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All the medical terms you need to know that are related to vampirism

Haematodipsia- A sexual thirst for blood.

Hedonism- Excessive devotion to pleasure.

Hemat(o)- [Greek] Prefix meaning blood; see also words beginning with
hem, hemo, or haemat(o).

Hematemesis- The vomiting of blood.

Hematidrosis- Excretion of bloody sweat. (I have seen this happen to a vampire in at least one novel.)

Hematophageous- Subsisting on blood.

Hematoporphyria- (see porphyria).

Hematospermia- Blood in the semen; hemospermia. (Again, I have seen this as a vampire characteristic in a novel.)

Hemeralopia- Day blindness; defective vision in a bright light.

Hemogeneic- Pertaining to production of blood.

Hemotherapy- The use of blood in treating disease.

Lust murder- The sexual act after the murder.

Necro- [Greek] Prefix meaning death.

Necrocytosis- Death and decay of cells. (I.e. the medical term for "rotting.")

Necrogenous- Originating or arising from dead matter.

Necrolysis- Separation or exfoliation of necrotic tissue. (This has more application in the accounts of bodies dug up in the middle ages-- and later-- where witnesses testify to ruddy or "new" skin on the supposed vampiric corpse, which later medical persons denote as being skin slippage, or

necrolysis-- a normal occurrence in a decomposing body.

Necromania- (see necrophilia).

Necrophagous- Feeding on dead flesh.

Necrophagy- Parts of a mutilated corpse are eaten.

Necrophilia- 1.) Sexual attraction to corpses.1 2.) Sexual intercourse with a dead body.

Necrophobia- Morbid dread of death or dead bodies.

Necropsy- Examination of a body after death; autopsy.

Necrostuprum- Body-stealing.1

Porphyria- A genetic disorder characterized by a disturbance in porphyrin metabolism with resultant increase in the formation and excretion of porphyrins or their precursors.


Here are a few more terms related to vampires.

Blood Fetish- The need or want to drink, taste, or "bathe" in blood. Usually conducted in a sexual situation. People who drink blood may or may not call themselves "vampires."

Blood Lust- The overwhelming desire to feed. A vampire in blood lust knows no bounds. The vampire will act as if possessed and cannot restrain him or herself until their appetite is sated, even if it means killing where they would not normally. Blood lust is often characterized by a reddening or glowing of the eyes, possible showing or elongation of fangs, drooling, growling, or any other animal-like behavior. Also simply called "the lust."

Child(e)- The offspring of a vampire. Pl., Childer.

Embrace- To make one a vampire; siring.(The specifics of this will be covered in a later page.)

Embracee- One who is being made into, or who has become embraced; childe.

Folkloric/ Historical Vampire- Specifically an animated corpse that has risen from its grave to drain the blood from animals or humans.

Fictional/ Literary Vampire- This vampire, unlike the folkloric vampire, has less limitations on it. Again, it may be an animated corpse feeding on blood, but "vampire" in literature is also used to refer to other creatures of the dark who are predators, such as ghouls or incubi, and it often does not feed solely on blood. Fictional vampires may act as psychic vampires, feeding on energy or emotional states, or may feed on other things, such as sex or flesh.

Ghoul- An animated corpse that sustains its own life by eating, most usually, the flesh of other corpses, but which can also eat humans.

Incubus/Succubus- This creature is something akin to a spirit or demonic entity, and sexually predates on men and women while they are asleep in their bed. Though it is not clear if the incubus prolongs its life by feeding from these sexual energies-- making it a type of vampire-- the victim does die from the incubus's attentions. It is linked to vampires, often confused as one, but because it is not an animated corpse, it is not wholly a vampire, at least historically. Pl., Incubi, Succubi.

Kindred- Vampires.

Living Vampires- This term refers to those people who are very much alive, but who practice vampiric acts, such as blood drinking, to satisfy an emotional need. Some claim, however, they do need to drink blood to sustain their health. People who choose a vampiric lifestlye often also opt to dress in black clothing or formal attire, sleep in coffins, and advoid the sunlight. "Living vampire" is usually applied only to those who wish to call themselves such- people who have only a blood fetish may take offense at being labeled a vampire. Being a living vampire may be labeled as a "club or weekend hobby," a "lifestyle," "occultism," or a "religion."

Psychic Vampire- Specifically a living being that sustains its life, way of life, or own emotional state by draining or feeding from the energy, emotions or life of another being, almost always a human.

Sire- The vampire who embraces another person; the maker of another vampire; parent vampire. (Female vampires can also be called "sires.")

Siring- The act of turning one into a vampire; embracing.

Vampire- 1. An animated corpse that drinks blood to sustain itself indefinitely. 2. A human, creature, spirit or other entity that drains any manner of thing-- blood, energy, etc.-- from humans or animals to sustain its way of life; psychic vampire.

Vampire Demi-god- I use this term to refer to entities who are neither a demon nor a spirit. Demi-gods, or lesser gods, are often god hybrids or low ranking gods. Unlike demons and spirits, they traditionally do not interact with the mortal population, unless it is in legend. (Hercules and the Titans are commonly known demi-gods.) A vampire demi-god is a figure in religion/ mythology that acts in a manner consistent with folkloric vampires. These lesser gods are, I believe, the beginnings of the figure of the vampire, who eventually de-evolved from a god-- splitting then, perhaps, into the other related forms of spirits and demons-- to a very tangible, and formally mortal, corpse.

Vampiress- A female vampire. (Though a "vampire" may refer to either sex.)

Pre Vampire Entities

In many cultures around the world, it is believed that are evil spirits who do harm to people. There are a wide variety of names for these spirits–too many to list here–and a wide variety of attacks. In Europe they are sometimes referred to as mora, mare, mara or any host of other names, but the must widely recognized and universal name is "incubus" for male spirits and "succubus" for female spirits (pl. incubi and succubi respectively). These spirits differ from vampires in that they have no corporeal form, and thus are not dead and would seem to be impervious to a victim's defenses. Evil spirits in general predate the vampire by millennia–they seem to have always been around in human culture–but it is unclear whether the vampire or the incubus specifically came first. John Milton1 gives a good description of the form of incubi/ succubi in Paradise Lost1:
With these came they, who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,
These feminine; for spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they chose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfill.


In Milton's description, there is no difference between an incubus or a succubus, because the spirits can assume either or both sexes at once (for convenience's sake, I shall refer Milton's androgynous spirits collectively as "incubi"). These incubi are able to achieve this because "...their essence [is] pure...," meaning that they are non-corporeal. In this bodiless form they are able not only to be either sex but they may have any form as well--be it small or large, obvious or hidden. In such a way they can do as they please "...[a]nd works of love or enmity fulfill." This conforms to folkloric tradition which holds that incubi plague mankind by either draining their victims of energy through nocturnal sex (love) or by sitting on their victim's chest and thus smothering the victim to death (enmity). In the setting of Paradise Lost, these incubi are ranked as fallen angels, thus making them a type of demon.

Though incubi and demons are mentioned in separate contexts in the Middle Ages, leading one to believe them to be separate entities, there is actually little to no difference in the characteristics between the two. Both spirit and demon derive their power from Satan, although incubi attack people directly and demons, while able to do likewise, tend to have someone do the leg work for them, such as witches. Demons are almost always depicted in art or described in literature as being in one form or another (humanoid or animal), while incubi do most of their business as something less tangible, such as mist or a ball of light. Demons are capable of doing anything, such as possessing people or souring a cow's milk, while European incubi (note the specific kind; this is not a universal trait of malicious spirits) are fairly consistent in their methods of attack, namely to people while they sleep. The last major difference is one of gender: demons are usually, if not always, male (while their minions, witches, are almost exclusively female), while the true sex-spirit is almost always female (there is more gender equality when it comes to the spirits who prefer to attack by suffocation).

