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In 1718 Serbia and Oltenia (part of current-day Romania) came under Austrian rule. Throughout the following few decades reports of strange behaviours, fueled by superstition and mired in dark folklore, started reaching Vienna and through it the rest of Europe. Tales of townsfolk digging up bodies of recently deceased people only to find them untouched by the passage of time, their vessels full of blood and faces smeared in gore, became widely popular in Germany, France, Britain and beyond, and forever engrained the image of a bloodthirsty monster in the collective subconsciousness of those intrigued by the supernatural. The word used in serbia, ‘vampir’, probably came from either Turkish or Tartar, and it was quickly anglicised into ‘vampire’ at the end of the previous century to better suit the eyes and ears of western audiences. And while the word itself is a relatively new addition to the lexicon, the mythos surrounding those undead monstrosities is by no means a modern invention.
But those reports were, in fact, not the first ones of their kind. Stories about blood drinking monsters are present throughout history and date back to as early as antiquity, although the term ‘vampire’ did not exist at the time. Before discussing the more common beliefs behind the folklore, as well as conventions making up the idea of the creature as presented in literature and cinema, let us examine some historical examples that contributed to the popularity of vampires in modern media.
Hindu mythology tells tales of the vetala, beings of vast knowledge that possess the corpses of deceased individuals – this possession stops the decay of the targeted body. They are not inherently malicious, as it is said that they can cause madness and miscarriages or even directly kill their victim, but also serve as guardian spirits to the village they haunt. As they are trapped in suspension between the world of the living and the dead, they thus remain outside the normal passage of time and have insight into the past, the present and the future, which makes them targets for sorcerers that seek to claim this knowledge for themselves. Even now there exist cults dedicated to worshipping the vetala and gaining their favour.
In African cultures exist many beings described as inherently vampiric, such as the asanbosam, a creature with iron teeth and pink skin that dwells in the branches of trees using the metal hooks it has in place of feet to attack its victims from above, or the impundulu, which can take the form of a large bird and is capable of controlling the weather.
In ancient Babylonia and Assyria, as well as Persia we can find the tales of Lilitu, later known as Lilith – a demon that satiated her hunger by drinking the blood of children, also present in Hebrew demonology. There also exist tales of the estries, who, according to ‘Sefer Hasidim’ are female shapeshifting demons that, similarly to Lilith, have to consume the blood of the living. What is unique to this version of a vampire is that an injured estrie can be healed by eating bread and salt given to her by her attacker.
The Greco-Roman mythology includes two beings known as the Empusa and Lamia. The former was the daughter of the goddess Hecate, described as a demon drinking the blood of men she seduced. The latter was the daughter of King Belus and a lover of the god Zeus. She swore vengeance against Hera after the goddess slaughtered her children, thus she stalked the night sneaking into the beds of children and feasting on their blood. There are also the tales of the striges. They are described as having the bodies of crows and similarly to Lamia fed on the blood of children. In the ‘Odyssey’ we also learn that the dead are not capable of communicating with the living without consuming blood.
The creature as such is almost non-existent in the folklore of Mediaeval Europe, at least in the west. In the 12th century two English historians, Walter Map and William of Newburgh collected the accounts of beings known as revenants – animated corpses brought back to haunt the living. There is, however, no mention of blood consumption and the creature itself seems to be derived from the earlier norse legends of the draugr, undead creatures who stalk their resting places guarding the treasures buried after their death. There are, however, fairy-like beings with vampiric tendencies present in both Irish and Scottish folklore.
The most popular, as well as the most numerous cases of vampirism come from Eastern Europe, from places like Russia, Serbia and Transylvannia. In Romania we have the creatures known as strigoi. Of those there are two types – living strigoi, believed to be human witches with either two hearts or two souls, capable of using those souls to haunt the nights, converse with each other and attack livestock and townsfolk. Dead strigoi were believed to be corpses reanimated after death, doomed to hunt for blood and attack their living family. There are many signs that an individual would become a strigoi, for example any additional body parts like extra fingers, nipples or an excessive amount of hair. A seventh child of a family, provided all of their siblings are of the same sex, as well as children born before term, would also inevitably become a strigoi. What is interesting is that the list of those omens also contains mentions of red hair and blue eyes, hinting at a deeper prejudice making its way into folklore. Another type of vampire present in Romania is pricolici – a human born with a tail and capable of changing their form, forever turning into a wolf after they die. In Slavic folklore there are similar tales, although some remote places like northern Russia vary in their accounts – even the need to consume blood is not universal. It is, however, Eastern Europe from where we have the most detailed accounts of vampire hunting.
