Supernatural Friday: Vampires

Vampire-like creatures date back thousands of years, and pop up in dozens of different cultures.  Humankind has always been fascinated with them, or more likely in fear of,  at least until modern times, such as why we have vampires in contemporary books, movies and television shows. According to the predominant mythology, every vampire was once a human, who, after being bitten by a vampire, died and rose from the grave as a monster. Vampires crave the blood of the living, whom they hunt during the night. They use their protruding fangs to puncture their victims' necks. At least the European ones anyway.

Since they're reanimated corpses—the living remains of a deceased person—vampires are often referred to as "the undead." This means they are deceased and yet, not. Vampires are potentially immortal, but they do have a few weaknesses. They can be destroyed by a stake through the heart, fire, beheading and direct sunlight, and they are wary of crucifixes, holy water and garlic. Vampires don't cast a reflection, and they have superhuman strength.

This vampire figure, with its particular combination of characteristics and governing rules, is actually a fairly recent invention. Bram Stoker conceived it in his 1897 novel, Dracula. The vampire changing into a bat came from this novel also, thanks to the real vampire bats in South America. Other authors reinterpreted Dracula in a number of plays, movies and books.

The legends of vampires date back at least 4,000 years, to the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamians feared Lamastu (also spelled Lamashtu), a vicious demon goddess who preyed on humans. In Assyrian legend, Lamastu, the daughter of sky god Anu, would creep into a house at night and steal or kill babies, either in their cribs or in the womb. Believers attributed sudden infant death syndrome and miscarriage to this figure. Lamastu, which translates to "she who erases," would also prey on adults, sucking blood from young men and bringing disease, sterility and nightmares. She is often depicted with wings and birdlike talons, and sometimes with the head of a lion. To protect themselves from Lamastu, pregnant women would wear amulets depicting Pazuzu, another evil god who once defeated the demoness.

Lamastu is closely associated with Lilith, a prominent figure in some Jewish texts. Accounts of Lilith vary considerably, but in the most notable versions of the story, she was the original woman. God created both Adam and Lilith from the Earth, but there was soon trouble between them. Lilith refused to take a subservient position to Adam, since she came from the same place he did. Lilith however came to Adam as he lay asleep and coupled with him in his dreams. By this means, she became mother of all the uncanny beings who share this planet invisibly with mortals, and are known as the fairy races or the djinn. In one ancient version of the legend, Lilith left Eden and began birthing her own children. God sent three angels to bring her back, and when she refused, they promised they would kill 100 of her children every day until she returned. Lilith in turn vowed to destroy human children. Accounts of Lilith as a child-killer seem to be taken directly from the Lamastu legend. She is often described as a winged demoness with sharp talons, who came in the night, primarily to steal away infants and fetuses. Most likely, the Jews assimilated the figure of Lamastu into their tradition, but it's also possible that both myths were inspired by a third figure. While she is often depicted as a terrifying creature, Lilith also had seductive qualities. The ancient Jews believed she would come to men at night as a succubus. They also regarded her as a queen of evil spirits, and made amulets to protect themselves against her. She is a personification of the erotic dreams which trouble men; the suppressed desire for forbidden delights. Charles Godfrey Leland, in his Etruscan Roman Remains (London, 1892), identifies Lilith with Herodias, or Aradia. He notes that in the old Slavonian spells and charms, Lilith is mentioned, and that she is said to have twelve daughters, who are the twelve kinds of fever. This is another instance of the witches’ thirteen.”

Dracula, along with all those modern vampire books and movies (and even the flesh eating zombies since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, too) are inspired by the folklore of eastern Europe. History records dozens of mythical vampire figures in this region, going back hundreds of years. They have their particular habits and characteristics, but most fall into one of two general categories: demon that become reanimated corpses so they could walk among the living and spirits of dead people that would not leave their own body.

The most notable of the demon vampires would be the Russian upirand the Greek vrykolakas. Sinners, babies not baptized, and those outside the Christian faith were more likely to be reanimated after death. Those who practiced witchcraft are also included, as they would be particularly susceptible because they had already given their soul to the devil in life. Once the undead corpses rose from the grave, they would terrorize the community and feed on the living. Not just blood, but the flesh, too.

