Vampire

Cover of a 1733 German book on vampires.

A vampire is, according to the folklore of several countries, a creature that feeds on the vital essence of other living beings (usually in the form of blood) in order to stay active. In some Native American and Eastern cultures, this superstition is a demonic deity or lesser god who is part of the sinister pantheon in their mythologies.

In European and Western culture, as well as in contemporary global culture, the most popular vampire prototype is that of Slavic origin, that is, that of a human being turned after death into an active corpse or returned sucking predator of blood.

Origins of the myth

It is likely that the myth of the vampire in the folklore of many cultures since time immemorial, initially stems from the need to personify the "shadow", one of the primordial archetypes in the collective unconscious, according to the conceptualization by Carl Gustav Jung, and which represents the most primitive repressed human instincts or impulses. Thus, it would be the embodiment of evil as an entity and a representation of man's wild side or his bestial atavism, latent in his limbic system and in permanent conflict with social and religious norms.

Even so, the myth as it is known today comes, in addition to the aforementioned fear of low instincts, from a complex combination of various superstitions, including beliefs about blood (to which it is attributed being a source of power or vehicle of the soul); fear of predation, disease and death (of which the most palpable expression is the corpse), as well as a fearful fascination with immortality and the instinct for survival.

Some scholars suggest that the vampire myth, especially the one popularized in Europe after the 17th century, was This is partly due to the need to explain, in a context of collective panic, the epidemics caused by real diseases that devastated Europe, before science managed to explain them rationally (See: Vampire and Medicine ).

Etymology

"Vampire" It is a word that began to be used in Europe in the 18th century. In the Dictionary of the Spanish language, of the Royal Spanish Academy, it was included for the first time in the ninth edition, of 1843. It originates from the term "vampire" from English and French, in turn from the term vampir in Slavic languages and from German, derived from the Polish wampir and this in turn from the archaic Slavic oper, of which there are parallel Indo-European roots in Turkish and Persian. It means at the same time: "to be flying", "to drink or suck" and "wolf". On the other hand, it also refers to a certain type of blood-sucking bat.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first occurrence of the word "vampire" (vampire, in English) was in 1734, in a travel journal entitled Travels of three English gentlemen (Travels of three English gentlemen ), later published in the "Harleian miscellany" in 1745.

The English term derives (possibly via French "vampyre") from "vampir" German, appearing at the beginning of the XVIII century from the Serbian term "вампир/vampir. The Serbian word wampira (wam = blood, pir = monster) designates the dead person who, according to Central European legends, returns to feed on the blood —and, according to certain variants, with the meat— of the beings who were closest to him in life. From this root arise the following denominations: vampyr in Dutch; wampior or upior in Polish; upir in Slovak; upeer in Ukrainian. This term entered "officially" into the German language in (1732) when the case of Arnold Paole was reported (See: The Vampire in the Modern Age). However, vampires were not a new topic for German-language publications. After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Oltenia with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, officials reported local practices of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires." These reports, produced between 1725 and 1732, received wide circulation.

In the year 1613, the word Vampire was also used in French to describe vampire bats (Desmodontinae) that live only in Latin America.

Although the exact etymology is unclear, proposed Proto-Slavic forms include *ǫpyrь and *ǫpirь. Another less widespread theory is that the Slavic languages have borrowed the word from a Turkic term for "witch" (for example, from Tatar "ubyr").

The first recorded use of the Old Russian form "Упирь (Upir')" it is commonly believed to be in a document from the year 655 (of the Byzantine calendar or AD 1047). It is a colophon to a manuscript of the Book of Psalms written by a priest who transcribed the Glagolitic to Cyrillic alphabet book for Prince of Novgorod Vladimir Yaroslavich. The priest claims his name is "Upir' Lijyi" (Оупирь Лихыи), which means something like "Evil Vampire" or "Hurtful Vampire". This seemingly strange name has been cited as an example of the survival of paganism and the use of nicknames as personal names.

Another early use of the Old Russian word is found in the Russian translation of the homily "Word of Saint Gregory," dated many times between the 11th and 13th centuries, where pagan worship of the "upyri".

Synonyms

There are different names or local variants to refer to the vampire, such as:

• brucolac (in Spanish, from the Greek vrykolakas).
• kyuuketsuki ()血) (Japanese)
• nosferatu (from the Greek nosophoro or νοσοφορος, carrier of disease)
• strigoï or strigoiul moroi and pricolici (rumano).
• draugr (old Nordic)
• vampyrus (Latin)
• vrolok (Slovak)

The Serbian form "vampir" it has parallels in virtually all Slavic languages:

• vampir (вампир) in Bulgarian and Macedonian.
• upir/upirine in Croatian.
• upir Czech language
• upiór and wąpierz in Polish, perhaps by the influence of the Eastern Slave.
• upyr (упир) in Ukrainian language.
• upyr (упыр) in the Belarusian language, of the former Slavic East (upir').
• vampir or vurdalak and upyr Russian.

In Greece, they were called tympaniaios or vrykolakas depending on their origin.

In Caribbean folklore, particularly in Haiti and Grenada, it is called the "loogaroo" (deformation of the French term for werewolf, & # 34; loup-garou & # 34;) to a character -usually an old woman- who sheds her skin and in the form of & # 39; light globe & # 39; steals blood at night to offer it to the devil in exchange for magical powers.

Medieval English chroniclers, such as Walter Map and William of Newburgh, called a vampire in Latin as "sanguisuga", meaning hematophagous.

Features and attributes

Vampire makeup for a protest against the World Bank. Note the traditional traits: pale complexion and scissors (proper of a corpse), in addition to the long fangs to attack and debron their victims.

Illustration of "Varney the Vampire" of 1847.

The description of these creatures varies according to the folklore of each region. In addition, most of the attributes of a vampire according to contemporary culture come from literature, especially from the novel Dracula and the movies based on it, as well as from comics and video games, sometimes contradicting nature. primordial of the original traditional vampire. Therefore, of the following characteristics, only some are essential or common in general folklore or as part of the beliefs of certain regions; others are invented by film novelists and screenwriters or video game designers.

They were once human, but now they are in an intermediate state between life and death, which is why they are called undead, revenants or revives. This nature determines their basic physical appearance:

1. Among the Slavs, Greeks and peoples of Eastern Europe, a unearthed corpse was considered a vampire if his body seemed swollen and blood (presumably his victims) came out of his mouth or nose. Also if they noticed that their nails, hair, and teeth were longer than when they had been buried and even had a healthier look than expected, showing off smiling skin and few or no sign of decomposition.
2. In Transylvania (Romania) it was considered that vampires were skinny, pale, and possessed long nails and long and puntiagued canines (colmills).
3. In Bulgaria and Poland they are attributed to have a single nostril as well as a kind of spike at the tip of the tongue.
4. According to the belief in Romanian folklore, they have the possibility of becoming animals like cats or dogs, sheep and horses. The most mentioned form in popular fiction is that of bat and fog.

Other features:

• They feed primarily on the blood of their victims although there are descriptions that they are also anthropophages and in some cultures it was considered that blood was not the basis of their livelihood, but the human "vital flow" or psychic energy.
• They are not reflected in the mirrors or have shadow, perhaps as a manifestation of the lack of a soul. This attribute is not universal, for example the Greek vampire vrykolakas/tympanios I had both shadow and reflection, but it is very popular thanks to novelists like Bram Stoker, who mentions it in his novel Dracula.
• Vampires, by their demonic nature or their sacred origin, do not bear Christian symbols and therefore can be removed using a Christian cross or holy water, and cannot cross through consecrated grounds such as those of a church.
• They are indestructible by conventional means and are extremely strong and fast but weakened along with water currents.
• Although vampires are generally supposed to be vulnerable to sunlight, among the Slavs it was believed that they could not only resist the sunlight, but in some cases could travel to another town and lead a normal life there.
• Some traditions argue that a vampire cannot enter a house if he is not invited by the owner; but that once he is invited he can enter and go out to pleasure.
• In some parts of Eastern Europe, it is believed that the vampire is a lustful being that returns to the conjugal bed to procreate with his wife, thereby generating creatures with special characteristics (which vary in each region) that are known as dhampiros.
• They have a natural affinity with black magic and specifically with nigromance, which dominate more easily than the wizard no more diestro.

