Vampires: Folklore, fantasy and fact - Michael Molina

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The myth of the bloodsucking vampire has stalked humans from ancient Mesopotamia to 18th-century Eastern Europe, but it has differed in the terrifying details. So, how did we arrive at the popular image we know, love and fear today? And what truly makes a vampire...a vampire? Michael Molina digs up the science and the superstition.

Lesson by Michael Molina, animation by The Moving Company Animation Studio.

Good evening!

What's the matter?

Are you afraid of vampires?

Hehe, no need to worry,

I'm not staying for dinner.

Ahahaha. I'm here to guide you

through a brief history of vampires,

illustrating how our image has changed

from a shambling corpse

to the dapper gentleman you see before you.

Vampires are nearly as old as you humans.

Stories about us, our evidence,

appear in cultures extending

as far back as prehistoric times.

But we weren't called vampires back then

and most of us did not look the way

we imagine vampires today,

far from it!

For example, the Mesopotamian Lamashtu

was a creature with a head of a lion

and the body of the donkey,

and the ancient Greek striges

were simply described as bloodthirsty birds.

Others were even stranger.

The Philippine manananggal would sever her upper torso

and sprout huge, bat-like wings to fly.

The Malaysian Penanggalan was a flying female head

with dangling entrails.

Heh heh heh heh.

And the Australian Yara-ma-yha-who

was a little red guy with a big head,

a large mouth,

and bloodsuckers on his hands and feet.

Oh, and let's not forget the Caribbean's Sukuyan,

the West African obayifo,

and the Mexican Tlahuelpuchi.

Heh heh, charming, aren't they?

Though they may look vastly different,

all of these beings have one common characteristic:

They sustain themselves by consuming

the life force of a living creature.

This shared trait is what defines a vampire --

all other attributes change with the tides.

So, how do we arrive

at the reanimated fellow you see before you?

Our modern ideal emerges

in 18th-century Eastern Europe.

With the dramatic increase of vampire superstitions,

stories of bloodsucking, shadowy creatures

become nightly bedside terrors.

And popular folklore,

like the moroi among the Romani people

and the lugat in Albania,

provide the most common vampire traits known today,

such as vampires being undead

and nocturnal

and shape-shifting.

You see, Eastern Europe in the 18th century

was a pretty grim place

with many deaths occurring

from unknown diseases and plagues.

Without medical explanations,

people searched for supernatural causes

and found what looked like evidence

in the corpses of the victims.

When villagers dug up bodies

to discern the cause of the mysterious deaths,

they would often find the cadavers

looking very much alive --

longer hair and fingernails,

bloated bellies,

and blood at the corners of mouths.

Heh heh, clearly, these people were not really dead.

Heh, they were vampires!

And they had been leaving their graves

to feast on the living.

The terrified villagers would quickly enact

a ritual to kill the undead.

The practices varied across the region,

but usually included beheadings,

burnings,

and staking the body to the coffin

to prevent it from getting up.

Grizzly stuff!

But what the villagers interpreted as unholy reanimation,

they're actually normal symptoms of death.

When a body decomposes,

the skin dehydrates,

causing the hair and fingernails to extend.

Bacteria in the stomach creates gases

that fill the belly,

which force out blood and matter through the mouth.

Unfortunately, this science was not yet known,

so the villagers kept digging.

In fact, so many bodies were dug up

that the Empress of Austria sent

her physician around to disprove the vampire stories,

and she even established a law

prohibiting grave tampering.

Still, even after the vampire hunts had died down,

the stories of legends survived

in local superstition.

This led to works of literature,

such as Polidori's "The Vampyre,"

the Gothic novel "Carmilla,"

and, most famously, Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

Although Stoker incorporated historical material,

like Elizabeth Báthory's virgin blood baths

and the brutal executions of Vlad Dracul,

it was these local myths

that inspired the main elements of his story:

the Transylvanian setting,

using garlic to defend oneself,

and the staking of the heart.

While these attributes are certainly familiar to us,

elements he invented himself

have also lasted over the years:

fear of crucifixes,

weakness in sunlight,

and the vampire's inability

to see their reflection.

By inventing new traits,

Stoker perfectly enacted the age-old tradition

of elaborating upon

and expanding the myth of vampires.

As we saw,

maybe you met my relatives,

a huge of variety of creatures stalked the night

before Dracula,

and many more will continue

to creep through our nightmares.

Yet, so long as they subsist

off a living being's life force,

they are part of my tribe.

Even sparkling vampires can be included.

After all, it's the continued storytelling

and reimagining of the vampire legend

that allows us to truly live

forever.

Ahahahahaha!