Tale of the Vampire But first, on earth as Vampire sent, Thy corpse shall from the tomb be rent: Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race; There from thy daughter, sister, wife, At midnight drain the stream of life; Yet loathe the banquet which perforce Must feed thy livid living corpse. Shall know the demon for their sire, At cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem. -Lord Byron, The Glamour, 1813, reputedly the first reference to vampires in English literature Vampires are lucky: they can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves. We gotta eat our legs, so that we got the energy to walk. We gotta come so that we can go. We gotta suck ourselves off. We gotta eat away at ourselves 'til there's nothing left but appetite. -From 'The Bad Lieutenant' The Origins of the Term 'Vampire' F. Miklosich, an eminent scholar of Slavic languages, claims that 'vampire' derives from ‘uber’, the Turkish word for witch. But undoubtedly the source of 'vampire' is the Hungarian word ‘vampir’. -McNally, Raymond T., A Clutch of Vampires ...if we look at the earliest derivations of the word "vampire" itself, we find that its common root from most of the Mediterranean languages is formed from "vam", meaning blood, and "pyr", meaning monster..."blood-monster"... In other languages, such as those closer to Dracula's home, there are similar meanings in almost every language. The very earliest reference to the word arises in Slavonia in the Magyar form "vampir", which is the same in Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian and Bulgarian, with some variations: "vapir", "vepir", "veryr", "vopyr", "upier". In Lithuanian derivations there is an interesting variation on the idea of the vampire being not just a blood-monster but a blood-drunk. The word that gives rise to the idea of a vampire is a mixture of "wempti", meaning to drink, and "wampiti", to growl or mutter, and the use of the word gave an intonation of drunkenness. In Croatia the word for the vampire was "pijauica", meaning one who is red-faced with drink. In Albania the name for vampire means the restless dead, and in Greece and the surrounding territories there is no word for vampire at all. In the European languages the name has always been somewhat similar: Danish and Swedish French "le vampire", Italian, Spanish, Portuguese "vampiro", modern Latin "vampyrus". In the Oxford English Dictionary in its earlier editions the definition is : A preternatural being of a malignant nature (in the original unusual form of the belief an animated Corpse ), supposed to seek nourishment and do harm by sucking the blood of sleeping persons; a man or woman abnormally endowed with similar habits. ["It (the quote) said the dutch word for Vampire is 'vampir' when in fact it is spelled 'vampier'. Well, just to be sure I looked it up in the dictionary. Vampier is the only correct spelling. But it did mention the origin of the word was the German or Hungarian vampir, so it might have been spelled this way once." I've double checked with the book and I've quoted it correctly. Perhaps it was a spelling error that was not corrected by the editors or maybe the bookis using the origin of the Dutch word instead. Thank you Joachim!] -Dunn Mascetti, Manuela. Vampires: The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476) is considered to be the original historical Dracula that Bram Stoker used as a 'model' for his 1897 novel ‘Dracula’. Vlad’s father, also known as Vlad, joined the Order of the Dragon shortly after his son’s birth in Schassburg, Transylvania. The name 'Dracula' means 'son of Dracul', or son of the dragon or evil. -G. Gordon Melton, The Vampire Book According to Hindu mythology, ‘Ralarati’ was both a witch and a vampire. In Assyrian demonology, the ‘Ekimmu’ was a vampire demon. The Singalese called him ‘Katakhanes’, while the Burmese worshipped their ‘Swawmx’. The classical Greeks were afraid of the bisexual demon ‘Lamina’, who stole children and sucked their blood. In Solomonic legend, ‘Ornias’ was a handsome vampire. A Slavic expression for vampire is ‘Vikodlak’, while in Poland these are called ‘Upirs’. Even in remote valleys and clustering villages of Greece, the vampire stalks, unquestioned and accepted as ‘Brucolacas’. -Varma, Devendra P., Voices from the Vaults Vampires in Australia are called ‘yara-ma-yha-who’ in aboriginal cultures. This vampire-like being is said to be four feet tall, entirely red, with a large head and mouth, and no teeth, who swallows his food whole. -G. Gordon Melton, The Vampire Book Dictionary Definitions Vam*pire n. 1. a reanimated corpse said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night. 2. a person who preys ruthlessly upon others. 3. vamp(2). The Random House Dictionary, 1980 Edtion vampire, n. bloodsucker, bat; parasite. SLANG siren, seducer, vamp, temptress The New American Roget's College Thesaurus, 1978 Edition Vamp (2) n. 1. a charming, unscrupulous woman who exploits or ruins men she seduces. -v.t., v.i. 2. to allure or seduce (a man) by playing the vamp. The Random House Dictionary, 1980 Edtion Vam*pir*ism n. 1.belief in the existence of vampires. 2. the acts or practices of vampires. The Random House Dictionary, 1980 Edtion The Methods of Becoming a Vampire A very common belief, reported not only from eastern Europe but also from China, holds that a person becomes a revenant when an animal jumps over him. In Romania, there is a beliefe that a bat can transform a corpse into a vampire by flying over it. -Masters, Anthony. The Natural History of the Vampire Their Methods of Feeding When vampires and revenants in European folklore suck blood--many do not--they bite their victims somewhere on the thorax. Among the Kashubes, a Slavic people of northern Europe, vampires chose the area of the left breast; among the Russians, they left a small wound in the area of the ear; and in Dazig (now Gdansk), they bit the victim’s nipples. -Masters, Anthony. The Natural History of the Vampire Reasons Behind Gravestones The gravestone was placed above the head of the body in the grave so that, if a returning spirit should occupy the dead, the body would not be able to sit up. Only criminals, alcoholics and great sinners were not accorded formal burial, just the sorts of character one might expect to be occupied by floating souls! Where there was no gravestone a vampire could come to life again. Where there was moral weakness, therefore, life could be forever. -Dunn-Mascetti, Manuela. Vampire- the Complete Guide to the World of the Undead Various It is natural to die through loss of blood, it is logical to think one could live again through drinking blood. -Masters, Anthony. The Natural History of the Vampire Note that when a saint’s body failed to decompose it was a miracle, but when the body of an unpopular person failed to decompose it was because he was a vampire. -Masters, Anthony. The Natural History of the Vampire Vampires provided a perfect mirror of the worst fears of the pious and perfect. Vampires were dangerous, sexually rampant, enormously powerful, absolutely unconcerned about human dignity and preservation of the soul, and finally...dead. And it was this last aspect of their nature that made them the most fascinating to legend-makers. -Dunn Mascetti, Manuela. Vampires: The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead The power of the vampire is very great and many-sided, even in his lifetime can kill people and even eat them alive; can bring into being, or remove, various sicknesses and epidemics, storms, rain, hail, and such; he casts spells on cows and their milk, the crops and the husbandry generally; he knows all secrets and future, ect. Because this he can make himself invisible or transform himself into various objects, especially into animal forms. -a verse from Galician folklore