Rise of a Vampire

In the set of popular beliefs, some basic ways can be distinguished, sometimes complementary to each other, for a human being to become a vampire:

• By predisposition from birth: In Romania he had more chances of being a strigoithe seventh or twelfth child whose older brothers were all of the same sex. Or have birthmarks such as the pronounced sacral bone, abundant body hair and being born hooded, that is to say with the head wrapped in part of the placental membrane, or having ingested part of it. Among the Slavs were also more likely to become vampires born on Holy Saturday.
• Premature or violent death: In ancient Greece, where they were called vrykolakas or brucolacos to the so-called originates, as with Bulgarians, Slavs, and certain African cultures and Indonesia, children, adolescents and in general people who had a premature death or in abnormal circumstances, by suicide or violence, could become vagabond ghosts or vampires.
• Non-compliance with funeral and religious rituals: In Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, it was also believed that someone became a vampire after dying if those who were to take care of preparing and properly monitoring the body did not perform the proper rituals or did not perform their task well, such as preventing an animal, especially a dog or cat, and even a person to pass on it. This belief is similar in the Hindus who considered the spirits or PitrsWaiting to reincarnate, they can become vampires if no one remembers them and performs the shraadh, rigour funeral rituals to facilitate reincarnation.
• As a curse for criminal or sacred actions: In ancient China it was also believed that certain criminals became vampires, a tradition similar to that existing between the Slavs and the Greeks, who believed that the vampires were witches or people who had rebelled against the Church while they were alive, selling their soul to the devil and that by dying their bodies could be possessed by demons. In Christian Europe and especially among the Greeks, this belief was reinforced with the concepts developed by Christianity based on the neo-platonic idea of life after death and the idea of the survival of the soul until the day of the Final Judgment despite the corruption of the body, of those who died repentant of their sins and who had received the last sacraments. Therefore, the Greeks and the Slavs believed that all those who were not buried in consecrated land (in particular the suicides and the excommunicated) or those who had not received the extreme, had the greatest possibility of becoming vampires or tympania.
• By a vampire bite: According to almost all traditions, especially among the Slavs, that person who died after being bitten by a vampire would turn into one. The occult writers argue that this way is only possible if there is acceptance by the victim. The authors of fictional literature have given this way of becoming a vampire an intense sexual connotation, very attractive for dramatic purposes.

Vampire Identification

There are numerous and varied rituals used to identify a vampire. The most commonly used check consisted of exhuming the suspected corpse to directly verify if it had the traditional characteristics and destroy it, a practice that led to numerous grave desecrations.

One of the methods described by Abbot Calmet, cited by Father Feijoo, to locate the grave of a vampire, consisted of guiding a virgin boy riding a virgin horse through a cemetery; the horse would refuse to advance on the grave in question. The horse was generally required to be black, although in Albania it was required to be white. The appearance of holes in the ground over the grave was also taken as a sign of vampirism.

Other evidence of vampire activity in the locality included excessive rain or hail, as well as illness and death of relatives or acquaintances, as well as livestock, in the days following the suspect's death and burial. Some also manifested through small acts similar to those of a poltergeist, such as moving furniture around the house, making noises and hitting.

Protection against a vampire

Preventive Practices

The Vampire, lithography of the centuryXIX by R. de MoraineXIX) illustrating the moment when after having exhumed a vampire is destroyed by enslaving a stake in the chest.

To prevent a dead person from becoming a vampire, among the Celts one of the most widespread practices was to bury the body upside down, as well as placing sickles or scythes near the grave, to prevent demons from possessing the body or to appease the dead so that he would not rise from his coffin. For the same purpose, ancient Thracians and Bulgars used to amputate limbs, cut heels and knee tendons, or pierce other parts of the body.

In Rhodes and on the island of Chios (Greece) a wax cross was placed between the lips of the corpse, as well as a ceramic piece with the inscription “Jesus Christ conquers” to prevent it from becoming a vampire or vrykolakas.

In Eastern Europe it was common to insert a clove of garlic into the mouth, and sometimes into each of the nine body orifices, of the dead, as well as pierce their hearts with a short sharp object, before burying them. In the regions Saxon women in Germany placed a lemon in the mouth of a suspected vampire. Gypsies would drive iron and steel needles into the heart of the corpse and place small pieces of steel inside the mouth, over the eyes, in the ears, and between the fingers during burial. They also stuffed thorn into a dead man's sock, drove a hawthorn stake into the dead man's legs, or surrounded the grave with a barrier of thorny plants. iron, a common practice until the early XX century of the 20th century performed to prevent characters who had been considered evil from returning as vampires Burials have been found in Poland in which suspected vampirists were decapitated and their heads placed between their legs.

Talismans, protective substances and objects

Numerous objects and substances, which vary from region to region, are mentioned in vampire legends for their apotropaic effect, that is, for having the property of driving them away or destroying them. In Europe it is believed that a branch of wild rose or hawthorn can harm the vampire, as well as garlic or sulfur and sacred objects such as a crucifix, a rosary or holy water.

In some regions of South America, when a woman leaves her sleeping child at home, she puts salt and a pair of scissors next to the child to ward off vampires and witches.

Other common methods in Europe included sprinkling mustard seeds or sand on the roof of the house to be protected or on the dirt of a grave suspected of containing a vampire to keep them busy all night counting the fallen grains. Similar Chinese stories relate that if a vampire came across a sack of rice, he would have to count all the grains one by one; It is a theme that can also be found in stories from the Indian subcontinent and South America, about witches and other types of evil or mischievous spirits.

Although they are not considered a protective object, the fact that vampires do not reflect themselves in mirrors has meant that they were used to keep them away: this was achieved by placing them in a door, facing out.

Destruction of a Vampire

Vampire Hunter Case (1840) exhibited in one of Ripley's museums.

In the Balkans, there was a vampire hunter who could be a religious or a dhampyr, who according to gypsy tradition is the son or descendant of a vampire with the power to detect them —even if they were invisible— and destroy them.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, cases or "kits" with the traditional tools for destroying vampires were offered to travelers visiting Eastern Europe in particular. Currently, these equipments are owned by certain museums of curiosities or by collectors who are fond of the esoteric.

Methods

Traditionally, there are several ways to kill a vampire:

• Stashed or stick a stake in the heart of corpses suspected of being vampires. It is the most cited method, particularly in the Slavic cultures of the South. Stacks and wooden or iron punches were used. The strawberry was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states, the thorn in Serbia and Bulgaria, and the oak in the Silesia region. The stake used to stick to the mouth in Russia and in northern Germany, or the stomach in northeast Serbia. This is similar to the preventive act of burying sharp objects, such as snouts or gloves, next to the body and pointing towards it, so that when the body swells it penetrates into the skin enough, to prevent the non-dead from rising from the coffin.

• The decapitation was the preferred method in the Germanic and Slavic areas of the West. The head was buried next to the feet, behind the buttocks or away from the body. This act was seen as a way of accelerating the march of the soul, because — in some cultures — it was believed that it remained in the body.

