A few days ago, the subject was witches, so I figure being an equal opportunity blog, we should talk about Vampires today….
In popular legend and lore, Dracula-like vampires are undead villains who live in coffins by day and turn into neck-biting, bloodsucking bats by night. They are pale-faced creatures with protruding incisor teeth who cast no shadows and produce no reflection in mirrors. Worst of all, these agitated souls can only be put to their final rest by driving stakes through their hearts.
Although modern science has silenced the vampire “fears” of the past, people who call themselves vampires do exist. They’re normal(?) seeming people who drink small amounts of blood in an effort to stay healthy. Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the Internet and in cities and towns around the world. To avoid rekindling vampire superstitions, most modern vampires keep to themselves and typically conduct their ‘feeding” rituals (which include drinking the blood of willing donors) in private.
My extensive research has determined that nearly every culture has its own type of vampire myth and it’s hard to find the exact time the idea of a vampire was created. But it appears that the origin of the modern vampire legend goes back to 15th-century Romania to Viad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was a killer, but he wasn’t a vampire. However, he did inspire author Bram Stoker to name his now-famous vampire character “Count Dracula” in his book Dracula, in 1897.
Throughout the centuries there have been a number of “vampire scares,” usually or often tied to widespread disease like the European plague or misunderstood physical deformities. People’s belief in vampires helped them define things they didn’t understand and couldn’t explain, like death and disease.
Modern science can explain some of the more prevalent vampire myths… the fear from long ago that the dead could still harm the living was only intensified when dead bodies were exhumed and appeared to have blood coming out of their mouths. Without an understanding of how the body decomposes and what’s know as “purge fluid,” it’s easy to see how people could assume that their loved ones had come back from the dead and were drinking people’s blood. A lot of early skeletons from the Medieval times have been found with bricks or rocks filling their mouths or sickles around their necks — all supposedly to prevent these dead folks from rising up and attacking.
Some theories suggest that vampires were really just people who suffered from Porphyria, a condition that makes a person sensitive to sunlight. People with this disease must stay indoors because exposure to light can lead to disfiguring blisters — and — daily blood transfusions are sometimes needed as well.
Vampires seem to be just as popular, or maybe more, as they ever were as time passes. Blue Bloods was a vampire book series — before it was a TV show. Even cereals, like Count Chocula and Franken Berry have cashed in on vampire popularity. Vampires have created a booming tourist industry in places like Romania and Forks, Washington. Even Sesame Street has “The Count.” And how about the TV series like the Munsters and Dark Shadows.
There are a number of people out there who actually consume human and animal blood. A condition of craving blood for energy is real and known as Haematomania. The people drink blood from willing donors — they don’t want to be confused with the scary portrayals of vampires. Supposedly, these “real vampires” are just average people with unusual tastes. Some choose to live in like-minded communities and are fairly private about their taste for blood for fear of being confronted by people with wooden stakes, garlic, silver bullets, or fire.
So real vampires aren’t the contemptible characters we know from folklore and fiction. They claim to be normal mortals who sleep in beds, wear suits and ties to work and eat cereal for breakfast. I wonder of they prefer Count Chocula…..
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