Vampire

This article deals with vampires in folklore and legends, as well as giving a general overview. For treatments of the vampire legend in fiction, see vampires in modern fiction. For the real bats that subsist on blood, see vampire bat. For other uses of the term vampire, see Vampire (disambiguation).

Philip Burne-Jones, The Vampire, 1897

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings that are renowned for subsisting on human blood or lifeforce, but in some cases may prey on animals. Although vampires have different characteristics depending on which lore one reads, in most cases, they are described as reanimated corpses 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 Balkans and Greece. Folkloric vampires were depicted as undead beings who visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while living. They wore shrouds, did not bear fangs and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or darkened countenance.

The 1897 novel Dracula brought folklore into the realm of published fiction. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century. Books and films of the genre have portrayed vampires with attributes markedly distinct from those of original folkloric vampires. With Count Dracula, the gaunt, fanged noble undead, vulnerable to sunlight was born. However, traits such as aversion to garlic and vulnerability to staking were simply incorporated from the folklore.

Numerous cultures the world over have similar entities that suck blood or energy and prey on the living; indeed, some also have stories of non-human vampires, including real animals such as bats, dogs, spiders and mythical creatures such as the chupacabra. All vampire lore stems from ancient demonology, which had vampiric beings, but are not classified as vampires as such.

Etymology

The word Vampire appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1734 as much was appearing in German literature on the subject. After the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz 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. The etymology is uncertain, though several theories of its origin exist. The English term was derived (possibly via French vampyre) from the German Vampir, in turn thought to be derived in the early 18th century from Serbian вампир/vampir, or Hungarian vámpír. The Serbian and Hungarian forms have parallels in virtually all Slavic languages: Bulgarian вампир (vampir), Czech and Slovak upír, Polish wąpierz and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upiór, Russian упырь (upyr'), Belarusian упыр (upyr), Ukrainian упирь (upir'), from Old Russian упирь (upir'). (Note that many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" secondarily from the West). Among the proposed proto-Slavic forms are *ǫpyrь and *ǫpirь. The Slavic word might, like its possible cognate that means "bat" (Czech netopýr, Slovak netopier, Polish nietoperz, Russian нетопырь / netopyr' - a species of bat), contain a Proto-Indo-European root for "to fly".

The first recorded use of the Old Russian form Упирь (Upir') is commonly believed to be in a document dated 6555 (1047 AD). It is a colophon in a manuscript of the Book of Psalms written by a priest who transcribed the book from Glagolitic into Cyrillic for the Novgorodian Prince Vladimir Yaroslavovich. The priest writes that his name is "Upir' Likhyi " (Упирь Лихый), which would mean something like "Wicked Vampire" or "Foul Vampire." This apparently strange name has been cited as an example of surviving paganism and/or of the use of nicknames as personal names. However, in 1982, Swedish Slavicist Anders Sjöberg suggested that "Upir' likhyi" was in fact an Old Russian transcription and/or translation of the name of Öpir Ofeigr, 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. Another early use of the Old Russian word is in the anti-pagan treatise "Word of Saint Grigoriy," dated variously to the 11^th—13^th centuries, where pagan worship of upyri is reported.

Folk beliefs

The notion of vampirism has been in use for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demons and spirits including the Empusa, Lamia, and Lilitu, who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the devil was considered synonymous with the vampire in earlier times. However, despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the mythology for the entity we know today as the vampire comes almost exclusively from Southeastern Europe. It is in these regions, such as the Balkans, Transylvania, Wallachia and Greece, that it is believed the folklore about vampires had its origins. In most cases, vampires are revenants 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 Dracula, there are many ways to destroy a vampire; decapitation, a stake to the heart, incineration and exposure to sunlight are commonly cited.

Description and common attributes

File:Munch vampire.jpg

Vampyren "The Vampire", by Edvard Munch.

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. 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.

