | |||
{{Self-published|http://www.darknessembraced.com/}} | |||
]n vampires are called '']'' and classified as living or dead. Live ''strigoi'' are living witches with two hearts and/or two souls.<ref name="Cremene89">Cremene, p. 89</ref> They have the ability to send out their souls at night to meet with other ''strigoi'' or suck the blood of livestock and neighbours. Dead ''strigoi'' are reanimated corpses that also suck blood and attack their family. Live ''strigoi'' turned into the other variety after death, but there were also many other ways of becoming a dead ''strigoi''. Another type of vampire, or perhaps another term for a vampire in ] is '']''. | |||
].]] | |||
Romanian folklore described numerous ways of becoming a vampire. A person born with a ],<ref name="Cremene37">Cremene, p. 37</ref> an extra nipple,<ref name="Cremene38">Cremene, p. 38</ref> a tail,<ref name="Cremene38"/> or extra hair,<ref name="Cremene38"/> was doomed to become a vampire. The same fate applied to the seventh child in any family if all of his or her previous siblings were of the same sex, someone born too early, and someone whose mother had encountered a ] crossing her path. If a pregnant woman did not eat ] or was looked upon by a vampire or a witch, her child would also become a vampire. So would a child born out of ]. Others who became vampires were those who died an unnatural death or before ]. Finally a person with red hair and blue eyes was seen as a potential ''strigoi''.<ref name="Cremene38"/> Living vampires were identified by distributing garlic in church and observing who would refuse to eat it.{{Fact|date=June 2007}} | |||
From 1679, Philippe Rohr devotes an essay to the dead who chew their shrouds in their graves, a subject resumed by Otto in 1732, and then by ] in 1734. The subject was based on the observation that when digging up graves, it was discovered that some corpses had at some point either devoured the interior fabric of their coffin or their own limbs.<ref name=marigny93>{{cite book|last1=Marigny|first1=Jean|title=Sang pour Sang, Le Réveil des Vampires, Gallimard, coll|date=1993|isbn=978-2-07-053203-2|pages=50–52|publisher=Gallimard }}</ref> Ranft described in his treatise of a tradition in some parts of Germany, that to prevent the dead from masticating they placed a mound of dirt under their chin in the coffin, placed a piece of money and a stone in the mouth, or tied a handkerchief tightly around the throat.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2015|date=1751|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|pages=442–443|title-link=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref> In 1732 an anonymous writer writing as "the doctor Weimar" discusses the non-putrefaction of these creatures, from a theological point of view.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lecouteux|first1=Claude|title=Historie des vampires: Autopsie d'un mythe|date=1993|publisher=Imago|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-911416-29-3|pages=9–10}}</ref> In 1733, Johann Christoph Harenberg wrote a general treatise on vampirism and the ] cites local cases. Theologians and clergymen also address the topic.<ref name=marigny93/> | |||
Some theological disputes arose. The non-decay of vampires' bodies could recall the incorruption of the bodies of the saints of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Indeed, vampires were traditionally considered highly problematic within Christianity, as their apparent immortal existence ran against the Christian belief that all true believers may look forward to an eternal existence with body and soul as they were ], but only at the end of time when Jesus ]. Those who are resurrected as immortal before this are thus in no way part of the divine plan of salvation. The imperfect state of the vampire body and how they, in spite of their immortal nature, still needed to feed of the blood of the living, further reflected the problematic aspect of the vampires. Contrary to how the incorruptible saints foreshadowed the immortality promised all true Christians at the end of time, the immortality of the undead vampires was thus not a sign of salvation, but of perdition.<ref name=Endsjø>{{cite book|last=Endsjø|first=Dag Øistein|title=Flesh and Bones Forever: A History of Immortality|year=2023|publisher=Apocryphile Press|location=Hannacroix|isbn=978-1-958061-36-7|pages=178–179}}</ref> The unholy dimension of vampirism may also be reflected in how, in parts of Russia, the very word ], ''eretik'', was synonymous with a vampire. Whoever denied God or his commandments became an ''eretik'' after his death, the improperly immortal figure that wandered the night in search of people to feed on.<ref>Felix J. Oinas 1978. "Heretics as vampires and demons in Russia" in The Slavic and East European Journal 22:4 (1978):433</ref> A paragraph on vampires was included in the second edition (1749) of ''De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione'', On the ] of the servants of God and on ] of the blessed, written by Prospero Lambertini (]).<ref>{{cite book|author=Lambertini, P.|year=1749|title=De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione|volume=Pars prima|chapter= XXXI|pages=323–24}}</ref> In his opinion, while the ] of the bodies of saints was the effect of a divine intervention, all the phenomena attributed to vampires were purely natural or the fruit of "imagination, terror and fear". In other words, vampires did not exist.<ref>{{cite journal|author=de Ceglia F.P.|title=The Archbishop's Vampires. Giuseppe Davanzati's Dissertation and the Reaction of Scientific Italian Catholicism to the Moravian Events|journal= Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences|volume=61|issue=166/167|year=2011|pages=487–510|doi=10.1484/J.ARIHS.5.101493}}</ref> | |||
Romanian vampires were said to bite their victims over the heart or between the eyes, never on the neck.<ref name="Cremene100">Cremene, p. 100</ref> It would attack family members and livestock. Sudden deaths could be a sign that a vampire was around. They would also indulge in ]-like activity such as throwing things around in the house. Graves were often opened three years after the death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism. | |||
====18th-century vampire controversy==== | |||
Vampires were believed to be especially active in the winter, and more specifically on the eve of two religious holidays, the Feast of ] and the Feast of ]. Bram Stoker makes reference to this in his novel '']'' (1897) when Jonathan Harker is warned that at midnight "all the evil things in the world will have full sway." During these nights, the people kept their houses lit and used ] such as thorns, crosses and garlic to prevent the vampires from entering their homes. Cattle were also rubbed with garlic.<ref>http://www.darkness-embraced.com/php/Sections-index-req-printpage-artid-20.phtml</ref>{{Verify credibility|date=August 2007}}<!--this reference footnote indicates the source of (almost) the whole section, not just the last sentence. The tag applies to the source as a whole rather than a concrete statement.--> | |||
] (1750)]] | |||
In the early 18th century, despite the decline of many popular folkloric beliefs during the ], there was a dramatic increase in the popular belief in vampires, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout much of Europe.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}} The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in ] in 1721 and in the ] from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. The first infamous vampire case involved the corpses of ] from Serbia. Blagojević was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Blagojević supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}} | |||
In the second case, ], an ex-soldier-turned-farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while ]ing. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area; it was widely believed that Miloš had returned to prey on the neighbours.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283318599|title=Vampire Evolution|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|date=2003|journal=METAphor|access-date=20 November 2015|issue=3|page=20|archive-date=12 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112222202/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283318599_Vampire_Evolution|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=15–21}} | |||
====Roma==== | |||
] frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by the ]'s '']'', in which the Szgany Roma served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him. | |||
The Blagojević and Čečar incidents were well-documented. Government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=15–21}} The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}} Even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}} | |||
The '']'' (one who is dead) is believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person. It was often a relative who had caused their relative's death, or who did not properly observe the burial ceremonies, or kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper. Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would eventually exhaust the husband.<ref name=EoOc/> Male vampires could father children, known as '']s'', who could be hired to detect and get rid of vampires.<ref>Bunson, p. 64-69</ref> | |||
The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "vampire controversy,"<ref name="Melton1994">{{cite encyclopedia |entry=Vampire |title=The Vampire Book |author=J. Gordon Melton |publisher=Visible Ink Press |year=1994 |page=630 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampirebookencyc0000melt/page/630 |quote=the vampire controversy of the 1730s ... the eighteenth-century vampire controversy }}</ref> continued for a generation. At least sixteen contemporary treatises discussed the theological and philosophical implications of the vampire epidemic.<ref name="Frayling1978">{{cite book |chapter=From the orang-utan to the vampire: towards an anthropology of Rousseau |title=Rousseau after two hundred years (Proceedings of the Cambridge Bicentennial Colloqium) |author1=Christopher Frayling |author2=Robert Wokler |editor=R. A. Leigh |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Bristol |year=1982 |page=122 |quote=For details of the sixteen formal treatises and dissertations that discussed the implications of the 1731–32 'epidemic' (most of them written by German doctors and theologians), see Tony Faivre, ''Les Vampires'' (Paris, 1962), pp. 154–9; Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker, ''Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern'' (München, 1973), pp. 519–23; and Frayling's introduction to ''The Vampyre'' (London, 1978), pp. 31–4.}}</ref> | |||
Anyone who had a horrible appearance, was missing a finger, or had appendages similar to those of an animal, was believed to be a vampire. A person who died alone and unseen would become a vampire,<ref name="Vuk58">{{cite journal |last=Vukanovic |first=TP |year=1958|title=The Vampire |journal=Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society |volume=37 |pages=21-31}}</ref> likewise if a corpse swelled or turned black before burial.<ref name="Vuk58"/> Dogs, cats, plants or even agricultural tools could become vampires. ] kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood.<ref name ="Bunson278">Bunson, p. 278</ref> According to the late Serbian ethnologist ], Roma people in ] believed that vampires were invisible to most people, but could be seen "by a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday who wear their drawers and shirts inside out." Likewise, a settlement could be protected from a vampire "by finding a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday and making them wear their shirts and drawers inside out...This pair could see the vampire out of doors at night, but immediately after it saw them it would have to flee, head over heels." | |||
], a French theologian and scholar, published a comprehensive treatise in 1751 titled '']'' which investigated and analysed the evidence for vampirism.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}}{{efn|1=Calmet conducted extensive research and amassed judicial reports of vampiric incidents and extensively researched theological and mythological accounts as well, using the scientific method in his analysis to come up with methods for determining the validity for cases of this nature. As he stated in his treatise:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. Translated by Rev Henry Christmas & Brett Warren. 2015|date=1751|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|pages=303–304|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref> | |||
<blockquote>They see, it is said, men who have been dead for several months, come back to earth, talk, walk, infest villages, ill use both men and beasts, suck the blood of their near relations, make them ill, and finally cause their death; so that people can only save themselves from their dangerous visits and their hauntings by exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads, tearing out the heart, or burning them. These revenants are called by the name of oupires or vampires, that is to say, ]es; and such particulars are related of them, so singular, so detailed, and invested with such probable circumstances and such judicial information, that one can hardly refuse to credit the belief which is held in those countries, that these revenants come out of their tombs and produce those effects which are proclaimed of them.</blockquote>}} Numerous readers, including both ] (critical) and numerous ]s (supportive), interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}}{{efn|1=In the ''],'' Voltaire wrote:<ref>{{cite book|title=Philosophical Dictionary|author=Voltaire|year=1984|orig-year=1764|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-14-044257-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaldic0000volt}}</ref> | |||
====Greek==== | |||
{{main|Vrykolakas}} | |||
Although not related to ancient Greek, blood-drinking beings such as ], the modern Greek equivalent of a vampire is known as the '']'', similar in many ways to the European vampire. Belief in vampires (usually called βρυκόλακας, ''vrykolakas'', though reportedly referred to as καταχανάδες, ''katakhanades'', on ])<ref>{{cite web | title=The Year Round - Vampires and Ghouls | author=Dickens, Charles Jr | url=http://gogreece.about.com/od/weirdgreece/a/weirdcrete.htm | accessmonthday=18 March |accessyear=2007}}</ref> was persistent throughout Greek history, although vampires are now seen as mythical creatures in modern times rather than factual entities. Belief in vampire lore grew so prominent, that many practices were enforced to both prevent and combat vampirism. Many rituals were carried out, but most, if not all, have now fallen into decline. One ritual entailed that entailed the deceased was exhumed from its grave after three years of death. If the body was fully decayed, the remaining bones were put in a box by relatives and wine poured over them, a priest would then read from scriptures. However, if the body had not sufficiently decayed, the corpse would be labelled a vampire and treated appropriately.<ref name=Summers2>{{cite book |last=Summers |first=M |authorlink=Montague Summers |title=The Vampire in Europe|year=1968|publisher=University Books Inc|location=New York |isbn=|pages=217-281|chapter=Chapter IV: Modern Greece}}</ref> | |||
{{blockquote|These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into ]; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, ], ], Austria, and ], that the dead made this good cheer.}} }} | |||
According to Greek beliefs, vampirism could occur through various means: excommunication or desecrating a religious day, committing a great crime, or dying alone. Other more superstitious causes include having a cat jump across the grave, eating meat from a sheep killed by a wolf or having been cursed. It was also believed in more remote regions of Greece that unbaptized people would be doomed to vampirism in the afterlife. | |||
The controversy in Austria ceased when Empress ] sent her personal physician, ], to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. Van Swieten concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and the desecration of bodies, thus ending the vampire epidemic. Other European countries followed suit. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local folklore.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}} | |||
They were usually thought to be indistinguishable from living people, giving rise to many folk tales with this theme.<ref></ref> However, this was not the case everywhere: on ] vampires glowed in the dark, while on the Saronic islands vampires were thought to be hunchbacks with long nails; on the island of ] vampires were thought to have long canine teeth much like wolves. | |||
=== Non-European beliefs === | |||
Vampires could be harmless, sometimes returning to support their widows by their work. However, they were usually thought to be ravenous predators, killing their victims who would be condemned to become vampires,{{Fact|date=June 2007}}though blood-drinking in particular was not a prominent part of the legends. Vampires were so feared for their potential for great harm, that a village or an island would occasionally be stricken by a mass panic if a vampire invasion were believed imminent. Nicholas Dragoumis records such a panic on ] in the 1930s, following a ] epidemic.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} | |||
Beings having many of the attributes of European vampires appear in the folklore of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and India. Classified as vampires, all share the thirst for blood.<ref name=attwater>{{cite journal|author=Atwater, Cheryl|year=2000|title=Living in Death: The Evolution of Modern Vampirism|journal=Anthropology of Consciousness|volume=11|issue=1–2|pages=70–77|doi=10.1525/ac.2000.11.1-2.70}}</ref> | |||
==== Africa ==== | |||
Varieties of wards were employed for protection in different places, including blessed bread (antidoron) from the church, crosses and black-handled knives.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} To prevent vampires from rising from the dead, their hearts were pierced with iron nails whilst resting in their graves, or their bodies burned and the ashes scattered. Because the Church opposed burning people who had received the myron of ] in the baptism ritual, cremation was considered a last resort.<ref name=Tomkinson>{{cite book |last=Tomkinson |first=J.L. |authorlink= |title=|year=2004|publisher=Anagnosis|location=Athens |isbn=960-88087-0-7 |pages=|chapter=}}</ref> | |||
