of Transylvania
In Eastern Europe, vampires are said to have two hearts, or two souls; since one heart, or one soul, never dies, the vampire remains undead.
Who can become a vampire? In Transylvania, criminals, bastards, witches, magicians, excommunicated people, those born with teeth or a caul, and unbaptized children. The seventh son of the seventh son is doomed to become a vampire.
How can one detect a vampire? Any person who does not eat garlic or who expresses a distinct aversion to garlic is suspect.
Vampires sometimes strike people dumb. They can steal one's beauty and strength, or milk from nursing mothers.
In Romania, peasants believe that the vampires and other spectres meet on St. Andrew's Eve at a place where the cuckoo doesn't sing and the dog does not bark.
How does one kill a dragon? St. George killed the dragon with a lance. One must impale the dragon, as one must impale the vampire.
Vampires are frightened by the light, so one must build a good fire to ward them off, and torches must be lit and placed outside the houses.
Even if you lock yourself up in your home, you are not safe from the vampire, since he can enter through chimneys and keyholes. Therefore, one must rub the chimney and keyholes with garlic, and the windows and doors as well. The farm animals must also be rubbed with garlic to protect them.
Crosses made from the thorns of wild roses are effective in keeping the vampire away.
Spread thorns or poppy seeds on the paths leading to the village from the churchyard. Since the vampire must stop to pick up every one of them he may be so delayed that he cannot reach the village before sunrise, when he must return to his grave.
Take a large black dog and paint an extra set of eyes on his forehead with white paint- this alienates vampires.
According to Orthodox Christian belief, the soul does not leave the body to enter the next world in forty days after the body is laid in the grave. Hence, the celebrations in Orthodox cemeteries forty days after the burial. Bodies were once disinterred between three to seven years after the burial and if decomposition was not complete a stake was driven through the heart of the corpse.
If a cat or another "evil" animal jumps or flies over someone's dead body before it's buried, or if the shadow of a man falls upon the corpse, the deceased may become a vampire.
If the dead body is reflected in a mirror, the reflection helps the spirit to leave the body and become a vampire.
One of the most common ways of locating a vampire was to choose a boy or a girl, young enough to be a virgin, and seat such a person on a horse of a solid color, all white, brown or black, which was also a virgin and had never stumbled.The horse was led through the cemetary and over all of the graves. If it refused to pass over a grave, a vampire was thought to lie there.
Usually the tomb of vampires has one or more holes roughly the size through which a serpent could pass.
How to kill a vampire? The stake must be driven through the vampire's body and into the earth in order to hold him securly in his grave. The stake should be made from a wild rosebush, or an ash or asp tree. In some areas, red-hot iron rather that wood is used for the stake. The vampire's body should be burned or else reburied at the crossroads.
If a vampire is not found and rendered harmless, it first kills all members of its immediate family, then starts on the other inhabitants of the village and its animals.
The vampire cannot stray from its grave too far since he must return to it at sunrise.
If not detected, the vampire climbs up into the belfry of the church and calls out the names of the villagers- who instantly die. Or, in some areas, the vampire rings the death-knell and all who hear it die on the spot.
If the vampire is allowed to go undetected for seven years, he can travel to another country or to a place where another language is spoken and become a human again. He or she can marry and have children, but they all become vampires when they die.
Vampire is a Slavic word meaning "blood drinker" or "blood sucker". The word, however, hadn't really come into use until the mid 1700's. The myth of the vampire as we know it today came from this particular version of the creature, although it had been greatly romanticized during the Victorian era. The most famous of these "romanticized" vampires is Dracula, the book having been written by the Anglo-Irish writer Bram Stoker. Before the Victorian Era, vampires were disgusting looking creatures with long, pointed fingers and ears, reeking of blood. During the period the vampire had become transformed into a more beautiful, suductive creature that lured its victims with little hesitance.
Here is a list of different vampire-like creatures found the world over:
Asanbosam:
African. Asanbosam are normal vampires except that they have hooks instead of feet. They tend to bite their victims on the thumb.
Baital:Indian. These vampires natural form is that of a half-man, half-bat creature roughly four feet tall. They are otherwise unremarkable.
Bajang:Malaysian. The bajang take the form of polecats. They coult be enslaved by sorcerers and forced to kill the sorcerer's enemies, and some families were believed to be hereditarily stalked by the bajang.
