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The Misbegotten Corpse
A Vampire History, Mind to Grave
Introduction | First Appearances | The Belief Cauldron | Vampir etymology | The vampir meets the vukodlak | Wolf-pelts and sun-eaters | Becoming the Animated Dead | Slavic Testimonies | The Vampire as Scapegoat | Tomb-Raiding | Identifying Marks | Unearthing Decay | Plague-Bringers | Looking for Vampire Lairs | Vampire Killers - Testimonies | The Peter Plagojowitz Report | Killing the Dead | Walking Corpses of England | The Flückinger Report in Europe | The Enlightenment and Vampires | The Poetic German Vampire | The Vampire in English Poetry | The Aristocratic Vampire in English Literature | Dracula Joins the Ranks | The Vampire in Film and Other Media | Renfield's Syndrome and the Goth Vampires | Conclusion |
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse…"
– Lord Byron, "The Giaour"
Death and blood… these are two intrinsic elements of the vampire creature that inhabited its oldest reference in the annals of mankind. Always typifying evil in its archaic past, the vampire was in its earliest times not an object of fascinated and voluptuous lust, but rather, the ultimate monster. After all, it came forth, in legends, from the very grave – and more literally, from the deepest fear of man… Death itself.
It is from Slavic folklore and practice that the modern world has derived its modern concept of the mythological vampire. In this concept, the vampire is a monstrous creature, a true Un-Dead or Living Dead, who leaves its grave by supernatural (dæmonic) means, walks around in its physical body (the process of decay having been halted by supernatural means), attacks living beings (often family or relatives before going on to attack others) in order to feed on their blood, sustains its unnatural existence by the consumption of that blood, and possesses no human soul, a dæmon soul, or two souls.
From culture to culture within Slavic Europe, details vary – but three basic elements remain constant: the vampire is an evil creature, a physical corpse animated by a malevolent and supernatural power, and it weakens and kills humans and animals, sustaining itself by taking either their blood or their energy. It is a dæmon, in the ancient Greek sense of the word – that is, half-supernatural, half-man. (Note: this has little to do with the Judaeo-Christian definition of demon.) There are said also to be “living vampires” – that is, living humans who have been given the vampire curse, and who, when they die, will become Un-Dead vampires.
The word “vampire” itself is a controversial one. Etymologists
have not reached any definite conclusion about its origin and root meaning,
although there are some very likely possibilities. A discussion of the possibilities,
and of other terms used to describe the vampire, will follow later in this
article. It’s fascinating (although detailed) stuff – all of the
terms and the conjectures about the word vampire’s origin explain
how the very concept of a vampire might have arisen. Also to be mentioned
are the mythological vampires from Chinese, Indonesian and Philippine cultures
– vampires quite separate from the Slavic mythological vampires which
has led straight to the modern iconic European vampire.
