The first known English use of the word occurred in 1734 in a travel book published in London, The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, whose authors said that “vampyres” found in central Europe were supposed to be “bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves in the night-time, suck the blood of many of the living and thereby destroy them.” Following the publication of that book, the word gained circulation throughout England, just as it was doing on the European continent.
The Original Vampire
There are vampire legends from as far back as 125AD, when one of the first known vampire stories occurred. Its origin was Greek. Vampire legends originated in the Far East and made their way west.
The Slavic people have the richest vampire legends in the world. They were originally related to the Iranians and they migrated to where they are now around the 8th century. Almost as soon as they arrived the Christianization process began, and vampire legends survived as myths.
Gypsies arrived in Transylvania shortly before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431. The vampire here was the ghost of a dead person, which in most cases had been a witch, sorcerer or suicide.
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The Original Vampire contd
Vampires were feared creatures, because they killed people but at the same time looked like people; the only differences were that they didn’t have a shadow. Nor did they reflect in the mirror. They could change their shape into a bat, which made them impossible to catch. At daytime the vampires slept in their coffins, but at night they lived from drinking human blood, as the sun’s rays were deadly for them. The most common method of acquiring the blood they needed to survive was to fly through a window by midnight, in the shape of a bat and bite the victim’s neck and suck it dry for blood. Vampires couldn’t enter a house if they weren’t invited in, but as soon as they had, they could re-enter as often as they liked.
The Slavic vampire wasn’t only dangerous because it killed people, but also because the victims, after death turned into vampires. The vampire’s strongest side was, that it was
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The Original Vampire contd.
almost immortal; only some very special rites could kill them such as: putting a stick through their heart, chop their head off or burn the body. This type of vampire is also the most known type, especially Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.
Vlad Tsepesh a.k.a. Dracula
Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler was the real life prince upon whom Bram Stoker based his famous Count Dracula. Dracula was born in Transylvania in 1431 in the town of Sighisoara. Sighisoara was then a German settlement called Schassburg, and the house in which Dracula was born was a typical German burgher’s house of fifteenth century, set in a cobbled lane.
But the boy did not stay long in that environment. The family moved often, following the
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Vlad Tsepesh a.k.a. Dracula
fortunes of the father, who was an ambitious soldier and a good one. In 1431, Vlad the father was given the Order of the Dragon by Emperor Sigismund of Nuremberg; by that honour he was bound to fight against the Turks, who were trying to swallow up Eastern Europe. The emblem of the order was a dragon (Dracul) with spread wings, hanging on a cross. The name Dracul means dragon or devil. His connection with this symbol, Vlad the elder was nicknamed Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Devil), and the nickname Dracula, son of Dracul, passed on to his son.
At the age of only 13, the Turks who “taught” him to torture and impale people captured Dracula; but it was under his reign of Wallachia in 1456 to 1462 that he actually got a chance to use his knowledge. It is also from this time, most of the stories happen, here is an example:
Once Dracula saw a man on the street with a dirty and ragged shirt. Dracula asked if he had a wife, and the man says “yes.” Dracula sees that she is healthy and has plenty of faults, and calls her lazy, so he has both her hands cut off and her body impaled. He procured a new wife for the man and showed her what happened to her lazy predecessor as a warning; the new wife was definitely not lazy.
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Vlad Tsepesh a.k.a. Dracula
Dracula’s other name Tsepesh (or Tepes) means impaler. Vlad was named this because of his penchant for impalement as a way of punishing his enemies. Impalement was a particularly gruesome form of execution. It was done by pulling the victim onto a stake by horse, which was sharpened at the end and oiled, so it would NOT cause immediate death. Unfaithful wives and immoral women were punished by Dracula by cutting off their sex organs, skinning them alive and exposing them in public with their skin hanging from a nearby pole. Dracula especially enjoyed mass executions where several victims were impaled at once and their stake hoisted upright. As they hung suspended above the ground, the weight of their bodies would slowly drag them downwards, causing the sharpened end of the stake to pierce their internal organ. In order to better enjoy the mass spectacles, Dracula routinely ordered a banquet table set up in front of his victims, and would enjoy a leisurely supper amid the pitiful sights and sounds of the dying. The actual castle of Dracula is in the northern Wallachian town of Tirgoviste. Vlad Dracula died in 1476. Some stories tell that he died in battle where he had disguised himself as a
Turk. As victory was near he became excited and ran to the top of a hill to see it all, but
was mistaken for a Turk and therefore killed by his own men. Vlad’s tomb was opened in 1931 but it was empty except for a badly deteriorated skeleton, a golden crown, and a necklace with a serpent design and fragments of a red silk garment with a ring sewn on.
Unfortunately all these rings have been stolen from the History Museum of Bucharest where they were deposited.
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The Common Vampire
It’s impossible to give a complete picture of the vampire as it is in books, because there are many different versions of this myth. Just about every thinkable ability and weakness has probably been assigned to vampires at some point.
The best vampire writings entertain us with suspense, horror, romance and sensuality, while providing an opening for our aggressive instincts and antisocial behaviour. It is impossible to predict what form it will take in the future, for the vampire has surpassed horror writings to become a powerful and fascinating parable for exploring our concerns about mortality and life after death. However, we can be sure that Dracula and his descendants will continue to entertain generations of new fans in whatever shape they assume.
So, are vampires apparently ordinary human beings that sink his or her teeth into a “donor’s” flesh and suck blood as an act that produces a sexual explosion that excites and satisfies? Will we ever know? I guess only time will tell … …
The Common Vampire
It's impossible to give a complete picture of the vampire as it is in literature, because there are many different versions of this myth. Just about every thinkable ability and weakness has probably been ascribed to vampires at some point.
The best vampire literature entertains us with suspense, horror, romance, and sensuality, while providing an outlet for our aggressive instincts and antisocial behavior. It is impossible to predict what form it will take in the future, for the vampire has transcended horror literature to become a powerful and fascinating metaphor for exploring our concerns about mortality and life after death. However, we can be sure that Dracula and his descendants will continue to entertain generations of new fans in whatever shape they assume.