Baobhan Sith:Scottish. The baobhan sith (pronounced buh-van she) are evel fairys who appear as beautifil young women and will dance with men they find until the men are exhausted, and then feed on them. The baobhan sith can be harmed and destroyed by cold iron.
Callicantzaros:Ancient Greece. According to Greek legend, a child born on Christmas will become a callicantzaros. These vampires often appear in half-human, half-animal shapes.
Ch'ing Shih:Chinese. Ch'ing shih appear livid and may kill with poisonous breath in addition to draining blood. If a Ch'ing Shih encounters a pile of rice, it must count the grains before it can pass the pile. They can be harmed and destroyed by normal weapons and by sunlight. Their immaterial form is a glowing sphere of light, much like a will-o'-the-wisp.
Civateteo:Mexican. These vampire-witches held sabbaths at crossroads and were believed to attack young children and to mate with human men, producing children who were also vampires. They were believed to be linked to the god Tezcatlipoca.
Dearg-due:Irish. The dearg-due is a standard European vampire, except that it cannot shapeshift and may be defeated by building a cairn of stones over its grave.
Empusa:Ancient Greece and Rome. Empusas appear as either beautiful women or ancient hags. They are strongly related to the incubi and succubi.
Ekimmu:Assyrian. These are vampires of the spirit variety. They are naturally invisible and are capable of possessing humans. They can be destroyed by using wooden weapons or by exorcism.
Hanh Saburo:Indian.These creatures live in forests and can control dogs. They will attempt to lure or drive travellers into the forest to attack them.
Incubus:European. Incubi are sexual vampires. They are spirit vampires of a demonic nature. They may enter homes uninvited and can take on the appearance of other persons. They will often visit the same victim repeatedly. A victim of an incubus will experience the visits as dreams. The female version of an incubus is a succubus.
Jaracara:Brazilian. Normally appearing as snakes, jaracara are said to drink the milk of sleeping women as well as their blood.
Krvopijac:Bulgarian. Krvopijaca (also known as obours) look like normal vampires except that they have only one nostril. They can be immobilized by placing wild roses around their graves. One way to destroy a krvopijac is for a magician to order its spirit into a bottle, which must then be thrown into a fire.
Lamia:Ancient Greece and Rome. Lamias are exclusively female vampires. They often appear in half-human, half-animal forms and eat the flesh of their victims in addition to drinking their blood. Lamias can be attacked and killed with normal weapons.
Loogaro:West Indies. Appearing as old women, these vampires go abroad at night as blobs of light, much like the will-o'-the-wisp.
Mulo:Serbian. Mulos normally appear as people wearing white clothes. They are active both day and night, and can assume the shapes of horses or sheep. They eat their victims in addition to drinking their blood. Mulos are also known as Vlokoslak.
Nachzerer:German. These are the ghosts of the recently dead which return to kill their families.
Nosferatu:Central and Eastern European.The "traditional" vampire described in Dracula. Most vampires appearing in movies and books are of this sort.
Rakshasa:Indian. The rakshasas are powerful vampires of the spirit variety. They usually appear as humans with animal features (claws, fangs, slitted eyes, etc.) or as animals with human features (flattened noses, hands, etc.). They often appear as tigers. In any form, rakshasas are powerful magicians. They eat the flesh of their victims in addition to drinking their blood. Rakshasas may be destroyed by burning, sunlight, or exorcism.
Strige:Eastern European. These are "birds of ill omen" who attack people at night, with a whole flock of strigoi sometimes attacking a single victim. The strigoi use their long, sharp beaks to peck holes in their victims and drink their blood.
Click eye for picture of strige:
Vampyr:Serbian. The vampyr is naturally invisible, but can be seen by animals or by a dhampir. A dhampir is the (living) offspring of a vampyr, and is capable of seeing vampyrs and of harming them physically. Dhampirs would often hire out to destroy vampyrs. Vampyrs cannot shapeshift.
Vrykolakas:Medieval Greece. Described as being "swollen" or "distended", vrykolakas can walk in daylight without being harmed. The vrykolaka may only call to be let into a specific house once a night. In addition to drinking blood, vrykolakas also cause nightmares. They may be destroyed by exorcism or burning. In Crete, they are called kathakano.