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 Bulgarian vampires only had one nostril, while Bavarian vampires slept with thumbs crossed and one eye open. Moravian vampires only attacked victims naked and the vampires of Albanian folklore wore high heeled shoes. As stories of vampires spread throughout the globe to the Americas and elsewhere, so did the varied and sometimes bizarre descriptions of them; Mexican vampires have a bare skull instead of a head, Brazilian vampires had furry feet and vampires from the Rocky Mountains only sucked blood with their noses from the victim's ears. Even broad descriptions were implemented, such as having red hair. So from these various descriptions across time, works of literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula and the influences of historical figures such as Gilles de Rais and Vlad Tepes, 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.

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. 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.

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 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 is similar to the ancient Greek practice of placing a obolus in the corpse's mouth so that they may pay their way across the River Styx 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 vrykolakas, 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. 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. 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.

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. Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than a normal, dead body would have and were also said to be plump and have no 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, although many theories have been made attributing all these abnormal appearances to natural causes and village hysteria; Some historians have stated that the coffin acted as an airtight tomb in some cases, thus preserving the body from decomposition, much in the same way as natural mummies are preserved. However, when the villagers open the coffin in search of a vampire, the rate of decomposition is accelerated rapidly by the change of pressure and air, so much so that it may appear to be evaporating significantly; in most legends of vampires, when a vampire is stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake, it is said to deteriorate into nothing more than a skeleton, propagating this theory further. Another modern theory attempting to debunk the appearance of undecomposed corpses in coffins is the fact that the person could have simply been buried alive. 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-like activity and pressing on people in their sleep.

A common theme is the use of apotropaics to ward the revenants off, namely mundane or sacred items or things such as garlic, sunlight or holy water. Items vary from region to region; a branch of wild rose is said to harm vampires as well as the hawthorn plant; in Europe, sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of a house was said to keep vampires away. Other apotropaics include sacred items, for example a crucifix, rosary beads 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. In Asian legends, vampiric creatures are often warded by holy devices such as Shintō seals. In South American superstition, Aloe vera hung backwards behind or near a door has the same function. Although not regarded as a vampire apotropiac, 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. 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. 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.

Traditional methods of destroying vampires are numerous, with the most commonly cited the driving of a wooden, or less commonly metal, stake through the heart. The preferred wood is ash in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record of oak in Silesia. This is thought to have originated in Eastern Europe along with many other vampire legends; 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. Other methods include decapitation or complete incineration of the body. Other than being decapitated, the vampire's head may also have a spike driven through it, often with force so as to pin it to the ground. 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.

Vampires are sometimes endowed with special abilities when described in folklore; some are given great strength, while others the ability to transform 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 Lord Ruthven and Varney the Vampire was the ability to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore. Though folkloric vampires thought more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to sunlight. This vulnerability has developed with subsequent vampire fiction.

Ancient beliefs

The painting Lilith (1892), by John Collier.

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. Today we know these entities predominantly as vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire didn't exist; blood drinking and the such like was referred to as the work of demons or spirits, such as Lilith, Empusa, Lamia 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.

The Persians 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. Ancient Babylonia had tales of the mythical Lilitu, synonymous with Lilith (Hebrew לילית) and her daughters the Lilu from Hebrew demonology who were derived from their Babylonian counterparts. Lilitu was considered as a deity 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. The legend of Lilith was originally included in traditional Jewish texts, she was considered to be Adam's first wife before Eve; However, references to Lilith were removed from later versions of the Old Testament. In the original texts, Lilith left Adam to become the queen of the demons and much like the Greek striges, 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 Hebrew law which absolutely forbid the eating of human flesh or the drinking of any type of blood. To ward off attacks from Lilith, parents used to hang amulets from their child's cradle.