While incubi are similar in form to any number of other demons and spirits around the world, there seems to be a fairly good hypothesis on how the incubi came to be in Europe. J. Gordon Melton 2offers the following explanation:


The incubus seemed to have originated in the ancient practice of incubation, where a person went to the temple of a deity and slept there overnight. During the course of the evening, the person would have contact with the deity. Often that contact involved sexual intercourse, either in a dream of with one of the very human representatives of the deity. Christianity, which equated the Pagan deities with devilish demons, viewed the practice of intercourse with the deity as a form of demonic activity.
Although this is a good theory and probably has some basis in fact, it cannot be the whole basis of the incubi myth. Namely, a Greco-Roman religion followed by Christianity didn't happen everywhere in the world, yet there are similar incubi creatures found everywhere. The most probable reason for the creation of the incubi myth is the need to explain sexually-oriented fantasies and wet dreams. Priests taught people that sex was to be used merely for procreation–not for pleasure. The ideal Christian (e.g. priests and nuns) was not supposed to engage in sex at all. For people who tried very hard during the day to be good Christians, uncontrollable dreams of a sexual nature at night were a horror. The incubi myth may simply spring up anywhere there are people who have to suppress their sexuality. It is much easier to live with yourself if you can blame your "bad" deeds/ thoughts on a demon. It's the classic "The Devil made me do it."

Vampire Folklore

Vampire Characteristics

How a person becomes a vampire
vampire from birth
vampire from evil deeds
vampire at/with death

Physical appearance
while animate
while inanimate

Removing/ Preventing the vampire
chuch methods
preventive measures (non-violent to the corpse)
final methods (corpse mutilation)

Saving/ preventing a victim
church methods
"old religion methods"


Where do vampires come from?

The Natural History of the Vampire* gives these examples as possible people who might become vampires in death, as according to old legends:


Dead wizards
Werewolves
Heretics
Outcasts
Illegitimate offspring of illegitimate children
Anyone killed by a vampire
Suicides
Unavenged deaths
Untimely/ unhappy deaths
Witches
Murderers
Excommunicants
Robbers/ villains
Accursed
An unburied body which has had sun or moonlight fall upon it (Specifically in China)
An unburied body that has been leapt over by a cat
Those without full rights before death (Slavonic)
Children born or conceived on a great Church holiday. (Slavonic)
Still born children and unbaptised children (Rise as vampires 7 years after their death, Slavonic)
Any animal (including cat) that has passed over an unburied body (Slavonic)
Anyone who has eaten the flesh of a sheep killed by a wolf (Slavonic)
Perjurers, liars
7th sons
Man born with a caul (a piece of the placenta that may become stuck to the child's head as it is born. Easily wiped off, but many cultures have interpreted it as sign, some good, some bad, of what that child will be like when grown.)
A pregnant woman who has been looked at (especially after her 6th month) by a vampire, her child as a great risk of becoming a vampire.
A shadow of a living man falling upon an unburied body.
A nun stepping over an unburied body.
Any of those things cover you? Admittedly, there are a lot of things there that define who might become a vampire when they are dead and/ or buried, but not all of them come from the same places. Though I tired to include specific countries or regions with their myths, when possible, so many of them have been shared and obscured that it is hard to tell where they come from. It is much easier to separate things out by regions, such as Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, though by far the largest collection of vampire lore is centered in Europe. Most scholars seem to agree that this is because of the plagues and many famines that swept repeatedly across Europe. Where there were no answers, an illness could easily be blamed on a superstitious belief. Where people were starving and quiet acts of cannibalism were taking place, it was easier to create a myth of something that arose from beyond the grave to do horrible mutilations to other bodies, rather than own up to one's deeds. Or perhaps you could even go so far as to say that vampires were born out of the nightmares induced by the horrors people were facing. Or perhaps... it's none of the above, but truth that has been obscured by myth.



How to find that vampire

Once you have a few odd things going on in your local village-- unexplained deaths, often in rapid succession; people becoming pale and weak; people complaining of being attacked by someone or something unknown; having dreams about being attacked and waking up in a cold sweat or feeling weak; or misc. unusual signs-- and you have identified the person who has recently died under suspicion of being a vampire, you need to go seek them out in their grave. There are a few certain signs to be able to tell if that corpse you unbury is just Aunt Mildred or Aunt Mildred with a will to suck the very life out of you in your sleep!

These are a few of the signs of vampirism in a dead body:


Holes in the ground above the grave (Guess even vampires like a little fresh air)
Corpse with one or more of the following:
Wide open eyes
Ruddy complexion
No decomposition
Nails and hair grown out
Bite marks apparent on the neck
Shroud (burial cloth) partially or entirely devoured
Blood in the veins
Coffin containing blood
Apparently well fed body
Flexible limbs

In China, vampires can be identified by the greenish-white hair covering their bodies.
Chinese vampires also may fly, have claws, and glaring/ glowing eyes.
And if you can't quite tell which grave contains the vampire (or you fear more than one), then there are two options:

Have a virgin boy ride naked and bareback on a virgin stallion through the graveyard until the horse steps on a grave and goes no further. That marks a vampire's grave. Or...
Lead a white stallion through a graveyard and the grave he will not step on is the grave of a vampire.
(Not much difference between the two. I suppose it depends on how far you believe you have to take it for it to work, or the availability of virgin boys and virgin stallions in your area.)



What to do now?

Have you found that vampire yet? Yes? Great! Now, let's see what we can do to further mutilate Aunt Mildred to make sure she stays good and dead and in the grave this time.


Unknown murder victims (strangers) and persons who committed suicide were often buried out away from the town or village, along roadsides or near road intersections. This was thought to be far enough away from town to keep them-- as possible vampires-- from coming back around, or to confuse them as to which direction is which so they will become lost and not come into town.
As a precaution, some bodies thought to have a very high chance of becoming vampires were staked or pinned into the grave.
The head might be severed from the body and placed between the legs or under an arm. (Wonder where the Legend of Sleepy Hollow came from??)
The feet and legs might be bound to prevent the body from escaping the grave.
The corpse may be dismembered and the pieces buried separately from each other.
To get rid of a known vampiric corpse, you could burn the corpse to ashes.
Tear out the heart.
Throw boiling water or oil onto the grave.
It was local customs that dictated the proper stake for spearing your nearest dead kin. Some included: aspen, maple, blackthorn, or hawthorn.
Vampiric witch doctors and/ or sorcerers had to be burnt on a moonless night or nailed to the ground.
As an extra preventive measure, bodies could be protected from vampiricy by burying them with a cross made of willow under each armpit, chin and chest.
The body could be buried face downward and deep to prevent it from knowing right side-up in the grave and escaping.
Drive a stake through the heart or navel. (Some say it must be done with only one blow.)
Put small stones or grains of incense in all the extremities so that the vampire will have something to eat when it awakens.
Place garlic in the mouth.
Millet (grains of wheat) could be scattered over the body and throughout the coffin so that the vampire, upon awakening, has to count or eat every piece in there.
Wild thorny roses should be strung around the outside of the coffin to make it more difficult for the vampire to escape.
Lay out a body several days to make sure it doesn't start acting like a vampire. (Germany)
Bury food with the body in hopes that will keep it satisfied.
Break the corpse's neck as another preventive measure.
Place money in the vampire's mouth (I think this was probably derived from the old Greek custom of giving a body money so the soul passing into Hades would be able to pay the ferryman at the River Styx to cross into the proper afterlife) and cut the name from it's shirt. (Germany)


If you should happen to get bitten...

There are a few things you can do if you suspect you are under attack or have been attacked by a vampire:

Drink the ashes of a burnt vampire to cure vampire-caused illnesses and to prevent further attacks.

Remedy for attacks against children (Italy):

Gospel read over the child's head while his head rests on a priest's robe.
Cross of wax, blessed on Ascension Day (40th day after Easter), hung over the doorway of the house.
A linen bag containing a pinch of salt hung around the child's neck.
Child's hair is cut and a lock is thrown into the fire.
Hinges in the house are sprinkled with holy water.
Credo recited aloud 3 times.
Husband/ father watches for 7 nights for the witch/ vampire.
Or if you fear getting bitten...


Mix flour with the blood of a "slain" vampire and make it into a bread and eat it to prevent against vampire attacks.
Lay a dead cat or dog at the house's threshold-- the witch or vampire will have to stop and count every hair on the animal, but will have to flee before dawn, or get caught by the sun and die.
In Russia, masks were worn by mourners in funeral processions, devious routes were taken on the way back home, and the mourners did not look back as they traveled away from the grave, all in an effort to keep any body that might turn vampire from coming back to town and finding people it recognized.

