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About Vampires - Myths & Histories
The most famous vampire is, of course, Dracula, a Transylvanian Count who lived in the 15th century, but the idea of a vampire dates back to the earliest days of human civilization, to ancient Mesopotamia. Indeed, Lilith, who appears in the Old Testament of the Bible, is said to have been a vampire. Vampire tales appear in many parts of the world, and some scholars believe arose independently in different places.

Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern European myths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.

On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppy seeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seeds rather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film. Even among the Eastern European countries there is a large variety of vampires.

SLAVIC VAMPIRES:

The Slavic people including most east Europeans from Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia to Poland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the world. The Slavs came from north of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Prior to 8th century AD they migrated north and west to where they are now.

Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new homelands. But through the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Church were struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD, with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbians staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs, and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the development of vampire lore - the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were

saints, while the Orthodox church believed they were vampires. The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th C as a result of conflict between pre-Christian paganism and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore.

ROMANIA:

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

There are different types of strigoi: strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours.

GYPSIES AND VAMPIRES:

Even today, Gypsies frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" in which the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him.

In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romany language.

By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431.

Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. The Gypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands.

The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. In northern India could be found the brahmaparusha, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood.

Sara or the Black Goddess is the form in which Kali(the hindu goddess who battled against the demon Raktabija) survived among Gypsies. Gypsies have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptised a Gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24th in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred.

One Gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire was believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)

BATS:

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the vampire, but this was not always the case.

Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought them lucky - they wore charms made of bat bones. And in England the Wakefield crest and those of some others have bats on them.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VAMPIRE CONTROVERSY:

Today everyone is familiar with vampires, but in Britain very little was known of vampires prior to the 18th century. What brought the vampire to the attention of the general public? 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.

This controversy was directly responsible for England's current vampire myths. In fact, the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 via an English translation of a German report of the much publicized Arnold Paole vampire staking in Serbia.

Western scholars seriously considered the existence of vampires for the first time rather than just brushing them off as superstition. It all started with an outbreak of vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1725-1734.

Two famous cases involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the other famous case Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had been attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After death people began to die and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours.

These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural people having an epidemic of vampire attacks and digging up bodies all over the place. Many scholars said vampires didn't exist - they attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst.

However, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746 which said vampires did exist. This had considerable influence on other scholars at the time.

Eventually, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa sent her personal physician to investigate. He said vampires didn't exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. But by then everyone knew about vampires and it was only a matter of time before authors would preserve and mould the vampire into something new and much more accessible to the general public.

HISTORICAL VAMPIRES AND MYTHS:

evidence of the vampire tale can be found with the ancient Chaldeans in Mesopotamia, near the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, and with Assyrian writings on clay or stone tablets. The land of the Chaldeans is also called the "Ur of the Chaldeans," which was the original home of Abraham from the Bible.

"Lilith" was a possible vampire from the ancient Hebrew Bible and its interpretations. Although she is described in the book of Isaiah, her roots are more likely in Babylonian demonology. Lilith was a monster who roamed at night taking on the appearance of an owl. She would hunt, seeking to kill newborn children and pregnant women. Lilith was the wife of Adam before there was Adam and Eve, according to tradition; but she was demonized because she refused to obey Adam. (Or to see it from a more liberated viewpoint, she demanded equal rights with Adam). Naturally, she was considered evil for such "radical" desires and became a vampire who eventually attacked the children of Adam and Eve -- namely, all human descendants.

Lilith (Hebrew לילית) is a mythological female Mesopotamian storm demon associated with wind and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death. The figure of Lilith first appeared in a class of wind and storm demons or spirits as Lilitu, in Sumer, circa 3000 BC. Many scholars place the origin of the phonetic name "Lilith" at somewhere around 700 BC.[1] Lilith appears as a night demon in Jewish lore and as a screech owl in the King James version of the Bible. She is also apocryphally the first wife of Adam.