• The complete incineration of the body or of the heart and spraying the grave with boiling water were the most common measures in Greece. Also, especially in recalcitrant cases, the body was dismembered and the parts were burned or boiled in wine. Romanians, Slavs and Gypsies used ashes to prepare drinks that provided family members or victims as a cure.

• Repeat the funeral, changing from place the tomb, spraying holy water on the body, or with exorcism, was a measure advocated in the Balkans and especially by the Church in Greece to avoid incineration, for this diminished the possibility of salvation of the soul.

• Magic rituals: In Bulgaria a ritual was practiced consisting of the vampire bottling—which according to the Bulgarian belief is an uncorporate spectre— carried out by people who were engaged in it, using a specially prepared bottle that contained a fragment of an icon (a saint's bullet) as well as some of the vampire's favorite food. He was irresistibly attracted to his interior and the vampire was trapped there, as the sorcerer rushed to close it with a cork. The bottle, with the vampire inside, was thrown into the fire to destroy it.

History of Vampires

Vampires in Antiquity

Modern illustration of a vampire.

Initially, most mentions of beings with vampiric characteristics in Antiquity are part of folklore and myths in almost all civilizations, from Egypt and Sumer to the Indo-American cultures.

In Mesopotamia, the protective gods were invoked to put an end to the Utukku, beings guilty of diseases and plagues, which can be considered as ancestors of vampires.

In ancient China it was believed in the existence of Jiang Shi or zombie vampires, with rigid limbs so that they can only move forward by making small jumps and with outstretched arms. They are completely blind, but they sense people by their breath and if they bite a person, they also turn them into another undead.

In Ancient Egypt the goddess of war Sekhmet, daughter of Ra and called "the terrible one", devastated the earth to punish men and could only be appeased by intoxicating her with a similarly red concoction to the blood he drank.

Arabic and African folklore mentions shape-shifting ghouls and vampires called ghouls—Arabic for "Al-ghul" (demon) -, who became such by having died a violent death. In one of the stories of The Thousand and One Nights called Honor of a Vampire the protagonist is a Ghul.

In Judaism, one of its mythical archetypes is Lilith, Adam's first wife, who was said to feed on the blood of uncirculated children and is the inspiration for many seductive vampire characters in fiction due to her accentuated sexual character.

In India, vetala (vampire demons) figure prominently in narratives and, as part of Siva's court, haunt cremation grounds. Also in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain mythology, a preta is a tormented spirit, the soul of a deceased condemned to suffer an eternal hunger for disgusting substances or blood, which makes it dangerous for the living.

In America, the Mapuche indigenous people have among their beliefs the existence of a vampiric being known as the Pihuychen that would attack mainly animals, but also humans. They also believed in the existence of an aquatic vampiric creature known as Trelke-wekufe (The Leather). Later both beings would also form part of the Chilean tradition. The Mexicas believed in fearsome goddesses called Cihuateteo, spirits of women who died during childbirth and caused plagues, attacking children and travelers at night, especially at crossroads. According to the Popol Vuh, the Mayas believed that the guardian of Xibalbá was a bat with human features called Camazotz that decapitated strangers. A myth of the Shuar people who inhabit the Amazon jungle in Ecuador and Peru says that the "Jencham", as they call The blood-sucking bats that inhabit caves originate from men who were thus transformed for their pleasure in shedding blood.

In Europe, Greek mythology includes the legend of Lamia, daughter of Belo, king of Libya, who for having an affair with Zeus suffered the wrath of the goddess Hera, who murdered her children and he turned her into a ruthless monster who killed children and seduced lost travelers to devour them and feed on their blood. Another Greek myth is the Empusa, a monstrous being with feet of bronze that could transform into a beautiful woman to seduce men and drink her blood or devour them. Romanian legends speak of strigoi, deities with the face of a woman and the body of a bird that absorbed the blood of humans while they slept.

The Romans had the larvae, undead who had not paid for their crimes in life, and they avenged their skeletal and ghostly state by absorbing the life of the living.

Among the Franks, the Salic Law, enacted in the V century, provides for fines for those who practice vampirism: «...The vampire woman who devours a man, proven guilty, must pay a fine of 8,000 deniers, that is, 200 sous».

In Spain, creatures such as the guaxas in Asturias, the guajonas in Cantabria, and the meigas chuchonas in Galicia, are part of the myth. witches with a single fang that they use to suck the blood of their victims, especially children. In the Canary Islands there was also the myth of vampire-witches who sucked the blood of newborns, such as the so-called Brujas del Bailadero de Anaga, in Tenerife.

The vampire in the Middle Ages

French engraving to illustrate "Histoire des vampires et des spectres malfaisants" published in 1820.

In the Middle Ages, vampires began to be part of myths and legends related to real characters (See:Historical characters related to vampirism) or mythical events and identities with some real background.

In the Eyrbyggja Saga dating from the 13th century, about the colonization of Iceland, It tells how a Norman chief, Thorolf, returns from his grave to terrorize the population until his corpse is cremated. This type of monster, called draugr in Icelandic, also appears in Grettir's Saga.

In Russia, beliefs about vampires, tied to ancestor worship as part of persistent Slavic paganism, were a concern among Christian evangelists in the XI, according to comments by the Russian translator of a homily by Saint Gregory the Great.

In Christian Greece they also believed in the Vrykolakas or tympanios, who attacked their family and friends after they died.

In England Walter Map in his work De Nugis Curialium (1190) and William of Newburgh in book V of his Historia rerum Anglicarum (1196), include traditional accounts of vampires.

In Spain, in the Catalan region of Alto Ampurdán (Gerona), a somewhat forgotten legend originated in the 12th century, but it is perhaps the most important legend about vampires in the Iberian Peninsula, and it is that of Count Estruch, Estruch or Estruga, an old feudal knight who defended Christianity, who lived in Llers Castle, destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, and who was said to have died assassinated and, as a consequence of a curse, for his repression of pagan customs that persisted in the area, he became a vampire, terrorizing the inhabitants of the region for a long time, also seducing young women who became pregnant to give birth to monstrous creatures that died at birth.

Similarly, in the town of Tarragona called Pratdip, a name that in Catalan means "Meadow of dips", there is the legend of the "Dips", vampiric dogs that devastated the region and whose figure appears on the town's coat of arms, as well as in altarpieces of the hermitage dedicated to Santa Marina, the local patron saint. In that town there are also the ruins of a castle that local oral tradition attributes was the home of Onofre de Dip, a feudal lord presumably turned into a vampire.

In Scotland there is a legend that dates back to the reign of James VI of Scotland in the 16th century, about Sawney Beane, who formed a wild and incestuous family of cannibals and vampires that ravaged the East Lothian region for 25 years, until that they were discovered in the cave in which they lived and executed in Leith Walk.

The Vampire in the Modern Age

The Slovenian writer Janez Vajkard Valvasor wrote at the end of the XVI century about a vampire or strigoi from Istria named Jure Grando Alilović (1579-1656), who is considered the first documented modern vampire. And since the beginning of the XVIII century, mentions of the vampire passed from popular traditions to journalistic and scholarly publications in Europe, appearing descriptions and analysis of specific cases, of which the most emblematic is that of a Serbian hajduk named Arnold Paole who motivated the concern of the authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the point that they commissioned successive investigations conducted by Austrian military doctors that included the exhumation and examination of suspicious corpses. On February 13 (1731), the father of one of the researchers, the Viennese Dr. Johann Friedrich Glaser, a correspondent for the Nuremberg daily Commercium Litterarium, sent the paper a letter describing the case as His son told him through a letter dated January 18. Later, the physician Johannes Flückinger, who conducted the second investigation, published the work Visum et Repertum (1732) in Belgrade. This book, which circulated widely throughout Europe, popularized the Latin word "vampires" which had not been used normally until then, and together with Glaser's letter they were disseminated, quoted and reproduced in numerous treatises (See The Vampire in Literature ) and articles thus contributing to the spread of the belief in vampires among educated Europeans. The errors in these medical reports that gave rise to the legend are explained today by the little understanding that was had at the time about the process of decomposition of corpses.