Most of these legends account that these undead corpses must return to their grave regularly to rest (notice that it never said day or night—though night  would seemed the most fearsome time for evil to walk). When townspeople believed that someone had become a vampire, they exhumed the corpse to get rid of the evil spirit. They might try an exorcism ritual, but more often they would destroy the body so it would no longer have a form to use. Various methods include cremation, decapitation, even driving a wooden stake through the heart. Bodies might also be buried face down, so the undead corpses would dig deeper into the earth, rather than up into shallower ground. Other families might also secured stakes above the corpse so it would impale itself if it tried to escape.

Vampires in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania (part of Romania) were called strigoi. Strigoi are almost exclusively human spirits who had returned from the dead. Unlike the upir or vrykolakas, the strigoi go through different stages after they have risen from the grave. Initially, a strigoi might become an invisible poltergeist, tormenting its living family members by moving furniture and stealing food. Eventually, it becomes visible, just as the person looked in life. The strigoi returns to its family, stealing cattle, begging for food, and bringing disease. It also feed on humans, at first the family members; of course, eventually the myths changing to anyone else they happened to come across. In some accounts, the strigoi sucked their victims' blood directly from the heart.

The strigoi need to return to the grave on a regular basis, just like the upir did. If townspeople suspected someone had become a strigoi, they would do the same as those did to the upir, exhume the body and burn it, or run spikes through it. But after seven years, if a strigoi still hung around, it could live wherever it pleased. It was said that strigoi traveled to distant towns and would begin new lives as ordinary people. These secret vampires even met with each other in weekly gatherings.

In addition to undead strigoi, referred to as strigoi mort, people also feared living vampires, or strigoi viu. Strigoi viu were cursed living people who were doomed to become strigoi mort when they died. Babies born with abnormalities, such as a tail-like protrusion or a bit of fetal membrane tissue attached to the head (cauls), were usually considered strigoi viu. Also, if any strigoi mort living among humans had children, the offspring were cursed to become undead strigoi in the afterlife. When a known strigoi viu died, the family destroyed its body to keep it from rising from the grave.

In other parts of eastern Europe, strigoi-type creatures were called vampir, or vampyr, most likely a variation on the Russian upir. Western European countries eventually picked up on this name, how the term became “vampyr” and later “vampire" in the English language.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, vampire hysteria spread through eastern Europe. People reported that they saw their dead relatives walking around, attacking the living. Authorities dug up scores of graves, burning and staking the corpses (like those accused of being witches and even werewolves earlier in history were burned at the stake). In eastern European folklore, it was said that a vampire could be warded off by scattering seeds on the ground, either on top of the vampire's grave or outside your house. Vampires, said to be obsessive creatures, were compelled to count all the seeds. If you hid a nail in the seeds, it pricked the vampire midway through the count. The vampire would then drop the seeds and have to start all over again.

Finding a vampire can have many ways to do so worldwide. According to one Romanian legend, you need a seven-year-old boy and a white horse. The boy should be dressed in white, placed upon the horse, and the pair set loose in a graveyard at midday. Keep an eye on the horse as it wanders around, and whichever grave is nearest the horse when it finally stops will be a vampire's grave. Potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some abnormality, some defect, as when a child is born with teeth. Children born with an extra nipple in Romania, with a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip in Russia are suspect. When a child is born with a red caul, or amniotic membrane, covering its head, this was regarded throughout much of Europe as presumptive evidence that it is destined to return from the dead. Minor deformities were looked upon as evil omens at the time.

The vampire scare spread to western Europe. This led to academic speculations on the creatures, as well as vampire poems and paintings. It was these works that inspired an Irishman named Bram Stoker to write his own vampire novel, "Dracula."

Abraham (Bram) Stoker, a theater manager and part-time novelist, was not the first author to feature the vampire in a literary work, but his version is the one that really caught on. This is largely due to the novel's unforgettable villain, Count Dracula, as well as the foreboding setting. Stoker arrived at both elements through extensive research. He set much of the action in the mysterious mountains of the Transylvania province of Romania, and he based his vampires on eastern European and gypsy folklore.

