Vampire

Description (Part 1)

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures and according to speculation by literary historian Brian Frost that the "belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself", and may go back to "prehistoric times", 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, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vampir (вампир) in Serbia and Bulgaria, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

While even folkloric vampires of the Balkans and Eastern Europe had a wide range of appearance ranging from nearly human to bloated rotting corpses, it was the success of John Polidori's 1819 The Vampyre that established the charismatic and sophisticated vampire of fiction as it is arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century inspiring such works as Varney the Vampire and eventually Dracula.

Description (Part 2)

Vampirism has been around as long as humanity itself, and some vampires are a few thousand years old. They are not evil, or at least not any more so than they were as ordinary humans before being turned. Their most important law, truthfully perhaps their only law, is that no human is ever turned without his or her willing consent. There have been renegades who disregarded this law, but they are hunted and destroyed by other vampires when discovered.

 Like normals, vampires socialize according to personal preference; some prefer solitude and sometimes make their own fledglings believe that being alone is inherent to the vampiric state. Others enjoy close ties with others of their kind and some with humans as well. The strongest bond, and one that is usually unbreakable, is between sire and fledgling. Part of that is due to ties usually developed before the fledgling is turned and part from the mental ties between them.

 Vampires do have a variety of powers including the ability to read a human's mind if they concentrate on it and to mesmerize a human and also to cause him or her to forget something that happened, either completely or faded to a dream. Mental communication between vampires is as easy as verbal speech if neither party is shielding himself. While they don't have the ability to turn into bats or wolves--and curse Bram Stoker for his dramatization of them!--they can turn to mist. Or rather, they can thin themselves to near transparency, more to the point of seeming to be mist, or still more until their very molecules are so diffuse that they can pass through solid objects. All of these powers are inherent to the vampire and grow as they age and become more powerful, so an older vampire is usually going to be stronger in all of his abilities than a younger; however, the stronger the sire, the stronger the fledgling as well, so some new vampires, if their makers were old and/or powerful, are as strong as or stronger than others centuries old who had younger, weaker makers.

 While they are sensitive to sunlight, it does not incinerate them. A new vampire can be seriously burned by exposure to direct sunlight, but as with their other abilities, their tolerance for sunlight increases relative to their age and strength. Older vampires can easily lie out on a sunny beach and tan, without humans' worries about skin cancer, as can fledglings created after they reached that state. The initial sensitivity does make most of them prefer the night, at least at first, but vampires can function quite well during the day. They require very little rest and usually make do with catnaps, preferably with their mate if they're lucky enough to have one.

 Their saliva contains a powerful healing agent, so after feeding on an unaware human, a few licks completely heal the bite marks, leaving no trace. It can also heal other wounds and bruising, giving vampires a true healing touch. They are completely immune to all human diseases, including those of the blood, though a healthy human tastes better to them.

 While they can subsist for long periods of time without feeding, especially when older, or on another vampire's blood, they do require at least occasional human blood and will enjoy it even daily if it's freely available. They can consume ordinary food and drink, which still tastes the same to them, though not in excess; however, they gain no nutrition from it.

 Religious objects have no effect whatsoever on vampires, aside from possible reverence if they happen to be symbols of the specific vampire's own beliefs. Admittedly, some vampires, particularly those sired in the last century, believe otherwise, but that is a result of not being properly taught about their new state by their sires. Older vampires try to correct the situation whenever they run into one of these uninformed youngsters, but if the young vampire is a danger to humans, they will regretfully destroy him.

 Vampire sexuality is much freer than that of most humans. They are as accepting of same-sex partnerships and permanent trios or more, as of heterosexual couples. Obviously, the preferences a vampire had before being turned carry over, but even the most rigid heterosexual has been known to become more open over time.

 For the most part, vampires are very like the humans they once were, with the added wisdom of years or even millennia of experience and the pleasures of a perpetually youthful body.

Identifying vampires

Many elaborate rituals were used to identify a vampire. One method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin stallion—the horse would supposedly balk at the grave in question. Generally a black horse was required, though in Albania it should be white. Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism.

Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition. In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face. Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours. Folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor poltergeist-like activity, such as hurling stones on roofs or moving household objects, and pressing on people in their sleep.

Protection

Apotropaics, items able to ward off revenants, are common in vampire folklore. Garlic is a common example, a branch of wild rose and hawthorn plant are said to harm vampires, and in Europe, sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of a house was said to keep them away. Other apotropaics include sacred items, for example a crucifix, rosary, or holy water. Vampires are said to be unable to walk on consecrated ground, such as those of churches or temples, or cross running water. Although not traditionally regarded as an apotropaic, mirrors have been used to ward off vampires when placed facing outwards on a door (in some cultures, vampires do not have a reflection and sometimes do not cast a shadow, perhaps as a manifestation of the vampire's lack of a soul). This attribute, although not universal (the Greek vrykolakas/tympanios was capable of both reflection and shadow), was used by Bram Stoker in Dracula and has remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers. Though folkloric vampires were believed to be more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to sunlight. Some traditions also hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner, although after the first invitation they can come and go as they please.

 Methods of destroying suspected vampires varied, with staking the most commonly cited method, particularly in southern Slavic cultures. Ash was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record of oak in Silesia. Potential vampires were most often staked though the heart, though the mouth was targeted in Russia and northern Germany and the stomach in north-eastern Serbia. Piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the bloated vampire; this is similar to the act of burying sharp objects, such as sickles, in with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently while transforming into a revenant. Decapitation was the preferred method in German and western Slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body. This act was seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul, which in some cultures, was said to linger in the corpse. The vampire's head, body, or clothes could also be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising. Gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. In a 16th-century burial near Venice, a brick forced into the mouth of a female corpse has been interpreted as a vampire-slaying ritual by the archaeologists who discovered it in 2006. Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In the Balkans a vampire could also be killed by being shot or drowned, by repeating the funeral service, by sprinkling holy water on the body, or by exorcism. In Romania garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the coffin was taken. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. In Saxon regions of Germany, a lemon was placed in the mouth of suspected vampires.