In the so-called Age of Enlightenment, when the triumph of reason and the discrediting of superstitions were advocated, an attempt was made to disprove the legends about vampires. In 1746 the Benedictine monk of the Sénones abbey and exegete of the Bible Dom Augustin Calmet published his work Dissertations sur les apparitions des anges, des démons & amp; des spirits et sur les revenans et vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, de Moravie & de Silesie... (better known as Treatise on Vampires and translated into Spanish by Lorenzo Martín del Burgo) with the intention of discrediting the myth through Christian arguments; other works that were born in the shadow of the Enlightenment against the myth of vampires, such as the Dissertatione sopra i vampiri (1774) by the Archbishop of Florence Giuseppe Davanzati, only managed to further increase the belief in them.

The same is true of the Spaniard Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, who writes the word "Vampire" in italics and capital letters, because in the XVIII, despite being widely used, its use was just beginning to be a term accepted by the Academy, in his essay commenting on the work of Augustin Calmet he dismisses the existence of vampires stating: «On the other hand, to pretend that by a true miracle the "Vampires" either remain alive in the tombs or, dead like the others, are resurrected, it is an extravagance, unworthy of even thinking about it. What end can be imagined for these miracles? Why are they done only in the said time? Why only in the expressed regions? Miraculous resurrections have been seen. And not only those that appear in writing should be believed, even if they do not have the degree of infallible certainty that those. But in those resurrections some holy motive has been manifested, which God had to work them. In those of the "Vampires" none are discovered".

In L'Encyclopédie (1751) directed by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert the following definition appears: «Vampire. It is the name given to so-called demons who suck blood from living bodies at night and take it to corpses where blood can be seen coming out of the mouth, nose and ears. Father Calmet did an absurd work on the subject of which he would not have believed himself capable, but which serves to demonstrate to what degree the human spirit allows itself to be carried away by superstition ».

But it was undoubtedly the narrative poem by the German romantic Gottfried August Bürger Lenore (1773) that brought the subject of the vampire into fashion in literature along with the story The Vampire (1819) by John William Polidori.

The vampire in the contemporary age

The vampire, who has been a universal icon in fictional literature since the XIX century, continues to be present in chronicles news stories and current urban legends. The most famous case in the US in recent times and classic in New England folklore, adjusted to the canons of myth, is the incident with Mercy Brown who died at the age of 19 due to tuberculosis in Exeter, Rhode Island, and whose exhumation in 1892 it was performed because of the fear that he had become a vampire.

Equally notable, in 20th century England, is the case of the vampire in Highgate Cemetery, in the London suburb, which at the end of the 1960s was the scene of an urban legend according to which he was haunted by a vampire with phantasmagorical characteristics that claimed some victims before being destroyed with the intervention of self-styled vampire hunters, who even went so far as to organize a hunt on the night of March 13, 1970, when dozens of onlookers and occultists invaded the cemetery in search of the alleged vampire.

In regions of post-colonial Africa and in the middle of the 21st century, rumors continue to be produced about vampires associated with settlers, missionaries or representatives of European organizations and adapted to modernity, since motor vehicles are mentioned, especially those painted in color red, used to kidnap the victims and the use of syringes to extract their blood.

The vampire in contemporary culture

The archetype of the vampire is present in contemporary culture mainly in four ways:

1. As a prototype of characters from video games, comics or popular literature and cinema.
2. As an icon and costume that can't be missing on Halloween, particularly the stereotype popularized by Hollywood that faced actor Béla Lugosi.
3. As a paradigm or reference of certain urban subcultures or tribes, such as Gothic subculture
4. As a lexicographic reference in everyday language and the term in Spanish, according to the RAE dictionary, he also describes "Codicious person who abuses or takes advantage of others" and the verb vampirizar "To abuse or take advantage of someone or something." Some authors call psychic or emotional vampires to perpetrators of labour, moral, psychological and mobbing), attributing personality disorders to them.

Historical figures related to vampirism

There are real people whose lives inspired the figure of the vampire in folklore and contemporary fictional literature.

Vlad Draculea

Vlad Tepes.

Also known as Vlad III or Vlad Tepes, he is a noble Romanian national hero who fought against the Ottoman invasion in the 15th century and is famous for the cruelty of his methods. He inspired the novel & # 34; Dracula & # 34; of Bram Stoker for which he is related to the subject although there is no historical evidence that he drank blood from his victims nor does local legends point him to being a vampire.

Vlad III, who was actually a Wallachian and not a Transylvanian according to Bram Stoker, is nicknamed Tepes which means "Impaler" in Romanian, by his most famous method of punishing his enemies. Draculea means son of Dracul which in turn means the dragon, and which was the title of his father, Vlad II, a voivode (prince) knight of the Order of the Dragon. Due to his success in driving the Turks out of Wallachia, for which he lived in a constant state of war during 1431 and 1476, and ridding the region of crime, he is considered a national hero in Romania and the savior of Europe as Wallachia together Together with neighboring Transylvania, they constitute the southern gate of Europe that every invader from Asia had to pass through if they tried to conquer the fertile European plains from the south. His story is told in the song entitled Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei written by Michael Beheim, a Germanic minstrel subject to the Hungarian king Matthias Corvino, at whose court he met Vlad when he took refuge there. fleeing from their enemies.

The sinister legend of Draculea dates back at least to her time, when her enemies could only explain her military victories by attributing her necromantic powers. In the XX century the figure of him has tried to be vindicated.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory

Elizabeth Báthory.

Called "The Bloody Countess," this character lived between the 16th and 17th centuries and inspired Sheridan Le Fanu to create the protagonist of his famous story Carmilla in 1872.

Elizabeth, an important Hungarian aristocrat and famous in her time in Europe for her beauty, was accused of kidnapping numerous virgin, noble and peasant maidens from her castle in Čachtice (in present-day Slovakia), whom she tortured and bled to death. death to obtain the blood that she used in her baths and drank (although the latter was not verified in the process), as part of black magic practices in which she was assisted by a retinue of witches, under the belief that this would keep her beautiful and lush. The short process, ordered and promoted by Emperor Matthias II and the Palatinate, ended on January 7, 1611, and while his accomplices were tortured and sentenced to death at the stake, Elizabeth for her aristocratic status and political importance of her lineage they only condemned her to live walled up in her chambers, which were sealed forever and in which one of her jailers found her dead in August 1614.

In the XX century, some question the true magnitude of his crimes and the validity of the accusations, attributing a political character to its process, whose archives are still preserved and are the primary source of what has been written about it. In any case, Countess Báthory is an unavoidable reference in studies on the European myth of the vampire, since her story is intermingled with the legends related to himself.

Gilles de Rais

This 15th century lowercase French aristocrat who fought in the final years of the Hundred Years War alongside Joan de Arco, tortured and killed about 300 children for 8 years until in the year 1440 he was captured, tried and executed.

Henry Fitzroy

The royal personage, bastard son of Henry VIII and Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset, died aged 17, possibly of tuberculosis. Although his death is not clarified and there are no historical references to criminal activities or vampirism, he inspired the writer Tanya Huff with a character of the same name, a & # 34; good & # 34; novelist and detective, who stars in The Saga of the Blood (Blood Ties), turned into a television series.