Selectively sampling from several versions of the vampire myth and adding some details of his own, Stoker formed the standard for the modern vampire. Unlike the vampires in the eastern European tradition, Stoker's monster loses power in the sunlight, is repelled by crucifixes and has acute intelligence. Interestingly, Stoker's vampires do not have reflections, while many earlier vampire creatures were fascinated by their own reflection.

Stoker's research also turned up a name for his villain, based on a real Dracula. Vlad Tepes’ father was known as Vlad Basarab (inducted into the Royal  Order of the Dragon, a branch of the Brotherhood of the Wolf). From then on, until his death, Vlad Basarab referred to himself as Vlad Dracul. Dracul is a Romanian word for “dragon,” but also means “devil.” The suffix “a” means “son of,” so when Vlad Dracul’s second son, also named Vlad, was born later that year in Sghisoara, he became Vlad Dracula, Son of the Dragon. More often he was called "Vlad Tepes," meaning "Vlad the Impaler." This was in reference to his predilection for impaling his enemies on long wooden stakes. This form of torture and punishment actually came about due to both him and his brother, Radu, captured as prisoners of the Turks, and were allowed to watch the Turks do this to their enemies.

The real Dracula had a reputation for unfathomable brutality (a reputation many Romanians claim is inaccurate, but then again, they believe him to be a hero, due to defeating the Turks), but there is not much evidence showing that people believed he was a vampire. Stoker's fictional villain is not closely modeled after the real Dracula, though they are sometimes linked in movies based on the book. Stoker borrowed the name, as well as his social standing, for his vampire. Unlike the wandering, homeless strigoi, Dracula was written as a wealthy count, hiding out in a grandiose castle.

In the 1927 play "Dracula," and the film adaptation that followed in 1931, Bela Lugosi embraced this aristocratic notion. Dracula's familiar outfit – black formal wear and a billowing black cape, also was introduced. In the novel "Dracula," the count is described as a withered, ugly old man, more like Max Shreck's portrayal in the 1922 silent film adaptation, "Nosferatu," than Lugosi's presentation. But the suave Dracula caught on, showing up in scores of vampire movies, television shows and cartoons, even to this day, besides the creepier “nosferatu” version (like in 30 Days of Night, Salem’s Lot, and I Am Legend)

The vampire continues to evolve over the years, as novelists and filmmakers reinterpret and expand the mythology. In Anne Rice's popular novels, she takes vampires to the next level, giving them a conscience and a range of emotions. In her work, vampires are not necessarily evil -- they are presented as real, rounded people. On the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," creator Joss Whedon has pursued similar ideas, exploring the idea of a vampire with a soul and if you remember, his soulless vamps were called demons, not unlike the Russian upir and the Greek vrykolakas. 

                        (Countess Elizabeth Bathory: said to have bathed in virgins' 

                                blood to keep her skin supple and young. She was a real person.)

Guest Blog: VAMPIRE'S GUIDE TO NEW ORLEANS: Guest Blogger Steven P. Unger

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Welcome my guest blogger,  author Steven P. Unger as he blogs about a vampire’s guide to New Orleans.

I wrote this article on New Orleans as an homage to one of my favorite cities, one still fresh in my mind and heart after a long-postponed revisit there as an invitee to the Vampire Film Festival's Midsummer Nightmare last year.

All of the photos in this article are my own, except for the portrait of the Compte de St. Germain and the two pictures otherwise credited.  Most of the text is a compendium of others' words and research.  With apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently left out, my online research for this chapter led me to articles from hubpages.com; Kalila K. Smith (whose Vampire Tour I can recommend from personal experience—see http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Kalila-Smith/178024410); New Orleans Ghosts.com; GO NOLA; Brian Harrison; Haunted Shreveport Bossier.com; and Frommers.com.  I've borrowed freely from all of these sources and recommend them highly to those who would like to delve more deeply into the secrets of this unique city.

     If you have ever walked the dark, rainy streets of the French Quarter at night, you have seen the voodoo shops selling their gris-gris and John-the-Conqueror Root.  You've seen the old woman in the French Market whose pointing finger foretells your death  And if you know the right person to ask and you ask in the right way, you'll be shown to the vampire clubs.

