VAMPIRES I

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Vampires

"There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples."

Bram Stoker's Dracula - Chapter 18: MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL - 30 September

The vampires are monsters that has both thrilled and terrified people for hundreds of years, from sophisticated Parisian theatre-goers to Eastern European peasants. Today the myth of vampires is omnipresent as one of the majors horror motifs in arts, literature and music.

Definition

Vampires are mythical or folkloric creatures, typically held to be the re-animated corpses of human beings and said to subsist on human and/or animal blood (hematophagy), often having unnatural powers, heightened bodily functions, and/or the ability to physically transform. Some cultures have myths of non-human vampires, such as demons or animals like bats, dogs, and spiders. Vampires are often described as having a variety of additional powers and character traits, extremely variable in different traditions, and are a frequent subject of folklore, cinema, and contemporary fiction.

• Vampire by Clyde Caldwell

Vampirism is the practice of drinking blood from a person/animal. Vampires are said to mainly bite the victim's neck, extracting the blood from the carotid artery. In folklore and popular culture, the term generally refers to a belief that one can gain supernatural powers by drinking human blood. The historical practice of vampirism can generally be considered a more specific and less commonly occurring form of cannibalism. The consumption of another's blood (and/or flesh) has been used as a tactic of psychological warfare intended to terrorize the enemy, and it can be used to reflect various spiritual beliefs.

Vampires in history

Vampire myths go back thousands of years and they are found 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.

The history of the vampire begins in ancient Persia, where a vase was discovered depicting a man struggling with a huge creature which is trying to suck his blood. Then, there was discovered a deity known for drinking the blood of babies, Lilitu or "Lilith", in a Babylonian myth. During the 6th century BC, traces of the "Living Dead" were also found in China. More legends continued throughout the entire world, including India, Malaysia, Polynesia and the lands of the Aztecs and Eskimos. For example, Aztecs believed that offering a young victim’s blood to the Gods ensured the fertilization of the earth.

The modern concept of the vampire occurs for the first time in European civilization. In both Roman and Greek mythology, there are found numerous bloodthirsty Goddesses, known as Lamiae, Empusae and Striges, names which eventually evolved into the general terms for Witches, Demons and Vampires. But these Vampires, though they do drink blood, were only Goddesses...not "living Dead", but disembodied divinities capable of taking on human appearances so that they might seduce their victims. The vampires we know today are nothing else but mutation determined by fiction and movies.

Types of vampires

1. Blood vampires - Those who feed on blood. They are commonly referred to as "sangs," "sanguinarians," "sanguines," "blood vamps" and they usually have regular donors from whom they feed. Rarely, they feed on animal blood. They ingest blood for the energies found within.
2. Energy vampires - (generally referred to as “psychic vampires") are those vampires who feed on energy directly. They sense and manipulate energy, pulling it into them in order to refill themselves.

That last category can be split into three other categories, in accordance with the specific types of energy the vampires feed on:

1. Sexual Energy vampires - These individuals feed on energy produced during sex, or produced by any other sexual activity or influence. They are often referred to as "pranic" vampires.
2. Elemental Energy vampires - These individuals feed on energy from nature and elements (such as the earth, thunderstorms, the moon, etc.). They are commonly referred to as "elemental vampires."
3. Empathic vampires - These vampires claim to feed on emotions. Emotions are textures, patterns, flavors of energy

Vampires' powers / abilities

• Ability to multiply by contamination - vampires give blood to contaminate souls and spread evil.
• Life time - vampires don’t age or die from the passing of time, but they seem to get older when a long period of time passes without feeding themselves. But they can get young again using a blood supply. It also should be saind that most of the vampire's powers increase with age and experience.
• Invulnerability - vampires are immune to most a diseases and invincible to mortal weapons, but they became vulnerable when move around during the day or when they rest in the coffins.
• Strength - the vampire's physical strength greatly exceeds that of mortals (it is said that they are at least 20 times stronger).
• Shape-shifting - vampires have the ability to control several animals such as the wolf, the rat, the fox, the owl, the bat and the moth and they are also capable taking the form of a wolf or a bat and possibly any of the other animals subject to his command. Vampires can also transform themselves into a mist or dust cloud drifting in the air, they can modify their sizes in certain limits, becoming either larger or smaller, and they can climb walls (normally, like a large insect with his head toward the ground much like a spider).
• Alliance with the devil - the vampires’ abilities to command some form of magical or monstrous beings (demons, zombies, etc.) are considered to be the proof of vampires’ connection with the demons.
• Hypnotic mind control - the vampire may exert his will over the will of his victim (that explains why the victims often have no memory of being attacked).

Vampires' Weaknesses

•  Day light - vampires are obliged to sleep (actually, they rest in their coffin in a trance that keeps them aware of things happening around) during the day and to rest upon a protective layer of hallowed ground from its native land.
• Light is destructive - during the day light, vampires lose their supernatural powers, becoming only human, that’s why mortal weapons may harm them.
• Religious symbols - such as the Cross, the Holy Water and other symbols of the Church are considered to be powerful weapons against vampires, werewolves, witches, etc. (it has to be mentioned that only faithful persons are able to use those symbols succesufully).
• Invitation - vampires may not enter a home unless they are freely invited in by one of the residents. Once invited, he may come and go at will.