The vampire in science

In the 18th century and in the context of the Enlightenment, critical writings arose seeking to distort the myth of the vampire. Voltaire dedicates to the subject, with his characteristic irony, a separate section in his Philosophical Dictionary and Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijoo also dedicates a critical tone to the subject of & # 34; Vampires and Brucolacos & # 34; one of his & # 34; Erudite and curious letters & # 34; (1774) regarding the treatise written by a contemporary of his, the monk Augustin Calmet, coming to the conclusion that the events are the result of superstitious imagination and deception. Over time, other scholars and scientists have tried to explain the origins of the myth and the phenomena that compose it in the light of the exact and social sciences.

Vampires and zoology

Science calls "vampire" (name given by the naturalist Count of Buffon in 1761) to the hematophagous bat known as Desmodus rotundus which inhabits a wide region of South America, has nocturnal habits and habitually feeds on the blood of bovine cattle., equine or porcine which it attacks while they sleep, thanks to its heightened senses to locate them, approaching them by flying, crawling on the ground or jumping, to bite them on the shoulders, back, perianal region, on the legs, hooves, as well as at the base of the horns or on the ears.

They are small animals, between 6 and 9 centimeters and a weight of 25-40 grams, dense greyish-brown fur, flattened face, small and pointed ears, short snout and V-shaped lower lip, with wide and sharp upper incisors and small lower ones, the canines being long, with a sharp point and a sharp posterior edge. This look inspires make-up artists and special effects people in movies the most terrifying images to present a vampire character in a more bestial aspect.

Vampire and medicine

Of the sciences, medicine is the one that has tried the most to explain and clarify the origins of the myth of the folkloric vampire.

In the 18th century, the wave of superstition unleashed gave rise to works such as Vampires in the light of medicine (1749) by Prospero Lambertini who would reach the papacy under the name of Benedict XIV from where he continued to fight against false beliefs, or the Medical Report on Vampires (1755) by Gerard van Swieten, doctor and archdeacon of Maria Teresa I of Austria, where after criticizing vampirism and considering it rare, although within normality, the cases of incorruptibility of the dead, discredited doctors and commissioners because on many occasions and following their instructions sacrilege was carried out, calling into question the good name of the deceased, violating graves and insulting corpses.

Vampiric diseases?

The Spanish neurologist, Juan Gómez Alonso, proposes a reasonable explanation of the myth based on certain diseases that, due to their symptoms and signs, as well as their social impact, serve to give some scientific support to the legend of the vampire in folklore European.

The Plague

The plague, an infectious disease produced by Yersinia pestis and transmitted by the fleas of rats and other rodents, is the most likely to explain, in a simple but plausible way, the epidemics of vampires in the Middle Ages. half. Precisely this phenomenon is also described as a background to the main story of a vampire in cinematographic works such as Murnau's or Herzog's Nosferatu.

During the XIV century, especially in East Prussia, Silesia and Bohemia, to avoid contagion to victims of the disease they were buried prematurely without confirming clinical death. Many of these victims of live burial suffered long and excruciating agony as a result, inflicting injuries in their attempt to escape from their graves. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the exhumation the corpse was found preserved and stained with blood, which, in the absence of a better explanation, would stimulate the superstitious imagination of people, attributing to them a condition of vampires.

Anthrax

This highly contagious disease, capable of creating very serious epidemics, produced by Bacillus anthracis that can be transmitted from animals to humans, could resemble the symptoms of a victim of a vampire. Those affected have high fever, intense thirst, seizures, respiratory distress and hallucinations that are attributed to lack of oxygen, with a sensation of suffocation that could be expressed by the victim as being strangled by a vampire. The corpses present absence of blood coagulation, coldness and rigidity; and in the same way it decomposes more slowly. At a time when many diseases were not known, it could be thought that life was still present in these corpses. Anthrax or carbuncle is the best explanation for cases traditionally considered vampirism, that is: deaths of people after respiratory difficulties, convulsions and septicemia, as well as herbivorous animals, and corpses with non-coagulated blood, with flexible limbs and slow decomposition. Anthrax generally occurs in pastoral areas in indeterminate outbreaks, mainly attacking cows, sheep, goats and humans.

Anemia

This classic disease, frequently associated with the previous ones, consisting of a deficit in the quantity or quality of the red blood cells in charge of transporting oxygen throughout the body, can also explain the belief in the affectation of the neighbors and relatives close to the alleged vampire. The alleged victims presented a severe pallor accompanied by intense fatigue, tiredness and shortness of breath, symptoms and clinical signs that can be explained with this disorder that is not always due to blood loss, but is also part of the picture of malnutrition, either due to lack of adequate nutrition due to illnesses themselves, or famines due to wars, when not due to fasting with religious motivations that had the objective of purging sins and being free from the danger of the plague.

Rage

Rabies, a viral infection of the Nervous System, is the communicable disease that would scientifically adequately explain the myth of the vampire, especially when its rise in Europe coincides with epidemics of this condition during the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly the one that occurred in Hungary between 1721 and 1728.

• It is transmitted to humans usually by bite of animals such as dogs, wolves and bats, habitual carriers of the disease and that in folklore have been related to vampires. In 1733 it was already mentioned that vampirism was a contagious disease of a nature similar to that which comes after the bite of a rabid dog.
• During the period of incubation and preclinic phase (usually between 1 year and 3 months), it can manifest itself with abnormal sensations such as parasesthesias, pain in the area of bite and initial unspecified symptomatology (fever, loss of appetite, fatigue, depression, fear, anxiety, and anguish dreams) resembling a progressive transformation of the person into a vampire.
• The clinical phase, corresponding to an encephalitis given the predilection of the virus by affecting the lymbic system (important in the control of emotions and behavior), is characterized by a picture of "rabid rage" consisting of symptoms similar to those assigned to the follic vampire as they are: growing anxiety and agitation that can reach to aggressiveness, persistent insomnia, photophobia, changes in the rhythm of sexual sleep. Because of frequent muscle spasms in the face, pharynx and larynx, the patient emits snorkeling sounds and drowned with a retraction of the lips so that they roast the teeth as if it were an animal. An exaltation of reflexes can cause manic anger access in front of small stimuli, such as mild contacts, air currents, light and noises, certain minimal odors or excitations such as seeing their image reflected in a mirror. Nightmares and hallucinations are also often present in this type of blossoming picture of rage that is usually fatal.
• Muscle spasm and abnormal reflexes in faringe produce characteristically a patient's rejection of water or hydrophobia (and, therefore, to see its image reflected in it), a name for which this disease is also known, caused by intense pains when trying to swallow water or simply by its vision. Trouble swallowing your own saliva, cause the saliva to accumulate and drip from your mouth forming foams.

Porphyria

In particular, the type of congenital erythropoietic porphyria or Günther's disease, caused by a genetic and hereditary abnormality, has been dubbed "vampire disease"; but, although rare and striking, it does not serve to explain the epidemic forms of vampirism because it is very rare or poorly diagnosed.

The disease is characterized biochemically by a genetic alteration of the activity of the enzyme responsible for metabolizing porphyrins, precursor pigments of the Hemo group, component of hemoglobin that is responsible for transporting oxygen in the blood and gives it its characteristic red color. The result is an excessive accumulation in the tissues of these substances, which clinically manifests itself in a series of symptoms, signs and complications that coincide with certain characteristics attributed to folklore vampires, such as:

• Photosensibility: The deposit of porphyrins in the skin produces hypersensitivity to the sunlight of 400 or more nm of wavelength, which triggers a process of production of peroxides that, by releasing atomic oxygen in the tissues, causes cell destruction, manifesting itself by a strong redness, cracking and bleeding of the skin, formation of blisters that are easily infected, causing erosion and ulcers. In addition, the organism in an attempt to protect the skin of the sun develops hirsutism or abnormal growth of the hair on the forehead, cheekbones and extremities and in unusual areas such as the palms of the hands, a characteristic that, for example, Bram Stoker includes in his novel by first describing Count Dracula.