Vampire tales occurred in ancient China, where the monsters were called kiang shi. In ancient India and Nepal, as well, vampires may have existed -- at least in legend. Ancient paintings on the walls of caves depict blood drinking creatures; the Nepalese "Lord of Death" is depicted holding a blood-filled goblet in the form of a human skull standing in a pool of blood.

Other ancient Asians, such as the Malayans, believed in a type of vampire called the "Penanggalen." This creature consisted of a human head with entrails that left its body and searched for the blood of others, especially of infants. The creature lived by drinking the victims' blood. In ancient Peru there were also vampire legends; the canchus were believed to be devil worshipers who sucked the blood of the young.

The term vampir was used in Russia and in other Slavic lands such as Poland and Serbia. The word vampir may possibly be derived from the Magyar (Hungarian) language, although some say that vampir is related to the Russian word peets which means "to drink."

Ekimmu was a vampire spirit of ancient Babylonia which rose from the dead when hungry, especially if foolish humans forgot to leave food sacrifices near his grave. When hungry he returned to earth for human blood.

Murony was a vampire from Wallachia which was a shapeshifter as well as a bloodsucker. It could change its form into that of a dog, a cat, an insect or another creature. In Wallachian lore, a person who died unexpectedly was highly suspect of becoming a vampire. Sudden death was assumed to be the work of a vampire. Sometimes a long spike or nail was punched into the skull of a dead body to prevent it from returning from the grave. The Murony may also be seen as a werewolf, a living human who became a dog or wolf at night and hunted other animals especially cattle.

Nosferatu" is another Eastern European term for vampire, or at least it is believed to be. "Nosferatu" is one of the more curious words for the vampire. The Western world became acquainted with this term first with the Irish writer Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula. Later, in 1922, the word appeared again with the first film ever made about the evil Transylvanian count, called, of course, "Nosferatu." (There were earlier silent films made about vampires, but they no longer exist for viewing purposes.)

Marie Laveau, the famous 19th century voodoo queen from Old New Orleans, was once said to be a vampire. She was not. But a noted New Orleans writer in the late 1800s, Lafcadio Hearn, said she was -- at least it was so speculated. He was probably speaking of her daughter, also named Marie, with whom he purportedly once lived. Then again, Mr. Hearn was a romantic. Born in Greece (the land of the vrykolakas), renowned as a journalist and writer in New Orleans where he became a familiar with the voodoo community, and a sojourner to a then exotic Japan where he was married eventually and settled down, Lafcadio Hearn walked on the wild side, to be sure. But his alleged statement about Marie Laveau was not altogether unbelievable.

In New Orleans voodoo in the 19th century, the blood of the rooster was drawn and, it was said, consumed. Wild, unsubstantiated tales were spread that the voodoo worshipers cooked children in cauldrons and ate them. This didn't happen, but some people believed it, just as many people believed that vampires spread the Black Death and other plagues in Europe.

But there may have been another reason for calling beguiling Marie Laveau a vampire; dare we say, a vamp? She was sensual as well as supernatural. And not unlike Laveau (who lived in the exotic city where the fictional vampire Lestat would dwell), the vampires of old Europe carried the subliminal message of sex with them as they rose from the dead at night in search of blood. Support for the vampire myth could be found historically, extrapolated from a few extraordinary facts. Such was the case of the "Blood Countess."

The deeds of a 16th century Hungarian countess named Elizebeth Bathory would rival the tales of horror told in almost any land. Her crimes were evil beyond description, though some say she was more insane than evil. When he was doing research for his novel about vampires, Bram Stoker came across a book called The Book of Werewolves by Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. (Authors Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu suggest that the real-life Dracula -- and yes, there was one -- may have been related to Bathory on his Hungarian side of the family.) In this work was a description of the sinister deeds of the so-called Blood Countess. It is likely that this story, among other things, provided inspiration to Stoker for his vision of Count Dracula. In fact Elizebeth's cousin, Stephan Bathory, would one day become a prince in Transylvania.