Dictionary

Dracula's Dictionary includes the terms used or related to this site content. You can find here information about vampires, about characters related to Dracula's myth, other interesting resources.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y

A

• Alucard

  • Alucard is word Dracula spelled backwards. Alucard is the name of characters in several other vampire-related movies/series and computer games
  • Alucard (Hellsing), character of the manga and anime series, Hellsing
  • Alucard (Castlevania), a character in the ongoing series of video games, Castlevania

B

Bela Lugosi

• Bela Lugosi

  • Born at 20 October 1882 at Lugos, Hungary (now Romania). Bela Lugosi shot to stardom in the title role of the 1931 film version of Bram Stoker's Dracula and set the standard for movie vampires.
  • Béla Lugosi was the stage name of actor Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956). He was born in Lugos, Banat, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), the youngest of four children of a banker. The blue-eyed actor is best known for his portrayal of Dracula in the American Broadway stage production, and subsequent film, of Bram Stoker's classic vampire story. (source:Wikipedia.org)

Bram Stoker (Abraham Stoker)

• Bram Stoker (Abraham Stoker)

  • For most of his working life, Bram Stoker was a theater manager, then business manager for British actor Sir Henry Irving. In the meantime, he wrote fantastic stories and novels, his most famous beingDracula, published in 1897.
  • Bram Stoker, born in Dublin, Ireland in 1847, and gained fame for his novel "Dracula" about an aristocratic vampire in Transylvania. The sequel,"Dracula's Guest", was not published for 17 years after the publication of "Dracula," two years after Stoker's death. Stoker also wrote "The Mystery of the Sea" and "Famous Imposters." He was the stage manager for actor Sir Henry Irving and wrote "Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving," after Irving's death.

C

Christopher Lee

• Christopher Lee

  • After a long and distinguished career as one of the biggest movie stars of horror and fantasy,Christopher Lee is now known to film audiences as Saruman the White in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and as Darth Tyranus in the Star Wars epics Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Lee has been making movies since 1947, and over the years he has played mostly villains and monsters, thanks in part to a long association with the United Kingdom's Hammer Films. His remarkable filmography includes more than 250 films, including: Dracula (1958);
  • Christopher Lee, played the role of Dracula in Hammer Film Dracula (1958). It was followed by seven sequels beginning with The Brides of Dracula in 1960. Peter Cushing returned as Professor Van Helsing, and David Peel played Baron Meinster, a descendent of Dracula and replacement for Christopher Lee. Lee returned as Dracula for the rest of the sequels, with the exception of "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula (1973)":
    Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
    Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
    Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969)
    Scars of Dracula (1970)
    Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
    The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

D

• Dracula

  • The title character of Dracula, a novel from the late nineteenth century by the English author Bram Stoker. Count Dracula, a vampire, is from Transylvania, a region of eastern Europe now in Romania. He takes his name from a bloodthirsty nobleman of the Middle Ages. To lay the vampire Dracula's spirit to rest, one must drive a wooden stake through his heart.
  • Dracula (1897) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, and the name of the world's most famous vampire character.

E

F

G

H

I

• Impalement

  • Impalement is an act of torture and/or execution whereby the victim is pierced by a long stake. The penetration can be through the sides, from the rectum, or possibly through the mouth. The stake would be usually planted in the ground, leaving the victim hanging to die.
    In some forms of impalement, the stake would be inserted so as to avoid immediate death, and would function as a plug to prevent blood loss — thus extending the victim's agony for many hours. One way to achieve this gradual death is to insert the stake through the rectum deep into the body of the victim until it left the body near the right shoulder, thus avoiding damaging the heart.
    The term impalement is also used to describe deep stabbing wounds that occur in accidents where objects are driven through the body, for example by falling onto a spike, or being driven onto one in an automobile accident. Removing these objects presents a severe surgical challenge. (source: Wikipedia.org)

J

K

L

Lamia

• Lamia

  • also Lamia Greek Mythology. A monster represented as a serpent with the head and breasts of a woman that ate children and sucked the blood from men.
  • A female vampire.
  • On the fringes of Greek mythology Lamia was one of the monstrous bogeys that terrified children and the naive, like her daughter Scylla, or Empousa. TheLamia had the head and torso of a woman, but the lower half of her body was serpentine. Laimos is the gullet, and she had a cannibal appetite for children that could be interpreted as a dangerous erotic appetite for men.

M

N

Nospheratu

• Nospheratu

  • Nospheratu is a silent movie realeased in 1922. Its original name was: Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens ("Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror" from German). Directed by F.W. Murnau, the movie is a expressionist film based  on Bram Stoker's Dracula. But the Dracula become Nospheratu, and the Count Dracula became Count Orlok.