The Ancient Greeks had several vampiric beings, often gods or goddesses, who appeared as a precursor to modern vampires, although none were considered as undead. Modern Greek folklore describes the vrykolakas, the Greek equivalent to the East European vampire; however in ancient times there were Lamia, Empusa and striges (strix in Ancient Roman mythology). Over time both the words Empusa and Lamia were changed to the general terms empusae and lamiae meaning witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess Hecate and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. Empusa would feast on blood by transforming into a young woman and seducing men as they slept before drinking their blood. Lamia was the daughter of King Belus and secret lover of the Greek god Zeus. However, when Zeus' wife Hera discovered this infidelity, she killed all of Lamia's offspring; Lamia swore vengeance and began to prey on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood. Like Lamia, the striges, feasted on young 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. The Romanian vampire breed Strigoï has no direct relation to the Greek striges, but was derived from the Roman term strix, as is the name of the Albanian Shtriga and the Slavic Strzyga, though myths about these creatures are more similar to their Slavic equivalents.

In India, tales of vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. A prominent story tells of King Vikramāditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive vetala. The vetala legends have been compiled in the book Baital Pachisi. 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.

The Ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet in one myth became full of bloodlust after slaughtering humans and was only sated after drinking alcohol colored as blood.

As an example of the prominence of similar legends in later times, it can be noted that 12th century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, which resemble those of Eastern Europe. However, there are scant records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date.

India of later times is also familiar with many vampiric entities. The Bhut or Prét is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wanders around animating dead bodies at night, attacking the living much like a ghoul. 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. pishacha are other creatures who resemble vampires to an extent. Since Hinduism believes in reincarnation 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 yoni, and re-enter the world of mortal flesh in the next incarnation.

European beliefs

Despite previous entities having existed as precursors to the vampire we know today, almost all modern vampire mythology comes from Europe, especially the region of Eastern Europe.

Slavic

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; excommunication; improper burial rituals; an animal jumping or a bird flying over the corpse or the empty grave (in South Slavic folk belief); and even being born with a caul, 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. Slavic vampires were able to appear as butterflies, echoing an earlier belief of them symbolizing departed souls.

Preventive measures included piercing the body with thorns or stakes, putting sawdust in the coffin (so that the vampire awakens in the evening and is compelled to count every grain of sawdust, which occupies the entire evening, so he will die when at dawn), placing blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, and placing a crucifix in the coffin. In the case of stakes, the general idea was to pierce through the vampire and into the ground below, pinning the body down. Certain people would bury those believed to be potential vampires with scythes above their necks, so the dead would decapitate themselves as they rose.

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.

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.

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."

Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (sometimes the head would be placed between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, sprinkling holy water on the body, or exorcism. In the Balkans, a vampire could also be shot or drowned.

Some traditions spoke of "living vampires" or "people with two souls", a kind of witches capable of leaving their body and engaging in harmful and vampiric activity while sleeping.

South Slavic legends had a number of specific characteristics that set them apart from the others. Most notably, 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 vampire hunters. The same talent was believed to be found in persons born on Saturday.

A special feature of West Slavic beliefs, according to ethnologist 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 East Slavic area, the northern regions (i.e. most of Russia) 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". Ukrainian and Belarusian legends are more "conventional", although in Ukraine the vampires may sometimes not be described as dead at all, or may be seen as engaging in vampirism long before death. During cholera epidemics in the 19th century, there were cases of people being burned alive by their neighbours on charges of being vampires.

The most famous Serbian vampire was Sava Savanovic, famous from a folklore-inspired novel by Milovan Glišić.

Romanian

Romanian vampires are called strigoi and classified as living or dead. Live strigoi are living witches with two hearts and/or two souls. 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 Romanian folklore is Moroi.

Romanian folklore described numerous ways of becoming a vampire. A person born with a caul, an extra nipple, a tail, or extra hair, 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 black cat crossing her path. If a pregnant woman did not eat salt or was looked upon by a vampire or a witch, her child would also become a vampire. So would a child born out of wedlock. Others who became vampires were those who died an unnatural death or before baptism. Finally a person with red hair and blue eyes was seen as a potential strigoi.

Being bitten by a vampire could have the same result; Romanian vampires were said to bite their victims over the heart or between the eyes, never on the neck. It would attack family members and livestock. Sudden deaths could be a sign that a vampire was around. They would also indulge in poltergeist-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.