• Facial deformities o "Vampic Facies": Produced when facial lesions are extensive, recurrent and mutilating, destroying the lips (that leave the teeth uncovered, giving the appearance to the teeth to be larger than normal), the cartilages of the nose, showing frontally the nasal holes, or the headphones, occasionally giving a sharp look to the ears. Likewise, with the accumulation of porphyrins the eyes may appear red and in the teeth appears the so-called erythrodonce by the porphyrin deposit in the dentin.

• Extreme paleness and blood anxiety: Defects in the production of hemoglobin produce anemia with all its characteristic symptomatology, of which the general palidez is remarkable, as the classic image of the vampire is described. A common treatment of anemia is blood transfusions or the Hemo group, which not only improve anemia but slow the production of porphyrins and many attribute that for that reason patients have blood anxiety. Formerly the medical therapy for anemias included drinking blood from other animals, the truth is that the digestive juices destroy it and to have some benefit and that a minimum part of the Hemo group could be absorbed, the patient would have to eat more than that needed intravenous pathway.

• Intolerance to garlic: This vegetable, part of the classic elements to chase away vampires, which is used since ancient times by attributing antiseptic, antiparasitic, expectorant or hypotensive properties to it, apparently according to recent studies would produce a blocking of blood clotting by inhibiting the plaquetarian aggregation and one of its elements, the disulfuria of alilo, on the other hand, could destroy the whole.

• Emotional or mental dissociation of the patient: This type of porphyry does not disturb, curiously, the sense of well-being of the sick, although by the type of life to which he is subjected, it is frequent to alter the mental faculties, which could explain the obsessions and cruelties attributed to the vampires.

• Prevalence among family groups: Although porphyria does not explain well the epidemics of vampires, if it can be associated with the myth because of its prevalence between closed population groups or endogamic families, given its mechanism of genetic transmission, based on the right of frequent pernada in feudal society, which means the transmission of the genetic material of the noble feudal lord affected by porphyria to the families of his servants or the people of the land, thus producing several cases in relative prevalence. On the other hand, among the various varieties of porphyria (especially in the acute intermittent, variegacy and co-proporphyria) crises can be triggered by alcohol intake or by the intense stress that would occur relatively easily in the superstitious sphere of the credulous population of vampires.

Psychiatric Illnesses

The pathological attraction to drink blood has been the cause of many cases recorded in history of real characters with vampiric behavior, whose compulsion could only be explained psychiatrically as no infectious or somatic substrate was found as in diseases before described.

Psychosis and schizophrenia are the most frequent diagnoses by forensic psychiatrists and criminal experts to explain the vampiric behavior of real characters, mostly serial killers, such as the German Peter Kürten, the gentleman Frances Gilles de Rais or the Hungarian countess Erzsébet Báthory cited above, and contemporary criminals mentioned by the news today (See: Famous vampirism patients).

Recently, new classification proposals for mental disorders related to sexuality or paraphilias assign vampirism a particular category, defining and differentiating this disorder from other philias such as necrophilia or sadism, to better explain and describe the behavior criminal motivated by the libidinous pleasure derived from the sight, contact or drink of blood of its victims.

Vampires and Forensics

After being buried for a while, as part of the natural process of putrefaction and fermentation. Given the adequate conditions of temperature, humidity and nutrients, especially in the lungs and in the digestive system of some bodies, a large number of bacteria and gas-producing spores develop that accumulate in the tissues.

Commonly, when it was believed that a deceased person had been transformed into a vampire, days after his funeral the corpse was dug up to corroborate the suspicion. If an attempt was made to manipulate the exhumed body and drive a stake into its chest, due to the pressure exerted on the lungs, the exhalation of a kind of "sigh" could be produced; or scream, which would actually be an escape of putrefaction gases, making the exhumers think that the corpse was indeed an active vampire and that the stake had put an end to its existence.

This exhumation work, in which priests, village authorities and even the relatives of the deceased participated, was feared since many suffered serious disorders due to the inhalation of these gases, product of fermentation or organic decomposition and loaded with bacteria that sprouted from the corpse when it was handled.

The Vampire in Popular Culture and the Arts

The vampire in literature

Academic or scholarly literature

Cover of Calmet's treatise on ghosts and vampires, German version (1752).

Writings that attempt to compile and rationally analyze the subject with philosophical, theological, and scientific arguments appear in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries when incidents attributed to vampires, probably epidemics and mass hysteria, swept many Eastern European countries. This produced widespread interest in the subject, generating comments from writers such as Voltaire, Descartes and Rousseau or Father Benito Jerónimo Feijoo who in his "Erudite and curious letters" (1742) devotes letter XX to commenting on Calmet's essay on vampires.

Among the first treatises published in Europe on vampires is the titled "Rational and Christian Concepts on Vampires or Bloodsuckers" written in 1733 by Johann Christoph Harenberg, a German philosopher, theologian and historian. But one of the most famous authors on the subject was the French Benedictine monk Dom Augustin Calmet (1672-1757), abbot of Senones, a leading exegete and ideologue of the Inquisition. who wrote, among many other works, a book entitled The World of Ghosts which includes the essay entitled Negotiation and explanation of the matter and characteristics of Spirits and Vampires, and thus of the returned from the dead in Hungary, Moravia, etc. With this work, Calmet made the first clear differentiation between vampires and other spirits and demons by raising questions about the nature of the vampire, whether it is really dead, or through what mechanism is capable of escaping from the tomb, and what kind of energy moves his body, concluding that, despite their evil nature, vampires are beings created by God. He also points out that paganism was not a sufficient cause for becoming a vampire, otherwise the Romans and Greeks, who worshiped pagan gods, would all have become vampires.

In 1820 the publisher Chez Masson published in Paris "Histoire des vampires et des specters malfaisans: avec un examen du vampirisme" by an anonymous author but which some attribute to the famous occultist writer French Collin de Plancy and in which a rationalist vision of the myth is proposed.

In England the subject of vampirism was dealt with in “The Vampire. His Kith and Kin” (1928) and in The Vampire in Europe (1929) by Montague Summers, who carries out a study on the subject and describes the vampire presence throughout history, from Ancient Greece until modern times, in various European countries.

Fictional Literature

Although in the 18th century Goethe in his work The Bride of Corinth (< i>Die Braut von Korinth) (1797) gives the protagonist the character of a vampire, literary stories about vampires practically proliferate from the XIX in the midst of the literary current of the moment, that is, romanticism. In 1816, the English poet Lord Byron spent a few days on the shores of Lake Leman (Switzerland) with a friend, the doctor John William Polidori. While they were in the middle of a party with the renowned poet Percy Shelley and his last wife, Mary, an alpine storm broke out, forcing them to stay inside the house, telling scary stories to entertain themselves, until in a At a certain moment, some of those present challenged themselves to write the best horror and mystery story of all time. As a result, Mary Shelley began writing her famous novel Frankenstein, a Mephistophelian myth of our time ; Byron writes the epic poem The Giaour, in which the combination of horror and lust that the vampire feels and the concept of the undead that can pass their curse on to the living is already present, but he did not get to complete the work. His friend Polidori includes him in his work entitled The Vampire, a Tale , a novel published in 1819 whose protagonist, "Mr. Ruthven", is inspired by Byron himself. An unauthorized sequel to this novel is called Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires (1820) by the French author Cyprien Bérard, pen name of Charles Nodier, who adapted it into the first theatrical vampire melodrama.

In 1841 in Russia two tales of the fantastic gothic genre about vampires were published, written by Alekséi Konstantínovich Tolstoy (1817-1875): The Vampire centered on the figure of the Russian “upyr”, and < i>The Vurdalak Family set in Serbia and also based on Slavic myth.

