Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost
endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a
woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the
Penanggalang in Malaysia.

The vampires that we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European
myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, like China, Tibet, and India, and were transported by
caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the
Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at
night, which is all from the Eastern European myths. Myths like; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars,
turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.

Slavic Vampires

The Slavic people, including Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia to Poland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the
world. The Slavs came from north of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Pior to 8th century AD
they migrated north and west to where they are now. Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new
homelands. But through the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Church were
struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD, with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbian's
staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs, and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the
development of vampire lore- the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were saints, while the Orthodox believed they
were vampires.

The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th century as a result of conflict between pre-Christina paganism
and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore. Causes of Vampirism
include: being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived on certain days, irregular death, excommunication, improper
burial rituals, etc. Preventative measures included; placing a crucifix in the coffin, or blocks under the chin to prevent the
body from eating ht shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reasons, placing millet or poppy seeds in the grave
because vampires had a fascination with counting, or piercing the body with thorns or stakes.

Evidence the a vampire was at work in the neighborhood included: death of cattle, sheep, relatives, neighbors, exhumed
bodies being a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hari, or if the body was swelled up like a drum, or there
was blood on the mouth and if the corpse had a ruddy complexion. Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation
(the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, holy water on the grave or
exorcism.

Romania

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire.
They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

There are different types of strigoi: strigoi VII are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out
their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the
reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbors. A person born with a caul, tail, born
out of wedlock, or one who died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire, or a
witch. And naturally, being bitten by a vampire, meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death.

The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threw things around it he house. Vampires,
along with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St. George's Day (April 22 Julian, or May 4 Gregorian
calendar), the night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad.

A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in
the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found distributing garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it. Graves were
often opened three years after death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death
of an adult to check for vampirism. Measure to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, removing the caul from a
newborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing
animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows
and rubbing it on cattle, especially on St George's and St. Andrew's days.

To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the
19th century people were shooting a bullet through the coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the
pieces burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.

Gypsies and Indian vampiric myths

Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt.
By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their
Romany language. By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all
across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vald Dracula was born in 1431. Their religion is complex
and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong
relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the deal soul entered a world similar to ours except that they is no
death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. The Gypsy myths of the living and dead
added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands. The ancient home of the Gypsies, India
has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death, It wandered around
animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found in brahmaparusha, a
vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood.

The most famous Indian Vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her
temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Rakatbija who could reproduce
himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled thereby winning the battle and killing
Raktabija.

One gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). The vampire was believed to return and do malicious things
and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial
ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)

Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a
hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had animal appendages, etc. was believed to be a vampire. Even plants or
dogs, cats, or farm animals could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move,
make noises or show blood.

To get rid of a vampire people would hire a dhampire (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward
off vampires, gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's hear and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes,
ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn
stake through the legs. Further measure included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating
the corpse, or burning it. In spite of the disruption of Gypsy lives by the various eastern European communist regimes, they
still retain much of their culture.

Bats

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the
vampire, but this was not always the case. Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was
a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the
supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought they were lucky and even
wore charms made of bat bones.

There are only three species of vampire bats in the entire world, all of which occur in Central and South America. During
the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the
feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. It wasn't long before they began to associate bats with their
vampire legends. Over the following centuries the association became stronger and was used by various people, including
James Malcom Rhymer who wrote "Varney the Vampyre" in the 1840's. Stoker cemented the linkage of bats and
vampires in the minds of the general public.

Vampires