A vampire in the grave could be detected by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or a corpse with one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were identified by distributing garlic in church and observing who would refuse to eat it.

To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body, followed by decapitation and sometimes by placing garlic in the mouth. 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.

Vampires were believed to be especially active in the winter, and more specifically on the eve of two religious holidays, the Feast of St. George and the Feast of St. Andrew. Bram Stoker makes reference to this in his novel Dracula (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 apotropaics such as thorns, crosses and garlic to prevent the vampires from entering their homes. Cattle were also rubbed with garlic.

Roma

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

One form of vampire in Romani folklore is called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire is believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person. A mullo 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.

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, likewise if a corpse swelled or turned black before burial. Dogs, cats, plants or even agricultural tools could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood. (See the article on vampire watermelons.)

To get rid of a vampire, one could hire a Dhampir (the son of a vampire and his widow) or a Moroi to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, 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 driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, as well as decapitating or burning the corpse.

According to the late Serbian ethnologist Tatomir Vukanović, Roma people in Kosovo 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."

Greek

Main article: Vrykolakas

Although not related to ancient Greek, blood-drinking beings such as Lamia, the modern Greek equivalent of a vampire is known as the vrykolakas, similar in many ways to the European vampire. Belief in vampires (usually called βρυκόλακας, vrykolakas, though reportedly referred to as καταχανάδες, katakhanades, on Crete) 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.

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.

A corpse in the grave was typically believed to be undecomposed and swollen "like a drum"; however, the appearance of vampires outside of the grave varied throughout Greece. They were usually thought to be indistinguishable from living people, giving rise to many folk tales with this theme. However, this was not the case everywhere: on Mount Pelion vampires glowed in the dark, while on the Saronic islands vampires were thought to be hunchbacks with long nails; on the island of Lesbos vampires were thought to have long canine teeth much like wolves.

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,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 Naxos in the 1930s, following a cholera epidemic.

Varieties of wards were employed for protection in different places, including blessed bread (antidoron) from the church, crosses and black-handled knives. 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 chrismation in the baptism ritual, cremation was considered a last resort.

World beliefs

New England

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. 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 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 him/herself). The most famous (and latest recorded) case 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. Her heart was cut out then burnt to ashes. 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.

The Caribbean

The Loogaroo 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 Loup-garou, a type of werewolf and is common in the Culture of Mauritius. However, the stories of the Loogaroo are widespread through the Caribbean Islands and Louisiana in the USA.

China and Korea

Jiang Shi (simplified Chinese: 僵尸; traditional Chinese: 僵屍 or 殭屍; pinyin: jiāngshī; literally "stiff corpse"), sometimes called Chinese vampires by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence (qì) from their victims. jiāngshī is pronounced geungsi in Cantonese, and gangshi in Korean. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 pò) fails to leave the deceased's body. One unusual feature of folklore is their greenish-white furry skin; one theory is this is derived from fungus or mould growing on corpses. 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 Hong Kong movies 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 pinyin fú). Generally in the movies the Jiang Shi are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with an outrageously long tongue and long fingernails. They can be evaded by holding one's breath, as they track living creatures by detecting their breathing. Their visual depiction as horrific Qing Dynasty officials reflects a common stereotype among the Han Chinese of the foreign Manchu people, who founded the much-despised dynasty, as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for humanity.

It is also conventional wisdom of feng shui in Chinese architecture that a threshold (Chinese: 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.

Japan

Kyūketsuki, (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 manga, 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 shinso. Shino are able to convert others to kyūketuki, but their power will generally be weaker than the original.

Southeast Asia

Similar legends of female vampire-like beings who can detach parts of their upper body occur in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. There are two vampire-like creatures in the Philippines: the Tagalog mandurugo (blood-sucker) and the Visayan manananggal (self-segmenter or viscera sucker). The mandurugo is a variety of the aswang that looks like a pretty girl during the day. At night it develops wings and a long, hollow, thread-like tongue. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim. The manananggal of Visayan 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.