     I've been in those clubs and seen people who believe with their heart, body, and soul that they are real, live vampires.  And some of the people in those clubs are scared to death of a select group of vampires who have only appeared there a few times, and always in the darkest of night.

     By day, of course, the vampire clubs are closed and locked or turned back into regular tourist bars . . .

--Crazy Horse's Ghost

Like the Spanish Moss that drapes the trees of the nearby bayous, mystery and the occult have shrouded New Orleans since its birth.  For hundreds of years, families there have practiced a custom called "sitting up with the dead."  When a family member dies, a relative or close family friend stays with the body until it is placed into one of New Orleans' above-ground tombs or is buried.  The body is never left unattended.

There are many reasons given for this practice today—the Old Families will tell you it's simply respect for the dead—but this tradition actually dates back to the vampire folklore of medieval Eastern Europe.  First, the mirrors are covered and the clocks are stopped.  While sitting up with the deceased, the friend or family member is really watching for signs of paranormal activity, e.g.,. if a cat is seen to jump over, walk across, or stand on top of the coffin; if a dog barks or growls at the coffin; or if a horse shies from it, these are all signs of impending vampirism.  Likewise, if a shadow falls over the corpse.  At that point, steps are taken to prevent the corpse from returning from the dead.

Ways to stop a corpse—especially a suicide—from becoming a vampire include burying it face down at a crossroads.  Often family members place a sickle around the neck to keep the corpse from sitting up; stuff the mouth with garlic and sew it closed; or mutilate the body, usually by decapitating the head and placing it at the bottom of the feet.  But the most common remedy for impending vampirism is to drive a stake into the corpse, decapitate it, then burn the body to ashes.  This method is still believed to be the only sure way to truly destroy the undead.

THE CASKET GIRLS

Ask any member of the Old Families who the first vampires to come to New Orleans were, and they'll tell you the same:  it was the Casket Girls.

Much of the population that found their way to New Orleans in the early 1700s were unwelcome anywhere else:  deported galley slaves and felons, trappers, gold-hunters and petty criminals.  People who wouldn't be noticed if they went missing.

Sources vary on the specifics, but the basic story is that the city’s founders asked French officials to send over prospective wives for the colonists.  They obliged and after months at sea these young girls showed up on the docks, pale and gaunt, bearing only as many belongings as would fit inside a wooden chest or "casquette," which appears to have been the 18^th Century equivalent of an overnight bag.  They were taken to the Ursuline Convent, which still stands today, where the girls were said to have resided until the nuns could arrange for marriages.

Some accounts say they were fine young women, virgins brought up in church-run orphanages; some say they were prostitutes.  But there are many who swear they were vampires, vampires who continue to rise from their "casquettes" on the third floor to break through the windows and hurricane shutters—windows and shutters that always seem to need repairing after the calmest of nights—to feed upon the transient crowds that for centuries have filled the darkened alleys of the Quarter.

Finally in 1978, after centuries of rumors and stories, two amateur reporters demanded to see these coffins.  The archbishop, of course, denied them entrance.  Undaunted, the next night the two men climbed over the convent wall with their recording equipment and set up their workstation below.  The next morning, the reporters' equipment was found strewn about the lawn.  And on the front porch steps of the convent were found the almost decapitated bodies of these two men.  Eighty percent of their blood was gone.  To this day, no one has ever solved the murders.

LE COMPTE DE ST. GERMAIN

If there is one person who encapsulates the lure and the danger of the vampire, it is the Compte de Saint Germain.  Making his first appearance in the court of Louis XV of France, the Comte de Saint Germain endeared himself to the aristocrats by regaling them with events from his past.  An alchemist by trade, he claimed to be in possession of the "elixir of life," and to be more than 6,000 years old.  

At other times the Count at claimed to be a son of Francis II Rakoczi, the Prince of Transylvania, born in 1712, possibly legitimate, possibly by Duchess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria.  This would account for his wealth and fine education.  It also explains why kings would accept him as one of their own.

Contemporary accounts from the time record that despite being in the midst of many banquets and invited to the finest homes, he never ate at any of them.  He would, however, sip at a glass of red wine.  After a few years, he left the French court and moved to Germany, where he was reported to have died. However, people continued to spot him throughout Europe even after his death.

