But archaeological discoveries of deviant burials in Europe in the last few years have unearthed a belief in vampirism and revenants before , much earlier than was previously understood by literary scholars. Archaeologists have confirmed that it has a stake through its leg presumably to prevent it from leaving its coffin and a rock in its mouth to stop any unfinished blood sucking.
Even older deviant burials have been discovered in villages in Bulgaria. The inhabitants who fled the village in showed widespread belief in the undead returning as revenants or reanimated corpses.
They fought back against the risk of vampire attacks and showed a medieval belief in an English zombie apocalypse, an episode that would not be out of place in a scene from The Walking Dead. So some form of vampire was evidently believed in throughout much of Europe from the medieval period. But the seductive Romantic vampire does not leave his calling card in polite society in London until , when the first fictional vampire, the satanic Lord Ruthven is born in a story by John Polidori.
So how did our understanding of vampires transition from dishevelled peasants into alluring Byronic aristocrats? Some vampires are said to be able to turn into bats or wolves; others can't. Some are said not to cast a reflection, but others do. Holy water and sunlight are said to repel or kill some vampires, but not others. The one universal characteristic is the draining of a vital bodily fluid, typically blood.
One of the reasons that vampires make such successful literary figures is that they have a rich and varied history and folklore. Writers can play with the "rules" while adding, subtracting or changing them to fit whatever story they have in mind.
Finding a vampire is not always easy: according to one Romanian legend you'll need a 7-year-old boy and a white horse. The boy should be dressed in white, placed upon the horse, and the pair set loose in a graveyard at midday.
Watch the horse wander around, and whichever grave is nearest the horse when it finally stops is a vampire's grave — or it might just have something edible nearby; take your pick. Interest and belief in revenants surged in the Middle Ages in Europe. Though in most modern stories the classic way to become a vampire is to be bitten by one, that is a relatively new twist. In his book " Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality " Yale, , folklorist Paul Barber noted that centuries ago, "Often potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some abnormality, some defect, as when a child is born with teeth.
Similarly suspicious are children born with an extra nipple in Romania, for example ; with a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip in Russia … When a child is born with a red caul, or amniotic membrane, covering its head, this was regarded throughout much of Europe as presumptive evidence that it is destined to return from the dead.
The belief in vampires stems from superstition and mistaken assumptions about postmortem decay. The first recorded accounts of vampires follow a consistent pattern: Some unexplained misfortune would befall a person, family or town — perhaps a drought dried up crops, or an infectious disease struck.
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Vamps go to high school Vampire Academy , the Marked book series. They might be a superhero in a leather duster Blade. Today, most stories offer iterations of either the coldblooded parasite archetype or the more human version, with their own internal struggles and feelings—often, feelings for a human, from Buffy to Bella Swan.
A lack of knowledge about the very gross things that happen to the human body certainly stoked the notion. For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter. Your Best Life. Type keyword s to search. Related Stories. A strigoi as portrayed on FX series The Strain.
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