Elizebeth was a well-educated and clever woman, but she possessed a tremendous cruel streak. Apparently fearing her own mortality after the death of her husband, she became sadistic towards her servants and eventually sought to acquire if not eternal life or longevity, then at least the appearance of youthful skin by washing in blood. Elizebeth actually got tips on how to torture from her husband who, as a soldier, used to brutalize Turkish prisoners-of-war. Bathory reportedly murdered scores of women, sometimes aided in her brutal deeds by her underlings (not unlike the fictional Dracula commanding his own servants to do his evil bidding.)

Bathory beat her victims routinely and mutilated them as well. Reportedly she froze some in the snows of winter near her home called Castle Csejthe, dumping ice water on them in freezing weather. There were possible acts of cannibalism as well; allegedly Bathory once took several bites out of the flesh of a living servant girl. And there were legendary tales of the Blood Countess literally bathing in the blood of virgin girls in the hopes of remaining young (although at least one source claims the blood baths are more legend than reality). Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the Hungarian countess Elizebeth Bathory did exist and that she committed evil acts. Another source says she drank the blood of 650 girls who were also murdered.

As the body count grew, Bathory's servants dumped the corpses outside the castle. When local peasants found the dead bodies, drained of blood, naturally they assumed vampires killed them. Rumors spread.

In 1610 she was arrested after her attempts to kill girls of nobler birth; apparently the grounds for arrest pertained to alleged witchcraft, not vampirism per se. Reportedly victims were found in the castle drained of blood. The countess' henchmen were put to death by the authorities and Elizebeth was imprisoned in her bedroom in her Castle in the Carpathian Mountains until her death years later. The only real evidence of Bathory's atrocities were recalled in her two trials in 1611 -- though she was never allowed to appear personally in court, only her henchmen appeared. Still, many myths have continued to flourish about her. It is said that some people even today claim to see her ghostly vision in her homeland in the Carpathians, prowling at night... in search of blood. Elizebeth Bathory's story demonstrates how the myth of vampirism can be supported by the misinterpretation of the true life actions of a deranged criminal and feed the ignorance of believers.

Bram Stoker's Dracula, however, is the ultimate vampire story. Today, more than a century after his creation in 1897, Dracula is still the archetypical vampire image. However, there were actually two Draculas. One was fiction, Stoker's creation. The other was real. He was known as Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, or -- since his father was called Dracul (which meant devil or dragon) -- he was also called Dracula, which means "son of Dracul."

Vlad Dracula was a real Romanian prince who lived in the 15th century who was noted for his military campaigns against the Turks. In Romania he is considered a hero, even today. (For instance, the Romanian military has honored him by naming a modern assault helicopter the AH1 RO-Dracula.) Vlad was also a mass murderer and a fiend whose favorite form of killing was impalement. This was a type of crucifixion except instead of hanging the victim on a cross, the victim was impaled, from bottom up, with a long, sharp, wooden pole -- in other words, a stake was driven into the body vertically. The body was then displayed for Vlad Dracula, who once enjoyed dining amidst a forest of impaled bodies. Allegedly Vlad once killed 20,000 Turks in this way and lined them up as scarecrows to terrify any further enemies. (Vlad did not limit his murderous means to impalement, however; he also enjoyed cooking his victims and chopping them up.)

As to whether Vlad Dracula was an actual vampire, this was not likely. However, according to perhaps the most authoritative modern account on Dracula (McNally and Florescu's In Search of Dracula), Vlad Dracula actually used the blood of his victims as a sauce with his meals, using human blood as a dip for his bread. This was according to a document called "The Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman called Dracula of Wallachia" written in 1463, a document which was only fairly recently discovered. So, it is possible after all that Vlad did enjoy consuming human blood. Influenced by Vlad Dracula, the vampire which Bram Stoker created was more base, and quite frankly, uglier than the villain in the typical film versions -- although it has been said that the German 1922 film Nosferatu depicted Dracula as Stoker probably would have wanted it. Remember that vampires, according to legend, were essentially ugly, smelly, non-decomposed corpses; Stoker and the 1922 film Nosferatu followed this tradition of a grotesque vampire, which differs vastly from the suave and debonair modern version.

--117.194.2.107 (talk) 21:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)5ayan