Vampire
A supernatural entity, revenant or supernaturally endowed person who attacks living things, weakening and possibly destroying them. The vampire has no single definition, but represents types of entities and people. In Western lore, the vampire is primarily the returning dead who drain the life force of the living. Other types of vampires exist. Wide varieties of vampiric or vampirelike entities are found in lore and mythologies around the world.
Possibly the most inclusive definition of vampires is put forth by folklorist Jan L. Perkowski:
...a being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature.
This definition encompasses the returning dead, living vampires, psychic vampirism, clinical campirism, and vampire sorcerers and witches.
A 19th-century definition of vampires, given by the Century Dictionary and reported in the Providence Journal of Rhode Island on March 21, 1892, presents beliefs about vampires:
In the early 20th century, Montague Summers gave this description of the vampire:
The vampire has a body, and it is his own body. He is neither dead nor alive; but living in death. He is an abnormality; the androgyne in the phantom world; a pariah among friends.
Vampires originate in Slavic lore, however, some scholars hold that they originate in classical lore. Vampires have a strong presence in the folklore of Greece and where Slavic influence has reached in Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia. In it's earliest forms, vampires are related to eclipse demons and to werewolves. Later they became associated primarily with the returning dead. A vampire returned to the world of the living to take away life through wasting illnesses and a draining of blood.
Vampires are associated with contagious illnesses and plagues, crop blights and droughts. They embody fears of death and the consequences of improper burial, sudden death, and the lives of sin and crime. The European vampire became contaminated with the lore of other wasting entities, such as the nightmare demon, the poltergeist and the incubus and succubus. Characteristics of the vampire include poltergeist disturbances , unpleasant dreams, and sexual assaults during sleep. Vampires can shape-shift into animals, most often cats, dogs, sheep, wolves, snakes, birds, and horses. Bats are not prevalent in European vampire lore, but have been popularized in fiction and film.
Vampires are also types of living people who possess supernatural powers. Traditionally, these have been individuals born with a marked physical trait, or who are sorcerers or witches. In contemporary times, due to influences of populars literature and films, vampires are seen as supernaturally powerful people who are initiated into vampirism by choice or by attack by a vampire. Shared blood-drinking has a strong erotic appeal.
Appearance of the Term Vampire
The word vampire made its first appearance in French literature and correspondence in the late 17th century. The French publication Mercure Galant reported vampire cases in 1693 and 1694 in Poland and Russia. The term also was used in 1737 in Lettres Juives. In 1746 Dom Augustine Calmet made the word vampire a household term in France with the publication of his Dissertations sur les apparitions et sur les revenants et les vampires.
A cognate of vampire--the Polish term Upior--was published in German in scholarly literature in 1721, and in the media in newspaper accounts in 1725. Johann Fluckinger's reports of vampires in Medvegia appeared in 1732, and was translated into English.
The first use of vampire in German belles lettres appeared in 1748 in the poem "Der Vampyr" by August Ossenfelder, and most notably was used by Goethe in 1779 in "Die Braut von Cornith."
In England, William of Newburgh described cases of "blood-sucking" revenants in the 12th century. In 1679, in a work by Paul Ricaut, State of the Greek and Armenian Churches, Ricaut describes the phenomenon of vampires but does not name them:
...a pretended demon, said to delight in sucking human blood, and to animate the bodies of dead persons, which when dug up, are said to be found florid and full of blood.
By 1688 the term vampire evidently was known in England. In Observations of the Revolution of 1688, vampires is used to describe business practices.
