People have been dreaming up horrible monsters and malicious spirits for centuries. The vampire, a seductive, "undead" predator, is one of the most inventive and alluring creatures of the bunch. It's also one of the most enduring: Vampire-like creatures date back thousands of years, and pop up in dozens of different cultures.
In this article, we'll see where the various elements of the vampire legend come from, and we'll examine some grounded scientific explanations for apparent vampirism. We'll also look at the psychological significance of these creatures and find out about some real-life counterparts to the supernatural vampire. Vampire Basics
The vampires in contemporary books, movies and television shows are incredibly elaborate creatures. According to the predominant mythology, every vampire was once a human, who, after being bitten by a vampire, died and rose from the grave as a monster. Vampires crave the blood of the living, whom they hunt during the night. They use their protruding fangs to puncture their victims' necks.
Since they're reanimated corpses -- the living remains of a deceased person -- vampires are often referred to as "the undead." They can still pass as healthy humans, however, and will walk undetected among the living. In fact, vampires may be attractive, highly sexual beings, seducing their prey before feeding. A vampire may also take the form of an animal, usually a bat or wolf, in order to sneak up on a victim.
Vampires are potentially immortal, but they do have a few weaknesses. They can be destroyed by a stake through the heart, fire, beheading and direct sunlight, and they are wary of crucifixes, holy water and garlic. Vampires don't cast a reflection, and they have superhuman strength.
This vampire figure, with its particular combination of characteristics and governing rules, is actually a fairly recent invention. Bram Stoker conceived it in his 1897 novel Dracula. Other authors reinterpreted Dracula in a number of plays, movies and books.
But while the specifics are new, most of the individual elements of the legend have deep roots, spanning many regions and cultures. In the next few sections, we'll look at some of the more notable vampire ancestors. Vampire in India
.jpg)
Earliest myths of vampire-like creatures seem to come from India, and other places in the East like Tibet and China. The “Gypsies” or the Roma people, actually began as nomadic tribes in northern India, taking stories of vampire legends with them as they traveled westward.
They traveled to places like Turkey and Romania, Hungary, the Slavic lands, and soon all across Europe. The vampire legend traveled with them. The ancient India beliefs about the vampire creatures still exist in Indian culture today. Since this was all oral tradition, it’s easy to understand how the vampire legend changed over time from its original source in India.
In India, the vampires were generally viewed as demonic beings that could reanimate the corpse of a human. It would use the body of the human to destroy others and drink their blood. Typically this was a human who was buried improperly or not given the proper funeral rites. These ideas persisted about vampires as the Gypsies spread the legends throughout Europe.
The Gypsy vampires changed to be more like revenants; humans who come back from the dead. These versions of vampires usually come back and destroy their families and friends first. This idea was very common among the earliest vampire myths of Europe.
A common theme in these early vampire legends were that any living thing could become a vampire. This included dogs, cats, and farm animals. Even plants! There was, of course, the myth of the vampire pumpkin! These myths had changed a whole lot from the original India legends.
The Gypsies also had some interesting ideas about protecting against vampire attacks. They would drive steel or iron through the corpse, or put steel in the mouth or over the eyes of the corpse of a suspected vampire. They would place hawthorn in the socks of the corpse or drive a hawthorn stake through the body. They would also pour boiling water over the grave or the corpse. If all else failed, they would decapitate the corpse and burn it. This is more similar to the Western idea of vampires we have today. And to think, it all began in ancient India!