Various regions of Africa have folktales featuring beings with vampiric abilities: in ] the ] tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling '']'',{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=11}} and the ] of the ''],'' which can take the form of a ] and hunts children.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=2}} The eastern ] region has the ''],'' which can take the form of a large taloned bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the ] people of ] tell of the ''ramanga'', an outlaw or living vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=219}} In colonial East Africa, rumors circulated to the effect that employees of the state such as firemen and nurses were vampires, known in Swahili as ''wazimamoto''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=White|first=Luise|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/9780520922297|title=Speaking with Vampires|date=31 December 2000|publisher=University of California Press|doi=10.1525/9780520922297|isbn=978-0-520-92229-7|s2cid=258526552 |access-date=15 December 2020|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715155012/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520922297/html|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
==== |
==== Americas ==== | ||
The '']'' is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or ]. The term ''Rougarou'' possibly comes from the French {{lang|fr|]}} (meaning "werewolf") and is common in the ]. The stories of the ''Rougarou'' are widespread through the ] and ] in the United States.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=162–163}} Similar female monsters are the '']'' of ], and the '']'' and '']'' of ], while the ] of southern ] have the bloodsucking snake known as the '']''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Martinez Vilches, Oscar|title=Chiloe Misterioso: Turismo, Mitologia Chilota, leyendas|year=1992|page=179|publisher=Ediciones de la Voz de Chiloe|location=Chile|oclc=33852127|language=es}}</ref> '']'' hung backwards behind or near a door was thought to ward off vampiric beings in South American folklore.<ref name=Jaramillo/> ] described tales of the ], skull-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, driving them mad.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> | |||
The '']'' from the Scottish Highlands,<ref>{{cite book |last=Briggs |first=Katharine |authorlink=Katharine Mary Briggs|title=A Dictionary of Fairies|pages=p. 16|year=1976 |publisher=Penguin|location=Middlesex|isbn=0-14-00-4753-0}}</ref> and the '']'' of the ] are two ] spirits with decidedly vampiric tendencies.<ref name ="Briggs266">Briggs, p. 266</ref> The ''Bruxsa'' of ] is another female vampiric spirit hostile to humans. | |||
During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was ], particularly in ] and eastern ]. There are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family, although the term "vampire" was never used to describe the dead. The deadly disease ], or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption themselves.<ref name=sledzik>{{cite journal|last=Sledzik|first=Paul S.|author2=Nicholas Bellantoni|year=1994|title=Bioarcheological and biocultural evidence for the New England vampire folk belief|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=94|issue=2|pages=269–274|doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330940210 |pmid=8085617}}</ref> The most famous, and most recently recorded, case of suspected vampirism is that of nineteen-year-old ], who died in ] in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death, cut out her heart and burned it to ashes.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Vampires and Death in New England, 1784 to 1892|author=Bell, Michael E.|journal=Anthropology and Humanism|year=2006|volume=31|issue=2|pages=124–40|doi=10.1525/ahu.2006.31.2.124}}</ref> | |||
===World beliefs=== | |||
<!--under construction--> | |||
====New England==== | |||
During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was widespread in parts of New England, particularly in ] and Eastern ]. In this region there are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family (although the word "vampire" was never used to describe him/her). The deadly ], or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member (who had died of consumption him/herself).<ref name=Table>{{cite web|url=http://users.net1plus.com/vyrdolak/tableone.htm |title=Sledzik, Paul S. and Nicholas Bellantoni. 1994. Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief. In ''The American Journal of Physical Anthropology No. 94''. (A table of historic vampire accounts)|accessdate=2006-06-14}}</ref> The most famous (and latest recorded) case is that of nineteen year old ] who died in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death. Her heart was cut out then burnt to ashes.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://seacoastnh.com/Places_&_Events/The_Grave_Site/Real_Vampires_in_New_England?/ |title=Interview with a REAL Vampire Stalker |author=Bell, M.E. |publisher=SeacoastNH.com |accessdate=2006-06-14}}</ref> An account of this incident was found among the papers of Bram Stoker and the story closely resembles the events in his classic novel, ''Dracula''. | |||
] (1872–1913) was an Englishwoman who died and was buried in ]. After her death, a legend evolved that she was a vampire and bride of Dracula. On June 9 1993, the 80th anniversary of her death, locals in Pisco feared she would come back to life and take her revenge.<ref name="lanc"> {{cite news |last1=Henfield |first1=Sally |title=The 'Peruvian vampire' – from East Lancashire |url=https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/4385196.peruvian-vampire---east-lancashire/ |access-date=3 October 2024 |work=Lancashire Telegraph |date=21 May 2009}}</ref> | |||
====The Caribbean and the Americas==== | |||
]. ], ]]] | |||
The '']'' is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or voodoo. The term ''Loogaroo'' possibly comes from the French mythological creature called the '']'', a type of werewolf and is common in the ]. However, the stories of the ''Loogaroo'' are widespread through the ] and ] in the USA. Similar female monsters are the '']'' of ], and '']'' and '']'' of ]n folklore, while the ] of southern ] have the bloodsucking snake known as the '']''.<ref>{{es icon}}{{cite book |author=Martinez Vilches, Oscar|title=Chiloe Misterioso: Turismo, Mitologia Chilota, leyendas|year=1992|pages=179|publisher=Ediciones de la Voz de Chiloe |location=Chile|isbn=0-19-451308-4}}</ref> Aztec mythology described tales of the ], skeletal-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living and drove them mad. | |||
==== |
==== Asia ==== | ||
Vampires have appeared in ] since the late 1950s; the folklore behind it is western in origin.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=137–138}} The ] is a being whose head and neck detach from its body to fly about seeking human prey at night.<ref>{{cite book|title=Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things|url=https://archive.org/details/kwaidanstories00hearrich|last=Hearn|first=Lafcadio|author-link=Lafcadio Hearn|year=1903|publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Company|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-585-15043-7}}</ref> Legends of female vampiric beings who can detach parts of their upper body also occur in the ], ], and ]. There are two main vampiric creatures in the Philippines: the ] '']'' ("blood-sucker") and the ] '']'' ("self-segmenter"). The mandurugo is a variety of the ] that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, threadlike tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim.<ref name="ramos"/> The ''manananggal'' is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge batlike wings and prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck ]es from these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the ] and the ]) and the phlegm of sick people.<ref name="ramos">{{cite book|last=Ramos|first=Maximo D.|title=Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology|orig-year=1971|year=1990|publisher=Phoenix Publishing|location=Quezon|isbn=978-971-06-0691-7}}</ref> | |||
Various regions of Africa have folkloric tales of beings with vampiric abilities: in West Africa the ] people tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling '']'',<ref name = "Buns11">Bunson, p. 11</ref> and the ] the '']'', which can take the form of a ] and hunts children.<ref name = "Buns2">Bunson, p. 2</ref> The eastern Cape region has the '']'', which can take the form of a large taloned bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the ] people of ] the '']'', an outlaw or living vampire who drank the blood and ate the nail clippings of nobles.<ref>Bunson, p. 219</ref> | |||
The Malaysian '']'' is a woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of ] or other unnatural means, and is most commonly described in local folklore to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=197}} Malaysians hung ''jeruju'' (thistles) around the doors and windows of houses, hoping the ''Penanggalan'' would not enter for fear of catching its intestines on the thorns.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=34}} The ] is a similar being from ] of Indonesia.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Witchcraft, Grief, and the Ambivalence of Emotions|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=26|issue=3|year=1999|pages=711–737|doi=10.1525/ae.1999.26.3.711|first=Michele|last=Stephen}}</ref> A '']'' or ''Matianak'' in Indonesia,{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=208}} or '']'' or '']'' in Malaysia,{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=150}} is a woman who ] and became undead, seeking revenge and terrorising villages. She appeared as an attractive woman with long black hair that covered a hole in the back of her neck, with which she sucked the blood of children. Filling the hole with her hair would drive her off. Corpses had their mouths filled with glass beads, eggs under each armpit, and needles in their palms to prevent them from becoming ''langsuir.'' This description would also fit the ].{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=35}} | |||
====India==== | |||
India of later times is also familiar with many vampiric entities. The ] or ''Prét'' is the soul of a man who died an untimely death.<ref>Bunson, p. 23-24</ref> It wanders around animating dead bodies at night, attacking the living much like a ]. In northern India, there is the ''BrahmarākŞhasa'', a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood. | |||
] ethnic minority of Vietnam, whose communities were said to be terrorized by the blood-sucking ''ma cà rồng''.|alt=See caption]] | |||
====Southeast Asia==== | |||
In ], the word used to translate Western vampires, "ma cà rồng", originally referred to a type of demon that haunts modern-day ], within the communities of the ] ]. The word was first mentioned in the chronicles of 18th-century ] scholar ],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lê Quý Đôn |title=Kiến văn tiểu lục |date=2007 |publisher=NXB Văn hóa-Thông tin |page=353}}</ref> who spoke of a creature that lives among humans, but stuffs its toes into its ] at night and flies by its ears into houses with pregnant women to suck their blood. Having fed on these women, the ''ma cà rồng'' then returns to its house and cleans itself by dipping its toes into barrels of ] water. This allows the ''ma cà rồng'' to live undetected among humans during the day, before heading out to attack again by night.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trương Quốc Dụng |title=Thoái thực ký văn |date=2020 |publisher=Writers' Association Publishing House}}</ref> | |||
Similar legends of female vampire-like beings who can detach parts of their upper body occur in the ], ] and ]. | |||
There are two vampire-like creatures in the Philippines: the ] ''mandurugo'' (blood-sucker) and the ] '']'' (self-segmenter or viscera sucker). The mandurugo is a variety of the ] that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, thread-like tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim. The '']'' of ] Filipino folklore is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings to prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck fetuses off these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the heart and the liver) and the phlegm of sick people.<ref name="ramos">{{cite book |last=Ramos |first=Maximo D. |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology |year=1971 |publisher=University of the Philippines Press |location=Philippines |isbn= }}</ref> | |||
], sometimes called "Chinese vampires" by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (]) from their victims. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 ]) fails to leave the deceased's body.<ref>{{cite book|last=Suckling|first=Nigel|title=Vampires|year=2006|publisher=Facts, Figures & Fun|location=London|isbn=978-1-904332-48-0|page=|url=https://archive.org/details/vampires0000suck/page/31}}</ref> ''Jiangshi'' are usually represented as mindless creatures with no independent thought.<ref>{{cite book|last=劉|first=天賜|title=僵屍與吸血鬼|year=2008|publisher=Joint Publishing (H.K.)|location=Hong Kong|isbn=978-962-04-2735-0|page=196}}</ref> This monster has greenish-white furry skin, perhaps derived from fungus or ] growing on corpses.<ref>{{cite book|last=de Groot|first=J.J.M.|title=The Religious System of China|year=1910|publisher=]|oclc=7022203}}<!--many recent editions for this--></ref> Jiangshi legends have inspired a ] and literature in Hong Kong and East Asia. Films like '']'' and '']'' were released during the jiangshi cinematic boom of the 1980s and 1990s.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lam|first=Stephanie|year=2009|title=Hop on Pop: Jiangshi Films in a Transnational Context|journal=CineAction|issue=78|pages=46–51}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Hudson|first=Dave|title=Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms|year=2009|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8108-6923-3|page=215}}</ref> | |||
The Malaysian '']'' may either be a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of ], ], ], or ] means which is most commonly described in local folklores to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women.<ref>Bunson, p. 197</ref> The ] is similar being from ].<ref>{{cite journal| title=Witchcraft, Grief, and the Ambivalence of Emotions |author=Michele Stephen |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=26 |issue=3 |date=August 1999 |pages=711–737 |url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-0496%28199908%2926%3A3%3C711%3AWGATAO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5 |accessdate=2007-10-23}}</ref> A '']'', ''Kuntilanak'' or ''Matianak'' in Indonesia,<ref>Bunson, p. 208</ref> or ''Langsuir'' in ],<ref>Bunson, p. 150</ref> is a woman who died during childbirth and becomes undead, seeking revenge and terrorizing villages. | |||
=== |
=== Modern beliefs === | ||
In modern fiction, the vampire tends to be depicted as a suave, charismatic ].{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=2}} Vampire hunting societies still exist, but they are largely formed for social reasons.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}} Allegations of vampire attacks swept through ] during late 2002 and early 2003, with mobs stoning one person to death and attacking at least four others, including Governor ], based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.<ref>{{cite news|first=Raphael|last=Tenthani|title='Vampires' strike Malawi villages|work=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2602461.stm|date=23 December 2002|access-date=29 December 2007|archive-date=18 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818193930/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2602461.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> Fears and violence recurred in late 2017, with 6 people accused of being vampires killed.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/j5jxnx/mobs-in-malawi-have-killed-six-people-for-being-vampires|title=Mobs in Malawi have killed six people for being "vampires"|date=19 October 2017|work=VICE News|access-date=2 January 2018|language=en|archive-date=2 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102020221/https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/j5jxnx/mobs-in-malawi-have-killed-six-people-for-being-vampires|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
] ({{zh-tsp|t=僵屍 or 殭屍|s=僵尸|p=jiāngshī}}; literally "stiff ]"), sometimes called ''Chinese vampires'' by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (]) from their victims. ''jiāngshī'' is pronounced ''geungsi'' in ], and ''gangshi'' in ]. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 ''pò'') fails to leave the deceased's body.<ref>{{cite book|last=Suckling |first=Nigel |title=Vampires |year=2006|pages=31 |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. |location= |isbn=190433248X}}</ref> One unusual feature of folklore is their greenish-white furry skin; one theory is this is derived from ] or ] growing on corpses.<ref>{{cite book |last=de Groot |first=JJM |title=The Religious System of China |year=1892-1910 |publisher=The Hague}}</ref> The influence of Western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in modern times. | |||
] | |||
Jiang Shis were a popular subject in ] during the 1980s; some movies even featured both Jiang Shis and "Western" zombies. In the movies, Jiang Shis can be put to sleep by putting on their foreheads a piece of yellow paper with a spell written on it (Chinese talisman or 符 ] fú). Generally in the movies the Jiang Shi are dressed in imperial ] clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to ]. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with an outrageously long ] and long ]. They can be evaded by holding one's breath, as they track living creatures by detecting their breathing. Their visual depiction as horrific ] officials reflects a common stereotype among the ] of the foreign ] people, who founded the much-despised dynasty, as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity. | |||