Between 1845 and 1847, Varney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood appeared in London, a Victorian gothic horror serial, whose author is not fully identified but is attributed to either James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Preskett, both very prolific and well known in the field of so-called "Penny Dreadful" (lurid serial).

In 1872, Carmilla was published, a short novel written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu that shows many characteristics of gothic terror, and includes a slight influence of particular erotic content typical of vampires.

The most famous Gothic novel about vampires is undoubtedly Dracula, by the Irish writer Bram Stoker, published in 1897, whose protagonist personifies the fascination of the forbidden and is a classic symbolic figure of repressed sexuality, characteristic of the Victorian society in which the author lived. Inspired by the medieval Grettir Saga, the American naturalist writer Frank Norris wrote Grettir at Thorhall-Stead / Grettir at Thorhall-Stead (1903).

In 1954, the writer Richard Matheson published the science fiction novel I am legend that narrates a future post-apocalyptic world ruled by vampires, and the protagonist is the last human. Matheson develops what is perhaps the first rational explanation for vampirism, discovering in the plot that it is caused by a bacterium. The novel has several film adaptations.

In 1975, Stephen King, who would later become a teacher of horror literature, publishes a vampire novel called 'Salem's Lot,' which chronicles the return of a famous writer to his hometown just at the moment when it is shocked by extraordinary and terrifying events that are later revealed to be caused by the arrival of a vampire. The novel was brought to television as a miniseries in 1979 and a version of it was made in 2004.

The most important literary revision of the vampire myth since Dracula occurred at the end of the XX century (1976), when the American writer Anne Rice published the Vampire Chronicles, a trilogy made up of the novels Interview with the Vampire, Lestat the Vampire and < i>Queen of the Damned, which later, given its enormous commercial and cinematographic success, has continued with sequels such as Memnoch the Demon and Armand the Vampire. The vampires conceived by Rice are characters adapted to the taste of contemporary societies, suitable for all audiences, devoid of the malignant cruelty without remorse of their literary predecessors and of the real characters that inspired them; showing themselves as elitist, postmodern and confused entities, just a little perverted, with feelings of guilt and humanized, immersed in the philosophical thought of the New Age without representing the evil and bestiality in its purest form that characterize the traditional or folkloric mythical vampire.

Starting in 1986, the British writer Brian Lumley contributed to the vampire literary genre with his series Necroscopio (the Necromantic Chronicles) that narrates the confrontations of its protagonist against various beings of a vampiric nature that, completely distancing itself from the conventions and traditions of myth, presents them as parasites that use humans and animals to survive, biologically improving their hosts, giving them superhuman powers, while progressively replacing their personality.

At the beginning of the 90s, The Vampire Diaries appeared, a series of novels written by L. J. Smith, who also exploited the myth in his saga Night World.

In 2004 Let me in (Låt den rätte komma in) was published, a novel by the Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, notable for having Oskar, a lonely boy, as protagonists bullied by his schoolmates, and Eli, a vampire who appears to be 12 years old, showing another no less sinister vision of the myth and for which the author confesses having been inspired by his own childhood, Carmilla and the film The crying game (Game of tears).

In 2005 the highly successful saga about modern vampires appeared, made up of the novels Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, written by Stephenie Meyer, about the romance between Edward Cullen, a 100-year-old vampire who looks 17, and Bella Swan, a normal teenager.

In 2008 another saga about vampires and adolescents began to be published, written by Claudia Gray and composed of: Midnight (2008), Addiction (2009), Farewell (2010) and Reborn (2011) starring Bianca, the daughter of vampires, who falls in love with Lucas, a young vampire hunter.

In 2012 The Threshold of the Forest was published, a gothic novel written by Patricio Sturlese set in the 17th century, which incorporates myths about vampires from Scandinavian folklore.

The Vampire in the Performing Arts

Philip Burne-Jones, The Vampire1897.

• Opera: the operation in two acts Der Vampyr (The vampire), with music composed of Heinrich Marschner and libretto by Wilhelm August Wohlbrück based on the work of John William Polidori, premiered in Leipzig. in 1828 with great success. In 2000 a Spanish version was presented in Madrid.

• Theatre: In 1820 in London and Dublin a theatrical version was represented based on the work of Dr. Polidori. Dracula first appeared in the theatre in 1897, with the play Dracula, or No-Death written by Bram Stoker himself and the première took place at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London. Most popular was the version of Hamilton Deane, premiered in 1923, which to symbolize the bat introduces into character the layer of velvet or black leather on the outside and red silk on the inside, perhaps the most characteristic of the vampire leitmotivs. Bela Lugosi, the actor who has most brilliantly represented that role in the cinema and in the theater, was buried wrapped in his cape in compliance with his wishes.

• The musical Tanz der Vampir (The vampire dance), with music by Jim Steinman and based on the homonymous film by Roman Polanski who also directed the original production, was premiered 1997 in Vienna and has been represented on all continents.

• Ballet: probably the first to deal with the vampire issue was Polichinel vampire, ballet-pantomima in an act written by François Alexis Blache, with music by M. Alexandre and represented for the first time in 1823. Then it appears Morgano of Paul Taglioni and J. Hetzel (Berlin, 1857). This one followed Il Vampiro with music by Paolo Giorza, produced in Milan in 1861.. In 1956, England was represented Vampas Peter Darrell. In 1980 appeared Love, Dracula by James Kudeka, played by Les Royal Ballets Canadians, and in 1992, Dracula by Stuart Sebastian, executed by the Dayton Ballet and the American Repertory Ballet.

The vampire in sculpture

The figure of the vampire has barely been represented in the sculpture. Practically the only works on a vampire theme are those that represent mythological beings that, without being vampires, are related to them or can even be considered the origin of the myth, such as lamias or certain representations of Lilith.

The vampire in the painting

In painting, works such as The Vampire by Edvard Munch, made in 1895, or The Glorious Vampire, by Boleslas Biegas, dating from 1916 and pretending to be a allegory of the horror of the First World War, but also of the femme fatale, represented by a being with more resemblance to the lamias than to the vampire itself.

The vampire on the screen

There have been countless horror movies and series on film and television about vampires. And the myth has sporadically inspired many comedians as well, such as The Three Stooges, Bud Abbott, and Lou Costello, who incorporated the vampire character into their comedies.

Cinema

The Dracula Count played by Béla Lugosi in the 1931 version of Dracula.

The vampire was made into a movie for the first time in 1922, under the title Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, with an unforgettable performance by Max Schreck and masterfully directed by F.W. Murnau. Since then, the vampire has starred in countless film productions.

A memorable film by Fritz Lang is M, the Düsseldorf Vampire from 1931, inspired by the real-life case of a serial murderer of children that shocked Germany. Despite its title it is not really a film of the genre.

The image of the vampire-Dracula par excellence in early cinema has been that of the Hungarian actor Béla Lugosi who starred in the classic version of Dracula directed by Tod Browning in 1931. In 1958 the The novel Dracula was once again adapted for cinema with a more erotic touch by the English actor Christopher Lee, who came to be identified with the character as much or more than Lugosi, starring in nearly 10 titles with that theme. In 1979, a new version of Dracula starring Frank Langella was filmed and in 1992 Francis Ford Coppola made Dracula, by Bram Stoker, more faithful to the original novel than the previous versions and in which he boasts of all the resources that cinema allows to turn any fantasy into images.

In 1967, with a touch of black comedy and with the introduction of the first gay vampire in the cinema, the Polish director Roman Polański successfully added to the filmography of the myth the film The Vampire Ball.

In 1979 the German director Werner Herzog filmed another version of Nosferatu, Phantom of the Night (Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht) starring Klaus Kinski, Bruno Ganz and Isabelle Adjani.