In 1903, a handsome and charismatic young Frenchman named Jacques Saint Germain, claiming to be a descendant of the Compte, arrived in New Orleans, taking residence in a house at the corner of Royal and Ursuline streets. Possessing an eye for beauty, Jacques was seen on the streets of the French Quarter with a different young woman on his arm every evening.  His excursions came to an abrupt end one cold December night, when a woman’s piercing scream was heard coming from Jacques’ French Quarter home.  The scream was quickly followed by a woman who flung herself from the second story window to land on the street below.  As bystanders rushed to her aid, she told them how Saint Germain attacked and bit her, and that she jumped out of the window to escape.  She died later that evening at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

By the time the New Orleans police kicked in the door of Saint Germain’s home, he had escaped.  However, what they did find was disturbing enough.  The stench of death greeted the nostrils of the policemen, who found not only large bloodstains in the wooden flooring, but even wine bottles filled with human blood.  The house was declared a crime scene and sealed off.  From that evil night to the present day, no one has lived in that home in the French Quarter.  It is private property and all taxes have been paid to date, but no one has been able to contact the present owner or owners.  The only barriers between the valuable French Quarter property and the outside world are the boarded-up balcony windows and a small lock on the door.  Whispers of Jacques sightings are prevalent, and people still report seeing him in the French Quarter.  Could it be the enigmatic Compte checking up on his property?

ANNE RICE AND THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES

There is no one who has done more to bring the vampire into the New Age than Anne Rice, born and bred in New Orleans, with her novel Interview with the Vampire and the films and books that followed.  Those who have profited mightily from the popularity of True Blood and Twilight owe her a great debt.

The ultra-retro St. Charles Avenue Streetcar will take you close to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the gravesite of Louis de Pointe du Lac's (Lestat's companion and fellow vampire in Rice's The Vampire Chronicles) wife and child and where Louis was turned into a vampire by Lestat.

The Styrofoam tomb from the film Interview with the Vampire is gone now, but you can easily find the site where it stood, the wide empty space in the cemetery nearest the corner of Coliseum and Sixth Street.

During the filming of Interview with the Vampire, the blocks between 700 and 900 Royal Street in the French Quarter were used for exterior shots of the home of the vampires Louis, Lestat, and Claudia, trapped  through time with an adult mind in the body of a six-year-old girl.  In fact, the streets there and around Jackson Square were covered in mud for the movie as they had been in the 1860s when the scenes took place.

The perfectly preserved Gallier House at 1132 Royal Street was Anne Rice's inspiration for the vampires' house, and very close to that is the Lalaurie House, at 1140 Royal Street.  Delphine Lalaurie, portrayed by Kathy Bates in American Horror Story:  Coven, was a real person who lived in that house and was indeed said to have tortured and bathed in the blood of her slaves—even the blood of a slave girl's newborn baby—to preserve her youth.  She was never seen again in New Orleans after an angry mob partially destroyed her home on April 10, 1834.  There is a scene in American Horror Story where Delphine escapes from the coven's mansion and sits dejectedly on the curb in front of her old home.  A private residence now, some locals still swear that the Lalaurie House is haunted, and that the clanking of chains can be heard through the night.

Built in 1789, Madame John's Legacy (632 Dumaine Street) is the oldest surviving residence in the Mississippi Valley.  In Interview with the Vampire, caskets are shown being carried out of the house as Louis' (Brad Pitt) voice-over describes the handiwork of his housemates Claudia and Lestat:  "An infant prodigy with a lust for killing that matched his own.  Together, they finished off whole families."

SOURCES FOR VAMPIRES

As a service to this most vampire-friendly city (http://www.vampirewebsite.net/vampirefriendlycities.html), the New Orleans Vampire Association describes itself as a "non-profit organization comprised of self-identifying vampires representing an alliance between Houses within the Community in the Greater New Orleans Area.  Founded in 2005, NOVA was established to provide support and structure for the vampire and other-kin subcultures and to provide educational and charitable outreach to those in need."