In early 1970, local press spread rumours that a vampire haunted ] in London. Amateur ]s flocked in large numbers to the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "]" and who later claimed to have ] and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Highgate Vampire: The Infernal World of the Undead Unearthed at London's Highgate Cemetery and Environs|last=Manchester|first=Sean|year=1991|location=London|publisher=Gothic Press|isbn=978-1-872486-01-7}}</ref> In January 2005, rumours circulated that an attacker had bitten a number of people in ], England, fuelling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. Local police stated that no such crime had been reported and that the case appears to be an ].<ref name=guardian1>{{cite news|title=Reality Bites|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,1392607,00.html|date=18 January 2005|access-date=29 December 2007|location=London|first=Stuart|last=Jeffries|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715154949/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/18/britishidentity.stuartjeffries|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
The '']'' ("goat-sucker") of ] and ] is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of ]s, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s.<ref name="trail">{{cite web|author=Stephen Wagner|url=http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm|title=On the trail of the Chupacabras|access-date=5 October 2007|archive-date=19 September 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050919215215/http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
It is also conventional wisdom of ] in Chinese architecture that a threshold (]: 門檻), a piece of wood approximately 15 cm (6 in) high, be installed along the width of the door at the bottom to prevent a Jiang Shi from entering the household. | |||
In Europe, where much of the vampire folklore originates, the vampire is usually considered a fictitious being; many communities may have embraced the revenant for economic purposes. In some cases, especially in small localities, beliefs are still rampant and sightings or claims of vampire attacks occur frequently. In Romania during February 2004, several relatives of Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it.<ref>{{cite news|last=Taylor | first= T.|date=28 October 2007|title=The real vampire slayers|work=The Independent|url=http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3096920.ece|access-date=14 December 2007|location=London|archive-date=19 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219095645/http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3096920.ece|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
====Japan==== | |||
], (Japanese meaning 'blood sucking demon') are vampires in Japan. Very few stories of vampiric monsters were actually told in Japan until the mid 1990's. They are common in Japanese fiction such as ], and are often simply a Japanese word for vampires in general (usually European) or less commonly, a unique race of Japanese vampiric beings. They are often linked to a system of blood purity in which the original kyūketsuki are the most powerful and are called ]. Shino are able to convert others to kyūketuki, but their power will generally be weaker than the original. | |||
== |
== Origins of vampire beliefs == | ||
Commentators have offered many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs and related ]. Everything ranging from ] to the early ignorance of the body's ] cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=1–4}} | |||
Belief in vampires persists to this day. While some cultures preserve their original traditions about the immortal, most modern-day believers are more influenced by the ] as it occurs in films and literature. | |||
=== Pathology === | |||
There were rumours spread by the local press in early 1970 that a vampire haunted ] in ]. Amateur vampire hunters flocked in large numbers in the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "]" and who later claimed to have ]d and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area. | |||
==== Decomposition ==== | |||
Author Paul Barber stated that belief in vampires resulted from people of ] attempting to explain the natural, but to them inexplicable, process of death and decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=1–4}} People sometimes suspected vampirism when a cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when disinterred. Rates of decomposition vary depending on temperature and soil composition, and many of the signs are little known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all or to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.csicop.org/si/show/staking_claims_the_vampires_of_folklore_and_fiction/|title=Staking Claims: The Vampires of Folklore and Fiction|last=Barber|first=Paul|date=March–April 1996|journal=]|access-date=29 June 2015|volume=20|issue=2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701000450/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/staking_claims_the_vampires_of_folklore_and_fiction/|archive-date=1 July 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy"—changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the ], an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=117}} The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=114–115}} Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=105}} The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan-like sound when the gases moved past the vocal cords, or a sound reminiscent of ] when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the ] case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect".{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=119}} After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Blagojevich case—the ] and ] emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails".{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=119}} | |||
In the modern folklore of ] and ], the '']'' (''goat-sucker'') is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of ]s, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s. | |||
==== Premature burial ==== | |||
Hysteria about alleged attacks of vampires swept through the ]n country of ] during late 2002 and early 2003. Mobs stoned one individual to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor ], based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.<ref>{{cite web|title='Vampires' strike Malawi villages |publisher=] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2602461.stm |year=2002 |accessdate=2005-08-17}}</ref> | |||
Vampire legends may have also been influenced by individuals being ] because of shortcomings in the medical knowledge of the time. In some cases in which people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads, noses or faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding".{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=48–49}} A problem with this theory is the question of how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for any extended period without food, water or fresh air. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=128}} Another likely cause of disordered tombs is ].{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=137–138}} | |||
==== Disease ==== | |||
In ] during February of 2004, several relatives of the late Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it.<ref>"Romanian villagers decry police investigation into vampire slaying", Matthew Schofield, ] Newspapers, ] ]</ref> | |||
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with clusters of deaths from unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community.<ref name=sledzik/> The epidemic allusion is obvious in the classical cases of Petar Blagojevich and Arnold Paole, and even more so in the case of ] and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, tuberculosis, was associated with outbreaks of vampirism. As with the pneumonic form of ], it was associated with breakdown of lung tissue which would cause blood to appear at the lips.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=115}} | |||
In 1985, biochemist ] proposed a link between the rare blood disorder ] and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous ], he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cox |first1=Ann M. |title=Porphyria and vampirism: another myth in the making |journal=Postgraduate Medical Journal |date=1995 |volume=71 |issue=841 |pages=643–644 |doi=10.1136/pgmj.71.841.643-a|pmid=7494765 |pmc=2398345 |s2cid=29495879 }}</ref> | |||
In January 2005, rumours began to circulate that an attacker had bitten a number of people in ], ], fueling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. However, local police stated that no such crime had been reported. This case appears to be an ].<ref name=guardian1>{{cite web|title=Reality Bites|publisher=] |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1392607,00.html|year=2005 |accessdate=2005-08-17}}</ref> | |||
The theory has been rebuffed medically as suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the haem in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional (bloodsucking) vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=100}} Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. In any case, Dolphin did not go on to publish his work more widely.<ref>{{cite web|last=Adams|first=Cecil|title=Did vampires suffer from the disease porphyria—or not?|website=The Straight Dope|publisher=Chicago Reader|date=7 May 1999|access-date=25 December 2007|url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html|archive-date=20 July 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720115852/http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Despite being dismissed by experts, the link gained media attention<ref>{{Cite news|last=Pierach|first=Claus A.|title=Vampire Label Unfair To Porphyria Sufferers|newspaper=The New York Times|date=13 June 1985|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E4D71239F930A25755C0A963948260|access-date=25 December 2007|archive-date=21 April 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080421062059/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E4D71239F930A25755C0A963948260|url-status=live}}</ref> and entered popular modern folklore.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kujtan|first=Peter W.|title=Porphyria: The Vampire Disease|publisher=The Mississauga News online|date=29 October 2005|url=http://www.bydewey.com/drkporphyria.html|access-date=9 November 2009|archive-date=24 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124132104/https://www.bydewey.com/drkporphyria.html|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
In March 2007, self-proclaimed vampire hunters broke into the tomb of ], former president of ] and ], and staked his body through the heart into the ground. Although the group involved claimed this act was to prevent Milošević from returning as a vampire, it is not known whether those involved actually believed this could happen or if the crime was simply politically motivated.<ref>{{cite web|title=Slobodan Milosevic's heart staked |year=2007 |url=http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2229686.html?menu=news.quirkies}}</ref> | |||
Juan Gómez-Alonso, a neurologist, examined the possible link of rabies with vampire folklore. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to hypersensitivity, which is a symptom of rabies. It can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (thus becoming nocturnal) and ]. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection (an allusion to the legend that vampires have no reflection). ] and ]s, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gómez-Alonso|first=Juan|year=1998|title=Rabies: a possible explanation for the vampire legend|journal=Neurology|volume=51|issue=3|pages=856–59|pmid=9748039|doi=10.1212/WNL.51.3.856|s2cid=219202098}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|date=24 September 1998|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm|title=Rabies-The Vampire's Kiss|work=BBC News|access-date=18 March 2007|archive-date=17 March 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060317102944/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
==Natural propagations for beliefs== | |||
===Pathology=== | |||
====Decomposition==== | |||
People sometimes reported that the cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when the coffin of an alleged vampire was opened. This was often taken to be evidence of vampirism. However, corpses decompose at different speeds depending on temperature and soil composition, and some of the signs of decomposition are not widely known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all, or, ironically, to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life.<ref>{{cite web|last=Barber |first=Paul |title=Staking claims: the vampires of folklore and fiction |work=Skeptical Inquirer |date=]|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n2_v20/ai_18158446/pg_1 |accessdate=2006-04-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Benecke |first=Mark and David Pescod-Taylor |title=The Restless Dead: Vampires & Decomposition |work=Bizarre Magazine, May-June 1997|url=http://www.benecke.com/vampires_bizmag.html |accessdate=2006-10-23}}</ref> Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed" and "ruddy" - changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the ], an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life.<ref name ="Barb117">Barber, p. 117</ref> The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity.<ref name="Barb1145"> Folkloric accounts generally report the alleged vampire as having ruddy or dark skin, not the pale skin of vampires in literature and film. Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition.<ref name ="Barb105">Barber, p. 105</ref> The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan when the gases moved past the vocal chords, or a sound reminiscent of ] when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the ] case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect". | |||
=== Psychodynamic theories === | |||
After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown.<ref name ="Barb119">Barber, p. 119</ref> At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Plogojowitz case - the ] and ]s emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails". Finally, decomposition also causes the body to shift or contort itself, adding to the illusion that the corpse has been active after death. | |||
In his 1931 treatise ''On the Nightmare'', Welsh ] ] asserted that vampires are symbolic of several unconscious drives and ]s. Emotions such as love, guilt, and hate fuel the idea of the return of the dead to the grave. Desiring a reunion with loved ones, mourners may ] the idea that the recently dead must in return yearn the same. From this arises the belief that folkloric vampires and revenants visit relatives, particularly their spouses, first.{{sfn|Jones|1931|pp=100–102}} | |||
In cases where there was unconscious guilt associated with the relationship, the wish for reunion may be subverted by anxiety. This may lead to ], which ] had linked with the development of morbid dread.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Jones|first=Ernest|year=1911|title=The Pathology of Morbid Anxiety|journal=Journal of Abnormal Psychology|volume=6|issue=2|pages=81–106|doi=10.1037/h0074306|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1429155|access-date=5 July 2019|archive-date=3 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003143621/https://zenodo.org/record/1429155|url-status=live}}</ref> Jones surmised in this case the original wish of a (sexual) reunion may be drastically changed: desire is replaced by fear; love is replaced by sadism, and the object or loved one is replaced by an unknown entity. The sexual aspect may or may not be present.{{sfn|Jones|1931|p=106}} Some modern critics have proposed a simpler theory: People identify with immortal vampires because, by so doing, they overcome, or at least temporarily escape from, their ].<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202044326/https://books.google.com/books?id=KXOUiGfJ8_oC&pg=PT205&lpg=PP1&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html |date=2 February 2017 }}</ref> | |||
====Premature burial==== | |||
It has also been hypothesized that vampire legends were influenced by individuals being buried alive, due to primitive knowledge in medicine. In some cases where people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads/noses/faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding".<ref name="Marigny2">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=48-49 |chapter=The Golden Age of the Vampire}}</ref> A problem with this theory is how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for an extended period without food, water or oxygen. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies.<ref name ="Barber128">Barber, p. 128</ref> Another likely cause of disordered tombs, though, is that of graverobbing.<ref name ="Barber13738">Barber, p. 137-38</ref> | |||
Jones linked the innate sexuality of bloodsucking with ], with a folkloric connection with ]-like behaviour. He added that when more normal aspects of sexuality are repressed, regressed forms may be expressed, in particular ]; he felt that ] is integral in vampiric behaviour.{{sfn|Jones|1931|pp=116–120}} | |||
====Contagion==== | |||
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with a series of deaths due to unindentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community.<ref name=NEF>{{cite web|url=http://users.net1plus.com/vyrdolak/tableone.htm|title=Sledzik, Paul S. and Nicholas Bellantoni. 1994. Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the New England Vampire Folk Belief. In ''The American Journal of Physical Anthropology No. 94'' |accessdate=2006-06-14}}</ref> The "] pattern" is obvious in the classical cases of ] and ], and even more so in the case of ] and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, ], was associated with outbreaks of vampirism (see ]). | |||
=== Political interpretations === | |||
In his book, ''De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis'' (1725), Michaël Ranft attempted to explain folk beliefs in vampires in a natural way. He says that, in the event of the death of every villager, some other person or people - much probably a person related to the first dead - who saw or touched the corpse, would eventually die either of some disease related to exposure to the corpse or of a frenetic delirium caused by the panic of merely seeing the corpse. These dying people would say that the dead man had appeared to them and tortured them in many ways. The other people in the village would exhume the corpse to see what it had been doing. He gives the following explanation when talking about the case of ]: | |||
