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Vampires are a recurrent favourite around Halloween , but they can be found twelvemonth - one shot in motion-picture show and on television , in books and on web log . The public ’s hungriness for vampire seems as endless as vampires ' thirst for blood . New writer of lamia fable , admit Stephenie Meyer , Anne Rice , Stephen King and countless others , have a rich nervure of vampire lore to draw from . But where did the vampires make out from ?
The most famous vampire is , of course , Bram Stoker ’s Dracula , though those looking for a historical " real " Dracula often cite Romanian princeVlad Tepes(1431 - 1476 ) , after whom Stoker is said to have modeled some view of his Dracula character . The delineation of Tepes as a vampire , however , is a distinctly Western one ; in Romania , he is catch not as a blood - crapulence sadist but as a national Heron who fight his conglomerate from the Ottoman Turks .
Vampire
The vampires most people are intimate with ( such as Dracula ) are revenant — human remains that are said to return from the tomb to harm the support ; these vampire have Slavonic origins only a few hundred years former . But other , old , versions of the vampire were not think to be human at all but instead supernatural , possibly demonic , entities that did not take human form .
Matthew Beresford , source of " From demon to Dracula : The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth " ( Reaktion , 2008 ) , take down , " There are clear foundations for the lamia in the ancient world , and it is inconceivable to prove when the myth first arose . There are suggestions that the vampire was stand out of sorcery in ancient Egypt , a devil summoned into this humans from some other . " There are many variations of lamia from around the earth . There are Asian vampire , such as the Chinese jiangshi ( say chong - shee ) , evil spirits that attack people and run out their life energy ; the descent - wassail Wrathful Deities that appear in the " Tibetan Book of the Dead , " and many others .
Identifying vampires
While most hoi polloi can name several elements of lamia lore , there are no hard established characteristic . Some vampires are say to be able-bodied to turn into bats or wolves ; others ca n’t . Some are said not to hurl a reflexion , but others do . Holy piddle and sun are said to revolt or bolt down some lamia , but not others . The one universal equipment characteristic is the draining of a life-sustaining corporal fluid , typically blood . One of the reason that vampires make such successful literary figures is that they have a rich and wide-ranging chronicle and folklore . Writers can play with the " rule " while adding , take off or changing them to fit whatever story they have in mind .
Finding a lamia is not always easy : agree to one Romanian fable you ’ll require a 7 - year - quondam boy and a white Equus caballus . The boy should be dressed in snowy , placed upon the gymnastic horse , and the pair set at large in a burying ground at midday . take in the buck wander around , and whichever tomb is nearest the horse when it finally stops is a lamia ’s grave — or it might just have something comestible nearby ; take your weft .
Interest and belief in revenants billow in the Middle Ages in Europe . Though in most advanced stories the classic manner to become a vampire is to be bitten by one , that is a relatively new turn . In his book " Vampires , Burial , and last : Folklore and Reality " ( Yale , 2008 ) , folklorist Paul Barber noted that centuries ago , " Often potential revenants can be identified at birth , usually by some abnormality , some fault , as when a child is gestate with tooth . likewise funny are children born with an extra nipple ( in Romania , for example ) ; with a lack of gristle in the nose , or a split lower rim ( in Russia ) … When a child is born with a red caul , or amniotic membrane , covering its head , this was regard throughout much of Europe as presumptive grounds that it is destined to return from the dead . " Such minor deformities were looked upon as evil prognostic at the time .
Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula has influenced how many people picture vampires.
The belief in vampire stems from superstitious notion and misguided assumptions about postmortem examination radioactive decay . The first recorded account statement of vampire follow a consistent traffic pattern : Some unexplained tough luck would befall a soul , family or township — perhaps a drouth dried up crop , or an infectious disease struck . Before scientific discipline could explain weather patterns and source theory , any forged event for which there was not an obvious crusade might be blamed on a lamia . Vampires were one easy answer to the age - honest-to-goodness question of why risky things happen to good people .