The term was used in the anonymous work Travels of 3 English Gentlemen from Venice to Hamburg, Being the Grand Tour of Germany in the Year 1734, which was published in 1810. Travels gives the first English explanation of vampires in some detail, quoting a paragraph from John Heinrich Zopfius's Dissertatio de Vampiris Seruirnsibus(1733):
These Vampyres are supposed to be the bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves, in the night time, suck the blood of many of the living, and thereby destroy them. Such a notion will, probably, be looked upon as fabulous and exploded, by many people in England; however, it is not only countenanced by Baron Valvasor, and many Carnioleze noblemen, gentlemen, etc., as we were informed, but likewise actually embraced by some writers of good authority. M. Jo. Henr. Zopfius, director of the Gymnasium of Essen, a person of great erudition, has published a dissertation upon them, which is extremely learned and curious, from whence we shall beg leave to transcribe the following paragraph: "The Vampyres, which come out of the graves in the night-time, rush upon people sleeping in their beds, suck out all their blood, and destroy them. They attack men, woman, and children, sparing neither age nor sex. The people attacked by them complain of suffocation, and a great interception of spirits, [exhaustion] after which, they soon expire. Some of them, asked at the point of death, what is the matter with them, say they suffer in the manner just related from people lately dead, or rather the specters of those people; upon which their bodies , from the description given of them, by the sick person, being dug out of the graves, appear in all parts, as the nostrils, cheeks, breast, mouth, etc. turgid and full of blood. Their countenances are fresh and ruddy; and their nails, as well as hair, very much grown. And, though they have been much longer dead than many other bodies, which are perfectly putrefied, not the least mark of corruption is visible upon them. Those who are destroyed by them, after their death, become Vampyres; so that, to prevent so spreading an evil, it is found requisite to drive a stake through the dead body, from whence, on this occasion, the blood flows as if the person was alive. Sometimes the body is dug out of the grave and burnt to ashes; upon which, all disturbances cease. The Hungarians call these specters Pamgri, and the Serbians Vampyres; but the etymon, or reason of these names, is not known..."
Zopfius's description was cited in many subsequent English works on vampires, including the writings of Summers.
From the early 19th century, the term and concept of vampires was firmly established in English literature and the popular press. In 1819 the first English story about vampires, The Vampyre, was published and became an immediate success in England and Europe. Much of its success was due to insinuation that Lord Byron authored it; it was written by his one-time physician, John Polidori, who plagiarized an oral story told by Byron. More works on vampires followed.
Vampire lore was imported to the American colonies and was especially prominent in New England areas ravaged by tuberculosis epidemics.
Etymology of Vampire
The origin of the word vampire has been debated by scholars ever since it made its first appearance in Western literature and media. Turkish, Hungarian, Greek, and Slavic sources have been put forward. Scholarly opinions of the word fall into four general groups:
Types of Vampires
Vampires can be categorized as follows:
*folkloric vampires
*living vampires
*literary vampires
*psychic vampires
*psychotic vampires
Folkloric vampires include a wide spectrum of revenants and demonic beings, who have supernatural powers and characteristics and drain the vitality or blood from the living. Examples are the returning dead who died of plague, drowning, murder, suicide, or unnatural or suddenly violent causes, or who died as a result of being killed by an active vampire; and corpses who become possessed by demonic or evil spirits. In Serbian lore, honest people cannot become vampires, unless a bird or animal flies or walks over their corpse. the soul is in the bones only as long as a person is alive.
The returning dead are the most common type of vampire. They come out at night, especially midnight, and must return to their graves by the crowing of the c**k at dawn. They do not come out on Saturday, when they must remain in their graves. They enter homes through keyholes and under doorsills and windowsills.
Living vampires are people who act as vampires while alive. Traditionally, they are certain supernaturally empowered people, such as witches and sorcerers, who drink blood and cause wasting illnesses and deaths, and crop blights. Living vampires are also people destined to become vampires after death, such as those born with the caul or born with a tail (protuberance at the end of the spine) or one or two teeth.
In contemporary times, living vampires are individuals who believe themselves to be vampires, more or less in accordance with popular fictional vampires and vampire motifs. Such individuals consider themselves "made" vampires after a blood-drinking and exchange ritual with an individual who is believed to already be a vampire. Many call themselves "vampyres" to differentiate themselves from fictional vampires.
Literary vampires are created in fiction, poetry, film, and the arts. They are based on folkloric vampires, but many have characteristics that have been invented by their creators.
