Beware the tall, dark and undead

Vampire the word conjures up images of suave, handsome, or strikingly beautiful creatures, such as is depicted in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Those of you who are fans of her books are quite familiar with the arrogant and sexy Lestat.
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 the blood thirsty ruler know as Vlad Tepes, also know as Vlad Dracula, which when translated means "son of the dragon", 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.
From very early times there have been reports and tales of vampires, or vampyr, which means, when roughly translated, "blood drinker".
Vampires have many characteristics that vary from each vampire depending on where they came from.  Here are some of the characteristics:
They need blood to survive because it is the elixir of life, without blood they will die.   The blood gives them energy, power and replenishes their body.  It is the key to immortality 
They only come out at night because they fear sunlight. They grow stronger, tempering with time. In folklore, it is not mentioned that vampires have fangs. They have the ability to shapeshifting
They have the power to control animals (the animals that they can change into). They live in their graves during the day and rise during the night. They have no reflections, so when they look in the mirror they don't see anything. Vampires die if they have been staked through the heart by wood, burned or by decapitation and removing the brain. Religious symbols do not harm folklore vampires. When a vampire drinks the blood of a mortal person; that person will turn into a vampire too. When a person dies violently, committed suicide or was wrongly accused and killed, he or she may become a vampire. While the fictional night stalking vampires are often considered romantic, womanizing playboys; the mythological creatures are predominantly vengeful and angry females who feed on the blood of children punished by the gods.
In closing, the interesting thing to note is that although the creatures of mythology largely contradict the popular view of vampires, they do exist. They exist at all corners of the world and in nearly every culture known to man. Although they exist as superstition and folklore, they persist in appearing in the dark shadows of humanity. Often times, those things we consider mythology, have, in some small way, a foundation of truth to them. One of the purposes of my research is to find the origin of the myths to try to ascertain whether or not any truth ever did exist in them during the long forgotten history of man.

The beautiful, sexy, and undead:





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