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“Throughout the shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both.”
Montague Summers
During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. Rhode Island had the dubious distinction of being named the Transylvania of America. In New England, “vampirism” thrived outside the Puritan communities. 20 cases of vampire folklore were chronicled throughout … Read more
The attention given to vampirism coincided (and maybe contributed to) a rising interest in gothic literature, first in Germany and later (during the last decades of the eighteenth century) in England. The vampire, a revenant from the realm of folklore, became soon adopted by gothic writers. Johann von Goethe wrote his novel The Bride of … Read more
Despite being called the Age of Enlightenment, the belief in vampires increased dramatically, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout most of Europe. It was around 1730 that the declining Ottoman empire lost Serbia and Wallachia to the Austrian Empire. Western Europeans were first introduced to the vampire legend when the Austrian forces returned home with … Read more
Many of the myths surrounding vampires originated during the medieval period. The 12th-century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. The Old Norse draugr is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to … Read more
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
In Balkan folklore, a dhampir (also spelled dhampyre, dhamphir, or dhampyr) is the child of a vampire father and a human mother. The word dhampir is believed to derive directly from Albanian: pij or pirё which means “to drink”, and dhёmbё or dham which means “teeth”, thus dhampir, “to drink with teeth”. In the rest … Read more
Vampirism is the practice of drinking blood from a person/animal. In folklore and popular culture, the term generally refers to a belief that one can gain supernatural powers by drinking human blood. The historical practice of vampirism can generally be considered a more specific and less commonly occurring form of cannibalism. The consumption of another’s … Read more