Creature of the Night I

Vampire the word conjures up images of suave, handsome, or strikingly beautiful creatures, such as is depicted in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, True blood’s vampires Eric Northman and Bill Compton or Buffy the vampire slayer’s Angel.

One of the most famous vampires of all time is, of course, Count Dracula. The brain child of Bram Stoker who based his immortal monster on a Romanian ruler know as Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracula, which when translated means "son of the dragon" or “son of the devil”, a nicknamed that was well earned, for the count was a blood thirsty and ruthless ruler.

He was also known as Vlad the Impaler due to his habit of impaling people on very sharp stakes and letting them suffer until they died a horrible and extremely painful death. The legends of vampires were around long before Stoker wrote his book.

The concept of the vampire started in Mesopotamia though in its early forms it was attributed to demons before revenants. The mythology has evolved for thousands of years and continues today.
The basic idea is that the vampire is the animated corpse of a human returned to prey on his former race, a body not constrained by the ravages of time as we are. Such a condition is 'passed on' from a vampire to his prey and thus becomes doubly feared. It is up to the individual source whether or not such contamination is automatic or requires a further step, usually the drinking of the vampire's own blood by the victim. But whatever the case may be, the 'parent' vampire must be killed before his 'child's' death to prevent the transformation. Once the change is permanent there is only one cure—a stake through the heart, perhaps followed by decapitation and the stuffing of garlic. At this point time catches up with the body, any cheated decay occurs incredibly fast, perhaps dissolving the remains into constituent dust. And the trapped and tormented soul is freed of its earthly constraints, now able to find heaven or hell as is it’s deserved.

More importantly is the aspect of a vampire's will. He cannot pass where we don't want him to. If we believe ourselves Masters of our house he cannot enter unless invited. If we believe strongly in the power of a crucifix to ward, or holy water to harm, it will happen. We can beat a vampire, but only if we are physically, and mentally, strong. And if we are weak... well, it could easily be that the vampire is our weakness given external strength

Some folklore holds that vampires originated with Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Christ. Because Judas had betrayed Christ to the Romans, he and his family were cursed. The Bible holds that Judas committed suicide because of his guilt; suicides in vampire folklore are very likely to come back as vampires, so this may have helped contribute to the belief that vampires originated with Judas. Also, vampires descended from Judas were usually identifiable by their red hair. This probably points to the origin of the myth among the Greeks, as they believed red hair to be a mark of vampirism. Among the dark Greek, red-hair would certainly seem strange, but among people farther north, closer to the Scandinavian countries which feature such hair, there would be little to no stigma attached to it.

The vampire's aversion to silver perhaps comes from this myth, as Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver. When Judas tried to return the silver and could not, he cast it away as something hateful to himself. However, the use of silver as a deterrent for vampires is more widespread than the Judas myth. Though I have yet to find any good explanation of it, silver may be used because of its religious significance among pagan religions, which were carried over into vampire folklore.

Vampires come out to play