Wampir:Polish and Russian. Wampiri appear exactly as normal humans and have a "sting" under their tongue rather than fangs. They are active from noon until midnight. A wampir may only be destroyed by burning. When the wampir in burned, its body will burst, giving rise to hundreds of small, disgusting animals (maggots, rats, etc.). If any of these escape, then the wampir's "spirit" will escape as well, and will later return to seek revenge. These creatures are also called vieszcy.
The list could go on since there are so many different versions of the vampire all over the world. Some regional variants on the vampire are as followed: dracul(Austrian), kwakiytl(American Indian), lobishomen(Brazilian), murony(Wallachian), ogolgen(Bohemian), otgiruru(African), oupir(Hungarian), owenga(African), strigoi(Romanian), talamaur(Melanasian), vapir(Bulgarian), and varcolac(Romanian).
Some of the ways of becoming a vampire have already been mentioned above. Here are some other ways: suicide, having been a werewolf, your parents cursing you, "May the earth reject you!", anyone with red hair, victims of unavenged murder, sexually promiscuity, the offspring of a woman and a demon or an incubus, anyone bitten by a vampire; in some cases you have to die and in others it takes only three bites, and drinking the blood of a vampire.
This is a list of common ways to destroy the vampire: Immobilize or destroy the vampire by driving a stake through the heart. The stake in some legands must be made of a particular wood, such as ash, hawthorn, maple, blackthorn, buckthorn, aspen or from a wild rosebush. Some cases the stake should be driven through with one blow. Cutting off the head of the vampire will destroy it, but in some legands it must be done with a gravedigger's shovel. Burning the vampire is the universal method of destroying the vampire. Cutting out and burning the heart is another.
Here are some of the powers beheld of the common vampire: The ability to change shape, such as the shape of a wolf, bat, rat, cat, owl, fox, weasel, raven, spider, scorpion, and fly. They can also change into fog or mist. The strength of the vampire is greater than normal humans, sometimes ten times as great. They have the ability to control and command animals such as the wolf and rat and to control the weather. They can see particularly well in the dark and have the ability to control the minds of their victims to a certain extent.
The vampire, though powerful has these such weaknesses: Sunlight can harm and kill the vampire. They are unable to cross running water except at the ebb and flow of the tide. They cannot enter a house without being invited in, cannot pass a thicket of wild rose or a line of salt and must stop and count every grain pile it encounters. They are repelled by garlic and wolvesbane and are repelled and harmed by religious symbols. They cast no reflection and do not show in photograghs and do not cast shadows.
Not all vampires, however, are blood drinkers or flesh eaters. There is a type of vampire known as a psychic vampire that is in actuality a live human being who drains the emotions of others to the point of causing their victims to become suicidal. Psychic vampires aren't always aware of what they do because it really doesn't do anything for them. But if they do realize that they have the ability, there are two ways in which they take one's energy. The first is called empathic drain, which is feeding on emotions. The other is called metaphorical drain, which is when the vampire takes emotions without giving any back.
There is a creature alive in this world that truely is a vampire, and that is the vampire bat of Central and South America. There are about three species of the vampire bat, but only one of those is a true vampire bat, its diet consisting only blood. The bat does not have as sofisticated of echolocation as other bats because of the fact it doesn't really need it. The vampire bat, as with all other bats, are not blind and do not get tangled in your hair as some are led to believe. But, like all bats, they can carry rabies, which makes the vampire bat that much more threatening to animals and people than any other bat. Bats though, are not constant carriers of rabies, they can aquire them just about as often as pets such as dogs and cats. It is a good rule of thumb to never pick up a live bat from the ground. They are more than likely carriers of rabies.
Vampire bats have two large encisor teeth for cutting open a small wound on an animal and with their grooved tounge, lap up the blood. Their saliva helps keep the blood from clogging too quickly, keeping an even flow of blood going. Vampire bats are perhaps the most agile of all bats. They are the only ones that can stand on their hind legs and walk, with of course the help of their wings for balance. They can do amazing acrobatic flight patterns in mid air, such as tumbling, hovering and almost flying backwards, but only hummingbirds have perfected that trick! The vampire bat gets its name from the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe even though these creatures are found only in the Western hemisphere. A Spanish explorer named them vampires after remembering the legends of the vampire.
