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The most common legend of vampyres as portrayed in film and television is of a blood drinking man that has the ability to change into a bat at will, wears a black cape with a dinner suit underneath, black slicked back hairand of course the fangs in his mouth. This vampyre myth is largely based on eastern European myths. He preys on his human victims at night biting and sucking the blood from the veins in the side of the neck. He is an undead creature who cannot stand the sunlight and usually sleeps in a coffin in the basement of an old mansion.
Vampyres are thought to be most active during a full moon, on the eve of St, George´s day (May 4) and St. Andrew´s day when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. They are immortal and can only be killed or harmed by using one of the below mentioned means. If bitten by a vampyre you are to become one of the undead yourself.
Still today Rumainians believe that the souls of the dead shall come and visit them by night.
Today modern medicine and science has found out about the secrets of the myths around vampires.
The word Vampyre or Vampire came into English language via an English translation of a German report of a much publicized epidemic.
The reason for this so-called vampire-epidemic which is told was cirulating in serbia during the 16th century for example is an illness called "anthrax". The affe
cted person gets blueish-black swollen lymph glands which look as if blood had been sucked from them.
Because some people claimed the ill had been bitten by the newly died, the graves were opened again, and what people found then shocked them even more.
Anthrax causes the dead to bow their head until the mouth touches their throaths, they bleed from nose and mouth and plus the sepsisgas makes sounds as if the dead would eat noisily.
(Compare this to a passage from Stoker´s "Dracula´s Guest" which he excised from the original novel because of the length of the book and which was lateron published as a short story:
".. He burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said. Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died [in this village] and been buried in their graves; but sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy with life and their mouths red with blood...")
Hence the corpses which were so proven un-dead were taken from their graves, chopped off their heads and burned in public.
Sun and darkness are two more symbols of the myths. It is said that every ray of light weakens a vampire. This can also be explained through medicine; most likely the cause is an illness called "porphyrie". The affected must not step into the light for it will cause him quite a lot of pain and ruin his skin. It is also typical for this illness that the gums grow smaller; the teeth seem therefore to be longer.
This illness also explains why garlic is used to fight a vampire; shown to an affected it will because of some substances make him have a nervous breakdown.
Porphyrie can not be cured, but the affected is helped if he drinks or is infused - blood.
Bats are believed to be associated with Vampyres due to the Vampyre bat of Central and South America. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their vampire legends.
Vampyre myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. The different languages portray many varietes of vampyres from glowing red-eyed monsters with green or pink hair as believed in China to the Greek "Lamia" which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged snake. Japan believes in vampyre foxes and Malaysia has it´s own version with trailing entrails knwon as Penanggalang.
Things that are said to be able to harm, ward off or kill a vampyre:
1. Garlic - will ward off
2. Silver cross - will burn or ward off
3. Wooden stake through the heart - will kill
4. Decapitation of the head - will kill
5. Prayer - will ward off
6. Sunlight/Fire - will burn and kill
7. Steel placed in the mouth, over the ears, over the eyes, and in between the fingers at time of burial - will ward of
8. Placing a crucifix inside coffin - will ward off
9. Placing blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud - will ward off
10. Nailing clothes to coffin walls - will ward off
11. Exorcism - will kill
12. Holy water - will burn or sometimes can kill
13. Repeating funeral service - will ward off
The Library of The London National Museum was the place where it first occured to Bram Stoker to write a novel about the blood-sucking un-dead.
The irish author buried himself in books about ethnic studies, occultism and medicine. He studied history and geography of eastern Europe, but he had not yet found the central figure for his story, so he stummaged around until he happened to strike a book about a rumanian prince called Vlad Tepec Dracula, who fought against the turks his whole life long. Raymond McNally, historican at Boston College, says that there has not been any other man in history who impaled (This is a particulary gruesome form of execution, wherein the victim is impaled between the legs upon a large, sharpened stake. As they hang suspended above the ground, the weight of their bodies would slowly drag them downwards, causing the sharpened end of the stake to pierce their internal organs) as many humans as he did.
For Stoker decided to let his vampire go to London, his favourite town, he went through the newspapers looking for persons and places which might have some influence on his new found Count Dracula - of course there was no way around the serial murderer Jack The Ripper. Stoker let him and Vlad Tepec melt together, creating one of the most horrifying persons ever made up, which fit perfectly in his story; there had only be a place to be found where Count Draculas home originally was. Austria was well known as a dark place in the time of fin de siécle for there were a lot of thrillers around which took their place in Austria - by now it is actually known for sure that at first Stoker wanted Draculas castle to be in Styria, but then he let himself be inspirated by a book about superstition in Trannsilvanya, and so he made up his story in the "country beyond the forest".
The descriptions of the Romanian localities Cluj, Bistrita of the Bargau pass from Carpati mountains as of many other geographcal places, are real and authentical ones.
The historical Count Vlad Tepec Dracula has ruled the area of Southern Romania known as Wallachia more than five hundred years ago and is still honoured by the people who live there. Vasile Neagu, policeman in a small village not far from Vlad`s castle, is still very fond of what Vlad did for his country: "He brought freedom to my country", he says, "and we shall never forget what he did for us."
So, at the same time that Vlad became notorious for his sadism he was also respected by his people because of his fierce campaigns against the Turks. He was respected as a warrior and a stern ruler who tolerated no crime against his people.
It is said that Tepec was born in todays Sighisoara (Siebenbürgen) in Transylvania (now known as northern Romania) in 1431. At the time of his birth there raged war in the Walachei, which osmanian hosts tried to capture, but they were then fought back by Vlad`s father Count Vlad Dracul, which means both "Devil" and "Monster". "Dracula" therefore means "Son of the Devil".
In 1448 he first occupied the throne of Romanian County. He punished, with an unaccustomed severity, the treacherous boyars, the thieves and liars, unfair merchants, spies, scornfully messengers, lazy or coward persons.
Next the Turks; while Count Dracul tried to come to agreements with the Osmanians, his son did not hesitate to strike back in a very brutal way.
The osmanian hosts lead by "Sultan Mechemet Chan" were three times as big and as strong than Vlad´s own, but he was a master of psychological strategy.
So when the Osmanians attacked the Wallachia, Tepec did not only kill 20000 of them, attacking them by night, but let them be impaled and placed them at the border between Wallachia and the Osmanian Kingdom. It is said that in order to better enjoy this mass spectacle, Vlad ordered a banquet table set up in front of his victims and would enjoy a leisurely supper amid the pitiful sights and sounds of the dying.
His cruel crime was but successful, and Mechemet never came back.
It was then when Vlad was first called "Tepec", which means "he who impales his enemies".
Princess Brianna Caradja, Vlad`s great-granddaughter in 27th generation, thinks that the death of Draculas first wife was what made him this cruel. "She did kill herself", she says, "we know that much for sure; she was in his castle and was told that her husband had been killed by the turks. She couldn´t bear the thought, and so she ran upstairs and threw herself out of the window. She was dead immediately."
A letter, actually written by the turks, was the reason for her suicide.
The same day Vlad was hit by a second tragedy as he and his servants escaped through the forest on horseback - the servant carrying Vlad´s infant son dropped him. The purshuing Turks were too close to risk turning back to look for the child, so they were forced to leave him behind. In one day he had both lost his home and his family.
"He was propably angry all his life - he had no sense of liking or even loving people anymore and became very, very severe."
Dracula died violently (according to rumor, at the hands of one of his men who was actually a Turkish spy). He was buried at one of the monasteries he patronized, on the island at Snagov.
But the cruelty of Vlad Tepec Dracula was only one part of Stokers story - the belief in ghosts and the un-dead was the other.
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