] from 1885, depicting the ] as the "Irish Vampire" preying on a sleeping woman.|alt=See caption]] | |||
{{quotation|This brave man perished by a sudden or violent death. This death, whatever it is, can provoke in the survivors the visions they had after his death. Sudden death gives rise to inquietude in the familiar circle. Inquietude has sorrow as a companion. Sorrow brings melancholy. Melancholy engenders restless nights and tormenting dreams. These dreams enfeeble body and spirit until illness overcomes and, eventually, death.}} | |||
The reinvention of the vampire myth in the modern era is not without political overtones.<ref>{{cite book|last=Glover|first=David|year=1996|title=Vampires, Mummies, and Liberals: Bram Stoker and the Politics of Popular Fiction|publisher=Duke University Press|place=Durham, NC.|isbn=978-0-8223-1798-2 }}</ref> The aristocratic Count Dracula, alone in his castle apart from a few demented retainers, appearing only at night to feed on his peasantry, is symbolic of the parasitic '']''. In his entry for "Vampires" in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' (1764), Voltaire notices how the mid-18th century coincided with the decline of the folkloric belief in the existence of vampires but that now "there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/complete.html |title=Vampires. – Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. VII (Philosophical Dictionary Part 5) (1764) |access-date=11 June 2019 |archive-date=18 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318065646/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/complete.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> | |||
====Porphyria==== | |||
], a rare blood disorder that disrupts the production of ], has been proposed as an origin of reported vampirism. It was thought to be more common than elsewhere in small Transylvanian villages (roughly 1000 years ago) where inbreeding probably occurred. The haem group, found in every blood cell in the human body, is excited by electrons, but in a controlled fashion. However, the haem groups in porphyria sufferers causes uncontrollable tissue, bone and skin damage, made worse when the person comes into contact with sunlight.{{clarifyme}} This would have given the porphyria sufferer a very pallid skin colour, with teeth that appear larger than normal, due to the porphyria damaging the gum tissue and causing it to recede. These people would have been very anemic, and drinking (animal) blood was a traditional treatment for anemia.{{Fact|date=April 2007}} | |||
Marx defined capital as "dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks".{{efn|1=An extensive discussion of the different uses of the vampire metaphor in Marx's writings can be found in {{cite web |last=Policante |first=A. |url=http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Policante.pdf |title=Vampires of Capital: Gothic Reflections between horror and hope |year=2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128025458/http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Policante.pdf |archive-date=28 January 2012 }} in {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206054043/http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/2010.html |date=6 December 2015 }}, 2010.}} ], in his '']'', gives this political interpretation an extra ironic twist when protagonist ], a middle-class solicitor, becomes the next vampire; in this way the capitalist ] becomes the next parasitic class.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brass|first=Tom|journal=Dialectical Anthropology|volume=25|pages=205–237|year=2000|title=Nymphs, Shepherds, and Vampires: The Agrarian Myth on Film|doi=10.1023/A:1011615201664|issue=3/4|s2cid=141136948}}</ref> | |||
Certain forms of ] are also associated with neurological or ] symptoms. However, suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the heme in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease.{{Fact|date=March 2007}} | |||
====Rabies==== | |||
] has been linked with vampire folklore. Dr Juan Gomez-Alonso, a neurologist at Xeral Hospital in ], Spain, examined this in a report in the journal ''Neurology''. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to hypersensitivity, which is a symptom of rabies. The disease can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (i.e., becoming nocturnal) and hypersexuality. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection, which relates to the legend of a vampire not having a reflection. Wolves and bats, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others, and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm |title=BBC-Rabies-The Vampire's Kiss |accessdate=2007-03-18}}</ref> | |||
===Psychopathology=== | === Psychopathology === | ||
A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. ]s ] and ] were both called "vampires" in the ] after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. In 1932, an unsolved murder case in ], Sweden, was nicknamed the "]", because of the circumstances of the victim's death.<ref name=Stig1>{{cite book|last=Linnell|first=Stig|title=Stockholms spökhus och andra ruskiga ställen|orig-year=1968|year=1993|publisher=Raben Prisma|isbn=978-91-518-2738-4|language=sv}}</ref> The late-16th-century Hungarian countess and mass murderer ] became infamous in later centuries' works, which depicted her bathing in her victims' blood to retain beauty or youth.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|pp=68–71}} | |||
Some psychologists in modern times recognize a disorder called ''clinical vampirism'' or '']'', from ]'s insect-eating henchman, ], in the novel by ] in which the victim is obsessed with drinking blood, either from animals or humans. | |||
=== Vampire bats === | |||
There have been a number of murderers who performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. ]s ] and ] were both called "vampires" in the ]s after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. Similarly, in ], an unsolved murder case in ], ], was nicknamed the "]", due to the circumstances of the victim’s death.<ref name=Stig1>{{sv icon}}{{cite book|last=Linnell |first=Stig |authorlink= |title=Stockholms spökhus och andra ruskiga ställen|year=1968|publisher=|location=|isbn=978-91-518-2738-4|pages=|chapter=}}</ref> The infamous Hungarian countess and mass murderer ] of the late 16th and early 17th century was popularised in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most common ] of these works that of her bathing in her victims' blood in order to retain beauty or youth clearly has a common theme with vampirism and was belately linked in the 1970s. | |||
{{main|Vampire bat}} | |||
] in Peru.|alt=See caption]] | |||
Although many cultures have stories about them, ]s have only recently become an integral part of the traditional vampire lore. Vampire bats were integrated into vampire folklore after they were discovered on the South American mainland in the 16th century.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}} There are no vampire bats in Europe, but ]s and ]s have long been associated with the supernatural and omens, mainly because of their nocturnal habits.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}}<ref name="Cooper92">{{cite book|last=Cooper|first=J.C.|title=Symbolic and Mythological Animals|pages=25–26|year=1992|publisher=Aquarian Press|location=London|isbn=978-1-85538-118-6}}</ref> | |||
The three species of vampire bats are all ] to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any ] relatives within human memory. It is therefore impossible that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the vampire bat. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the '']'' records their folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. The danger of ] infection aside, the vampire bat's bite is usually not harmful to a person, but the bat has been known to actively feed on humans and large prey such as cattle and often leaves the trademark, two-prong bite mark on its victim's skin.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}} | |||
] is a term for a contemporary ] of people largely within the Goth subculture who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, ]s, the fiction of ], and the styles of Victorian England.<ref>{{cite book |last=Skal |first=David J. |title=The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror |year=1993|pages = p. 342-43 |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |isbn=0-14-024002-0}}</ref> | |||
The literary ] transforms into a bat several times in the novel, and vampire bats themselves are mentioned twice in it. The 1927 stage production of ''Dracula'' followed the novel in having Dracula turn into a bat, as did the ], where ] would transform into a bat.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}} The bat transformation scene was used again by ] in 1943's '']''.{{sfn|Skal|1996|pp=19–21}} | |||
===Vampire bats=== | |||
] near ]]] | |||
{{seealso|Vampire bat}} | |||
]s have become an integral part of the traditional vampire only recently, although many cultures have stories about them. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. Conversely, the Gypsies thought them lucky and wore charms made of bat bones. In English ] tradition, a bat means "Awareness of the powers of darkness and chaos".<ref>{{cite web|last= |first= | title=HERALDIC "MEANINGS" |work=American College of Heraldry |url=http://www.americancollegeofheraldry.org/achsymbols.html |accessdate=2006-04-30}}</ref> In ], ] was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. The three species of actual ]s are all ] to ], and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any ] relatives within human memory. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the bat. During the 16th century the ] conquistadors first came into contact with vampire bats and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their legendary vampires. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' records the folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. It wasn't long before vampire bats were adapted into fictional tales, and they have become one of the more important vampire associations in popular culture. | |||
==In |
== In modern culture == | ||
{{see also|List of vampires}} | |||
<!--*****This section is a general overview - do not add cultural references here, add them to the links given above... Thanks.*****--> | |||
<!--**This section is a general overview, do not add cultural references here, add them to the subarticles... Thanks.*****--> | |||
The vampire is now a dominant fixture in popular fiction and horror titles; this stems from the early 1800s after a series of vampiric novels were released, but the vampire and fiction certainly date back further into the late 1700s when the revenant appeared in poems such as ]'s 1797 work of ''Die Braut von Corinth'' (''The Bride of Corinth'').<ref name="Marigny poems">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=114-115 |chapter=Documents: The vampire in poetry}}</ref> ] introduced the vampire theme to Western literature in his ] '']'' (1813), but it was his personal physician ] who authored the first "true" vampire story called '']''. The vampire made the transition into prose works when Poldori used Byron's own wild life as the model for his undead protagonist ]. Poldori had earlier composed an enigmatic fragmentary story concerning the mysterious fate of an aristocrat named Augustus Darvell whilst journeying in the Orient - as his contribution to the famous ghost story competition at the ] by ] in 1816, between him, ], ] and Polidori. The story was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.<ref name="SU378">Silver & Ursini, p. 37-38</ref> | |||
The vampire is now a fixture in popular fiction. Such fiction began with 18th-century poetry and continued with 19th-century short stories, the first and most influential of which was ]'s "]" (1819), featuring the vampire ].<ref name=":1">{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280805194|title=From Nosteratu to Von Carstein: shifts in the portrayal of vampires|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|date=2001|journal=Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies|access-date=1 November 2015|issue=16|pages=97–106|archive-date=25 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125163106/http://www.researchgate.net/publication/280805194_From_Nosteratu_to_Von_Carstein_shifts_in_the_portrayal_of_vampires|url-status=live}}</ref> Lord Ruthven's exploits were further explored in a series of vampire plays in which he was the ]. The vampire theme continued in ] serial publications such as '']'' (1847) and culminated in the pre-eminent vampire novel in history: '']'' by ], published in 1897.<ref name="Christopher">{{cite book |last=Frayling |first=Christopher |title=Vampyres, Lord Byron to Count Dracula |year=1991 |location=London |publisher=Faber |isbn=978-0-571-16792-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571167920 |url-access=registration }}</ref> | |||
Over time, some attributes now regarded as integral became incorporated into the vampire's profile: fangs and vulnerability to sunlight appeared over the course of the 19th century, with Varney the Vampire and Count Dracula both bearing protruding teeth,{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=99}} and ] of ] '']'' (1922) fearing daylight.{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=104}} The cloak appeared in stage productions of the 1920s, with a high collar introduced by playwright ] to help Dracula 'vanish' on stage.{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=62}} Lord Ruthven and Varney were able to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=38–39}} Implied though not often explicitly documented in folklore, ] is one attribute which features heavily in vampire films and literature. Much is made of the price of eternal life, namely the incessant need for the blood of former equals.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=131}} | |||
===Literature=== | |||
=== Literature === | |||
{{main|Vampire literature}} | {{main|Vampire literature}} | ||
]''|alt=See caption]] | |||
]" by D.H. Friston, 1872, from ''The Dark Blue'']] | |||
The vampire or revenant first appeared in poems such as ''The Vampire'' (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, '']'' (1773) by ], ''Die Braut von Corinth'' (''The Bride of Corinth'') (1797) by ], ]'s ''Thalaba the Destroyer'' (1801), ]'s "The Vampyre" (1810), ]'s ] (1810) ("Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore") and "Ballad" in '']'' (1811) about a reanimated corpse, Sister Rosa, ]'s unfinished '']'' and ]'s '']''.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=114–115}} | |||
'']'' was a landmark popular mid-] ] story by ] (alternatively attributed to ]), which first appeared 1845-47 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as '']s'' because of their inexpensive price and typically gruesome contents. The story was published in book form in 1847 and was of epic length: the original edition runs to 868 double columned pages divided into 220 chapters. It has a distinctly suspenseful style, using vivid imagery to describe the horrifying exploits of Varney.<ref name="SU389"/> Other examples of early vampire stories exist, such as ]'s unfinished poem '']'', and ]'s ] vampire story, "]" published in 1871. Like Varney before her, the vampire Carmilla is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light as the compulsion of her condition is highlighted.<ref name="SU401">Silver & Ursini, p. 40-41</ref> | |||
Byron was also credited with the first prose fiction piece concerned with vampires: "The Vampyre" (1819). This was in reality authored by Byron's personal physician, ], who adapted an enigmatic fragmentary tale of his illustrious patient, "]" (1819), also known as "The Burial: A Fragment".{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}}<ref name="Christopher"/> Byron's own dominating personality, mediated by his lover ] in her unflattering ''roman-a-clef'' ''Glenarvon'' (a Gothic fantasia based on Byron's wild life), was used as a model for Polidori's undead protagonist ]. ''The Vampyre'' was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=37–38}} | |||
However, despite all earlier efforts to portray the vampire in ], none have been as influenticial nor as definitive as ]'s '']''.<ref name="SU43">Silver & Ursini, p. 43</ref> Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease (contagious demonic possession), with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in a 1897 ] ] where ] and ] were common. Most of Stoker's vampric traits were adapted into future fiction and folkloric descriptions combined with ''Dracula's'' traits to develope into the vampire we know today. Drawing on past works such as ''The Vampyre'' and "Carmilla", Stoker began to research his new book in the late 1800s, reading works such as ''The Land Beyond the Forest'' (1888) and other books of Transylvania and vampires. A member of the cult ''Order of the Golden Dawn'', he was keen to travel around Eastern Europe to learn about the folkloric vampires and occult. In London, a colleague mentioned to him about the story of ], the real-life Dracula, and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book. The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897, but it was released alter in 1914 as ''Dracula's Guest''.<ref name="Marigny Drac">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=82-85 |chapter=The Reawakening of the Vampire: The Forces of Good and Evil}}</ref> | |||
'']'' was a popular mid-] ] story by ] and ], which first appeared from 1845 to 1847 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as '']s'' because of their low price and gruesome contents.<ref name=":1"/> Published in book form in 1847, the story runs to 868 double-columned pages. It has a distinctly suspenseful style, using vivid imagery to describe the horrifying exploits of Varney.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=38–39}} Another important addition to the genre was ]'s ] story '']'' (1871). Like Varney before her, the vampiress Carmilla is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light as the compulsion of her condition is highlighted.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=40–41}} | |||