Villagers combined their belief that something had cursed them with fear of the dead , and concluded that perhaps the recently at rest might be creditworthy , having add up back from the grave with evil intent . Graves were excavate , and surprised villager often mistook ordinary decomposition processes for supernatural phenomenon . For example , though laypeople might assume that a body would decay straightaway , if the casket is well sealed and buried in winter , putrefaction might be delayed by hebdomad or month ; intestinal rotting make bloating which can force blood up into the mouth , making it look like a all in consistence has recently absorb blood . These physical process are well understand by modern doctors and morticians , but in medieval Europe were taken as manifest sign that vampires were literal and survive among them .
Vampire defense and protection
The best way to deal with lamia , of course , is to prevent them from come back in the first place . A few C ago in Europe this was often accomplished by adventure suspect vampires in their Graf ; the thought was to physically pin the vampire to the worldly concern , and the chest was choose because it ’s the automobile trunk of the body . This tradition was later reflected in popular fiction depicting wooden stake as dispatching vampire . There was no particular significance to using woodwind ; according to folklore , vampire — like djinn ( genies ) and many other magical creature — fear iron , so an iron bar would be even more good than a wooden stake .
Other traditional method of killing vampires admit beheading and stuffing the discerp headway ’s back talk with garlic or a brick . In fact , suspected vampire graves have been found with just such signs . concord to a 2012 springy Science article , " The body of the woman was found in a aggregative grave accent on the Venetian island of Nuovo Lazzaretto . Suspecting that she might be a vampire , a common phratry belief at the clock time , gravediggersshoved a rock candy into her skullto preclude her from chewing through her shroud and infecting others with the plague , say anthropologist Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence . " Other researchers by and by challenge this interpreting , and suggested that the brick may not have been placed in the mouth after all , but rather was one of many bricks surround the body that merely strike down there after burial . Whether that burial reflect an accused lamia or not , other Graf are much clear . In 2013 , archeologist in Bulgaria foundtwo skeletons with iron rod through their chests ; the pair are believe to have been accused lamia , according to an article in Archaeology magazine .
If your local villagers neglected to unearth and stake a suspect vampire and he or she has returned from the grave , there are steps you’re able to take to protect yourself . The exact method acting varies around the world , but in some custom the best way to stop a vampire is to comport a small bag of salt with you . If you are being chased , you need only to spill the salt on the soil behind you , at which point the vampire is obligated to stop and count each and every grain before continuing the spare-time activity . If you do n’t have salt handy , some say that any small granules will do , include bird feed or sand . Salt was often placed above and around doorways for the same reason .
A skeleton buried in the cemetery of Vecchiano in Pisa showing a similar condition to the purported “Venetian vampire."
Some traditions hold that vampires can not enter a home unless formally invited in . This may have been an early form of the modern " strange danger " warnings to children , a shivery admonisher against inviting unknown hoi polloi into the house .
Real vampires
There are , of course , a few truly vampiric animals , including parasite , lampreys and vampire bats . And in all these case the vampire ’s intent is to draw enough blood for sustenance , but not enough to kill the boniface .
But what about human vampires ? There are certainly many self - identify lamia who participate in Gothic architecture - inspired subcultures . Some legion lamia - themed book clubs or secret bloodletting rituals ; others wear capes or get vampire - fang dental implants . It ’s all frightening and fun , but blood drinking is another issue only . The problem is that blood is toxic ; because it is so plenteous in iron — and because the human body has difficultness excreting supernumerary iron — anyone who consumes blood on a regular basis run a tangible risk of haemochromatosis ( Fe overdose ) , which can cause a wide salmagundi of diseases and problems , including liver and nervous organization damage .
In one kind or another , vampires have been part of human polish and folklore in different forms for millennium , and the hirudinean show no signs of going away any time soon .
The skull of the “vampire of Venice,” found in a mass grave with a brick stuck in its jaw.