The Malaysian Penanggalan may either be a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic, supernatural, mystical, or paranormal 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. The Leyak is similar being from Balinese folklore. A Pontianak, Kuntilanak or Matianak in Indonesia or Langsuir in Malaysia is a woman who died during childbirth and becomes undead, seeking revenge and terrorizing villages.

Modern beliefs

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 fictional image of the vampire as it occurs in films and literature.

There were rumours spread by the local press in early 1970 that a vampire haunted Highgate Cemetery in London. 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 "Highgate Vampire" and who later claimed to have exorcised and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area.

In the modern folklore of Puerto Rico and Mexico, the chupacabra (goat-sucker) 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.

Hysteria about alleged attacks of vampires swept through the African country of Malawi during late 2002 and early 2003. Mobs stoned one individual to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.

In Romania 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.

In January 2005, rumours began to circulate that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, 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 urban legend.

In March 2007, self-proclaimed vampire hunters broke into the tomb of Slobodan Milošević, former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, 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.

Natural propagations for beliefs

Natural decomposition cycles

When the coffin of an alleged vampire was opened, people sometimes found that the cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should. 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.

Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from body orifices. 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. It should be noted that folkloric accounts almost universally represent 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.

Blood can often be seen emanating from nose and mouth of a decomposing corpse, which could give the impression that the corpse was a vampire who had recently been drinking blood. The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and also 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 flatus when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the Peter Plogojowitz 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 Plogojowitz case - the dermis and nail beds 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.

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".

Pathology and vampirism

Folkloric vampirism has typically been associated with a series of deaths due to unindentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community. The "epidemic pattern" is obvious in the classical cases of Peter Plogojowitz 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 (see above).

In his book, De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1725), Michaël Ranft makes a first attempt to explain folk's belief 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 Peter Plogojowitz: "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."

Some modern scholars have argued that vampire stories may have been influenced by a rare illness called porphyria. The disease is a blood disorder that disrupts the production of haem. Porphyria 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. 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.

Certain forms of porphyria are also associated with neurological symptoms, which can create psychiatric disorders. 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 severe misunderstanding of the disease.

Another disease that has been linked with vampire folklore is rabies. Dr Juan Gomez-Alonso, a neurologist at Xeral Hospital in Vigo, 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.

Some psychologists in modern times recognize a disorder called clinical vampirism (or Renfield's Syndrome, from Dracula's insect-eating henchman, Renfield, in the novel by Bram Stoker) in which the victim is obsessed with drinking blood, either from animals or humans.

There have been a number of murderers who performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. Serial killers Peter Kurten and Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. Similarly, in 1932, an unsolved murder case in Stockholm, Sweden, was nicknamed the "Vampire murder", due to the circumstances of the victim’s death.

Vampire bats

See also: Vampire bat

Bats 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 heraldic tradition, a bat means "Awareness of the powers of darkness and chaos". In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. The three species of actual 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 extremely unlikely that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the bat. During the 16th century the Spanish 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 popular fiction

File:Orlock.jpg

Count Orlock, a well-known example of vampire fiction, from the 1922 film Nosferatu.

Throughout modern history, and indeed long before, vampires have captured people's imaginations, and as such, have been featured numerous times in fictional pieces. Lord Byron introduced the vampire theme to Western literature in his epic poem The Giaour (1813), but it was his personal physician John Polidori who authored the first "true" vampire story called "The Vampyre". The vampire of the story, Lord Ruthven, the first of our now familiar romantic vampires, is partly based on Byron. The "ghost story competition" that spawned this piece was the same one that motivated Mary Shelley to write her archetypal monster novel Frankenstein.

Literature

Main article: Vampire literature

Varney the Vampire was a landmark popular mid-Victorian era gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer (alternatively attributed to Thomas Preskett Prest), which first appeared 1845-47 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as penny dreadfuls because of their inexpensive price and typically gruesome contents. It was published in book form in 1847. It is 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.