The latter part of the twentieth centry saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics. The first of these was gothic romance writer ]'s '']'' series (1966-71) loosely based on the contemporary American TV series '']''. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic tragic heroes rather than as the traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in the highly popular and influential '']'' (1976-2003) series of novels by ].<ref name="SU205">Silver & Ursini, p. 205</ref> | |||
]'' by ], illustrated by ], 1872.|alt=A person is lying in a bed while another person is reaching on the bed towards them.]] | |||
===Film=== | |||
{{main|Vampire films}} | |||
] film '']''.]] | |||
Considered one of the eminent figures of the classic horror film, vampires have proven to be a rich subject for the film and gaming industries. ] is a ] in more movies than any other bar ], and early films were either based on the novel of ''Dracula'' or closley derived from it. These included the landmark ] German silent film '']'', directed by ] featuring the first film portrayal of Dracula - although names and characters were intended to mimic ''Dracula's'', Murnau could not obtain permission to do so from Stoker's widow, so had to alter many aspects of the film. In addition to this film was Universal's '']'', starring ] as the count in what was the first talking film to portray Dracula. However, Browning's film was overshadowed in 1932 by ]'s '']'', loosely based on "Carmilla", which was highly acclaimed by critics. And so the media's fascination with the vampire came to a head, following with movies such as '']'' in 1936.<ref name="Marigny film1">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=90-92|chapter=The Reawakening of the Vampire}}</ref> | |||
No effort to depict vampires in popular fiction was as influential or as definitive as Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897).{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=43}} Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease of contagious demonic possession, with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in ] Europe where ] and ] were common. The vampiric traits described in Stoker's work merged with and dominated folkloric tradition, eventually evolving into the modern fictional vampire.<ref name=":1"/> | |||
The legend of the vampire was cemented in the film industry when Dracula was reincarnated for a new generation with the celebrated ] series of films, starring ] as the Count. The successful 1958 film '']'' starring Lee was followed by seven ]s. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these and became well known in the role.<ref name="Marigny film2">{{cite book |last=Marigny |first=J |authorlink= |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |year=1993|publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd |location=London |isbn=0-500-30041-0|pages=92-95|chapter=The Reawakening of the Vampire}}</ref> By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with films such as '']'' in 1970, an African Count in 1972's '']'', and a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's '']'', as well as several female vampire antagonists, though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character.<ref name="Marigny film2"/> Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter such as Blade in the ]' ] movies and the film and television series '']''. Still others showed the vampire as protagonist such as the 1994 '']'' and its indirect sequel of sorts '']'', and '']''. '']'' was a noteworthy 1992 remake which became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever.<ref name="SU208">Silver & Ursini, p. 208</ref> | |||
Drawing on past works such as ''The Vampyre'' and ''Carmilla'', Stoker began to research his new book in the late 19th century, reading works such as ''The Land Beyond the Forest'' (1888) by ] and other books about ] and vampires. In London, a colleague mentioned to him the story of ], the "real-life Dracula", and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book. The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897, but it was released in 1914 as "]".{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=82–85}} | |||
Films such as '']'' also heralded renewed interest in vampire societies, subsequently depicted in '']'' in 2003, and the Russian '']'' and a TV miniseries remake of '']'', both from 2004. | |||
==Notes== | |||
<!--This article uses the Cite.php citation mechanism. If you would like more information on how to add references to this article, please see http://www.mediawiki.org/Extension:Cite/Cite.php --> | |||
{{reflist|2}} | |||
The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics as well as a renewed interest in the subject in books. The first of these was Gothic romance writer ]'s '']'' series (1966–71), loosely based on the contemporary American TV series '']''. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic ]es rather than as the more traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in novelist Anne Rice's highly popular '']'' (1976–2003),{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=205}} and ]'s ] series (2005–2008).<ref name="slate">{{cite web|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2205143/|title=I Vant To Upend Your Expectations: Why film vampires always break all the vampire rules|last=Beam|first=Christopher|date=20 November 2008|website=Slate Magazine|access-date=17 July 2009|archive-date=16 September 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110916173859/http://www.slate.com/id/2205143/|url-status=live}}</ref> In the 2006 ]'s novel '']'', vampires are depicted as a subspecies of ] that predated on humanity until the dawn of civilization. The various supernatural characteristics and abilities traditionally assigned to vampires by folklore are justified on naturalistic and scientific basis.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Galaxy |first=Geek's Guide to the |title='Blindsight' Is the Epitome of Science Fiction Horror |url=https://www.wired.com/2023/10/geeks-guide-peter-watts/ |access-date=2024-06-30 |magazine=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028 |archive-date=30 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240630080300/https://www.wired.com/2023/10/geeks-guide-peter-watts/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
==References== | |||
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<div class="references-small"> | |||
*{{cite book |last=Bell |first=Michael E. |title=Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires |year=2001 |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |location= |isbn=0-7867-0899-9}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Bunson |first=Matthew |title=The Vampire Encyclopedia |year=1993 |publisher= Thames & Hudson Ltd.|location=London |isbn=0-500-277486}} | |||
*{{de icon}} {{cite book |last=Burkhardt |first=Dagmar |title=Beiträge zur Südosteuropa-Forschung |chapter=Vampirglaube und Vampirsage auf dem Balkan |year=1966 |publisher= |location=Munich |isbn= }} | |||
*{{fr icon}} {{cite book |last=Cremene |first=Adrien |title=La mythologie du vampire en Roumanie |year=1981 |publisher=Editions du Rocher |location=Monaco |isbn= }} | |||
*{{fr icon}} {{cite book |last=Faivre |first=Antoine |title=Les Vampires. Essai historique, critique et littéraire (Préface de Robert Amadou) |year=1962 |publisher=Paris: Le Terrain Vague - Eric Losfeld |location= |isbn=}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Frayling |first=Christopher |title=Vampyres, Lord Byron to Count Dracula |chapter= |year=1991 |publisher= |location= |isbn=0-571-16792-6}} | |||
*{{it icon}} {{cite book|last=Introvigne |first=Massimo |title=La stirpe di Dracula: Indagine sul vampirismo dall'antichità ai nostri giorni |chapter= |year=1997 |publisher= |location= |isbn=0-571-16792-6}}<!-- Milano: A. Mondadori, 1997 (Antropologia). Didn't know what this was...--> | |||
*{{es icon}} {{cite book |last=Jaramillo Londoño |first=Agustín |title=Testamento del paisa |year=1967 |publisher=Medellín |location=Editorial Bedout |isbn=958-95125-0-X}} | |||
*Jennings, Lee Byron: An Early German Vampire Tale: Wilhelm Waiblinger’s “Olura" (first-published in 1986), in: Suevica. Beiträge zur ] Literatur- und Geistesgeschichte 9 (2001/2002), Stuttgart: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart 2004 , S. 295–306 ISBN 3-88099-428-5 | |||
*{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Ernest|authorlink=Ernest Jones |title=On the Nightmare |chapter=The Vampire |year=1931 |publisher=Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis |location=London|isbn= }} | |||
*{{cite book |last=McNally |first=Raymond T. |authorlink= |title=Dracula Was a Woman |chapter= |year=1983 |publisher=McGraw Hill |location=|isbn=0-07-045671-2 }} | |||
*{{cite book |last=McNally |first=Raymond T. |authorlink= |coauthors=Florescu, Radu. |title=In Search of Dracula |chapter= |year=1994 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company |location=|isbn=0-395-65783-0}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Melton |first=J.G. |authorlink= |title=The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead |year=1994|publisher=Visible Ink Press |location= |isbn=0-8103-2295-1|pages= |chapter=}} | |||
*{{cite book |last=Nyarlathotep |first=Frater & Jesse Lindsay |authorlink= |title=Ardeth - The Made Vampire |year=2006|publisher=Lulu Press |location= |isbn=1-84728-516-3|pages= |chapter=}} | |||
*]: ''The Vampire: His Kith and Kin'', 1928 (reprinted with alternate title: ''Vampires and Vampirism'' ISBN 0-486-43996-8), ''The Vampire in Europe'', 1929 (reprinted ISBN 0-517-14989-3) (reprinted with alternate title: ''The Vampire in Lore and Legend'' ISBN 0-486-41942-8). | |||
*{{cite book|last=Skal |first=David J. |title=V is for Vampire |year=1996 |publisher=Plume/Penguin |location= |isbn=0-452-27173-8}} | |||
*{{cite book|author=Silver A., Ursini J. |title=The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula |year=1993 |publisher=Limelight |location=New York |isbn=0-87910-170-9}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Tomkinson |first=J.L. |authorlink= |title=Haunted Greece: Nymphs, Vampires and other Exotika|year=2004|publisher=Anagnosis|location=Athens |isbn=960-88087-0-7 |pages=|chapter=}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Vuković |first=Milan T. |title=Narodni običaji, verovanja i poslovice kod Srba |publisher=Сазвежђа |date=2004 |location=Belgrade |isbn=86-83699-08-0}} | |||
*{{cite book|last=Wright |first=Dudley |title=The Book of Vampires (available in various reprints)|publisher= |date=1914 |location= |isbn=}} | |||
* ''Lilith's Cave: Jewish tales of the supernatural'', by Howard Schwartz (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988) | |||
=== Film and television === | |||
</div> | |||
{{main|Vampire film|List of vampire films|List of vampire television series}} | |||
]'s '']'', 1922.|alt=A shadow of a vampire and a railing.]] | |||
==See also== | |||
===Related links=== | |||
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Considered one of the preeminent figures of the classic horror film, the vampire has proven to be a rich subject for the film, television, and gaming industries. ] in more films than any other but ], and many early films were either based on the novel ''Dracula'' or closely derived from it. These included the 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film '']'', directed by ] and featuring the first film portrayal of Dracula—although names and characters were intended to mimic ''Dracula''{{'}}s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Keatley |first=Avery |title=Try as she might, Bram Stoker's widow couldn't kill 'Nosferatu' |language=en |work=NPR.org |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu |access-date=20 April 2022 |archive-date=4 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220404182540/https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu |url-status=live }}</ref> Universal's '']'' (1931), starring ] as the Count and directed by ], was the first ] to portray Dracula. Both Lugosi's performance and the film overall were influential in the blossoming ] genre, now able to use sound and special effects much more efficiently than in the ]. The influence of this 1931 film lasted throughout the rest of the 20th century and up through the present day. ], ], ], and ] each have at one time or another derived inspiration from this film directly either through staging or even through directly quoting the film, particularly how Stoker's line "''Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!''" is delivered by Lugosi; for example Coppola paid homage to this moment with Gary Oldman in his interpretation of the tale in 1992 and King has credited this film as an inspiration for his character Kurt Barlow repeatedly in interviews.<ref>{{cite web |last=Eisenberg |first=Eric |url=https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2567212/adapting-stephen-king-salems-lot-vampiric-terror-tv-miniseries-tobe-hooper |title=Adapting Stephen King's Salem's Lot: How Does The Vampiric Terror Of 1979's TV Miniseries Hold Up? |publisher=Cinemablend |date=12 May 2021 |access-date=5 May 2022 |archive-date=27 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427163847/https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2567212/adapting-stephen-king-salems-lot-vampiric-terror-tv-miniseries-tobe-hooper |url-status=live }}</ref> It is for these reasons that the film was selected by the US ] to be in the ] in 2000.<ref>{{cite web |title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ |access-date=20 April 2022 |website=Library of Congress |archive-date=28 July 2019 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190728162129/https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
===Related mythological creatures=== | |||
* ] | |||
] as portrayed by ] in 1931's '']''.|alt=See caption]] | |||
==External links== | |||
{{Commons|vampire}} | |||
* | |||
* | |||
The legend of the vampire continued through the film industry when Dracula was reincarnated in the pertinent ] series of films, starring ] as the Count. The successful 1958 '']'' starring Lee was followed by seven sequels. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these and became well known in the role.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=92–95}} By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with works such as '']'' (1970), an African Count in 1972's '']'', the BBC's '']'' featuring French actor ] as Dracula and ] as ], and a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's '']'', and a remake of ''Nosferatu'' itself, titled ] with ] the same year. Several films featured the characterization of a female, often lesbian, vampire such as Hammer Horror's '']'' (1970), based on ''Carmilla'', though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=92–95}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
]'s ] vampire character.|alt=See caption]] | |||
{{Link FA|he}} | |||
] | |||
The ] ] '']'', on American television from 1966 to 1971, featured the vampire character ], portrayed by ], which proved partly responsible for making the series one of the most popular of its type, amassing a total of 1,225 episodes in its nearly five-year run. The pilot for the later 1972 television series '']'' revolved around a reporter hunting a vampire on the ]. Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter, such as ] in the ]' '']'' films and the film '']''.<ref name=":1"/> ''Buffy'', released in 1992, foreshadowed a vampiric presence on television, with its adaptation to a ] and its spin-off '']''. Others showed the vampire as a protagonist, such as 1983's '']'', 1994's '']'' and its indirect sequel '']'', and the 2007 series '']''. The 1992 film '']'' by ] became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=208}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
This increase of interest in vampiric plotlines led to the vampire being depicted in films such as '']'' and '']'', the Russian '']'' and a TV miniseries remake of '']'', both from 2004. The series '']'' premiered on ] in 2007, featuring a character portrayed as Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate-son-of-]-turned-vampire, in modern-day ], with a female former Toronto detective in the starring role. A 2008 series from HBO, entitled '']'', gives a ] take on the vampire theme, while taking on the discussion on what the actual existence of vampires would mean to for instance ] and religious beliefs.<ref name="slate" /> In 2008 '']'' premiered in Britain and featured a vampire that shared a flat with a werewolf and a ghost.<ref>Germania, Monica (2012): Being Human? Twenty-First-Century Monsters. In: Edwards, Justin & Monnet, Agnieszka Soltysik (Publisher): The Gothic in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture: Pop Goth. New York: Taylor, pp. 57–70</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/06/top-10_most_important_vampire_programs_in_tv_history.html|author=Dan Martin|title=Top-10 most important vampire programs in TV history|date=19 June 2014|publisher=Cleveland.com|access-date=8 August 2014|archive-date=21 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021111509/https://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/06/top-10_most_important_vampire_programs_in_tv_history.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of ] and the perennial dread of mortality.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bartlett|first=Wayne|author2=Flavia Idriceanu|title=Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth|year=2005|publisher=NPI Media Group|location=London|isbn=978-0-7509-3736-8|page=|url=https://archive.org/details/legendsofbloodva0000bart/page/46}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
] | |||
=== Games === | |||
] | |||
{{main|Vampires in games}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
The ] '']'' has been influential upon modern vampire fiction and elements of its terminology, such as ''embrace'' and ''sire'', appear in contemporary fiction.<ref name=":1"/> Popular ] include '']'', which is an extension of the original Bram Stoker novel ''Dracula'', and '']''.<ref name=joshi>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=stJxdpZVl_wC&pg=PA646|title=Icons of horror and the supernatural|volume=2|author=Joshi, S. T.|pages=645–646|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|location=Westport, Connecticut|date=2007|isbn=978-0-313-33782-6|access-date=30 October 2020|archive-date=25 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225150423/https://books.google.com/books?id=stJxdpZVl_wC&pg=PA646|url-status=live}}</ref> The role-playing game '']'' features vampires.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-dungeons-and-dragons-imagines-and-customizes-its-unique-monsters|title=How Dungeons and Dragons reimagines and customizes iconic folklore monsters|first=James|last=Grebey|publisher=]|date=3 June 2019|access-date=22 March 2020|archive-date=22 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322023827/https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-dungeons-and-dragons-imagines-and-customizes-its-unique-monsters|url-status=live}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