Vampire Watchers of the World... Unite!

Where are you most likely to see Aunt Mildred and other vampires out dancing and having a good time? Check out these promising vampire siting times...

All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) is a given for the emergence of vampires, witches, warlocks and general evil doers. Other nights fall on the eves of religious holidays such as St. George's and St. Andrew's Days (Roughly April 23rd and November 30th, respectively).

And if those sights freak you out more than you thought they would, you can always take special precautions on those nights. Try lighting bonfires, tolling church bells, painting crosses of tar on your doors, covering your cattle stalls with roses, or garlanding your house with flowers, garlic and/ or thistles to keep away the vampires.



Conclusion

I now give you leave to go on and find out more on your own. There is nothing more I can tell you on this topic. Oh, but there is one last thing: my favorite legend of all. "A vampire bathing brings rain." So, if you're in the middle of a drought in your village, drive everyone out in the middle of the night to bathe in the river. Hopefully one person out of them all will be a vampire and they will bring you rain. Well, it isn't necessarily true that it has to be at night. In Poland and Russia, vampires are out between noon and midnight, whereas the rest of Europe has them out at only between sunset and sunrise. Okay, I swear, I'm not holding anything else out on you. That's all I know on this subject.

Medical Information

The "Dracula Disease"

This rare disease known as the "vampire" or "Dracula" disease, or by it's proper medical name, porphyria (pronounced por-fer-e-ah, or por-fi-re-ah) is thought to be one of, or the reason for the vampire scares throughout time, in cultures around the world. It is very hard to describe it out of a nurse's dictionary-- it's a lot on the technical side-- but I'm going to try my best to put it in layman's terms.

First of all, porphyria is a genetic disease. Because it is hereditary, it can't be caught by blood or other fluid exchange. There shoots down all those old legends of vampires biting someone and they become a vampire themselves. If having porphyria makes you a vampire, then you cannot give it to others. You cannot make other vampires. You cannot "embrace" anyone. I'm not sure to what percent it is that it gets passed from parent to child, i.e. I'm not sure if 100% of children of a porphyritic (making up a word here) parent gets it or if 50% of them do, or if it passes more readily into one sex or another or if grandchildren are more likely to get it than children (as is sometimes the case with hereditary diabetes). The only sure thing is you can't get it through blood or bodily fluid transfer. Sorry if that ruins your evening plans of a little... necking.

Porphyrins (hence the lack of them gives you the name of the disease), combined with iron form hemes in the blood. Heme is what makes blood red. If you don't have the right porphyrin content, you don't have the right heme contents, and then things start to go bad. Prophyria imbalance can cause the following:

gastrological problems (stomach cramping, nausea)
neurological and psychological disorders (you get crazy)
photosensitivity (intolerance to sun or bright lights)
pigmentation of the face (skin changes color, usually getting lighter, losing color)
anemia (blood deficiency) with enlargement of the spleen (an organ acting as a reservoir for blood)
and excessive amounts of porphyrins are excreted in the stool and urine, giving it a dark red, bloodish color.
If you look at all the symptoms of porphyria, you can begin to see how it could start looking like what we know as a vampire. Mentally unstable people, perhaps snarling, flashing their teeth. Perhaps biting others. Some people report that porphyria is helped by giving blood, IV. Back before such things, you might find people suffering of the disease drinking blood to help them feel better. They are photosensitive, their skin, in extreme cases, prone to blistering and burning in the sunlight, so they would have a preference to avoid it. Discoloration of the skin or loss of pigmentation, coupled with a low amount of blood, would give suffers a very pale appearance indeed. But before you say "Aha!" and pronounce this as the truth behind the vampire scares, be advised, this is a very rare disease. There are several classifications of it as well, not all of them having all of the symptoms. Those symptoms closest to being "vampire related" appear only in a handful of cases. As of 1991, there were only 60 reported cases of the form of porphyria, CEP, that has symptoms most commonly linked with vampirism.1

Quick facts about Anemia, Catalepsy and Porphyria



Catalepsy

This is "a condition of diminished responsiveness usually characterized by a trance-like state and constantly maintained immobility. The patient with catalepsy may remain in one position for minutes, days and even longer."

Back before there were laws governing certificates of death and coroners who made sure you were dead, the science of declaring someone dead was not very precise, to say the least. It's not that catalepsy was so common as comas and near death phases were. After a traumatic accident, one may be breathing shallowly and the heart slowed. The person could go into a catatonic state, but not be dead. With monitors and such now, that's just part of being in critical condition; we know the person is alive. but in rural areas, miles and miles from medical help, often the person diagnosing death was a family member, friend, stranger, but too often not a doctor. Sometimes people knew how to check a pulse, which is your heart was still beating pretty well and they could take a good pulse, you were okay. But sometimes people couldn't take a pulse at all. The best you got was an ear pressed to the chest or close to the nose for sounds of a beating heart or breathing. Either of those too shallow for detection and you were pronounced dead. While wakes gave you roughly 24 hours to improve or die, you usually didn't have longer. Sometimes less, seeing how people did not have embalming and/or funeral homes with an air conditioner cold enough to frost the windows back in those days, funerals held in the heat of summer were often very, very quick. they wouldn't leave a body out long enough to see if it started to smell and was truly dead. Needless to say, many comatose people were buried alive in this fashion.

When you have people buried alive, you can easily see where vampire myths came from. "Partially eaten shroud" was often a sign of vampires. More often than not, it probably came, if not from bugs or natural deterioration, from people buried alive and hungry. Muffled sounds from graves and scratching in coffins on dark nights could have been those people wanting out, audible in the quietness of evening. Fresh bodies and blood and even screams as the heart of an unearthed vampire were staked can all be explained as comatose victims still alive in the grave, not undead. Because the fear of being buried alive was so great, some people went to great lengths to avoid it, stipulating in their wills to be laid out for three days to make sure they were really dead, not be buried until pronounced dead by a certified physician, to be exhumed three days after burial to make sure the body was dead, or some even had elaborate bell systems devised to ring on the surface if they moved their hand below.2



Well, enough proving vampires non-existent. Let's just say they do exist. Let's say you'd like to get bitten. But, oh, what to offer? Or if you're a writer, like me, where to have your vampire bite? Since we're already on the medical topic, let's go on and include this next section in it:

So many veins, where to begin?

Starting with the head down, I'll cover all the best places to "get a bite."


The external carotid artery-- This is the most common place of all to have a vampire bite. This is the artery in the side of your neck where you take your pulse, closest to the surface between the jaw, slightly under the earlobe and forward, and the collarbone.

The jugular vein-- This vein is a big no-no to bite. Extending on either side of the trachea (the throat), following down the neck from the chin to the collarbone, this vein is very dangerous to pierce. The jugular leads directly down into the heart and carries all the blood from the brain. The jugular vein is much larger than the carotid artery, and so carries much more blood. Very few people in the world have survived a severed jugular vein (we're talking single digits). So, unless your vampire has... um... fangs of steel and a very still victim, a jugular bite could be potentially deadly. The obverse side to that is it is very easy and quick to kill someone that way. Ripping out the throat, by either severing the jugular vein, puncturing the trachea (the windpipe), or both, causes a very quick death.

The median cubital vein-- This vein is the one in the elbow where, if you've ever had blood drawn, that is where they stick you. Hey, if a hospital can use it, so can a vampire.

The ulner artery-- This is the artery in the wrist. After the neck it seems to be the second favorite place for vampires to bite. Remember this though, the vein lies under some tendons (unlike the medial cubital which is right under the skin in the elbow), so that could pose a problem with biting.

The greater saphenous vein-- This vein runs along the inside of either thigh. The vein is large and deep; it would take a big bite to get down into it, but its location makes it a nice... foreplay move, if you have such an amorous vampire.

The femoral vein-- This vein is the one at the back of the knee. Like the median cubital in the elbow, this vein lies close to the skin and is an easy bite if you have a victim face down and willing to not kick or unable to kick.