O

Ottoman Empire

• Ottoman Empire

  • A vast Turkish sultanate of southwest Asia, northeast Africa, and southeast Europe. It was founded in the 13th century by Osman I and ruled by his descendants until its dissolution after World War I. Originally a small state controlled by Ottoman or Osmanli Turks, it spread rapidly, superseding the Byzantine Empire in the east. (source: The American Heritage Dictionary)
  • An empire developed by Turks between the fourteenth and twentieth centuries. It was succeeded in the 1920s by the present-day republic of Turkey. At its greatest extent, the Ottoman Empire included many parts of southeastern Europe and the Middle East.
  • The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish; literally, "The Sublime Ottoman State"), also sometimes known as the Turkish Empire, existed from 1299 to 1923. At the height of its power in the 16th and 17th centuries, its territory included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and much of south-eastern Europe to the Caucasus. It comprised an area of about 5.6 million km²[1], though it controlled a much larger area, if adjoining areas dominated mainly by nomadic tribes, where the empire's suzerainty was recognized, are included. The empire interacted with both Eastern and Western cultures throughout its 624-year history. (source: Wikipedia.org)

P

Q

R

S

• Strigoi

  • In Romanian mythology, strigoi (same form singular or plural) are the evil souls of the dead rising from the tombs (or living) wich transform into an animal or phantomatic apparition during the night to haunt the countryside, troubeling whoever it encounters. A strigoaica (singular feminine form) is a witch. Strigoi are also known as "moroi" in some parts, especially rural areas. They are close relatives of the werewolves known as varcolaci.
  • According to Romanian mythology a strigoi has blue eyes, ginger hair and two hearts.
  • Read more info about Romanian mytology and vampires

T

Transylvania

• Transylvania

  • A historical region of western Romania bounded by the Transylvanian Alps and the Carpathian Mountains. Part of the Roman province of Dacia after A.D. 107, it was later overrun by Germanic peoples and came under Hungarian rule in 1003.
    Transylvania passed to various powers over the following centuries and finally became part of modern-day Romania after World War II.
  • Largely as a result of the success of Dracula, Transylvania has become a popular setting for horror fiction (particularly that involving vampires).
  • More info about Transylvania and the places related to Dracula that you can visit.

U

V

• Vampire

  • Originally part of central European folklore, they now appear in horror stories as living corpses who need to feed on human blood. A vampire will leave his coffin at night, disguised as a great bat, to seek his innocent victims, bite their necks with his long, sharp teeth, and suck their blood.
  • In folklore, animated corpse that sucks the blood of humans. Belief in vampires has existed from the earliest times and has given rise to an amalgam of legends and superstitions. They were most commonly thought of as spirits or demons that left their graves at night to seek and enslave their victims; it was thought that the victims themselves became vampires.
    
    The vampire could be warded off with a variety of charms, amulets, and herbs and could finally be killed by driving a stake through its heart or by cremation. Sometimes the vampire assumed a nonhuman shape, such as that of a bat or wolf (see lycanthropy). Probably the most famous vampire in literature is Count Dracula in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
  • See also our section about Vampires

Vlad the Impaler

• Vlad the Impaler

  • Vlad III Dracula 1431?–1476, prince of Walachia (1448, 1456–62, 1476), known as Vlad the Impaler. He was the son of Prince Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil) and is therefore also called Dracula or son of the Devil. Vlad IV seized the Walachian throne briefly in 1448 and definitively in 1456 with the support of John Hunyadi, whom he had helped against the Ottoman Turks. Ruling with firmness and with cruelty toward his opponents, he created an orderly administration, developed commerce, and strengthened the army. In 1462, however, a campaign against him by the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II resulted in his deposition. Vlad sought aid from the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus but was instead imprisoned in Hungary for 12 years. In late 1476, Vlad, with Transylvanian aid, regained the Walachian throne only to be defeated and killed by the Ottoman-supported prince, Laiota Basarab.
    The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, although not based on Vlad's historical exploits, made the name Dracula well known in literature. (Columbia University Encyclopedia)
  • See also the section of the site about the Vlad the Impaler

W

• Wallachia

  • A historical region of southeast Romania between the Transylvanian Alps and the Danube River. Founded as a principality c. 1290, it was ruled by Turkey from 1387 until it was united with Moldavia to form Romania (1861).
  • Wallachia (also spelt Walachia, known as Ţara Românească, "the Romanian Land" in Romanian) is a historical region in Southern Romania, corresponding to formed a principality formed in the late Middle Ages and in existence until the mid-19th century.
    (Wikipedia.org)

Werewolves (werewolf)

• Werewolves (werewolf)

  • Legendary human beings who are magically transformed into wolves. Werewolves supposedly prowl at night, devouring babies and digging up corpses, and cannot be killed with ordinary weapons. They are particularly associated with the full moon.
  • A werewolf in folklore and mythology is a person who shapeshifts into a wolf, either purposely, by using magic, or after being placed under a curse. The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the transformation with the appearance of the full moon, but this concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by modern fiction writers. Most modern references agree that a werewolf can be killed if shot by a silver bullet, although this is more a reflection of fiction's influence than an authentic feature of the folk legends. Werewolves are sometimes held to become vampires after death. (Wikipedia.org)
  • Thanks for this picture to Bart Nunnelly
    http://www.kentuckybigfoot.com