] | |||
=== Modern vampire subcultures === | |||
] | |||
{{Main|Vampire lifestyle}} | |||
] | |||
{{See also|Psychic vampirism}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
'']'' is a term for a contemporary subculture of people, largely within the ], who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, ]s, the fiction of ], and the styles of Victorian England.<ref>{{cite book |last=Skal |first=David J. |title=The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror | pages=342–343 |year=1993 |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |isbn=978-0-14-024002-3}}</ref> Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both blood-related vampirism, commonly referred to as ''sanguine vampirism'', and '']'', or supposed feeding from ] energy.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|year=2002|title=The Psychic Vampire and Vampyre Subculture|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283273380|journal=Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies|issue=12|pages=143–148|issn=0819-0852|access-date=9 November 2015|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715154950/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283273380_The_Psychic_Vampire_and_Vampyre_Subculture|url-status=live}}<!-- ISBN 1-86389-831-X--></ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Benecke|first1=Mark|last2=Fischer|first2=Ines|date=2015|title=Vampyres among us! – Volume III: Quantitative Study of Central European 'Vampyre' Subculture Members|url=http://www.roterdrache.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=138|publisher=Roter Drache|isbn=978-3-939459-95-8|access-date=2 February 2016|archive-date=10 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710053810/http://www.roterdrache.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=138|url-status=dead}}</ref> | |||
] | |||
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== Notes == | |||
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{{notelist}} | |||
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==References== | |||
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{{Reflist}} | |||
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===Cited texts=== | |||
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{{Refbegin}} | |||
] | |||
* {{cite book |last=Barber |first=Paul |title=Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality |year=1988 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-300-04126-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampiresburialde0000barb_n4n9 |url-access=registration}} | |||
] | |||
* {{cite book |last=Bunson |first=Matthew |title=The Vampire Encyclopedia |year=1993 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-27748-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampireencyclope0000buns |url-access=registration}} | |||
] | |||
* {{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Daniel |title=]: Bigfoot, Chinese Wildman, Nessie, Sea Ape, Werewolf and many more … |year=1989 |publisher=Michael O'Mara Books Ltd |location=London |isbn=978-0-948397-94-3}}<!-- This book is in the Internet Archive, but you might need to check the attribution more thoroughly. --> | |||
] | |||
* {{cite book|last=Graves|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Graves|title=The Greek Myths|orig-year=1955|year=1990|publisher=Penguin|location=London|isbn=978-0-14-001026-8}} | |||
] | |||
* {{cite book |last=Hoyt |first=Olga |title=Lust for Blood: The Consuming Story of Vampires |year=1984 |chapter=The Monk's Investigation |publisher=Scarborough House |location=Chelsea |isbn=978-0-8128-8511-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/lustforbloodcons0000hoyt |url-access=registration}} | |||
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* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Ernest |title=On the Nightmare |chapter=The Vampire |year=1931 |publisher=Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis |location=London |oclc=2382718 |isbn=978-0-394-54835-7}}<!-- This book is in the Internet Archive, but you might need to check the attribution more thoroughly. --> | |||
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* {{cite book |last=Marigny |first=Jean |author-link=Jean Marigny |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |series="]" series |year=1994 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-30041-1|title-link=Vampires: The World of the Undead}} | |||
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* {{cite book |last=Skal |first=David J. |title=V is for Vampire |year=1996 |location=New York |publisher=Plume |isbn=978-0-452-27173-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/visforvampirethe00skal |url-access=registration }} | |||
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* {{cite book |last=Silver |first=Alain |author2=James Ursini |title=The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula |year=1993 |publisher=Limelight |location=New York |isbn=978-0-87910-170-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampirefilmfromn0000silv |url-access=registration}} | |||
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Latest revision as of 11:52, 13 January 2025
Undead creature from folklore For other uses, see Vampire (disambiguation).
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.
Vampiric entities have been recorded in cultures around the world; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in Southeastern and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania, cognate to Italian strega, meaning 'witch'.
In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures (such as the chupacabra) still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "The Vampyre" by the English writer John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel Carmilla. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
Etymology and word distribution
The exact etymology is unclear. The term "vampire" is the earliest recorded in English, Latin and French and they refer to vampirism in Russia, Poland and North Macedonia. The English term was derived (possibly via French vampyre) from the German Vampir, in turn, derived in the early 18th century from the Serbian вампир (vampir). Though this being a popular explanation, a pagan worship of upyri was already recorded in Old Russian in the 11–13th century. Some claim an origin from Lithuanian. Oxford and others maintain a Turkish origin (from Turkish uber, meaning "witch"), which passed to English via Hungarian and French derivation. In addition, others sustain that the modern word "Vampire" is derived from the Old Slavic and Turkic languages form "онпыр (onpyr)", with the addition of the "v" sound in front of the large nasal vowel (on), characteristic of Old Bulgarian. Parallels are found in virtually all Slavic and Turkic languages: Bulgarian and Macedonian вампир (vampir), Turkish: Ubır, Obur, Obır, Tatar language: Убыр (Ubır), Chuvash language: Вупăр (Vupăr), Bosnian: вампир (vampir), Croatian vampir, Czech and Slovak upír, Polish wąpierz, and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upiór, Ukrainian упир (upyr), Russian упырь (upyr'), Belarusian упыр (upyr), from Old East Slavic упирь (upir') (many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West; these are distinct from the original local words for the creature). In Albanian the words lu(v)gat and dhampir are used; the latter seems to be derived from the Gheg Albanian words dham 'tooth' and pir 'to drink'. The origin of the modern word Vampire (Upiór means Hortdan, Vampire or witch in Turkic and Slavic myths.) comes from the term Ubir-Upiór, the origin of the word Ubir or Upiór is based on the regions around the Volga (Itil) River and Pontic steppes. Upiór myth is through the migrations of the Kipchak-Cuman people to the Eurasian steppes allegedly spread. The Bulgarian format is впир (vpir, other names: onpyr, vopir, vpir, upir, upierz).
Czech linguist Václav Machek proposes Slovak verb vrepiť sa 'stick to, thrust into', or its hypothetical anagram vperiť sa (in Czech, the archaic verb vpeřit means 'to thrust violently') as an etymological background, and thus translates upír as 'someone who thrusts, bites'. The term was introduced to German readers by the Polish Jesuit priest Gabriel Rzączyński in 1721.
The word vampire (as vampyre) first appeared in English in 1732, in news reports about vampire "epidemics" in eastern Europe. After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Oltenia with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires". These reports, prepared between 1725 and 1732, received widespread publicity.
Folk beliefs
See also: List of vampiric creatures in folkloreThe notion of vampirism has existed for millennia. Cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, Manipuri and Romans had tales of demons and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampiric creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe, when verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.
Description and common attributes
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire, though there are several elements common to many European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and ruddy, purplish, or dark in colour; these characteristics were often attributed to the recent drinking of blood, which was often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one was seen in its shroud or coffin, and its left eye was often open. It would be clad in the linen shroud it was buried in, and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature. Chewing sounds were reported emanating from graves.
Creating vampires
The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In Slavic and Chinese traditions, any corpse that was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead. A body with a wound that had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In Russian folklore, vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church while they were alive.
In Albanian folklore, the dhampir is the hybrid child of the karkanxholl (a lycanthropic creature with an iron mail shirt) or the lugat (a water-dwelling ghost or monster). The dhampir sprung of a karkanxholl has the unique ability to discern the karkanxholl; from this derives the expression the dhampir knows the lugat. The lugat cannot be seen, he can only be killed by the dhampir, who himself is usually the son of a lugat. In different regions, animals can be revenants as lugats; also, living people during their sleep. Dhampiraj is also an Albanian surname.
Prevention
Cultural practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such as scythes or sickles, near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method resembles the ancient Greek practice of placing an obolus in the corpse's mouth to pay the toll to cross the River Styx in the underworld. The coin may have also been intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body, and this may have influenced later vampire folklore. This tradition persisted in modern Greek folklore about the vrykolakas, in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body from becoming a vampire.
Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the tendons at the knees or placing poppy seeds, millet, or sand on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains, indicating an association of vampires with arithmomania. Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampiric being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain; this is a theme encountered in myths from the Indian subcontinent, as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.
Identifying vampires
Many rituals were used to identify a vampire. One method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin stallion—the horse would supposedly balk at the grave in question. Generally a black horse was required, though in Albania it should be white. Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism.
Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition. In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face. Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours. Folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor poltergeist-styled activity, such as hurling stones on roofs or moving household objects, and pressing on people in their sleep.
Protection
Garlic, Bibles, crucifixes, rosaries, holy water, and mirrors have all been seen in various folkloric traditions as means of warding against or identifying vampires.Apotropaics—items able to ward off revenants—are common in vampire folklore. Garlic is a common example; a branch of wild rose and hawthorn are sometimes associated with causing harm to vampires, and in Europe, mustard seeds would be sprinkled on the roof of a house to keep them away. Other apotropaics include sacred items, such as crucifix, rosary, or holy water. Some folklore also states that vampires are unable to walk on consecrated ground, such as that of churches or temples, or cross running water.
Although not traditionally regarded as an apotropaic, mirrors have been used to ward off vampires when placed, facing outwards, on a door (in some cultures, vampires do not have a reflection and sometimes do not cast a shadow, perhaps as a manifestation of the vampire's lack of a soul or their weakness to silver). This attribute is not universal (the Greek vrykolakas/tympanios was capable of both reflection and shadow), but was used by Bram Stoker in Dracula and has remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers.
Some traditions also hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner; after the first invitation they can come and go as they please. Though folkloric vampires were believed to be more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to sunlight.
Reports in 1693 and 1694 concerning citings of vampires in Poland and Russia claimed that when a vampire's grave was recognized, eating bread baked with its blood mixed into the flour, or simply drinking it, granted the possibility of protection. Other stories (primarily the Arnold Paole case) claimed the eating of dirt from the vampire's grave would have the same effect.
Methods of destruction
Methods of destroying suspected vampires varied, with staking the most commonly cited method, particularly in South Slavic cultures. Ash was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record of oak in Silesia. Aspen was also used for stakes, as it was believed that Christ's cross was made from aspen (aspen branches on the graves of purported vampires were also believed to prevent their risings at night). Potential vampires were most often staked through the heart, though the mouth was targeted in Russia and northern Germany and the stomach in north-eastern Serbia. Piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the bloated vampire. This is similar to a practice of "anti-vampire burial": burying sharp objects, such as sickles, with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently while transforming into a revenant.
Decapitation was the preferred method in German and western Slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body. This act was seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul, which in some cultures was said to linger in the corpse. The vampire's head, body, or clothes could also be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising.
Romani people drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. In a 16th-century burial near Venice, a brick forced into the mouth of a female corpse has been interpreted as a vampire-slaying ritual by the archaeologists who discovered it in 2006. In Bulgaria, over 100 skeletons with metal objects, such as plough bits, embedded in the torso have been discovered.
Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In Southeastern Europe, a vampire could also be killed by being shot or drowned, by repeating the funeral service, by sprinkling holy water on the body, or by exorcism. In Romania, garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the coffin was taken. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. In Saxon regions of Germany, a lemon was placed in the mouth of suspected vampires.
Ancient beliefs
Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries. The term vampire did not exist in ancient times. Blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the devil was considered synonymous with the vampire. Almost every culture associates blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, or in some cases a deity. In India tales of vetālas, ghoulish beings that inhabit corpses, have been compiled in the Baitāl Pacīsī; a prominent story in the Kathāsaritsāgara tells of King Vikramāditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one. Piśāca, the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes.
The Persians were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated pottery shards. Ancient Babylonia and Assyria had tales of the mythical Lilitu, synonymous with and giving rise to Lilith (Hebrew לילית) and her daughters the Lilu from Hebrew demonology. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies, and estries, female shapeshifting, blood-drinking demons, were said to roam the night among the population, seeking victims. According to Sefer Hasidim, estries were creatures created in the twilight hours before God rested. An injured estrie could be healed by eating bread and salt given to her by her attacker.
Greco-Roman mythology described the Empusae, the Lamia, the Mormo and the striges. Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess Hecate and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood. The Lamia preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood, as did the gelloudes or Gello. Like the Lamia, the striges feasted on children, but also preyed on adults. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds in general, and were later incorporated into Roman mythology as strix, a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.
