Vampires

Overview

vampire, also spelled vampyre, in popular legend, a creature, often fanged, that preys upon humans, generally by consuming their blood. Vampires have been featured in folklore and fiction of various cultures for hundreds of years, predominantly in Europe, although belief in them has waned in modern times.

Characteristics

Because there is a long history of walking corpses and bloodsucking ghouls in folklore, it is difficult to pin down a distinct set of characteristics consistently attributed only to vampires. Central to vampire myth, however, is the consumption of human blood or other essence (such as bodily fluids or psychic energy), followed closely by the possession of sharp teeth or fangs with which to facilitate this task. In most depictions, vampires are “undead”—that is to say, having been somehow revived after death—and many are said to rise nightly from their graves or coffins, often necessarily containing their native soil. Vampires are typically said to be of pale skin and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale. Another frequently cited physical characteristic is the inability to cast a reflection or shadow, which often translates into an inability to be photographed or recorded on film.

A person may become a vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to be bitten by a vampire. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide, contagion, or having a cat jump over a person’s corpse. Some people believed that babies born with teeth or on Christmas or between Christmas and Epiphany were predisposed to becoming vampires. While vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and they are indeed often said to have faster-than-normal healing capabilities, there are various methods for their destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are often depicted as being repelled by garlic, running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes and holy water. In some stories vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, thereby enabling potential victims to escape.

History

Creatures with vampiric characteristics have appeared at least as far back as ancient Greece, where stories were told of creatures that attacked people in their sleep and drained their bodily fluids. Tales of walking corpses that drank the blood of the living and spread plague flourished in medieval Europe in times of disease, and people lacking a modern understanding of infectious disease came to believe that those who became vampires preyed first upon their own families. Research from the 20th and 21st centuries has posited that characteristics associated with vampires can be traced back to certain diseases such as porphyria, which makes one sensitive to sunlight; tuberculosis, which causes wasting; pellagra, a disease that thins the skin; and rabies, which causes biting and general sensitivities that could lead to repulsion by light or garlic.

Vampire myths were especially popular in eastern Europe, and the word vampire most likely originates from that region. Digging up the bodies of suspected vampires was practiced in many cultures throughout Europe, and it is thought that the natural characteristics of decomposition—such as receding gums and the appearance of growing hair and fingernails—reinforced the belief that corpses were in fact continuing some manner of life after death. Also possibly contributing to this belief was the pronouncement of death for people who were not dead. Because of the constraints of medical diagnosis at the time, people who were very ill, or sometimes even very drunk, and in a coma or in shock were thought dead and later “miraculously” recovered—sometimes too late to prevent their burial. Belief in vampires led to such rituals as staking corpses through the heart before they were buried. In some cultures the dead were buried facedown to prevent them from finding their way out of their graves.

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