Essay on vampirism

Introduction

In modern society, vampires are relegated to an icon at Halloween, or at most, a symbol of an alternate lifestyle, which is seen as anything from a fad to a cult religion. However, during the Middle Ages, vampires were seen as a very real threat to mankind. As the werewolf was a symbol of the very real fear of animal attack, so too the vampire took on– or was created to be– a symbol for another threat in the lives of the people. This threat, represented by the vampire, was of nature out of control, specifically natural cycles. The most blatant of these cycles was that of death and birth, but the vampire too played a role in weather and farming seasons. While no one could control the amount of rain or illnesses that swept through the villages, people found that they could control vampires. When rituals failed to prevent a natural disaster, the people went through more elaborate practices, often having to repeat them many times, until the disaster ceased. With something tangible, like a dead body, to both blame and manipulate, the people were able to put some semblance of control on nature.

Before further exploring the factors behind the vampire, the aspects associated with it must first be defined. To begin with, the vampire must be defined and classified.


Vampire accounts are what folklorists call legends, that is, stories told as true and set in the post-creation world.1
While it may seem like splitting hairs when it comes to referring to the vampire as a legend or myth or folktale, it is relatively important to nail down the proper term. Myth, to a folklorist or anthropologist, refers to a religious concept dealing with the creation of the world.2 In the vernacular it is misused, and is synonymous for fantasy or untruth. The vampire fits neither of these interpretations. And because "folklore" is also associated with a story that is to be taken as untrue, it may not be used. "Legend," therefore, is the only alternative left for use.

Vampires tend to be difficult to understand and define, as the European variety is sometimes confused with vampire-like creatures in other cultures. Legendary vampires– those dating before 1730– often overlap characteristics with literary vampires, and at other times completely contradict them. The modern scholar must set aside all his or her previous concepts of the vampire, especially those gathered from books or film, and begin afresh with the simplest, most universal definition of a vampire.


A vampire is a dead body which continues to live in the grave, which it leaves, however, by night, for the purpose of sucking blood of the living, whereby it is nourished and preserved in good condition, instead of becoming decomposed like other dead bodies.3
There are other characteristics of the European vampire, but these traits vary by region, country, religious and cultural background, village and even individual. This definition, though, provides the core features of the European vampire.

In this definition of a vampire, there is little difference between the European vampire and vampires in other cultures across the world.


With a persistent sense of the fitting (and a deplorable sense of taxonomy), European scholars have commonly referred to these, and to the undead in far-off cultures– for example, China, Indonesia, the Philippines– as "vampires" as well. There are such creatures everywhere in the world, is seems, in a variety of disparate cultures....4
Scholars, as is pointed out here, use the word "vampire" too freely when labeling similar phenomena across cultures. While a vampire may be any dead body which refuses to stay dead, it might be fitting to refine the definition to any dead body in Eastern Europe which refuses to stay dead. This would lead to much less confusion when vampire characteristics are discussed; generally European vampires are alike, whereas international vampires vary greatly from these and from each other.

The European vampire did not exist in all parts of Europe. It had a range roughly equal to modern Eastern Europe.


Among the East Slavs, the vampire is well known to the Ukrainians. The Russians knew it by its name in former times (from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries). The vampire tradition is well documented among the West Slavs– the Czechs, Poles and particularly the Kasubs, who live at the mouth of the Vistula River– and among the South Slavs– Macedonians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.5
This provides an almost complete picture of the countries involved in the vampire myth, with the exception of Greece, Romania, Hungary and Albania, where the vampire also appeared.

As was mentioned above, the vampire possibly dates back to the eleventh century. A generally accepted date of the origin of the word "vampire" is 1047 in Russia.6 In a historical account, a Russian prince is referred to as a "lichezy upir" or "wicked vampire," according to its modern translation.7 There is, however, a problem with the assumption that "upir" meant "vampire" in that context. Little, if any, evidence points to the Slavs or others referring to living people as vampires. Furthermore, people of noble birth are almost always excluded from suspicion of being vampires.8 This insult appears to have been directed at a prince who was doing something wicked while still alive, all but disproving that "upir" is being used, in this case, to mean "vampire" as a malicious, though dead, body.

Disproving the Russian reference to the word "vampire" collapses almost all hope of dating the start of the vampire legend. Without this one reference, there is no written proof that the vampire legends began before the late seventeenth century. Of course folklorists know that the vampire legends existed long before they were written down, but it makes it hard to define when they began. To pinpoint the best frame of time to work with, it is necessary to know a little history of the Balkan region.


[Slavic people] began to move southward from Central Europe into the Danube Valley in significant numbers in the fourth century A.D. The process was a gradual drift and infiltration rather than a sudden invasion. By the sixth century the Slavs firmly occupied the Danube Basin and began to cross the Balkans.9
Taking the common theory– that the origin of the word "vampire" comes from the Slavs– as truth, then 500 A.D. is the earliest possible time for the concept of the vampire to emerge.10 This, however, is almost certainly too premature as the vampire requires a number of variables to be present, not least among them some measure of stability. There was likely little time to develop legends while the Slavic people were migrating, then later setting up states of their own.


These Slavic newcomers organized a number of powerful empires in the Balkans during the medieval period (before 800 A.D.). The first of these was the creation of the Bulgarians, a people who were not Slavs, but rather Finno-Tatars related to the Huns. Within a comparatively short time the Bulgarian minority was assimilated and became Slavic in everything but name. [The Serbs and Bulgarian Slavs] organized great, though short-lived medieval kingdoms which borrowed their culture from Byzantium. In contrast, the Slovenes and Croatians, because of their position in the western part of the peninsula, became subjects of the Holy Roman Empire and were influenced by Rome rather than Constantinople in their cultural development.11
The Slavic tribes did not find cohesion until 800-900 A.D. with the wide adoption of Orthodoxy and two centuries later they managed to form into two states.12 These states began collapsing and warring among themselves after just a few generations of self-rule. "We may conclude that the entire Balkan peninsula on the eve of the Turkish invasion was socially as well as politically ripe for conquest."13 By 1480 the Turks controlled the Balkans as far north as Serbia and Wallachia (part of modern-day Romania) and by 1683 they controlled all of present-day Romania and part of Croatia and Hungary.

Because of certain conditions that existed among the occupied Slavs, it is likely that the vampire concept developed during this time. Secondly, the date should be placed after the Black Plague. It was likely that after dealing with this devastating pestilence that the image of the vampire as a harbinger of the plague began. Averaging between the Plague in 1348 and the Turkish conquest of the 1400's,14 a probable guess to the start of the vampire concept was around 1400.

Though less of a guessing game than the start date of the vampire, the end date is no less arbitrary. Though the vampire himself has never disappeared, his status as a real, legendary creature has. Certainly no one in the modern world believes that their dead grandmother could get out of the grave and attack them. At what point did this change? Where should the measure of this change be recorded? In some very rural Slavic areas this legendary vampire still exists, but over the majority of Eastern Europe it has long since been laid to rest. Almost any date, therefore, is as good as another. It was around 1730 that the declining Ottoman empire lost Serbia and Wallachia to the Austrian Empire. Western Europeans were first introduced to the vampire legend when the Austrian forces returned home with stories and report of the undecomposed dead. Shortly thereafter a wave of vampire hysteria swept over all of Europe. Just as quickly it petered out and the literary vampire was born. Taken out of Eastern Europe it becomes merely a generic icon for any culture's use. And the vampire's quick acceptance and quick disappearance in Western Europe points to it merely being a fad and not an entrenched cultural icon, as it was in Eastern Europe.

With the vampire defined as a dead body, classified as a legend, limited to Eastern Europe and dated between 1400 and 1730, there only remains one more issue to address before inspecting the function of the vampire further: the unique characteristics of Eastern Europe that allowed them– or even encouraged them– to use vampires as a means of controlling nature. There are certain characteristics among the Eastern European countries that make them different from Western Europe, and some of these characteristics are what allowed Eastern Europe to develop the vampire when Western Europe did not. The most notable difference were the Ottoman Turks. Certainly this was not the only factor– after all, Poland, Russia and Czechoslovakia had vampires, though lesser in intensity than in the Balkan states– but it was a powerful one. And the Turks influenced the population through governing, and indirectly through their policy making.