In Turkic mythology, an ubır is a vampiric creature characterized by various regional depictions. According to legends, individuals heavily steeped in sin and practitioners of black magic transform into ubırs upon their death, taking on a bestial form within their graves. Ubırs possess the ability to shape-shift, assuming the forms of both humans and various animals. Furthermore, they can seize the soul of a living being and exert control over its body. Someone inhabited by a vampire constantly experiences hunger, becoming increasingly aggressive when unable to find sustenance, ultimately resorting to drinking human blood.
Medieval and later European folklore
Main article: Vampire folklore by regionMany myths surrounding vampires originated during the medieval period. With the arrival of Christianity in Greece, and other parts of Europe, the vampire "began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics." As various regions of the continent converted to Christianity, the vampire was viewed as "a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had risen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers." In the Middle Ages, the Christian Churches reinterpreted vampires from their previous folk existence into minions of Satan, and used an allegory to communicate a doctrine to Christians: "Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself." The interpretation of vampires under the Christian Churches established connotations that are still associated in the vampire genre today. For example, the "ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association."
The 12th-century British historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. The Old Norse draugr is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to vampires. Vampiric beings were rarely written about in Jewish literature; the 16th-century rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz) wrote of an uncharitable old woman whose body was unguarded and unburied for three days after she died and rose as a vampiric entity, killing hundreds of people. He linked this event to the lack of a shmirah (guarding) after death as the corpse could be a vessel for evil spirits.
In 1645, the Greek librarian of the Vatican, Leo Allatius, produced the first methodological description of the Balkan beliefs in vampires (Greek: vrykolakas) in his work De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks"). Vampires properly originating in folklore were widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized. An early recording of the time came from the region of Istria in modern Croatia, in 1672; Local reports described a panic among the villagers inspired by the belief that Jure Grando had become a vampire after dying in 1656, drinking blood from victims and sexually harassing his widow. The village leader ordered a stake to be driven through his heart. Later, his corpse was also beheaded.
From 1679, Philippe Rohr devotes an essay to the dead who chew their shrouds in their graves, a subject resumed by Otto in 1732, and then by Michael Ranft in 1734. The subject was based on the observation that when digging up graves, it was discovered that some corpses had at some point either devoured the interior fabric of their coffin or their own limbs. Ranft described in his treatise of a tradition in some parts of Germany, that to prevent the dead from masticating they placed a mound of dirt under their chin in the coffin, placed a piece of money and a stone in the mouth, or tied a handkerchief tightly around the throat. In 1732 an anonymous writer writing as "the doctor Weimar" discusses the non-putrefaction of these creatures, from a theological point of view. In 1733, Johann Christoph Harenberg wrote a general treatise on vampirism and the Marquis d'Argens cites local cases. Theologians and clergymen also address the topic.
Some theological disputes arose. The non-decay of vampires' bodies could recall the incorruption of the bodies of the saints of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Indeed, vampires were traditionally considered highly problematic within Christianity, as their apparent immortal existence ran against the Christian belief that all true believers may look forward to an eternal existence with body and soul as they were resurrected, but only at the end of time when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. Those who are resurrected as immortal before this are thus in no way part of the divine plan of salvation. The imperfect state of the vampire body and how they, in spite of their immortal nature, still needed to feed of the blood of the living, further reflected the problematic aspect of the vampires. Contrary to how the incorruptible saints foreshadowed the immortality promised all true Christians at the end of time, the immortality of the undead vampires was thus not a sign of salvation, but of perdition. The unholy dimension of vampirism may also be reflected in how, in parts of Russia, the very word heretic, eretik, was synonymous with a vampire. Whoever denied God or his commandments became an eretik after his death, the improperly immortal figure that wandered the night in search of people to feed on. A paragraph on vampires was included in the second edition (1749) of De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione, On the beatification of the servants of God and on canonization of the blessed, written by Prospero Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV). In his opinion, while the incorruption of the bodies of saints was the effect of a divine intervention, all the phenomena attributed to vampires were purely natural or the fruit of "imagination, terror and fear". In other words, vampires did not exist.
18th-century vampire controversy
In the early 18th century, despite the decline of many popular folkloric beliefs during the Age of Enlightenment, there was a dramatic increase in the popular belief in vampires, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout much of Europe. The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. The first infamous vampire case involved the corpses of Petar Blagojević from Serbia. Blagojević was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Blagojević supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.
In the second case, Miloš Čečar, an ex-soldier-turned-farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area; it was widely believed that Miloš had returned to prey on the neighbours.
The Blagojević and Čečar incidents were well-documented. Government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them. Even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires.
The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "vampire controversy," continued for a generation. At least sixteen contemporary treatises discussed the theological and philosophical implications of the vampire epidemic. Dom Augustine Calmet, a French theologian and scholar, published a comprehensive treatise in 1751 titled Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants which investigated and analysed the evidence for vampirism. Numerous readers, including both Voltaire (critical) and numerous demonologists (supportive), interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.
The controversy in Austria ceased when Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. Van Swieten concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and the desecration of bodies, thus ending the vampire epidemic. Other European countries followed suit. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local folklore.
Non-European beliefs
Beings having many of the attributes of European vampires appear in the folklore of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and India. Classified as vampires, all share the thirst for blood.
Africa
Various regions of Africa have folktales featuring beings with vampiric abilities: in West Africa the Ashanti people tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling asanbosam, and the Ewe people of the adze, which can take the form of a firefly and hunts children. The eastern Cape region has the impundulu, which can take the form of a large taloned bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the Betsileo people of Madagascar tell of the ramanga, an outlaw or living vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles. In colonial East Africa, rumors circulated to the effect that employees of the state such as firemen and nurses were vampires, known in Swahili as wazimamoto.
Americas
The Rougarou is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or voodoo. The term Rougarou possibly comes from the French loup-garou (meaning "werewolf") and is common in the culture of Mauritius. The stories of the Rougarou are widespread through the Caribbean Islands and Louisiana in the United States. Similar female monsters are the Soucouyant of Trinidad, and the Tunda and Patasola of Colombian folklore, while the Mapuche of southern Chile have the bloodsucking snake known as the Peuchen. Aloe vera hung backwards behind or near a door was thought to ward off vampiric beings in South American folklore. Aztec mythology described tales of the Cihuateteo, skull-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, driving them mad.
During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. There are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family, although the term "vampire" was never used to describe the dead. The deadly disease tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption themselves. The most famous, and most recently recorded, case of suspected vampirism is that of nineteen-year-old Mercy Brown, who died in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death, cut out her heart and burned it to ashes.
Sarah Roberts (1872–1913) was an Englishwoman who died and was buried in Pisco, Peru. After her death, a legend evolved that she was a vampire and bride of Dracula. On June 9 1993, the 80th anniversary of her death, locals in Pisco feared she would come back to life and take her revenge.
Asia
Vampires have appeared in Japanese cinema since the late 1950s; the folklore behind it is western in origin. The Nukekubi is a being whose head and neck detach from its body to fly about seeking human prey at night. Legends of female vampiric beings who can detach parts of their upper body also occur in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. There are two main vampiric creatures in the Philippines: the Tagalog Mandurugo ("blood-sucker") and the Visayan Manananggal ("self-segmenter"). The mandurugo is a variety of the aswang that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, threadlike tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim. The manananggal is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge batlike wings and prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck fetuses from these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the heart and the liver) and the phlegm of sick people.
The Malaysian Penanggalan is a woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic or other unnatural means, and is most commonly described in local folklore to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women. Malaysians hung jeruju (thistles) around the doors and windows of houses, hoping the Penanggalan would not enter for fear of catching its intestines on the thorns. The Leyak is a similar being from Balinese folklore of Indonesia. A Kuntilanak or Matianak in Indonesia, or Pontianak or Langsuir in Malaysia, is a woman who died during childbirth and became undead, seeking revenge and terrorising villages. She appeared as an attractive woman with long black hair that covered a hole in the back of her neck, with which she sucked the blood of children. Filling the hole with her hair would drive her off. Corpses had their mouths filled with glass beads, eggs under each armpit, and needles in their palms to prevent them from becoming langsuir. This description would also fit the Sundel Bolongs.
In Vietnam, the word used to translate Western vampires, "ma cà rồng", originally referred to a type of demon that haunts modern-day Phú Thọ Province, within the communities of the Tai Dam ethnic minority. The word was first mentioned in the chronicles of 18th-century Confucian scholar Lê Quý Đôn, who spoke of a creature that lives among humans, but stuffs its toes into its nostrils at night and flies by its ears into houses with pregnant women to suck their blood. Having fed on these women, the ma cà rồng then returns to its house and cleans itself by dipping its toes into barrels of sappanwood water. This allows the ma cà rồng to live undetected among humans during the day, before heading out to attack again by night.
Jiangshi, sometimes called "Chinese vampires" by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (qì) from their victims. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 pò) fails to leave the deceased's body. Jiangshi are usually represented as mindless creatures with no independent thought. This monster has greenish-white furry skin, perhaps derived from fungus or mould growing on corpses. Jiangshi legends have inspired a genre of jiangshi films and literature in Hong Kong and East Asia. Films like Encounters of the Spooky Kind and Mr. Vampire were released during the jiangshi cinematic boom of the 1980s and 1990s.
Modern beliefs
In modern fiction, the vampire tends to be depicted as a suave, charismatic villain. Vampire hunting societies still exist, but they are largely formed for social reasons. Allegations of vampire attacks swept through Malawi during late 2002 and early 2003, with mobs stoning one person to death and attacking at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires. Fears and violence recurred in late 2017, with 6 people accused of being vampires killed.
In early 1970, local press spread rumours that a vampire haunted Highgate Cemetery in London. Amateur vampire hunters flocked in large numbers to the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "Highgate Vampire" and who later claimed to have exorcised and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area. In January 2005, rumours circulated that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, fuelling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. Local police stated that no such crime had been reported and that the case appears to be an urban legend.
The chupacabra ("goat-sucker") of Puerto Rico and Mexico is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of domesticated animals, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s.
In Europe, where much of the vampire folklore originates, the vampire is usually considered a fictitious being; many communities may have embraced the revenant for economic purposes. In some cases, especially in small localities, beliefs are still rampant and sightings or claims of vampire attacks occur frequently. In Romania during February 2004, several relatives of Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it.
Origins of vampire beliefs
Commentators have offered many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs and related mass hysteria. Everything ranging from premature burial to the early ignorance of the body's decomposition cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.
Pathology
Decomposition
Author Paul Barber stated that belief in vampires resulted from people of pre-industrial societies attempting to explain the natural, but to them inexplicable, process of death and decomposition. People sometimes suspected vampirism when a cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when disinterred. Rates of decomposition vary depending on temperature and soil composition, and many of the signs are little known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all or to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life.
Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy"—changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the Arnold Paole case, an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life. The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity. Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition. The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan-like sound when the gases moved past the vocal cords, or a sound reminiscent of flatulence when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the Petar Blagojevich case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect". After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Blagojevich case—the dermis and nail beds emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails".
Premature burial
Vampire legends may have also been influenced by individuals being buried alive because of shortcomings in the medical knowledge of the time. In some cases in which people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads, noses or faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding". A problem with this theory is the question of how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for any extended period without food, water or fresh air. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies. Another likely cause of disordered tombs is grave robbery.
Disease
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with clusters of deaths from unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community. The epidemic allusion is obvious in the classical cases of Petar Blagojevich and Arnold Paole, and even more so in the case of Mercy Brown and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, tuberculosis, was associated with outbreaks of vampirism. As with the pneumonic form of bubonic plague, it was associated with breakdown of lung tissue which would cause blood to appear at the lips.
In 1985, biochemist David Dolphin proposed a link between the rare blood disorder porphyria and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous haem, he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms.
The theory has been rebuffed medically as suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the haem in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional (bloodsucking) vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood. Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. In any case, Dolphin did not go on to publish his work more widely. Despite being dismissed by experts, the link gained media attention and entered popular modern folklore.
Juan Gómez-Alonso, a neurologist, examined the possible link of rabies with vampire folklore. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to hypersensitivity, which is a symptom of rabies. It can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (thus becoming nocturnal) and hypersexuality. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection (an allusion to the legend that vampires have no reflection). Wolves and bats, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.
Psychodynamic theories
In his 1931 treatise On the Nightmare, Welsh psychoanalyst Ernest Jones asserted that vampires are symbolic of several unconscious drives and defence mechanisms. Emotions such as love, guilt, and hate fuel the idea of the return of the dead to the grave. Desiring a reunion with loved ones, mourners may project the idea that the recently dead must in return yearn the same. From this arises the belief that folkloric vampires and revenants visit relatives, particularly their spouses, first.
In cases where there was unconscious guilt associated with the relationship, the wish for reunion may be subverted by anxiety. This may lead to repression, which Sigmund Freud had linked with the development of morbid dread. Jones surmised in this case the original wish of a (sexual) reunion may be drastically changed: desire is replaced by fear; love is replaced by sadism, and the object or loved one is replaced by an unknown entity. The sexual aspect may or may not be present. Some modern critics have proposed a simpler theory: People identify with immortal vampires because, by so doing, they overcome, or at least temporarily escape from, their fear of dying.
Jones linked the innate sexuality of bloodsucking with cannibalism, with a folkloric connection with incubus-like behaviour. He added that when more normal aspects of sexuality are repressed, regressed forms may be expressed, in particular sadism; he felt that oral sadism is integral in vampiric behaviour.
Political interpretations
The reinvention of the vampire myth in the modern era is not without political overtones. The aristocratic Count Dracula, alone in his castle apart from a few demented retainers, appearing only at night to feed on his peasantry, is symbolic of the parasitic ancien régime. In his entry for "Vampires" in the Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), Voltaire notices how the mid-18th century coincided with the decline of the folkloric belief in the existence of vampires but that now "there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces".
Marx defined capital as "dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks". Werner Herzog, in his Nosferatu the Vampyre, gives this political interpretation an extra ironic twist when protagonist Jonathan Harker, a middle-class solicitor, becomes the next vampire; in this way the capitalist bourgeois becomes the next parasitic class.