Their Web site also points out that "every year since Hurricane Katrina, the founding members of NOVA have taken food out on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to those who are hungry and homeless."  (See http://www.neworleansvampireassociation.org/index.html)

FANGTASIA, named with permission from HBO after the club featured in True Blood, is an affiliation of New Orleans-based musicians and film and TV producers who for three years have presented a multi-day vampire-centric event of the same name, the first two years at 1135 Decatur and last year at the Howlin' Wolf.  You can follow their plans and exploits via their blog at http://www.fangtasiaevent.com/fangtasia-blog/.

Next year FANGTASIA hopes to create "the South by Southwest of Global Vampire Culture" at an as yet undisclosed location in Greater New Orleans.  As they describe it:

     Moving beyond this third consecutive year, FANGTASIA is building a broader international draw that will bring fans to not only party at club nights, but also attend conferences, elegant fashion shows, film & TV screenings, celebrity events as well as an  international Halloween/party gear buyers’ market.

     Participants will experience gourmet sensations, explore our sensuous city and haunted bayous… as well as epically celebrate the Global Vampire Culture in all its sultry, seductive, diverse and darkly divine incarnations.  Additionally, FANGTASIA is strategically poised months prior to Halloween to provide corporate sponsors and vendors a perfect window to connect with their core demographic.  This also allows FANGTASIA to actively support and promote existing major Halloween events in New Orleans and beyond.

On the subject of vampiric Halloween events, for 25 years the Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club (http://arvlfc.com/index.html) has presented the annual Vampire Ball (http://arvlfc.com/ball.html), now as part of the four-day UndeadCon (http://arvlfc.com/undeadcon.html) at the end of October;  and on the weekend nearest Halloween Night (for example, November 1, 2014) the Endless Night Festival and New Orleans Vampire Ball takes place at the House of Blues (http://www.endlessnight.com/venue/).

The Boutique du Vampyre (http://feelthebite.com/boutique2013.html) is a moveable (literally—they're known to change locations on short notice) feast of vampire and Goth-related odds and ends, many of them locally made.  There are books as well—you may even find a copy of In the Footsteps of Dracula:  A Personal Journey and Travel Guide if they're not sold out.  Their Web site itself holds a surprise treat:  a link to a free video cast of the first two seasons of Vampire Mob (http://vampiremob.com/Vampire_Mob/Vampire_Mob.html), which is just what the title implies.

Finally, no visit to the Crescent City would be complete, for Vampire and Mortal alike, without a taste of absinthe (http://www.piratesalleycafe.com/absinthe.html), or even more than a taste.  There is a ritual to the preparation and serving of absinthe that should not be missed; one of the sites that does this authentically is the Pirates Alley Café and Absinthe House at 622 Pirates Alley.

***

About Steven P. Unger:

Steven P. Unger is the best-selling author of In the Footsteps of Dracula:  A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, published and distributed by World Audience Publishers.

In the Footsteps of Dracula can be ordered from your local bookstore or online at Print on Amazon, www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.de, KINDLE, or with free delivery worldwide from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk.

Supernatural Friday: Happy Haunting. . .I Mean Reading!

 

It's Friday and I've been ill past couple of days.  So today, I will go easy on myself. Since World Horror Convention is going on this weekend in New Orleans and it's summer and many libraries will be doing summer reading, where you read at most ten books and turn in you did so for a prize, maybe even to help buy bag of foo for a animal shelter, or something else.

Horror books are a good beach read or to read indoors in the AC. With Stephen King's novel,  Under the Dome coming as a TV minseries end of this month, might be a good time to attempt to read it before hand. Or numerous other books.

What is horror? Horror fiction, horror literature and also horror fantasy is a genre of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, scare or startle viewers/readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of Horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. The genre has ancient origins which were reformulated in the 18th century as Gothic horror, with publication of the Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole.

So, see you can even take on the old classics. Like Dracula by Bram Stoker, H P. Lovecraft’s tales, those scary tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House, and many others.

Right now, I am reading NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).  I am reading

Reliquary, sequel to Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. What are you reading, or what other scary books are you planning to read this summer? Leave a comment, so others can find these great reads in their local library or at their bookstore or an online estore.

Happy Haunting. . .I mean Reading!