Other examples of early vampire stories are Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished poem Christabel and Sheridan Le Fanu's lesbian vampire story, Carmilla.

Bram Stoker's Dracula has been the definitive version of the vampire in popular fiction for the last century. Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease (contagious demonic possession), with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in a Victorian Europe where tuberculosis and syphilis were common. Stoker's writings are also adapted in many later works.

The latter part of the twentieth centry saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics. 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 traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in the popular Vampire Chronicles (1976-2003) series of novels by Anne Rice.

Film

Main article: Vampire films

Vampires have also proven to be a rich subject for the film and gaming industries. Dracula is a major character in more movies than any other bar Sherlock Holmes (see Dracula in popular culture). Marvel Comics Blade Trilogy movies were popular in the late 20th, early 21st centuries. Television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer,

References

• Bell, Michael E. (2001). Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England's Vampires. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0899-9.
• Bunson, Matthew (1993). The Vampire Encyclopedia. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0-500-277486.
• Template:De icon Burkhardt, Dagmar (1966). "Vampirglaube und Vampirsage auf dem Balkan". Beiträge zur Südosteuropa-Forschung. Munich.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Template:Fr icon Cremene, Adrien (1981). La mythologie du vampire en Roumanie. Monaco: Editions du Rocher.
• Template:Fr icon Faivre, Antoine (1962). Les Vampires. Essai historique, critique et littéraire (Préface de Robert Amadou). Paris: Le Terrain Vague - Eric Losfeld.
• Frayling, Christopher (1991). Vampyres, Lord Byron to Count Dracula. ISBN 0-571-16792-6.
• Template:It icon Introvigne, Massimo (1997). La stirpe di Dracula: Indagine sul vampirismo dall'antichità ai nostri giorni. ISBN 0-571-16792-6.
• Template:Es icon Jaramillo Londoño, Agustín (1967). Testamento del paisa. Editorial Bedout: Medellín. 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 schwäbischen Literatur- und Geistesgeschichte 9 (2001/2002), Stuttgart: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, Akademischer Verlag Stuttgart 2004 [2005], S. 295–306 ISBN 3-88099-428-5
• Jones, Ernest (1931). "The Vampire". On the Nightmare. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis.
• McNally, Raymond T. (1983). Dracula Was a Woman. McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-045671-2.
• McNally, Raymond T. (1994). In Search of Dracula. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-65783-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Melton, J.G. (1994). The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Visible Ink Press. ISBN 0-8103-2295-1.
• Nyarlathotep, Frater & Jesse Lindsay (2006). Ardeth - The Made Vampire. Lulu Press. ISBN 1-84728-516-3.
• Summers, Montague: 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).
• Skal, David J. (1996). V is for Vampire. Plume/Penguin. ISBN 0-452-27173-8.
• Silver A., Ursini J. (1993). The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula. New York: Limelight. ISBN 0-87910-170-9.
• Tomkinson, J.L. (2004). Haunted Greece: Nymphs, Vampires and other Exotika. Athens: Anagnosis. ISBN 960-88087-0-7. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)
• Vuković, Milan T. (2004). Narodni običaji, verovanja i poslovice kod Srba. Belgrade: Сазвежђа. ISBN 86-83699-08-0.
• Wright, Dudley (1914). The Book of Vampires (available in various reprints).

See also

Related links

• Adeliza de Borgomanero
• Arnold Paole
• Elizabeth Bathory
• Energy vampire
• Halloween

• Jure Grando
• Maschalismos
• Medieval revenant
• Vampire hunter
• Vampire lifestyle
• Vampire pumpkins and watermelons

Related mythological creatures

• Alp (folklore)
• Aswang
• Civatateo
• Dhampir
• Kitsune
• Oni (Japanese folklore)
• Patasola

• Peuchen
• Pontianak (folklore)
• Rakshasa
• Sayona
• Soucouyant
• Tunda
• Yakshi

External links

• Journal of Dracula Studies
• How Stuff Works - Vampires