Psychopathology
A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. Serial killers Peter Kürten and Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. In 1932, an unsolved murder case in Stockholm, Sweden, was nicknamed the "Vampire murder", because of the circumstances of the victim's death. The late-16th-century Hungarian countess and mass murderer Elizabeth Báthory became infamous in later centuries' works, which depicted her bathing in her victims' blood to retain beauty or youth.
Vampire bats
Main article: Vampire batAlthough many cultures have stories about them, vampire bats have only recently become an integral part of the traditional vampire lore. Vampire bats were integrated into vampire folklore after they were discovered on the South American mainland in the 16th century. There are no vampire bats in Europe, but bats and owls have long been associated with the supernatural and omens, mainly because of their nocturnal habits.
The three species of vampire bats are all endemic to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any Old World relatives within human memory. It is therefore impossible that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the vampire bat. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the Oxford English Dictionary records their folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. The danger of rabies infection aside, the vampire bat's bite is usually not harmful to a person, but the bat has been known to actively feed on humans and large prey such as cattle and often leaves the trademark, two-prong bite mark on its victim's skin.
The literary Dracula transforms into a bat several times in the novel, and vampire bats themselves are mentioned twice in it. The 1927 stage production of Dracula followed the novel in having Dracula turn into a bat, as did the film, where Béla Lugosi would transform into a bat. The bat transformation scene was used again by Lon Chaney Jr. in 1943's Son of Dracula.
In modern culture
See also: List of vampiresThe vampire is now a fixture in popular fiction. Such fiction began with 18th-century poetry and continued with 19th-century short stories, the first and most influential of which was John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819), featuring the vampire Lord Ruthven. Lord Ruthven's exploits were further explored in a series of vampire plays in which he was the antihero. The vampire theme continued in penny dreadful serial publications such as Varney the Vampire (1847) and culminated in the pre-eminent vampire novel in history: Dracula by Bram Stoker, published in 1897.
Over time, some attributes now regarded as integral became incorporated into the vampire's profile: fangs and vulnerability to sunlight appeared over the course of the 19th century, with Varney the Vampire and Count Dracula both bearing protruding teeth, and Count Orlok of Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) fearing daylight. The cloak appeared in stage productions of the 1920s, with a high collar introduced by playwright Hamilton Deane to help Dracula 'vanish' on stage. Lord Ruthven and Varney were able to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore. Implied though not often explicitly documented in folklore, immortality is one attribute which features heavily in vampire films and literature. Much is made of the price of eternal life, namely the incessant need for the blood of former equals.
Literature
Main article: Vampire literatureThe vampire or revenant first appeared in poems such as The Vampire (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, Lenore (1773) by Gottfried August Bürger, Die Braut von Corinth (The Bride of Corinth) (1797) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Robert Southey's Thalaba the Destroyer (1801), John Stagg's "The Vampyre" (1810), Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Spectral Horseman" (1810) ("Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore") and "Ballad" in St. Irvyne (1811) about a reanimated corpse, Sister Rosa, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished Christabel and Lord Byron's The Giaour.
Byron was also credited with the first prose fiction piece concerned with vampires: "The Vampyre" (1819). This was in reality authored by Byron's personal physician, John Polidori, who adapted an enigmatic fragmentary tale of his illustrious patient, "Fragment of a Novel" (1819), also known as "The Burial: A Fragment". Byron's own dominating personality, mediated by his lover Lady Caroline Lamb in her unflattering roman-a-clef Glenarvon (a Gothic fantasia based on Byron's wild life), was used as a model for Polidori's undead protagonist Lord Ruthven. The Vampyre was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.
Varney the Vampire was a popular mid-Victorian era gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest, which first appeared from 1845 to 1847 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as penny dreadfuls because of their low price and gruesome contents. Published in book form in 1847, the story runs to 868 double-columned pages. It has a distinctly suspenseful style, using vivid imagery to describe the horrifying exploits of Varney. Another important addition to the genre was Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampire story Carmilla (1871). Like Varney before her, the vampiress Carmilla is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light as the compulsion of her condition is highlighted.
No effort to depict vampires in popular fiction was as influential or as definitive as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease of contagious demonic possession, with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in Victorian Europe where tuberculosis and syphilis were common. The vampiric traits described in Stoker's work merged with and dominated folkloric tradition, eventually evolving into the modern fictional vampire.
Drawing on past works such as The Vampyre and Carmilla, Stoker began to research his new book in the late 19th century, reading works such as The Land Beyond the Forest (1888) by Emily Gerard and other books about Transylvania and vampires. In London, a colleague mentioned to him the story of Vlad Ţepeş, the "real-life Dracula", and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book. The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897, but it was released in 1914 as "Dracula's Guest".
The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics as well as a renewed interest in the subject in books. The first of these was Gothic romance writer Marilyn Ross's Barnabas Collins series (1966–71), loosely based on the contemporary American TV series Dark Shadows. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic tragic heroes rather than as the more traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in novelist Anne Rice's highly popular Vampire Chronicles (1976–2003), and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2005–2008). In the 2006 Peter Watts's novel Blindsight, vampires are depicted as a subspecies of homo sapiens that predated on humanity until the dawn of civilization. The various supernatural characteristics and abilities traditionally assigned to vampires by folklore are justified on naturalistic and scientific basis.
Film and television
Main articles: Vampire film, List of vampire films, and List of vampire television seriesConsidered one of the preeminent figures of the classic horror film, the vampire has proven to be a rich subject for the film, television, and gaming industries. Dracula is a major character in more films than any other but Sherlock Holmes, and many early films were either based on the novel Dracula or closely derived from it. These included the 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau and featuring the first film portrayal of Dracula—although names and characters were intended to mimic Dracula's. Universal's Dracula (1931), starring Béla Lugosi as the Count and directed by Tod Browning, was the first talking film to portray Dracula. Both Lugosi's performance and the film overall were influential in the blossoming horror film genre, now able to use sound and special effects much more efficiently than in the Silent Film Era. The influence of this 1931 film lasted throughout the rest of the 20th century and up through the present day. Stephen King, Francis Ford Coppola, Hammer Horror, and Philip Saville each have at one time or another derived inspiration from this film directly either through staging or even through directly quoting the film, particularly how Stoker's line "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!" is delivered by Lugosi; for example Coppola paid homage to this moment with Gary Oldman in his interpretation of the tale in 1992 and King has credited this film as an inspiration for his character Kurt Barlow repeatedly in interviews. It is for these reasons that the film was selected by the US Library of Congress to be in the National Film Registry in 2000.
The legend of the vampire continued through the film industry when Dracula was reincarnated in the pertinent Hammer Horror series of films, starring Christopher Lee as the Count. The successful 1958 Dracula starring Lee was followed by seven sequels. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these and became well known in the role. By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with works such as Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), an African Count in 1972's Blacula, the BBC's Count Dracula featuring French actor Louis Jourdan as Dracula and Frank Finlay as Abraham Van Helsing, and a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's Salem's Lot, and a remake of Nosferatu itself, titled Nosferatu the Vampyre with Klaus Kinski the same year. Several films featured the characterization of a female, often lesbian, vampire such as Hammer Horror's The Vampire Lovers (1970), based on Carmilla, though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character.
The Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, on American television from 1966 to 1971, featured the vampire character Barnabas Collins, portrayed by Jonathan Frid, which proved partly responsible for making the series one of the most popular of its type, amassing a total of 1,225 episodes in its nearly five-year run. The pilot for the later 1972 television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker revolved around a reporter hunting a vampire on the Las Vegas Strip. Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter, such as Blade in the Marvel Comics' Blade films and the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, released in 1992, foreshadowed a vampiric presence on television, with its adaptation to a series of the same name and its spin-off Angel. Others showed the vampire as a protagonist, such as 1983's The Hunger, 1994's Interview with the Vampire and its indirect sequel Queen of the Damned, and the 2007 series Moonlight. The 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever.
This increase of interest in vampiric plotlines led to the vampire being depicted in films such as Underworld and Van Helsing, the Russian Night Watch and a TV miniseries remake of Salem's Lot, both from 2004. The series Blood Ties premiered on Lifetime Television in 2007, featuring a character portrayed as Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate-son-of-Henry-VIII-of-England-turned-vampire, in modern-day Toronto, with a female former Toronto detective in the starring role. A 2008 series from HBO, entitled True Blood, gives a Southern Gothic take on the vampire theme, while taking on the discussion on what the actual existence of vampires would mean to for instance equality before the law and religious beliefs. In 2008 Being Human premiered in Britain and featured a vampire that shared a flat with a werewolf and a ghost. The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of sexuality and the perennial dread of mortality.
Games
Main article: Vampires in gamesThe role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade has been influential upon modern vampire fiction and elements of its terminology, such as embrace and sire, appear in contemporary fiction. Popular video games about vampires include Castlevania, which is an extension of the original Bram Stoker novel Dracula, and Legacy of Kain. The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons features vampires.
Modern vampire subcultures
Main article: Vampire lifestyle See also: Psychic vampirismVampire lifestyle is a term for a contemporary subculture of people, largely within the Goth subculture, who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, horror films, the fiction of Anne Rice, and the styles of Victorian England. Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both blood-related vampirism, commonly referred to as sanguine vampirism, and psychic vampirism, or supposed feeding from pranic energy.
Notes
- Vampires had already been discussed in French and German literature.
- Calmet conducted extensive research and amassed judicial reports of vampiric incidents and extensively researched theological and mythological accounts as well, using the scientific method in his analysis to come up with methods for determining the validity for cases of this nature. As he stated in his treatise:
They see, it is said, men who have been dead for several months, come back to earth, talk, walk, infest villages, ill use both men and beasts, suck the blood of their near relations, make them ill, and finally cause their death; so that people can only save themselves from their dangerous visits and their hauntings by exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads, tearing out the heart, or burning them. These revenants are called by the name of oupires or vampires, that is to say, leeches; and such particulars are related of them, so singular, so detailed, and invested with such probable circumstances and such judicial information, that one can hardly refuse to credit the belief which is held in those countries, that these revenants come out of their tombs and produce those effects which are proclaimed of them.
- In the Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote:
These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer.
- An extensive discussion of the different uses of the vampire metaphor in Marx's writings can be found in Policante, A. (2010). "Vampires of Capital: Gothic Reflections between horror and hope" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 January 2012. in Cultural Logic Archived 6 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine, 2010.
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{{cite book}}
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After the arrival of Christianity in Greece, however, the vampire began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics. The vampire was now no longer a demon from a supernatural realm but a reanimated corpse, a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had arisen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers. The transformation of vampire myths to include Christian elements happened throughout Europe; as various regions converted to Christianity, their vampires also became "Christianized" (Beresford 42, 44–51).
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The church had by this time co-opted vampires from their previous folk existence and reinterpreted them as minions of the Christian devil, so it was an easy enough analogy to draw: Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself.
- Regina Hansen (3 May 2011). Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0786464746.
Perhaps the strongest link between vampires and Christianity is the importance of blood in the Christian, especially the Roman Catholic, tradition. Just as the vampire must consume blood in order to continue its unnaturally eternal life, so Christians must consume the blood of Jesus to be granted salvation and life after death.
- Mariah Larsson, Ann Steiner (1 December 2011). Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media and a Contemporary Cultural Experience. Nordic Academic Press. ISBN 978-9185509638.
The fear of vampirism embodied in these early conceptions was used by the Church in order to impose its fundamental values on soviety. The Church therefore changed some of the typical vampire traits and gave them more religious connotations that are still very much in evidence in the vampire genre today. For example, the destruction of the vampire became a religious rite; crucifixes and holy water bestowed protection; and drinking the blood of a sinner strengthened the power of the Devil, while taking Communion afforded the communicant protection. Besides their roots in folklore and the influence of Christianity, vampire traits were shaped in the development of vampire literature.
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If so, then the ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association.
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Christian belief played an important part in the development of vampire lore. According to Montague Summers, who describes the Christian position in detail in The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, Christianity accepts the existence of vampires and sees the power of the devil behind their creation. Since vampires are servants of Satan, the Church has power over them. Thus vampires flee from and can be destroyed by the crucifix, relics of saints, the sign of the cross, holy water, and above all, a consecrated host.
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the vampire controversy of the 1730s ... the eighteenth-century vampire controversy
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For details of the sixteen formal treatises and dissertations that discussed the implications of the 1731–32 'epidemic' (most of them written by German doctors and theologians), see Tony Faivre, Les Vampires (Paris, 1962), pp. 154–9; Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker, Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern (München, 1973), pp. 519–23; and Frayling's introduction to The Vampyre (London, 1978), pp. 31–4.
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Cited texts
- Barber, Paul (1988). Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04126-2.
- Bunson, Matthew (1993). The Vampire Encyclopedia. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-27748-5.
- Cohen, Daniel (1989). The Encyclopedia of Monsters: Bigfoot, Chinese Wildman, Nessie, Sea Ape, Werewolf and many more …. London: Michael O'Mara Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0-948397-94-3.
- Graves, Robert (1990) . The Greek Myths. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-001026-8.
- Hoyt, Olga (1984). "The Monk's Investigation". Lust for Blood: The Consuming Story of Vampires. Chelsea: Scarborough House. ISBN 978-0-8128-8511-8.
- Jones, Ernest (1931). "The Vampire". On the Nightmare. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis. ISBN 978-0-394-54835-7. OCLC 2382718.
- Marigny, Jean (1994). Vampires: The World of the Undead. "New Horizons" series. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-30041-1.
- Skal, David J. (1996). V is for Vampire. New York: Plume. ISBN 978-0-452-27173-9.
- Silver, Alain; James Ursini (1993). The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula. New York: Limelight. ISBN 978-0-87910-170-1.
External links
Library resources aboutVampire
- [REDACTED] The dictionary definition of vampire at Wiktionary
- [REDACTED] Media related to Vampire at Wikimedia Commons
- [REDACTED] Quotations related to Vampire at Wikiquote
- [REDACTED] Works related to Vampire at Wikisource
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