In tolerating the religions of the non-Muslims [the Ottoman Empire] also accepted their usages and customs. This was implemented by permitting non-Muslim subjects to organize into communities with their own ecclesiastical leaders.15

This illustrates one of the most significant factors in the occupied territories– although they were allowed to keep their own religions and religious leaders within their own communities, no one religion controlled both the church and the state, unlike Western Europe where almost every country had to answer to the Church in Rome. This, of course, greatly affected the amount of power that the church had.
Closely related to this was how the Ottomans viewed their subjects and how their subjects organized themselves.


The Ottoman authorities divided their subjects not into Greeks or Bulgarians or Romanians, but rather into the following [groupings]: Orthodox, Gregorian Armenian, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant.16

The land of the Ottoman occupation was diverse and many religions coexisted side-by-side without the strife that was often prevalent in Western Europe. This is relevant when it is noted that much of the vampire myth comes from gypsies, a normally marginalized group of people in society. It would seem, from the survival of their vampire myths, that there was a heavy exchange between gypsies and local people.
Another factor that contributed to the vampire myth was a de-urbanization of Slavic people. This move from the cities to the country was also a result of the Ottoman occupation.


...There was a common tendency among the Balkan Christians to move out of the urban centers in order to avoid the Turkish officials and garrisons. When a Serb, Romanian, or Bulgarian went into a town in his native land he found himself a foreigner.17

As there is a rich legacy of folklore among the peoples of Appalachia, so too there is a wealth of myth among the occupied Slavs who were forced to retreat from their cities. There was also another condition that existed along with the rural factor that made a fertile ground for folklore.

The Balkan people themselves have left few records of this period (Ottoman occupation) of their history. Having lost their ruling class, which alone was educated and articulate, they were left leaderless, anonymous and silent. Even their clergymen were largely illiterate.18

Coupled with a lack of supreme church control, a retreat from the centers of Muslim government and a lack of a natural ruling class in aristocrats or former noblemen, the people were left largely to themselves, and without literacy, to their own imaginations and oral traditions.

The superficiality of Turkish influence allowed the Balkan people to develop their respective cultures freely. In each case they made their most important contributions in their folk literature. This was usually anonymous, composed in the vernacular and passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. 19

This ability not only to cultivate but to preserve folklore and legends allowed the vampire to be born.
Though there were resources for folk tales, it takes a few more elements to turn those fictional tales into vampires, which were believed to be real. There are two factors that probably endowed the vampire with life, rather than keeping it relegated to a mere folktale. One was the penchant for the people of the Balkans to personify everything.


Certain characteristics are common to all Balkan folk songs. Most striking is the personification of nature. Mountain peaks dispute each other; plants and animals hold allegorical conversations; and birds bring aid, give advice and deliver love messages.20

There is, obviously, more to this than the simple personification of inanimate objects, though this certainly points to the ease with which the vampire was accepted by the people of the Balkans as a natural phenomenon.
The final obvious factor for the Balkan to develop vampires was the plague. Though this was prevalent throughout Europe, it remained in Eastern Europe, giving the vampire reason to stay once he was developed.


One of the most appalling results of Turkish obscurantism was the persistence of the bubonic plague in the Ottoman Empire for over a century after it had petered out in the West. Following the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century the plague continued to devastate Western Europe until the eighteenth century. Then is receded to the Eastern European lands, and until the mid-nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire suffered cruelly from the effects of this dread disease.21

This continual wave of contagious disease as well as an affinity for portraying passive objects as real and alive surely formed the basis of the need and the potential for the vampire.
Certainly there was ample opportunity, basis and need for a being that could be controlled in the ways that nature could not. But in what ways did the vampire fulfill that role? How was he connected to nature and the life cycles? Once created, how was he controlled? An in depth look at these questions will, if not answer them, provide a better understanding of the rural, uneducated people of Eastern Europe and the beliefs behind the vampire.




Chapter One: Finding the Vampire
It is hard to say, with any degree of certainty, what exactly spurred the creation of a vampire myth. As mentioned in the introduction, there were many factors at work in Eastern Europe that would certainly allow for a vampire superstition to take shape. However, it is unclear which of these lead to his actual formation. While it may be hard to point out an exact cause for vampires, it can be determined, with some measure of certainty, which factors contributed to the growth and continuation of a vampire myth.

Ancestor Worship

Ancestor worship was part of the practices found in the pagan religions that predated Christianity in the Balkans. Later these pagan practices became refined down into what is generally labeled "superstition," and were practiced alongside and in concert with Christian beliefs.22 It is partly because of this coexistence of superstition and Christianity that vampires were able to come about and persist. Ancestor worship too found a niche in Christian beliefs, with the formation of such religious holidays as All Hallow's Eve and All Soul's Day, when offerings were left for the spirits of the dead, who were thought to cross over from the other realm to the world of the living.23

The people of Eastern Europe had superstitions concerning their dead before the vampire was introduced. Many of the beliefs concerning the dead and spirits were later transferred and incorporated into vampire myths. Some of these concerned the harm that the dead could inflict upon the living.


In Russia and Germany there is the belief that the open eyes of a corpse can draw someone into the grave.24
This is very similar to the situation that occurs when vampires appear; oftentimes the simple sight of the vampire can claim victims.

Another cross-over trait between spirits and vampires is their thirst for liquids, blood being the most notable. Alan Dundes suggests that aging and dying were correlated to dehydrating; the same way a ripe plum shrivels into a prune. He further hypothesizes that people, therefore, assumed that the dead would be thirsty since they are dried out.25 This belief led to the practice of pouring libations on graves to appease the dead. This belief was later applied to vampires who went looking for their offerings.

A third commonality between spirits of old and vampires was their propensity for exacting revenge, usually due to neglect. Burial customs everywhere demand that a certain amount of care and respect is shown to the dead. When the dead are not given their dues, for whatever reason, it is generally believed that the deceased's spirit will make mischief or bring harm to others to show his displeasure.


Generally it is considered dangerous for a corpse to be left unattended. ...Greek revenants [are] dead people who died alone and had no one there to take care of them. ...Among the Gypsies, "if someone dies unseen" he becomes a vampire, and among the Finns it is enough that a corpse is neglected for it to return to harm the living.26
It would seem that revenge alone is enough to animate a corpse.

Vampires were not born from ancestor worship alone. Spirits and bodies are two different things entirely. But the foundation for the vampire is clearly laid. Spirits demanded respect and liquid offerings; without these they could grow violent and cause others to die. The vampires is all of these things. Indeed, he seems to replace spirit worship, as it is the body that is given food and drink to keep it appeased. Eventually the Balkan people moved the intangible concept of the wicked spirit into the wicked body, the vampire, but what led them to this is not entirely clear.

The Plague

Rampant and deadly diseases had a large impact on how medieval people viewed the world.


Lacking a proper grounding in physiology, pathology, and immunology, how are people to account for disease and death? The common course, as we shall see, is to blame death on the dead, who are apt to be observed closely for clues as to how they accomplish their mischief.27
Vampires continued the tradition of spirits by bringing death from beyond the grave. Due to his physical presence, however, the vampire was accused of bringing death in a more widespread manner.

To understand how a walking corpse may bring death to the living, it must first be seen how an unanimated corpse, through no magical powers, brought death by means of disease.


The violence of this disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as a fire catches anything dry or oily near it. And it went even further. To speak to or go near the sick brought the infection and a common death to the living; and moreover to touch the clothes or anything else the sick person had touched or wore gave the disease to the person touching.28
Modern-day science can explain the transmission of diseases by germs, or in the case of the Black Plague mentioned above, through parasites such as fleas. To medieval people who had no such explanation, it appeared that the dead themselves were the source of the illness.
Once it was established that dead bodies– as opposed to spirits of the dead– were the cause of death, the vampire became the icon for the plague.


The stench of the vampire, by the way, is one aspect of the nexus between vampirism and the plague. Now, foul smells were commonly associated with disease, also as a cause, perhaps because people reasoned that, since corpses smelled bad, bad smells must be the cause of death and disease.29
An interesting progression can be seen in the logic of medieval people: corpses, by just being, can cause others to fall ill and die. These corpses smell bad, as do people who are stricken with open sores, caused by the Black Plague. It appears then that smells cause, or at least denote plague. So when bodies are dug up that are accused of being vampiric, and they smell foul, it is logical to conclude that the dead body in question, the vampire, is likely causing the plague.