But before we learn how to destroy a vampire, we should first summarise some basic characteristics present in near-all depictions of the creature. While it is not easy, seeing how every culture appears to have their own, localised version of a blood consuming monster, there are certain attributes that can be assigned to most versions – vampires are, most often, believed to be either demonic creatures or reanimated corpses, they are believed to consume blood and are often said to be able to change their shape, turn into animals or become invisible through various means. The specific descriptions vary, from twisted or corpse-like monsters to beings of great beauty, capable of seducing men or gaining the trust of children. These are important, for they are the basis for our modern-day depictions of vampires.
How then did people fight those creatures? Indeed, most methods were meant to prevent the dead from rising in the first place. Those include burying the corpse upside down, or trying to appease the demon or spirit by offering various gifts like scythes or sickles – those could also pierce the body of a vampire, perhaps killing it in its grave, like in the case of a recently found grave of a 17th century vampire in a cemetery in Bydgoszcz, Poland. A suspected vampire could also be dismembered or have their tendons severed to prevent it from escaping their resting place. Poppy seeds or sand could be scattered near the grave in hopes of getting the creature occupied with counting the grains, which, some scholars believe, indicates an association between beliefs of vampirism and arithmomania, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Means of destruction similarly vary, from the most popular, like staking, being particularly common in South Slavic cultures, with ash being the preferred choice of wood in Russia, hawthorn in Serbia and oak in Silesia. The targeted area of the body also varied, with records showing stakings through the heart, mouth and stomach, among other places. Places like Germany and western Slavic countries practised decapitation, with the head then being buried between the feet or in a separate location from the rest of the body. The Vampire could also be restrained by pinning it to the ground. The Romani people used steel or iron spikes to pierce the heart of a vampire, and used bits of metal to fill the mouth and eyes of such corpses. A burial site in Venice contains the body of a woman with a brick forcefully inserted into her mouth, which was interpreted to be an attempt at vampire-slaying. The variety of methods employed shows how little actual ‘method’ was behind the actions of the scared populace, revealing the vampire-slaying as mere guesswork, and any self-described vampire hunters as charlatans and con artists.
There are many modern day depictions of vampires that draw from, and elaborate upon the beliefs we discussed, freely combining and changing them to create the common image of a blood sucking monster. Anne Rice’s vampires are, thus, beautiful and seductive, easily blending into the mortal society, and are awarded with a number of gifts, including telepathy, telekinesis, enhanced senses and near-perfect memory, as well as the ability to turn into ghosts. Count Dracula on the other hand is described as a centuries old, powerful magician, having, in most versions, studied sorcery from Lucifer himself, he is also able to turn into a bat, manipulate his victims and vanish from sight. Count Orlok (himself based on Dracula) is a monstrous and deformed creature stalking the halls at night, he’s able to turn into a wolf and can become invisible. Vampires in ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ can fly, hypnotise their victims, are immensely strong and resilient and possess a wide array of unique, personal abilities.Even in those, arguably varied and diverse depictions we can find certain core ideas dating all the way back to antiquity, which shows just how ingrained certain ideas are in our subconscious.
One curious characteristic that is not present in folklore, but later became a staple of vampire fiction is their vulnerability to sunlight. While it is true that most of the creatures cited as examples were believed to be active predominantly at night there is no clear mention of any direct harm being done to them when exposed to the sun. Instead, this character flaw was first outright assigned to Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, who was not able to use many of his supernatural abilities during daytime. This was further developed into the common weakness that in modern day fiction is near synonymous with vampirism. It is also important to mention that there is no single hypothesis as to where the image of a blood drinking monster first came from, and the proposed explanations vary widely. But regardless of its origin, the theme of vampirism is here to stay, and it’s only gaining in popularity in recent years.
And thus, vampires have become one of the mainstays of modern horror and are constantly being re-imagined in video games like ‘Vampyr’, books like the excellent ‘Empire of the Vampire’ by Jay Kristoff, or tabletop role-playing games like my beloved ‘Vampire: the Masquerade’. One theme that has gained in popularity is the idea that vampires are divided into certain groups of various denominations. Whether we call them bloodlines, families or clans, this division allows the author of the medium to bring those different historical ideas of what a vampire is and, effectively, agree that some, or even all of them, are factual within the story, endowing each group with a set of abilities and traits found commonly in the folklore of various civilisations, as well as allowing for a great degree of creative freedom in regards to their differences and relations between those groups. Vampires are dear to our hearts for reasons too numerous to mention in a single article, and I invite you all to examine your favourite vampire media with the aforementioned folklore in mind, trying to investigate and appreciate the long, dark and terrifying history behind the creatures.
Relacja i zdjęcia: Miłosz Skupiński
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