Psychic vampires are living persons who either deliberately or unwittingly drain the energy and vitality of other people. Deliberate psychic vampirism can be accomplished through magic and ill intent. In the broadest sense, any act that drains another person can be considered a form of psychic vampirism, such as gift-giving that is intended to create a sense of obligation, and individuals who constantly ask for service or favors.
Psychotic vampires are people who commit blood crimes, such as mutilating or killing others and drinking their blood. Some of these individuals are declared criminally insane.
Prevention and Destruction of Vampires
Slavic customs call for various methods of preventing and destroying vampires. The most prudent approach is to bury a body properly. If a person is feared to become a vampire, such as the victim of an untimely death, a suicide or a criminal, preventative measures are taken at the time of burial. These include mutilating and staking the corpse and filling the coffin with various materials designed to keep the spirit from escaping the grave.
If a spirit has escaped the grave and is attacking the living as a vampire, the grave of the vampire is opened and the corpse is staked, mutilated, weighed down with stones, dismembered, or burned to ashes. If the identity of the vampire is unknown, a hunt must be undertaken to discover which corpse is in a "vampire condition," that is, incorrupt and exuding fresh-appearing blood from the orifices. In earlier times, vampire hunters, individuals endowed with the supernatural ability to detect and destroy vampires, were employed to search out and eradicate the culprit. If a vampire hunter was not available, villagers undertook their own searches, by digging up graves of the most likely suspects, or by employing various methods such as the use of white horses to detect the right graves.
Among some Muslim Slavic Gypsies, vampires can be destroyed by certain animals, chiefly the wolf, followed by a dog that has "four eyes," or two marks resembling eyes over each eye. In some cases, the dog must be black and the wolf must be white. Among other Gypsies, the wolf is the only creature that can strangle a vampire, but dogs and horses can sense one.
Contemporary popular fiction and film hold that sunlight and crosses destroy vampires. There is no folklore tradition for vampires being destroyed by exposure to sunlight and many anecdotal cases in the folklore literature report vampires active in daylight hours. The origins of the destructive power of sunlight are found in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau.
The power of the cross over vampires--as well as over evil entities in general--is a Christian influence imposed upon a pagan folklore tradition. The Christian Church was opposed to the vampire cults it encountered in pagan Europe and sought either to suppress them altogether by forbidding vampire practices or subordinate them to the power of the church by requiring priests to officiate.
Magical spells and exorcism are performed against psychic vampirism.
Vampirelike Entities
All mythologies have predatory, vampirelike entities that prey upon the living, sometimes with fatal consequences. Some are demons, while others are the restless spirits of the dead. Some are sexually rapacious, while others like to drink blood and cause illnesses and misfortune. Some are cannibalistic in nature. One significant type of vampirelike being is the childbirth demon that preys upon infants and women who have just given birth. Many vampirelike entities have shape-shifting ability, such as demons who can masquerade as people and animals, and people who are half-human, half-animal or half-human, half-demon.
A supernatural entity, revenant or supernaturally endowed person who attacks living things, weakening and possibly destroying them. The vampire has no single definition, but represents types of entities and people. In Western lore, the vampire is primarily the returning dead who drain the life force of the living. Other types of vampires exist. Wide varieties of vampiric or vampirelike entities are found in lore and mythologies around the world.
Possibly the most inclusive definition of vampires is put forth by folklorist Jan L. Perkowski:
...a being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature.
This definition encompasses the returning dead, living vampires, psychic vampirism, clinical campirism, and vampire sorcerers and witches.
A 19th-century definition of vampires, given by the Century Dictionary and reported in the Providence Journal of Rhode Island on March 21, 1892, presents beliefs about vampires:
A kind of spectral being or ghost still possessing a human body, which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races of the lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werewolves, heretics and other outcasts became vampires, and anyone killed by a vampire. On the discovery of a vampire's grave, the body, which is supposed to be found fresh and ruddy, must be disinterred, thrust through with a white thorn stake, and burned in order to render it harmless.
