What is a vampire? Is it a revenant seeking revenge, the living dead, or an over active imagination?

Each culture in the world shares a common belief in the vampire. Vampire legends are built around fears of death, pre-mature burial, plagues and diseases that can not be explained, jealousy, and fear. Over the years, many have tried to define “vampire.”

Jan L. Perkowski has defined a vampire as “a being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature.” (287, Guiley)

Not only is it believed that vampires drain a living person of their blood and/or life energy leaving them in a weakened state but they are commonly the scapegoat for unexplained ravaging diseases and plagues. Throughout time and cultures, vampires have been associated with contagious illnesses, blights, and droughts.

Folkloric vampires are believed to be revenants or demons who posses supernatural power and the ability to drain the vitality and blood from the living. It is believed that these vampires return to their graves full of life blood of their victims and appear rejuvenated with no signs of corruption.

Living Vampires are those people who believe and act as if they are vampires. They drink blood and believe they have supernatural powers which they can exert over others through witchcraft or sorcery. Those that wish to do evil with witchcraft or sorcery are believed to be destined to become a vampire in death.

Literary vampires appear in writings, creative and factual, as early as the 1300’s. Characteristics of literary vampires found in fiction are commonly found in folklore. However the creative minds of the writers have embellished and created a few more.

Physic vampires are those that drain energy and vitality of other people, knowingly and unknowingly. Those that do so knowingly do so through magic and have ill intent.

Psychotic vampires are those that are driven to commit blood crimes for the purpose of satisfying some deep seeded need produced by an unbalanced mind. They are driven by a need to mutilate and drink their victim’s blood in order to stay young or grow more powerful. Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) of Hungary was known to be the earliest vampire. She is well known for taking virgins and draining their blood to bathe in as well as nibbling on their flesh. Included in this type of vampire are Bela Kiss, Peter Kurten, Andrei Chikatilo, and Joshua Rudiger to name a few.

What makes a vampire? Many believe that if one receives an improper burials, dies a violent death, suicide, babies born stillborn, people who die under a curse, excommunicated people, those who die unbaptized, immoral behavior, the practice of sorcery for ill intent, those that eat sheep killed by wolves, corpses that are in graves in which animals have crossed over them (especially cats), thieves, and those bodies that were left unguarded between the moment of death and burial are subjected to possibly becoming a vampire.

The failure to follow proper burial customs seems to be a major contributor to sealing someone’s fate to becoming a vampire.

• Ritualistic cleansing of the corpse with soap and water and sometimes wine
• Weighing down the eyelids with gold coins – an ancient belief of paying for transportation across the river of Death
• Tying the mouth shut
• Stuffing the mouth with garlic, crosses, gold coins, or dirt
• Placing a lighted candle in the hands of or near the corpse
• Keeping a close vigil over the corpse until burial
• Painting a cross of tar on the door of the newly deceased
• Removing the corpse head first from the house/building
• Traveling to the gravesite in a certain direction, east to west
• Pinning the burial garments down in the coffin
• Burying the corpse face down so that he/she will dig herself downward instead of upward and out of the grave
• Bury the deceased either at a crossroads, boundary or a remote location
• Staking and mutilating the corpse
• Wrap the corpse in a net – the vampire will spend eternity untying the knots at one per year
• Tie body parts together
• Weigh the corpse down with stones
• Fill the coffin with seeds or sand – the vampire will be forced to pick up and count each seed/grain of sand until it is all collected and counted (seems they have a counting disorder)
• Place food in their coffin so they will not leave it in search of food (blood)
• Within the grave place items to keep it in the coffin (position a scythe in the coffin in such a manner that when the vampire goes to rise he will decapitate himself)
• Burn the body to ashes

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