In 1985, Tom Holland directed Fright Night (La hora del espanto in Mexico and Argentina, and Fright Night in Spain). This is a film with more humor than terror in which Roddy McDowall plays an actor who has become an impromptu vampire hunter. The film had a sequel (Fright Night II) in 1988 and a 2011 version starring Colin Farrell.

In 1994 the film Interview with the Vampire was made, directed by Neil Jordan and based on the homonymous novel by Anne Rice, who also wrote the script.

In 1995, Mel Brooks directed the satire Dracula, Dead But Happy, in which he himself plays Van Helsing while Leslie Nielsen takes the leading role.

In 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn was filmed, which narrates a confrontation between humans and vampires in a bar in Mexico, directed by Robert Rodriguez, scripted by Quentin Tarantino and starring George Clooney, Salma Hayek, Harvey Keitel and Tarantino himself.

The filmmaker John Carpenter also made a contribution to the genre with his western-horror film Vampires in 1998, the year in which the Blade action film saga also appeared, starring a dhampir or hunter of contemporary vampires, based on the comic of the same title.

In 2003 another film saga began, made up of Inframundo (Underworld), Underworld: Evolution (2006) and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009), which recounts an ancient war between vampires and werewolves.

Cuban animated cinema produced in 1985 Vampiros en La Habana, a comedy about the adventures of a Cuban adolescent vampire, and in 2005 the animated film The Batman vs. Dracula, a synthesis-adaptation of the trilogy of graphic novels published by Elseworlds, DC Comics label, composed of "Red Rain", "Blood Storm" and "Crimson Fog" (Crimson Mist), in which Batman confronts and defeats, sacrificing his humanity by becoming a vampire, a newly resurrected Dracula, as well as a horde of vampires led by the Joker that terrorize Gotham City.

In 2008, the Swedish film Let Me In was released, the first adaptation of the book of the same name and directed by Tomas Alfredson. In 2010 they released another eponymous adaptation directed by the American Matt Reeves.

In November 2008 Twilight based on the saga written by Stephenie Meyer was released, followed by the sequels The Twilight Saga: New Moon in 2009, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse in 2010, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 in 2011 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 in 2012.

In October 2009, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant based on the saga written by Darren Shan, starring Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson and John C. Reilly, was released. It narrates the life of a boy who transforms into a semi-vampire to become an assistant and apprentice to the vampire Larten Crepsley, fighting against vampires thirsty for human blood.

In 2013, Only lovers left alive, by Jim Jarmusch, was released, which tells a love story between vampires.

In 2014 Dracula Untold was released by director Gary Shore and starring Welsh actor Luke Evans. The film tells the story of how Prince Vlad voluntarily becomes a vampire to save his kingdom from the Turkish invasion, thus giving rise to Dracula, who in the film is interpreted as Son of the Devil.

2014 also saw the release of What We Do in the Shadows (What we do in the shadows), a mockumentary that shows the lives of 4 vampires (who live in a house in Wellington, New Zealand) and how they manage in modern life -with the internet, mobile phones and going out to the disco- despite coming from very different times (because being vampires, they are immortal). These 4 characters simultaneously represent recurring stereotypes of vampires in popular culture: Vladislav represents Vlad lll or Vlad Drăculea, a distinguished and sexy count who takes advantage of his powers of seduction to get new victims; Viago, who embodies the most culturally classic form of the vampire (black hair, white skin, aristocratic clothing from the 19th century and blood for everywhere) but at the same time he is the most sociable and who unites the group; Deacon, who was turned into a vampire in World War II (this one doesn't quite match a vampire stereotype but represents the idea that vampires survive through time) and finally Petyr, about whom little is known, since he spends his days (and centuries) locked in the basement of the house: this clearly represents Nosferatu, since he is eight thousand years old and despite having no contact with the outside world, he is the one with the most supernatural powers. The 'mockumentary' shows their day-to-day lives, how they cannot leave the house if there is sunlight and must manage to enter a bar or disco (because they have to be invited first) and finally, despite the fact that they are vampires and their only desire is to suck blood, sometimes they miss their old human life. The film constantly interacts with the existing clichés about vampires (such as their rivalry with werewolves) and finally shows a warmer and funnier side to what is usually shown about them.

Television

The first vampire to star on TV is possibly Barnabas Collins, a tormented character on the hit ABC series Dark Shadows that aired between 1966-1971. Decades later, and to entertain a mainly adolescent audience, the series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer appeared in 1997, which achieved success with 7 seasons until 2003 and from which a new series with the same name was released. than its protagonist, the vampire named Angel.

In 1973 Dan Curtis directed Dracula, a television adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel written by Richard Matheson. Jack Palance plays the vampire count.

In 1979, under the direction of Tobe Hooper and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, Stephen King's second novel, called "Salem's Lot", which tells the story of a famous writer, Ben Mears (played by David Soul) who returns to his hometown, whose name gives the novel its title, just at the moment when it is being 'invaded'; by a vampire

The 1989 Canadian series Forever Knight starred an 800-year-old vampire working as a homicide detective only at night, with a refrigerator well stocked with animal blood, and a classic car with a huge trunk where he would hide from the sun if daylight caught him.

In 2004, "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King. This time with Rob Lowe in the role of Ben Mears and the impressive Rutger Hauer and Donald Sutherland as the vampire Kurt Barlow and his human assistant Richard Straker.

In 2007 the series Moonlight starring Mick St. John, another vampire detective, premiered and only had one season.

Another television series is True Blood, released in 2008 and based on the books in the Southern vampires collection by writer Charlaine Harris. It is about the adventures of a telepathic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse, in a world where vampires have come to the "light".

Between 2008-2013 the series Being Human aired on British television. Being Human features protagonists such as Aidan Turner as the vampire John Mitchell, Russell Tovey as the werewolf George Sands and Lenora Crichlow as the ghost Annie Sawyer.

In 2009 the series The Vampire Diaries was released, based on the homonymous novels by L. J. Smith and Split was released in Israel, the first vampire series made in this country.

Various Japanese animation series, such as Vampire Hunter D, Hellsing, Vampire Knight, Karin, Kamen Rider, Dance in the vampire Bund, Trinity Blood, Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations, Shingetsutan Tsukihime, Nightwalker:The Midnight Detective, Vampire Princess Miyu, Blood+, Rosario + Vampire, Blood Lad, Shiki and Strike the Blood. are starring a vampire or mention the myth of the vampire. Another animated series for TV about vampires for children's audiences is Count Patula, a duck-vampire.

In the animated series Spawn, episode 2 of the third season includes the character of a female vampire who she claims owes her condition to being raped by a Hellspawn.

In the series American Horror Story Hotel, fifth season of the anthology released in 2011, the character of Countess Elizabeth played by Lady Gaga has many attributes that would define her almost as a vampire, like being quasi-immortal, the need to drink blood, and a lustful attitude, among other things.

The vampire in comics and manga

Vampires are a frequent theme in horror comics and graphic novels, such as Blade, starring a human-vampire hybrid vampire slayer, that is, a dhampir. In this series, the genetic origin of vampires is proposed instead of the traditional supernatural one, being Count Vlad Dracula (Drake in the comic) the first of the species called Hominus nocturna.

From the manga, the Hellsing series stands out, in which the order of the Royal Protestant Knights, descendants of Abraham Van Helsing's family, fight against supernatural beings such as vampires, demons and ghouls.

In 1981 DC Comics introduced a new vampire character, Andrew Bennet in the horror series The House of Mystery. His life and adventures were told in a series of episodes under the title I, Vampire . These episodes dominated most issues of House of Mystery from March 1981 (#290) to August 1983 (#319).