Dracula, legend and truth
Official Web Site of Anne Rice
The first definition of Vampires in English was: the bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves in the night-time, suck the blood of many of the living, and thereby destroy them.
Another definition is: a dead person who returns in spirit from the grave for the purpose of sucking the blood of living persons.
There are two views of the nature of the vampire: One, that it is a demon which enters a dead body; and the second, also the most common, is that it is the spirit of a dead person inhabiting their own body after death.
The most common methods for killing a vampire, in traditional folklore, are:
Vampires in Myth and History
Modern vampire myths are based largely on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths originated in the far East, and were brought west from places like China, Tibet, and India.
Vampires in Myth and History
Lilith: originally from Babylonian demonology as Lilitu, she was a blood-sucking nocturnal ghost. She is mentioned in the Old Testament in Isaiah 34:14, and according to some she was Adam's first wife. She left Eden and refused to return, and as punishment, everyday her demon offspring were killed and she would create more by stealing the sperm from men in their sleep. Her demon children are known as Lilim.
Historical Lilith
Overview of Lilith
Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Transylvania: she believed that she could retain her youth by bathing in the blood of virgins. Approximately 700 young girls and women were put to death so that Countess Bathory could remain young. She died in 1614.
She was born in Hungary in 1560. Unlike the rest of the upperclass, Elizabeth was well educated and spoke several languages. She married Ferenc Nadasdy in 1575 at the age of fifteen. She gave birth to her first child, Anna, in 1585 and during the next nine years she had two more daughters, Ursula and Katherina, and in 1598 her only son, Paul was born.
She began torturing servants long before her husband died and some believe that he assisted in the torture when he was not at war. Ferenc died on Jan 4, 1604 after a long illness. After his death, her appetite grew and her victims were no longer just peasant girls.
On Dec 29, 1610, Count Thurzo, Elizabeth's cousin, raided the castle after her relatives heard of what was going on. They decided to avoid public humilation by dealing with her themselves. At her mock trial, a journal she kept was used as evidence against her. In her own handwriting, she place the number of her victims around 650. Before, at the trials of her accomplices, it was suggested that only around 70 girls had been killed. Two of her accomplices were sentenced to having all their fingers torn off with a pair of red-hot pincers and after that burned alive. The youngest, Ficzko a young man they took pity on, was sentenced to decapitation, then drained of all his blood, and then his body was burned with the others.
Elizabeth was sentenced to life long imprisonment in her own castle. She died, walled up in her own bed chamber, in August 1614, at the age of fifty-four.
Biography of Elizabeth Bathory
The Life and Death of Elizabeth Bathory
Definitions and other information were taken from:
Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 2nd Edition, Edited by Leslie A Shepard.
Crypt of the Vampyre-History and Folklore
Christianity and Vampirism
Vampire Hunter's Guide
Chronology of Vampires
Vampire Physiology
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Vampires in Movies and Literature
Buffy the Vampire Slayer