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It is hard to tell if vampires were “discovered” often prior to written records, or if an obscure legend found root and flourished with the written word. Certainly the vampire’s fame and popularity as a literary and film figure has grown since that time. It is only through putting away a modern notion of the vampire and studying sources that were will be an answer to where the vampire originated and how it flourished.
Although blood-sucking creatures have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
Scholars know that the vampire legends existed long before they were written down in the seventeenth century, but it makes it hard to define when they began. However the Russian text of the eleventh century addressed to the Novgorodian Prince Volodymyr Yaroslavovych is a commonly accepted starting point (See Upir). Beyond the Russians, the vampire … Read more
The vampire legend dates back to the earliest times of recorded human civilization: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and other peoples of the ancient Orient. The original vampire was not like the sophisticated, suave European aristocrat that we know of today. The vampire, at its origins, was a true appaling monster. The bloodsucking Akhkharu is mentioned … Read more