Supernatural Friday: Vampires: Part 3

Dracula, along with all those modern vampire books and movies (and even the flesh eating zombies since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, too) are inspired by the folklore of eastern Europe. History records dozens of mythical vampire figures in this region, going back hundreds of years. They have their particular habits and characteristics, but most fall into one of two general categories: Demon that become reanimated corpses so they could walk among the living and spirits of dead people that would not leave their own body.

The most notable of the demon vampires would be the Russian upir and the Greek vrykolakas. Sinners, babies not baptized, and those outside the Christian faith were more likely to be reanimated after death. Those who practiced witchcraft are also included, as they would be particularly susceptible because they had already given their soul to the devil in life. Once the undead corpses rose from the grave, they would terrorize the community and feed on the living. Not just blood, but the flesh, too.

Most of these legends account that these undead corpses must return to their grave regularly to rest (notice that it never said day or night—though night  would seemed the most fearsome time for evil to walk). When townspeople believed that someone had become a vampire, they exhumed the corpse to get rid of the evil spirit. They might try an exorcism ritual, but more often they would destroy the body so it would no longer have a form to use. Various methods include cremation, decapitation, even driving a wooden stake through the heart. Bodies might also be buried face down, so the undead corpses would dig deeper into the earth, rather than up into shallower ground. Other families might also secured stakes above the corpse so it would impale itself if it tried to escape.

Vampires in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania (part of Romania) were called strigoi. Strigoi are almost exclusively human spirits who had returned from the dead. Unlike the upir or vrykolakas, the strigoi go through different stages after they have risen from the grave. Initially, a strigoi might become an invisible poltergeist, tormenting its living family members by moving furniture and stealing food. Eventually, it becomes visible, just as the person looked in life. The strigoi returns to its family, stealing cattle, begging for food, and bringing disease. It also feed on humans, at first the family members; of course, eventually the myths changing to anyone else they happened to come across. In some accounts, the strigoi sucked their victims' blood directly from the heart.

The strigoi need to return to the grave on a regular basis, just like the upir did. If townspeople suspected someone had become a strigoi, they would do the same as those did to the upir, exhume the body and burn it, or run spikes through it. But after seven years, if a strigoi still hung around, it could live wherever it pleased. It was said that strigoi traveled to distant towns and would begin new lives as ordinary people. These secret vampires even met with each other in weekly gatherings.

In addition to undead strigoi, referred to as strigoi mort, people also feared living vampires, or strigoi viu. Strigoi viu were cursed living people who were doomed to become strigoi mort when they died. Babies born with abnormalities, such as a tail-like protrusion or a bit of fetal membrane tissue attached to the head (cauls), were usually considered strigoi viu. Also, if any strigoi mort living among humans had children, the offspring were cursed to become undead strigoi in the afterlife. When a known strigoi viu died, the family destroyed its body to keep it from rising from the grave.

In other parts of eastern Europe, strigoi-type creatures were called vampir, or vampyr, most likely a variation on the Russian upir. Western European countries eventually picked up on this name, how the term became “vampyr” and later “vampire" in the English language.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, vampire hysteria spread through eastern Europe. People reported that they saw their dead relatives walking around, attacking the living. Authorities dug up scores of graves, burning and staking the corpses (like those accused of being witches and even werewolves earlier in history were burned at the stake). In eastern European folklore, it was said that a vampire could be warded off by scattering seeds on the ground, either on top of the vampire's grave or outside your house. Vampires, said to be obsessive creatures, were compelled to count all the seeds. If you hid a nail in the seeds, it pricked the vampire midway through the count. The vampire would then drop the seeds and have to start all over again.

The vampire scare spread to western Europe. This led to academic speculations on the creatures, as well as vampire poems and paintings. It was these works that inspired an Irishman named Bram Stoker to write his own vampire novel, "Dracula."

Abraham (Bram) Stoker, a theater manager and part-time novelist, was not the first author to feature the vampire in a literary work, but his version is the one that really caught on. This is largely due to the novel's unforgettable villain, Count Dracula, as well as the foreboding setting. Stoker arrived at both elements through extensive research. He set much of the action in the mysterious mountains of the Transylvania province of Romania, and he based his vampires on eastern European and gypsy folklore.