There is a tricky situation in this logic; which came first, the chicken or the egg? It is hard to judge whether the vampire was invented to explain plagues, or whether plagues were added as another trait to the already existent vampire.


...Vampirism occurs as an epidemic... as the first person who died is held responsible for the deaths that followed: post hoc, ergo propter hoc.30
In this situation, the first to die of the plague is accused of spreading it to others, but a catch to this is that the person who got it first must have gotten it from someone else. It, therefore, makes it impossible to ascertain whether plague or vampires came first.

Likely Suspects

Although ancestor worship probably forms the basis of the vampire myth, and the plague both helped it form and continued it, one element remains to be explored– those people who, in death, became vampires. Without someone to become a vampire, there would have been no vampires. And not just anyone could become a vampire; as there were rules governing how the vampire acted, so too were there rules governing who became a vampire.

One of the few hard and fast traits of the vampire is that he is from peasant stock.31 The wealthy and nobles– few though they were in this time period in the Balkans– were never accused of vampirism. Peasants both fostered the belief in the vampire and were subjected to him– some being vampire victims while others were victims to the vampire curse.


Vampire victims, other than being peasant, had no other limitations. Vampires come out of their graves in the nighttime, rush upon people sleeping in their beds and destroy them. They attack men, women and children, sparing neither age nor sex.32
People who would become vampires, however, had a number of characteristics that distinguished them from those who would be victims.33 Some would-be vampires truly were victims to the curse of vampirism, as they had no control over what made them vampires.


Frequently people become revenants through no fault of their own, as when they are conceived during a holy period, according to the Church calendar, or when they are the illegitimate offspring of illegitimate parents. Indeed, in Romania it is reported that merely being the seventh child in a family is apt to cause one to become a revenant.34
The second class of vampire is similar to the one above; in it are those who were born with abnormalities. Although they, like those conceived on church holidays, etc. are unable to change their circumstances, they are fit to be in a second category. Stigmas placed on social faux pas– as those above– are much more likely to change, whereas humankind has had a long history in marginalizing or blaming those who are physically different than those in the majority.

Even within the category for the physically different there are rules that are very specific. For instance, not included in this category are lepers, the mentally ill or the lame. Those who are singled out to become vampires have certain traits that were meaningful to those involved in vampire folklore.


Often potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some abnormality, some defect, as when a child is born with teeth. Similarly suspicious are children with an extra n****e; with a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip; or with features that are viewed as bestial, such as fur down the front or back or with a tail-like extension of the spine, especially if it is covered with fur.35
Although there is room for speculation as to what an extra n****e might mean in a vampire myth, children being born with teeth has obvious implications, as vampires are known for their sharp teeth and biting. Likewise fur or a tail would point to werewolves, a close cousin and predecessor of vampires.

The final category for those likely to become a vampire are those who commit crimes against man or religion.


...Categories of revenants: the godless (people of a different faith are included here too!), evildoers, suicides, in addition sorcerers, witches and werewolves; among the Bulgarians the group is expanded by robbers, highwaymen, arsonists, prostitutes, deceitful and treacherous barmaids and other dishonorable people.36
This is certainly the broadest– if not most abundant– category for potential vampires. People on the fringes of society and the church not only made an easy target for blame, but a logical one. Since the vampire causes so much harm, then it must follow that he comes from those people who caused harm in life.

Many factors existed in the Balkans that allowed for the possibility of the vampire. Three factors lead to the vampire's "birth:" a historic tradition of blaming death on the dead, a need to explain present disasters on something, and an inexhaustible supply potential vampires and vampire victims to perpetuate the myth. It is the combination of these factors, rather than any one thing, that created the vampire in the Balkans.




Chapter Two: The Vampire's "Life"
A vampire's actions and characteristics are very much like those of a living person. A vampire is "born," he feeds, procreates and "dies." Once there is a reason for vampires to be, they appear. But vampires do not simply crop up like weeds, then disappear when there is no longer a threat. The vampire myth is a highly structured set of guidelines that vampires must follow. While these rules governing a vampire's characteristics are open to interpretation, many of them can be seen as a direct correlation between vampires and a perversity of man or nature.

Birth

When the need arises, a vampire is "born." As discussed before, vampires usually appear simultaneously with a plague, drought fierce storms, famines, or livestock illness.37 Their "birth" is an ordered one. Vampires do not appear out of nowhere, but come out of their graves.


Death is a reversal of the birth act leading to a return to the pre-natal existence within the maternal womb.38

The maternal womb, in this case, is the earth itself, considered the mother of all and life giver. This both allows the dead body to come back to life, to be "born" again, and ties it to nature.
The first act of a newly "born" vampire was to return to his family, and almost always proceed to attack them. "The Slavic vampire's hostility was directed almost entirely at his next of kin."39 There are many possible reasons behind this act. The vampire may have cause to see revenge against his family.


It was much feared that a member of one's house would become a vampire. In spite of this, the Greek habit of cursing the dead seems to almost invite this.40

F.A.Q - By Catherine, Teacher of 'nights children'
Do vampire women menstruate and, if so, for how long? If you check out the web site, you will find that there are several kinds of vampires, both male and female, who are sterile. But in the cases of the females who can reproduce, their cycles begin as early as any human but do last much longer due to the extended life span/slower aging. We did our own study, quite unscientific. We concluded (and this is by no means official) that Inheritors age about one year for every 12 to 15 years that they live. This would indicate that an Inheritor female capable of birth, such as a Lunar, would keep having cycles much longer into her life span.

As for Night-Timers, most begin late into adolescence. Much later than normal humans, but also continue much longer into their life spans. The life span of a healthy Night-Timer is normally 200 or 250. The rate of aging seems to be 1 year for every 2 or 3 lived, for most. In other words, a Night-Timer woman of 58 ... ahem ... would look in her late 20's or early 30's. Night-timers can have their cycles up to about age 65 or so. I can speak only from my experience and that of my female family members.


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Do vampires have to have a regular intake of fluids, as they do blood?
Of course vampires eat and drink as humans do. However, it takes far less food to meet the requirements to sustain life. With Inheritor and Classical vampires, it takes very little food to put on weight because it is processed more efficiently.


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Do vampires suffer from things like headaches?
Surprisingly, headaches, especially migraines, are common among real vampires. I do not know why.


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Could a vampire dye their hair with the same chemicals as humans do?
Yes, and that is one of the ploys many use to change their appearance after moving on.


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Would a vampire have to worry about any form of cancer?
Worry ... maybe. Die from it, probably not. Real vampires regenerate organs and recover more quickly from such procedures.


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Is a vampire safe going to a regular medical doctor, or can they conceal their vampirism?
Depends. If they went for a check up, probably. If they needed blood tests or tissue test ... then maybe. If just regular blood tests probably, but if going for any sort of DNA test, including Parental testing, the differences in DNA might catch the attention of the Lab worker.


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Could a true vampire ever love a mortal and live with them as man and wife?
Yes, of course. But only if the vampire can endure the loss of such a spouse over and over. But, yes, they can.


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With all of the resources available, such as the internet, why are vampires lonely when there seem to be so many willing to expose themselves to the public? I don't mean RPGs (Role Playing Games) and Goths ... surely some of the people who say they are true vampires, really are. And, if so, why wouldn't they reach out to each other?
Sometimes they do, but most often not. The 'net is full of role players, pretenders and liars. Some vampires can sense things from e-mail, instant messages or phone calls, but many cannot do so. The 'net is a good place to post messages to enlighten, to tell your personal stories and feelings. Most likely no one believes you anyway, and you can remain anonymous if you like.

Some vampires do personally meet people they met on-line. But, on the whole, most do not accept humans as mates. What a disappointment it is to make an acquaintance, have it become a friendship, then a close friendship ... then the vampire begins to have feelings of love for the human. Then to have the entire thing turn out badly when the real truth is known.

I have had friends become friends only in hopes of me introducing them to vampires who would turn, or transform, them. It is hard for me. It is even harder for someone who feels they are falling in love and decides the heartache of knowing that mortal will die is too much. Then you learn that they never believed you in the first place and thought you were playing, or you find out they have lied to you, or that all they really wanted was for you to infect them.


