Vampires

As a child and an adolescent, I had curious interests in the macabre. Vampires, werewolves, witches and all other creepy crawlies. During the Coronavirus lockdown, I have been in a deep binge watch of Dark Shadows, a 1960s Gothic soap opera that used to air on ABC. Besides housewives there was a great following by elementary school children like myself. Aside from the "icky" romance parts, there was the most interesting and fantastic ghosts, vampires and reanimated humans. 

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows

Today, I got to thinking about the subject of Vampires. Who (or What) are they? How did they come to exist?  Blood drinking undead beasts. Hollywood has made films and television programs of vampires for nearly 100 years. The first one was Nosferatu (1922). Many authors have written vampire stories and novels. Bram Stoker, Stephen King, Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer to name a few. For the most part, each story gave vampires the same traits.

• They only come out at night, because...
• The sun will kill them. (What about a hazy day?)
• They have fangs.
• Thirst for blood for their existence.
• They have pale or grayish skin.

How to protect yourself or kill a vampire.

• A cross repels them. (Why? It repels me as well.)
• Holy water burns and repels them. (If you're not catholic, you're screwed.)
• Garlic will also repel them. (Garlic will repel just about anybody.)
• Mirrors won't reflect their image. (That one really puzzles me.)
• They sleep in coffins. (Why? Can't they sleep in a bed? In a windowless or very dark room?)
• A stake through the heart kills them permanently as does
• Decapitation and Cremation

The sense of being the "Undead" is probably why they make them sleep the "sleep of the dead" in a coffin. As a vampire is not a religious entity or being, so why would any religious icon (cross) repel an undead creature? Garlic. Why not onions? They could be just as gagging. And the reflectionlessness of the vampire is a puzzle. What properties causes a vampire to become invisible to a mirror. It makes no sense. And why would a vampire disintegrate or die from sunlight?

A book written by National Geographic historian Mark Jenkins, Vampire Forensics, describes six ways to stop a vampire. If we are to suspend what we believe and accept that vampires exist (which I don't), it's very interesting to know this. As, believe it or not, it is practiced in many parts of the world by those who DO believe in vampires. The following makes the assumption that rabies is the cause for the vampire-like symptoms. Rabies?

1. Garlic is believed to repel vampires because "Infected people display a hypersensitive response to any pronounced olfactory stimulation, which would naturally include the pungent smell of garlic.” I believe onions could work in a pinch, don't you?
2. Mirrors and Sunlight is believed that the rabidly infected show signs of face contortions and frothing at the mouth which would scare oneself at the sight of itself in a mirror. (Hmmm? A Saturday morning look in the mirror after a Friday night binge drinking might do the same.) "At least one scholar has proposed that the genetic red blood cell deficiency porphyria, which (once activated) renders its sufferers pallid and hypersensitive to light, could also have inspired vampire legends."
3. Crucifix and Holy Water “Any sort of religious symbol might deter a vampire,” according to Mark Jenkins in an interview with the National Geographic Society in 2010. “Magic circles. Churchyards. Holy ground. And the literary folks have really played this up in their stories of vampires.” Because of a Judeo-Christian centric world, Christian religious articles tend to be the staples used by writers all.
4. A Stake through the Heart A wooden one is usually the prescription. Even in the Konami made for Nintendo NES game, Castlevania, an oaken stake is used to kill the vampire. Bram Stoker’s Dracula gets a Bowie knife in the heart and his head chopped off.
5. Decapitate and Burn Without a head, there isn't much chance of being bitten by that vampire. Incineration is just icing on the cake.
6. A Brick, Stone, or Vine Between the Teeth This little tidbit dates back to the Dark Ages during the Great Mortality (Black Death). It was believed that the deceased would "eat' its way through the grave to other corpses, etc. The cure was to jam something in its mouth so as to curtail the beneath the ground smorgasbord. 

So, why drink blood? Where does that come from? I find nothing appealing about blood. I also don't find the appeal of blood sausage or other by-products made from animal blood. It all just sounds so disgusting. BUT...vampires require blood because of a disease. Yes, a disease. Some have suggested that due to possible gene mutation, vampires suffered from Porphyria. A disease that made individuals incapable of synthesizing some required enzymes, and perhaps the only way they can synthesize certain proteins needed to survive are found in human blood. Of course, this has been disproved along time ago.

The one common thing in all the folklore, movies, books, etc. is they need blood to survive and mostly human blood. The reason why may be found in the literature of Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872) or Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), which were the earliest stories about vampires. Most likely drawn from folk tales and archaic beliefs. I don't know because I haven't read either book...yet. Dracula is on my list; not sure if Carmilla is even available.

This is definitely not meant to be the "be all and end all" about vampires. I found the answers from my research interesting and felt like sharing. It's the fourth of July weekend and I ain't going anywhere. Stay home. Stay safe. Don't shoot off fireworks. Wear a mask and wear a string of garlic around your neck (to keep the vampires away). Until next time, TTFN.