A History of Vampires

A History of Vampirism

A Vampire – A mythical creature who subsists by feeding on life essence (generally in the form of blood) from living creatures.

Most of us know what a Vampire is, most have watched TV shows, films and read books about Vampires. Many know, and think that the first Vampire, the one that started the myth was Bram Stokers Dracula. A story based on the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes (1431-1476). But this couldn’t be more wrong. Although it was Bram Stokers creation that popularized vampires, it was not what started the myth.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the myth started, as Matthew Beresford, author of ‘From Demons to Dracula’ notes that ‘There are clear foundations for the Vampire in the ancient world, and it is impossible to prove when the myth first arose. There are suggestions that the vampire was born out of sorcery in Egypt, a demon summoned into this world from some other.’ The belief in real vampires stems from superstition and mistaken assumptions about post-mortem decay.

The Vampire origin is unknown, with theories enough to cloud the heads of the most logical of us. Some say they are demons summoned from hell, others say they are the spawn of demons and others say it started with one man and his love for a woman, who was driven by a Greek god and turned into a Vampire. However, there is one statement that is regarded as a fact – Vampires gave been around as long as the human race.

In the modern day the Vampire is a human corpse that rises from the grave to harm the living. However, in ancient times, the Vampire was regarded as a demonic entities, that did not take human form.

Centuries ago it was not uncommon for suspected Vampires to be staked in their graves. The idea was to physically pin the Vampire to the ground. They would stake the chest, not because of any symbolic connection to the heart, but simply because the chest was the trunk of the body. Other methods that were used to prevent Vampires from rising were burying, or reburying the body face down, decapitation and stuffing the severed heads with garlic.

Although there would have been many un-recorded accounts of Vampire attacks and sighting, the first recorded attack circulated in the middle ages, in Europe. The stories follow a consistent pattern that some misfortune would befall a person, a family or even a town, perhaps a disease or dried up crops or strange weather.

This was before science could explain weather patterns and different diseases and theories. Therefore, any bad event which was out of the ordinary might have been blamed on Vampires.

Many know the famous Dracula story, but here is a list of some not so famous ‘Vampires’ throughout history:

The Vampire of Croglin Grange is a vampire legend that took place in England. The story first appeared in ‘story of my life’ written in the 1890’s. The event happened in the 1800s when the Cranwell family took up residence in the Croglin Grange.

Lady Cranwell, one night, noticed eyes outside her window. Frozen in terror she watched as the creature removed the pans and climbed into her room. Her brothers heard screaming and ran into the room and saw the creature disappear out the window whilst there sister was bleeding from the neck.

They decided to kill the vampire, when it visited again they set a trap and shot the creature. The creature ran but they traced it back to its coffin. Upon opening it they saw a rotten corpse with a recent bullet wound. They burned the corpse and separated the ashes.

Jure Grando was a peasant from Istria, Crotia who died in 1656. He allegedly terrorized villages for 16 years after his death. His case is important in Vampiric folklore as this was the first time, in history, that the word Vampire was officially applied to a person. He would wander the night and knock on people’s doors, whoever doors he would knock on would die by the morning. Eventually a priest and some villagers chased him back to his grave, dug him up and decapitated his corpse.

Peter Blagojevich, died in 1725. He was a peasant who was believed to have become a vampire after his death. Killing fellow villagers, this case was one of the most well documented and sensational cases of Vampire hysteria.

Prior to the villager’s deaths, they all accused Peter of throttling them in their dreams. When the army were called in, peters body was found. It was reported that he was breathing and his eyes were moving, a stake was put through his heart and then he was burned.

The Alnwick Castle Vampire is a strange tale of a hunchback vampire that stalked the grounds of the castle. It was most famously recorded by a medieval chronicler named William. An early version of the tale says that the creature was revenant of the lord of the state, who lived underground and only came out to wreak havoc and violence upon the locals. It was said that he was dug up and burned by the locals. The Alnwick castle vampire actually predates the term vampire.

Of course these are not all of the vampires that are not that well known, there are hundreds upon hundreds of recorded stories but these are some of the most well documented.