Selectively sampling from several versions of the vampire myth and adding some details of his own, Stoker formed the standard for the modern vampire. Unlike the vampires in the eastern European tradition, Stoker's monster loses power in the sunlight, is repelled by crucifixes and has acute intelligence. Interestingly, Stoker's vampires do not have reflections, while many earlier vampire creatures were fascinated by their own reflection.

Stoker's research also turned up a name for his villain, based on a real Dracula. Vlad Tepes’ father was known as Vlad Basarab (inducted into the Royal  Order of the Dragon, a branch of the Brotherhood of the Wolf). From then on, until his death, Vlad Basarab referred to himself as Vlad Dracul. Dracul is a Romanian word for “dragon,” but also means “devil.” The suffix “a” means “son of,” so when Vlad Dracul’s second son, also named Vlad, was born later that year in Sghisoara, he became Vlad Dracula, Son of the Dragon. More often he was called "Vlad Tepes," meaning "Vlad the Impaler." This was in reference to his predilection for impaling his enemies on long wooden stakes. This form of torture and punishment actually came about due to both him and his brother, Radu, captured as prisoners of the Turks, and were allowed to watch the Turks do this to their enemies.

The real Dracula had a reputation for unfathomable brutality (a reputation many Romanians claim is inaccurate, but then again, they believe him to be a hero, due to defeating the Turks), but there is not much evidence showing that people believed he was a vampire. Stoker's fictional villain is not closely modeled after the real Dracula, though they are sometimes linked in movies based on the book. Stoker borrowed the name, as well as his social standing, for his vampire. Unlike the wandering, homeless strigoi, Dracula was written as a wealthy count, hiding out in a grandiose castle.

In the 1927 play "Dracula," and the film adaptation that followed in 1931, Bela Lugosi embraced this aristocratic notion. Dracula's familiar outfit – black formal wear and a billowing black cape, also was introduced. In the novel "Dracula," the count is described as a withered, ugly old man, more like Max Shreck's portrayal in the 1922 silent film adaptation, "Nosferatu," than Lugosi's presentation. But the suave Dracula caught on, showing up in scores of vampire movies, television shows and cartoons, even to this day, besides the creepier “nosferatu” version (like in 30 Days of Night, Salem’s Lot, and I Am Legend)

The vampire continues to evolve over the years, as novelists and filmmakers reinterpret and expand the mythology. In Anne Rice's popular novels, she takes vampires to the next level, giving them a conscience and a range of emotions. In her work, vampires are not necessarily evil -- they are presented as real, rounded people. On the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," creator Joss Whedon has pursued similar ideas, exploring the idea of a vampire with a soul and if you remember, his soulless vamps were called demons, not unlike the Russian upir and the Greek vrykolakas.

Review of In the Footsteps of Dracula by Steven P. Unger

Published by World Audoence , Inc., 2010. ISBN: 978-1935444534

In the Footsteps of Dracula (A Personal Journey and Travel Guide) by Steven P. Unger is a nonfiction book for the armchair traveler besides for those who do really travel and can use this to trace their own path of places mentioned in the novel by Bram Stoker.

As one who has never been to England or Romania (except maybe in my writer's imagination), there are not only photos, but descriptions of places that intrigued me to one day take my own journey. Like a brush with the fangs of a vampire, Unger reveals how he gets to many of the places and what is the best or worse of each place or the travel mode to get there. Not so much England, but from one end to another of Romania where not only did Bram Stoker got his inspiration for his vampire count, but where the real life Dracula, Vlad Tepes the Impaler had existed. The reader will get a sense of another world still there, even while the modern world of te Internet and more is the cloak that hides this country where maybe legends can still survive.

I enjoyed this book of Unger's travel and discoveries, unable to quit reading it. He has done a super job of facts, photographs, and stories I never heard of. Most of all, Unger brings to life a vampire and the real life prince behind this being that ensorcelled people long before the  vampires of Twilight glittered to life.  So, whether traveling for real or from the comfort of your armchair, this book will bite you from the first page on.

The book is available online at http://worldaudience.powweb.com/pubs_bks/Dracula.html.