In the early 20th century, Montague Summers gave this description of the vampire:
The vampire has a body, and it is his own body. He is neither dead nor alive; but living in death. He is an abnormality; the androgyne in the phantom world; a pariah among friends.
Vampires originate in Slavic lore, however, some scholars hold that they originate in classical lore. Vampires have a strong presence in the folklore of Greece and where Slavic influence has reached in Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia. In it's earliest forms, vampires are related to eclipse demons and to werewolves. Later they became associated primarily with the returning dead. A vampire returned to the world of the living to take away life through wasting illnesses and a draining of blood.
Vampires are associated with contagious illnesses and plagues, crop blights and droughts. They embody fears of death and the consequences of improper burial, sudden death, and the lives of sin and crime. The European vampire became contaminated with the lore of other wasting entities, such as the nightmare demon, the poltergeist and the incubus and succubus. Characteristics of the vampire include poltergeist disturbances , unpleasant dreams, and sexual assaults during sleep. Vampires can shape-shift into animals, most often cats, dogs, sheep, wolves, snakes, birds, and horses. Bats are not prevalent in European vampire lore, but have been popularized in fiction and film.
Vampires are also types of living people who possess supernatural powers. Traditionally, these have been individuals born with a marked physical trait, or who are sorcerers or witches. In contemporary times, due to influences of populars literature and films, vampires are seen as supernaturally powerful people who are initiated into vampirism by choice or by attack by a vampire. Shared blood-drinking has a strong erotic appeal.
Appearance of the Term Vampire
The word vampire made its first appearance in French literature and correspondence in the late 17th century. The French publication Mercure Galant reported vampire cases in 1693 and 1694 in Poland and Russia. The term also was used in 1737 in Lettres Juives. In 1746 Dom Augustine Calmet made the word vampire a household term in France with the publication of his Dissertations sur les apparitions et sur les revenants et les vampires.
A cognate of vampire--the Polish term Upior--was published in German in scholarly literature in 1721, and in the media in newspaper accounts in 1725. Johann Fluckinger's reports of vampires in Medvegia appeared in 1732, and was translated into English.
The first use of vampire in German belles lettres appeared in 1748 in the poem "Der Vampyr" by August Ossenfelder, and most notably was used by Goethe in 1779 in "Die Braut von Cornith."
In England, William of Newburgh described cases of "blood-sucking" revenants in the 12th century. In 1679, in a work by Paul Ricaut, State of the Greek and Armenian Churches, Ricaut describes the phenomenon of vampires but does not name them:
...a pretended demon, said to delight in sucking human blood, and to animate the bodies of dead persons, which when dug up, are said to be found florid and full of blood.
By 1688 the term vampire evidently was known in England. In Observations of the Revolution of 1688, vampires is used to describe business practices.
The term was used in the anonymous work Travels of 3 English Gentlemen from Venice to Hamburg, Being the Grand Tour of Germany in the Year 1734, which was published in 1810. Travels gives the first English explanation of vampires in some detail, quoting a paragraph from John Heinrich Zopfius's Dissertatio de Vampiris Seruirnsibus(1733):
These Vampyres are supposed to be the bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves, in the night time, suck the blood of many of the living, and thereby destroy them. Such a notion will, probably, be looked upon as fabulous and exploded, by many people in England; however, it is not only countenanced by Baron Valvasor, and many Carnioleze noblemen, gentlemen, etc., as we were informed, but likewise actually embraced by some writers of good authority. M. Jo. Henr. Zopfius, director of the Gymnasium of Essen, a person of great erudition, has published a dissertation upon them, which is extremely learned and curious, from whence we shall beg leave to transcribe the following paragraph: "The Vampyres, which come out of the graves in the night-time, rush upon people sleeping in their beds, suck out all their blood, and destroy them. They attack men, woman, and children, sparing neither age nor sex. The people attacked by them complain of suffocation, and a great interception of spirits, [exhaustion] after which, they soon expire. Some of them, asked at the point of death, what is the matter with them, say they suffer in the manner just related from people lately dead, or rather the specters of those people; upon which their bodies , from the description given of them, by the sick person, being dug out of the graves, appear in all parts, as the nostrils, cheeks, breast, mouth, etc. turgid and full of blood. Their countenances are fresh and ruddy; and their nails, as well as hair, very much grown. And, though they have been much longer dead than many other bodies, which are perfectly putrefied, not the least mark of corruption is visible upon them. Those who are destroyed by them, after their death, become Vampyres; so that, to prevent so spreading an evil, it is found requisite to drive a stake through the dead body, from whence, on this occasion, the blood flows as if the person was alive. Sometimes the body is dug out of the grave and burnt to ashes; upon which, all disturbances cease. The Hungarians call these specters Pamgri, and the Serbians Vampyres; but the etymon, or reason of these names, is not known..."
