Vampire is a corpse that supposedly returns to life at night to suck people’s blood. Stories of similar creatures come from many parts of the world. But most vampire tales originated in Eastern European and Balkan countries, such as Hungary, Romania, Greece, and Albania.
There are many superstitions about vampires. People who die by suicide, die violently, or are condemned by their church supposedly become vampires. According to folklore, a vampire can be destroyed in several ways—for example, by driving a wooden stake through its heart or by cutting off its head.
In Europe, from the late 1600’s to the early 1800’s, people dug up graves looking for vampires. In the early 1700’s, Charles VI, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, funded expeditions of scientists and doctors to investigate vampire superstitions in regions of Hungary acquired in wars against the Ottoman Empire. Vampire superstitions then spread throughout Western Europe. Christlob Mylius, the editor of a popular German science magazine, published an article on the vampire phenomenon in 1748. It was accompanied by a poem, titled “The Vampire,” by the German poet Heinrich August Ossenfelder. Scholars recognize this poem as the first work of literature with a vampire theme.
In literature, a vampire must have a constant supply of fresh blood obtained by biting the neck of sleeping victims. After being bitten, the victims lose strength, die, and become vampires themselves. The horror novel Dracula (1897), by the Irish author Bram Stoker, is the most famous vampire story. The fictional character of Dracula is loosely based on legends of Vlad the Impaler, a prince who lived in Walachia (now part of Romania). Vlad was nicknamed Dracula, which in Romanian means son of the devil or son of a dragon. However, Vlad was never associated with vampirism until Stoker used his name for his novel. Many motion pictures have been based on Stoker’s Dracula.
See also Dracula; Meyer, Stephenie; Stoker, Bram.