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How could a mortal really tell if someone is a vampire? I mean, like if I'm at a party or a store and there is a true vampire there ... would I be able to tell without asking? What sign would I look for? Vampires normally do not advertise their existence. There are no 'signs' to look for. There is no way to really know, unless the vampire decides to let you know, or offers to prove it to you. And this would be extremely rare.


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Does a vampire have the ability to read someone's mind without them being aware of it?
Not the way that you mean. However, vampires can sense many things. Almost like feeling them from you. This can be done psychically, or by thought projection, or a method called 'scanning' (which is sort of picking up things from your letters, e-mail and in-person or phone conversation).

Vampires can induce you to completely forget things. I know this from first hand experience. Vampires can alter the conscious state to make an experience seem like a dream or in some way make reality seem unreal. Vampires can induce sleep, or a sleep-like state. I know this from experience as well.


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Can a vampire hypnotize a mortal without them being aware of it? No, only if he is a trained hypnotist. But, see above question for explanation of what can be done.


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How often will a vampire 'bring across' a mortal?
Real ones that I have spoken to, or know personally, very seldom.


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What makes a vampire decide to 'bring across' a mortal?
It is an individual choice depending on the vampire. At times because he or she feels they just want to keep the person around as a friend, or because they think the person needs time to accomplish something they have begun. It could be any reason.


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Would they do it because they love them?
Usually not. I know Vampires who were married to mortals and allowed them to grow old and die as anyone else would. Perhaps sometimes they might do so for love, but I doubt it. A vampires lives with death. They see their mortal friends die all the time and must keep seeing the loss of loved ones, spouses and friends ... over and over again. They are resigned to it; it is part of their existence.

We all loose loved ones, hopefully not until late in our lives. But some of us, even the human or Night-timer, see many losses. I have lost my son, my first husband, my mother, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, my grandmother, several aunts and seven dearest close friends in the past seven years. And yet, this is nothing compared to how many deaths a vampire must endure.


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If a vampire were to fall in love with a mortal and 'bring them across,' do they hold the same values as mortals do concerning love? I mean, are there 'divorces' among vampires? (You may think that's a really stupid question. But I think that if a vampire possesses more psychic ability, they would tend to view things like that in a much more pure and unselfish way. Which would make the meaning of 'love' a more respected and treasured thing.)
Vampires regard marriage as humans do ... some with more commitment than others. But, I do not know of any vampire divorces.


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What type of vampires are there more of in the world now? Classicals or Inheritors?
I do not know. But from the tons of mail I get, it is probably neither Classicals nor Inheritors, but Night-timers and Genetics. Other than these, I would venture to guess it would be Classicals.

UPDATE: it is now several years later than when this web site first went up, there has been a civil war of sorts raging for a years now. Based on the last report I received, the Classicals (also referred to as Pales) now far outnumber the other breeds of vampires.


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How does a vampire die naturally?
Of old age, the way humans do. However, I do not know of a single reported case of a vampire dying a natural death.


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If a vampire does die, what type of burial is done?
That would be determined by his or her wishes. It would be the same as anyone else ... perhaps religious, perhaps not.

There is no one real vampire religion.


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Is the predominant faith among Classic and Inheritor vampires Paganism?
Oddly, no. It seems to be Judeo-Christian, as to the ones I have met, write to, or know personally. Most seem to be Christian. I would say most others fall into the categories of Buddhist, or other Oriental, or Asian disciplines. However, there are many pagans included among the various vampire types.


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Now, don't judge me on this next question, or think of me in a cruel or sadistic way, but if a vampire were being troubled by a mortal, why wouldn't they just 'eliminate' the problem since they are obviously much stronger and smarter (in a psychic way)?
If all vampires possess that 'killer' instinct, then wouldn't that justify his actions ... kill to protect?
No, it would not. If it did they would have done so already. It never justifies harming someone just because you are able to do so. Stronger, better connected, more powerful, more wealthy, nope. Humans are the same way ... killers. But keeping control is what civilizes man, or vampire, as a race.

Laws for the good of all, not just a few. Meeting difficulties without killing is what makes civilization, both human and vampire. 'Cops' who enforce their own kind. Renegade vampires who commit crimes against humans or in some way break laws or rules having to do with their own kind, are considered criminals and are tracked down by their own 'police.'

The difference is that most of the time, the criminal vampire is usually killed when caught. Vampire laws and judgments, on their own kind, are much more harsh most of the time than human justice. Given the length of time a vampire lives, and his physical strength, it is useless to put him or her in a human jail.


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I was wondering recently, do most vampires participate in any form of organized religion?
Yes, most are various forms of Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, some are Pagan. Vampires are not worshipers of evil or the Devil just because they are vampires.


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A 'traditional' vampire is usually thought of as having a fear of and/or being harmed by most religious symbols. Is that true?
Only in fictional writings, TV and films. Such symbols do not harm vampires. For a fuller explanation of why such beliefs are thought of as true, read the Myth Origins pages on this site.


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This sort of vampire (referring to the myth of being repelled by, or damaged by, religious symbols) would have great difficulty attending Catholic Mass on Sundays. Even if a vampire is capable of participating on the Catholic religion, it seems doubtful that they would want to.
And why not?
Those beliefs come from the original folk lore and church teachings that vampires were the essence of evil and could not abide good. Good is stronger that even supreme evil, so the Myth vampires cannot abide to be in a church or encounter and symbol of good or God. Pure nonsense. Why? Because actual vampires are also religious and non religious just like humans ... many are Christian, Jewish, Catholic, etc.


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Needless to say, there are numerous faiths that would allow for vampire participation. So I guess my real question is, do vampires want to participate in any organized religious practices?
Just as with humans, this is an individual choice. Some do, some do not. I know several vampires who are Catholic, Christian forms, Oriental and Asian religions, and Pagans.


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Also, does being a vampire carry with it an entirely separate religion or set of possible religions that one could participate in?
There are some 'pseudo' groups who have their own forms of what they call religion, but to my knowledge, there in not one over all accepted 'Vampire Religion.' Most of these groups base their self-proclaimed religions on myths of the past. None of these groups are real vampires. Bloodists or Fetishists, perhaps ... nothing more.


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I have a question of my own: are vampires created with demonic powers?
No, vampires are either born with the virus already in their bodies, or they are infected with it by one who is himself infected. It is not a religious issue, but a medical and life style issue. Demons and the Devil are only myths. Vampires are not demons nor devils. They are not born or created by evil any more than a normal human is born evil.


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I have one main question that I am looking to answer: Why are humans so interested in vampires?
This is the easiest question of all. Humans are more than just interested in vampires, many wish to meet them or become one themselves. They pretend to be them and it is because of several reasons:

1. They wrongly believe there is majesty and power in a real vampire's life, mainly because of the myths, legends and lies of history.

2. Because they believe there is great power in being a vampire; power over friends, enemies, etc.

3. Beauty, staying young forever, staying beautiful forever or creating beauty through magic where none was before.

4. Personal strength; being popular and liked by all. Humans - some of them anyway - also feel vampires are evil and serve the devil. This is untrue but some humans seek to do evil, seek revenge for some wrong done to them in the past and want great power to exact this revenge.

But all those reasons are wrong. There is no such vampire as those depicted in Anne Rice, Dracula, or Forever Knight. These are only characters which come from the minds of human writers based on legends made from fear and ignorance of other humans in the distant past. The modern day writers took ideas from ancient folk lore and the fears of the ancient church. But these were disbeliefs and not true. In truth, there are real vampires and they are psychic and do possess abilities which are a bit stronger than humans' but not as in the legends. Most do not know this. They either believe the legends are true and there are real vampires just like those legends OR they believe nothing is real and that it is pretend, so what is the harm?

The truth is there are vampires and they are strong and psychic but not as much as the legends and some are not strong or psychic. They are not spirit or evil and they do not kill all they see. Their life is difficult and hard and dangerous. They face death often. Oh, yes. That is the last reason humans wish to be vampires for they believe vampires never die. They do. Always have, even in films and legends.