Zopfius's description was cited in many subsequent English works on vampires, including the writings of Summers.
From the early 19th century, the term and concept of vampires was firmly established in English literature and the popular press. In 1819 the first English story about vampires, The Vampyre, was published and became an immediate success in England and Europe. Much of its success was due to insinuation that Lord Byron authored it; it was written by his one-time physician, John Polidori, who plagiarized an oral story told by Byron. More works on vampires followed.
Vampire lore was imported to the American colonies and was especially prominent in New England areas ravaged by tuberculosis epidemics.
Etymology of Vampire
The origin of the word vampire has been debated by scholars ever since it made its first appearance in Western literature and media. Turkish, Hungarian, Greek, and Slavic sources have been put forward. Scholarly opinions of the word fall into four general groups:
*The first group is oriented around the opinion of Franz Miklosich, a late 19th-century Austrian linguist, who stated vampire and the Slavic terms Upior, uper, and upyr all derive from uber, a Turkish term for "witch." Montague Summers was among those who relied on Miklosich as an authority.
*The second group subscribes to the theory of a classical origin of the word. Summers also suggested that the Greek word for "to drink" is the origin of vampire.
*The third group, which includes most contemporary scholars, favors a Slavic origin with the Serbian word bamiiup as the root noun. Other possibilities put forward are the Serbo-Croatian verb pirati ("to blow") and the Lithuanian verb wempti ("to drink"). Still another theory put forward is that bamiiup is only a borrowing from an earlier Greek term.
*The fourth group includes some contemporary English and American writers who hold that vampire is a recent term of Hungarian origin. Raymond T. McNally opined that the Hungarian word vampir was the source of vampire. However, vampir postdates the first appearance of the word vampire in the West by more than a century.
*The second group subscribes to the theory of a classical origin of the word. Summers also suggested that the Greek word for "to drink" is the origin of vampire.
*The third group, which includes most contemporary scholars, favors a Slavic origin with the Serbian word bamiiup as the root noun. Other possibilities put forward are the Serbo-Croatian verb pirati ("to blow") and the Lithuanian verb wempti ("to drink"). Still another theory put forward is that bamiiup is only a borrowing from an earlier Greek term.
*The fourth group includes some contemporary English and American writers who hold that vampire is a recent term of Hungarian origin. Raymond T. McNally opined that the Hungarian word vampir was the source of vampire. However, vampir postdates the first appearance of the word vampire in the West by more than a century.
Types of Vampires
Vampires can be categorized as follows:
*folkloric vampires
*living vampires
*literary vampires
*psychic vampires
*psychotic vampires
Folkloric vampires include a wide spectrum of revenants and demonic beings, who have supernatural powers and characteristics and drain the vitality or blood from the living. Examples are the returning dead who died of plague, drowning, murder, suicide, or unnatural or suddenly violent causes, or who died as a result of being killed by an active vampire; and corpses who become possessed by demonic or evil spirits. In Serbian lore, honest people cannot become vampires, unless a bird or animal flies or walks over their corpse. the soul is in the bones only as long as a person is alive.