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Are there any vegetarian vampires?
This depends on what sort of vampire of which you are you are speaking. If you mean a Psi-Vamp, Sexual Vampire, or in fact any non-viral vampire could be a true vegetarian. However, if you are referring to the real vampires, such as Inheritors or Classicals, the answer is - no. Because normally blood from humans is consumed, and a human falls into the scientific category of animal. Night-timers and Genetics, in most cases, take animal blood, which means they are not vegetarians. So I guess the answer to your question would be ... Maybe ... depending on which classification you are inquiring.

Inheritors.

There is no one language or word in the vampiric community, which describes all of the subspecies of vampires. With the exception of the word 'True Borne', 'Borne', or 'Blue Blood', which is generally taken to mean Class 1 or Category 1 Inheritors.


Class 1 comprises the true Inheritors. For, although they are born into their lifestyle, just as are Category 2 Inheritors, they are different in several ways. They are immortal, or what most think of as immortal, living for many hundreds of years.

They heal much more quickly. They can be killed but it takes quite a lot to accomplish it. They do regenerate some organs, teeth, fangs, and nerves. I am not sure if bones are regenerated. I think perhaps so, but do not know this as a certain fact.

Class 1's can go about by day as well, better than the other categories, because they usually are born into a very human state and gradually become aware of the Vampiric growth and changes in their bodies as they age and enter puberty. Thus, often feeling different as they grow into the teen years.

They can eat regular foods and beverages for their entire lifespan. The changes begin at puberty, and slowly, over years forms into the full blown Vampiric Medical Condition. During the first stages of the transformation they begin to feel the need for blood and will begin to feed. At even this early stage, they DO feed for nourishment but continue to eat regular foods. It is a fable that Vampires only feed on blood. Even when they 'mature' into the Vampiric Condition they will continue to eat normal foods throughout their lives. In fact many Vampires enjoy dining in fine restaurants and drinking fine wines.


As with most, but not all real Vampires, Class 1's do tend to avoid humans. Some do make good and lasting human friendships though.
The Class 1 is what is considered the immortal Vampire, as are the Classicals, but they can die. They just do not do so as often or as quickly.

Regarding feeding: Most Class 1 Inheritors disdain 'dead' blood which is frozen or animal blood such as in a steak or piece of liver. They almost always prefer live blood directly from a living source.

As with most real Vampires, they lead secretive and secluded lives, making it difficult for humans to get any closer emotionally than the Vampire chooses to permit. As with ALL Vampires they can disappear for long stretches of time. Identities are changed more often than clothes.

They have a different relationship to, and perception of, time, which is vastly different from most human perceptions.


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They can become ill, but do so far less often as their recuperative processes are faster and stronger. In mental ability all Inheritors can be, and often are, highly psychic and/or empathic -- as are Classicals. They can do all the things Classicals can do. Perhaps it is they, the Inheritors, about whom the legends are truly speaking.

As with all races, Inheritors number the bad, the good, the evil and the saintly among their ranks. But as with all Vampires, they are what they are -- predators, hunters and true to their real natures.
To quote a close Vampire friend of mine,

'Don't let this pleasant human exterior fool you. Never forget, I am what I am. I'm a killer. That's my nature. I'm a killer. Please don't ever forget that.'

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Most do maintain their humanity, some do not. All are unpredictable and often difficult for humans to understand.
As with all Vampires, if you are human and wish to befriend a Vampire you must accept them for exactly what they are. You cannot attempt to change, cage or have them fit a more human mold or lifestyle. You must be prepared to lose touch often and accept all.

For real Vampires accept human friendships on their terms only.

Unless you understand and accept these terms as well, you will not be happy as the friend of a Vampire.

Someone recently said, 'Missing a Vampire friend is a major occupation for many people.' This is true. If you wish to know about the Inheritors, re-read Classicals.

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Included in Category 1, is a lesser-known subspecies called Lunas. In some cases of European myth, Lunas have been mistaken for werewolves.

The Luna is sexual, sensual, earthy, and a bit larger than Category 1’s on the whole. Lunas do have some sexual experience with humans, but not often. In all other aspects Lunas are much like Category 1's.

In Class 2, or Category 2, we have the Inheritor, who was born into his/her lifestyle. 'To Inherit' is meant to convey a person who was born into the lifestyle and inherited the characteristics, traits, and the infection from someone in his family. However, not necessarily the parents. If, at anytime, anyone born into the family carried the altered Vampiric DNA and accompanying genes, then anyone else born into the family at a later date could inherit those genes and qualities.
Category 2 is the human Inheritor, someone born of a purely human parentage (i.e., both parents being totally human) into a genetic Vampiric lifestyle, meaning that they are not immortal, or eternal. But in all, or most, other aspects they are Vampiric. They suffer from the same problems as Classicals, the same feeding styles, the same methods of feeding and the consuming of blood for nourishment.

Category 2, Night-timers, age much more slowly but do not live the very long life spans of Classicals or Inheritors Class 1. In all aspects, Category 2's are Vampiric. All the forms of vampires can and do go out in light and sun. But Category 2 Inheritors, as with Classicals, tend to feel weak, sick, tired and ill during the day. The skin is also affected, as Category 2's can get heat stroke, internal body fluids evaporate quickly, they pass out, etc. The skin also blisters and burns very quickly even if they are not fair complexioned. They also feed on fresh and frozen blood, have donor feeding partners and sources, etc.

The only real differences are that they are considered human by the medical community, are not immortal, heal more rapidly than humans -- but not as rapidly as Classicals or Inheritors Category 1. They can and do die.

The average life span of a Nighttimer is usually between 200 and 300 years.


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Remember everyone, we are doing our best to keep things real here and separate fact from lie, propaganda, fiction, legend and fantasy.
I know much of what you have learned here about Vampires does not fit the standard mold or legends or romance novels. That is because this is most real and reality differs greatly from the fantasies of both yesterday and today.

Yes, real Vampires have fangs, but some do not.

Yes, real Vampires can go out in the daylight/sun, eat food and drink beverages just like you.

Yes, they feed on human blood and take it both with and without the permission of the source.

Yes, they are psychic and empathic and some are gifted natural healers.

Yes, they are highly intelligent.

Yes, they hunt and kill.

Yes, they are real and do exist.

Yes, they are both quite like humans and quite unlike humans.

Yes, they keep to themselves and yes, they do not do so. Their lives are difficult and set apart, most are alone but many are not lonely.

Yes, they do have both human and other vampire friends.

Yes, there are as many races of Vampires as races of man.

Yes, they are both good and evil, bad and saintly.

It all depends on which you are speaking about and the individual Vampire.

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A few forgotten key points, all Vampires ARE Vampires because they have an altered structured DNA and gene pool. This is known among a limited sector of the medical community and it is this altered DNA and the accompanying genes which make a Vampire a Vampire.
Category 2 Inheritors can reproduce their own kind. Category 1 males are sterile but the females can bear live young.

Please Note: The real vampiric lifestyle is not a thing of glamour. It is not fun for most Real Vampires. It means years and years of loneliness, watching the few you do love die. Over and over again. And since they live longer, Vampires must endure this loss many more times than the normal human, if they are prone to human friendships.

They can often be the subject of harsh prejudice. They run the risk of losing their homes, jobs and friends who do not know what they truly are ... if they found out. They are forever needing to watch their backs for they are often the prey of all manner of hunters. The misguided religious zealot who truly believes Vampires are a creation of Satan ... as in demon. The human hunter who finds it amusing and rewarding to hunt the most cunning and intelligent of all animals. The Vampire himself, who hunts others of his own kind due to law enforcement or his/her own reasons.

Some of the lifestyle does reflect the romance of the fictional characters because real Vampires tend to be charming, 'the beautiful people,' very well off financially due to centuries of investments, stronger, more personally and politically powerful and quite sure of themselves in every way. Some do indeed lead a privileged lifestyle. But the price they pay for this is higher than any human can perceive.

Most Vampires tend to be well educated (they have so many centuries to study and perfect their knowledge in all things) Most Vampires are well read and well traveled. But the price they pay for such a long life span is often living a semi-isolated existence. Which keeps them apart from the love, companionship and closeness felt by their human counterparts.

Please note: that in several past updates, the general numbers indicating Class 1s and Class 2s were placed incorrectly on this page. A Class 1 is a true Inheritor, Class 2 is a Nighttimer, which is a subspecies of Inheritor but called a Nighttimer to differentiate from Inheritors.