The returning dead are the most common type of vampire. They come out at night, especially midnight, and must return to their graves by the crowing of the c**k at dawn. They do not come out on Saturday, when they must remain in their graves. They enter homes through keyholes and under doorsills and windowsills.
Living vampires are people who act as vampires while alive. Traditionally, they are certain supernaturally empowered people, such as witches and sorcerers, who drink blood and cause wasting illnesses and deaths, and crop blights. Living vampires are also people destined to become vampires after death, such as those born with the caul or born with a tail (protuberance at the end of the spine) or one or two teeth.
In contemporary times, living vampires are individuals who believe themselves to be vampires, more or less in accordance with popular fictional vampires and vampire motifs. Such individuals consider themselves "made" vampires after a blood-drinking and exchange ritual with an individual who is believed to already be a vampire. Many call themselves "vampyres" to differentiate themselves from fictional vampires.
Literary vampires are created in fiction, poetry, film, and the arts. They are based on folkloric vampires, but many have characteristics that have been invented by their creators.
Psychic vampires are living persons who either deliberately or unwittingly drain the energy and vitality of other people. Deliberate psychic vampirism can be accomplished through magic and ill intent. In the broadest sense, any act that drains another person can be considered a form of psychic vampirism, such as gift-giving that is intended to create a sense of obligation, and individuals who constantly ask for service or favors.
Psychotic vampires are people who commit blood crimes, such as mutilating or killing others and drinking their blood. Some of these individuals are declared criminally insane.
Prevention and Destruction of Vampires
Slavic customs call for various methods of preventing and destroying vampires. The most prudent approach is to bury a body properly. If a person is feared to become a vampire, such as the victim of an untimely death, a suicide or a criminal, preventative measures are taken at the time of burial. These include mutilating and staking the corpse and filling the coffin with various materials designed to keep the spirit from escaping the grave.
If a spirit has escaped the grave and is attacking the living as a vampire, the grave of the vampire is opened and the corpse is staked, mutilated, weighed down with stones, dismembered, or burned to ashes. If the identity of the vampire is unknown, a hunt must be undertaken to discover which corpse is in a "vampire condition," that is, incorrupt and exuding fresh-appearing blood from the orifices. In earlier times, vampire hunters, individuals endowed with the supernatural ability to detect and destroy vampires, were employed to search out and eradicate the culprit. If a vampire hunter was not available, villagers undertook their own searches, by digging up graves of the most likely suspects, or by employing various methods such as the use of white horses to detect the right graves.
Among some Muslim Slavic Gypsies, vampires can be destroyed by certain animals, chiefly the wolf, followed by a dog that has "four eyes," or two marks resembling eyes over each eye. In some cases, the dog must be black and the wolf must be white. Among other Gypsies, the wolf is the only creature that can strangle a vampire, but dogs and horses can sense one.
Contemporary popular fiction and film hold that sunlight and crosses destroy vampires. There is no folklore tradition for vampires being destroyed by exposure to sunlight and many anecdotal cases in the folklore literature report vampires active in daylight hours. The origins of the destructive power of sunlight are found in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau.
The power of the cross over vampires--as well as over evil entities in general--is a Christian influence imposed upon a pagan folklore tradition. The Christian Church was opposed to the vampire cults it encountered in pagan Europe and sought either to suppress them altogether by forbidding vampire practices or subordinate them to the power of the church by requiring priests to officiate.
Magical spells and exorcism are performed against psychic vampirism.
Vampirelike Entities
All mythologies have predatory, vampirelike entities that prey upon the living, sometimes with fatal consequences. Some are demons, while others are the restless spirits of the dead. Some are sexually rapacious, while others like to drink blood and cause illnesses and misfortune. Some are cannibalistic in nature. One significant type of vampirelike being is the childbirth demon that preys upon infants and women who have just given birth. Many vampirelike entities have shape-shifting ability, such as demons who can masquerade as people and animals, and people who are half-human, half-animal or half-human, half-demon.
