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{{short description|Mythical creature that feeds on living vital essence, usually blood}}
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[[File:Philip Burne-Jones - The Vampire.jpg|thumb|''The Vampire'', by [[Philip Burne-Jones]], 1897|alt=A black and white painting of a man lying on a table, while a woman is kneeling over him.]]

A '''vampire''' is a [[mythical creature]] that subsists by feeding on the [[Vitalism|vital essence]] (generally in the form of [[blood]]) of the living. In [[European folklore]], vampires are [[undead|undead humanoid creatures]] that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore [[shroud]]s and were often described as [[Corpse decomposition|bloated]] and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Vampiric entities have been [[Vampire folklore by region|recorded in cultures around the world]], but the term ''vampire'' was first popularized in Western Europe following reports of an 18th-century [[mass hysteria]] drawing on a pre-existing folk belief in [[Southeast Europe|Southeastern]] and [[Eastern Europe]]. This delusion led, in certain cases, not only to individuals being accused of vampirism, but also to the corpses of such suspected vampires being pierced with stakes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Karina |title=Decomposing Bodies in the 1720s Gave Birth to the First Vampire Panic |journal=[[The Smithsonian Magazine]] |date=October 23, 2020 |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decomposing-bodies-1720s-gave-birth-first-vampire-panic-180976097/ |access-date=29 October 2024}}</ref>
Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''[[shtriga]]'' in [[Albanian mythology|Albania]], ''[[vrykolakas]]'' in [[Greece]] and ''[[strigoi]]'' in [[Folklore of Romania|Romania]], cognate with Italian ''strega'', meaning '[[witch]]'.

In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures (such as the ''[[chupacabra]]'') still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of [[decomposition]] after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. [[Porphyria]] was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|title=Born to the Purple: the Story of Porphyria |last=Lane |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Lane |date=16 December 2002 |magazine=[[Scientific American]] |publisher=[[Springer Nature]]|location=New York City|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126142231/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|archive-date=26 January 2017|url-status=live|access-date=26 January 2017}}</ref>

The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "[[The Vampyre]]" by the English writer [[John Polidori]]; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. [[Bram Stoker]]'s 1897 novel ''[[Dracula]]'' is remembered as the quintessential [[vampire novel]] and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author [[Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu]]'s 1872 novel ''[[Carmilla]]''. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire [[genre]], still popular in the 21st century, with books, [[vampire films|films]], television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the [[horror fiction|horror]] genre.

== Etymology and word distribution ==
The exact [[etymology]] is unclear.<ref name="Tokarev">{{cite book |last=Tokarev |first=Sergei Aleksandrovich |author-link=Sergei Aleksandrovich Tokarev |title=Mify Narodov Mira |publisher=Moscow |year=1982 |location=Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya |language=ru |oclc=7576647}} ("Myths of the Peoples of the World"). Upyr'</ref><ref name="Vasmer">{{cite web |title=Russian Etymological Dictionary by Max Vasmer |url=http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060504222030/http://vasmer.narod.ru/p752.htm |archive-date=4 May 2006 |access-date=13 June 2006 |language=ru}}</ref> The term "vampire" finds its earliest records in English, Latin and French, and references to vampirism were found in Russia, Poland and North Macedonia.{{sfn|Wilson|1985|p=583}} The [[English language|English]] term was derived (possibly via [[French language|French]] {{lang|fr|vampyre}}) from the [[German language|German]] {{lang|de|Vampir}}, in turn derived in the early 18th century from the [[Serbian language|Serbian]] {{lang|sr|вампир}} ({{Transliteration|sr|vampir}}).<ref name=Grimm>{{cite web|url=http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GV00025|title=Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm. 16 Bde. (in 32 Teilbänden). Leipzig: S. Hirzel 1854–1960|access-date=13 June 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926215950/http://germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/WBB/woerterbuecher/dwb/wbgui?lemid=GV00025|archive-date=26 September 2007 |language=de}}</ref><ref name=MW>{{cite web |title=Vampire |publisher=Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary |url=http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/vampire |access-date=13 June 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614081137/http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/vampire |archive-date=14 June 2006}}</ref><ref name=Tresor>{{cite web |url=http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/affart.exe?44;s=2356384875;?b=0; |title=Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé |access-date=13 June 2006 |language=fr |archive-date=30 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230114722/http://stella.atilf.fr/Dendien/scripts/tlfiv5/affart.exe?44%3Bs=2356384875%3B%3Fb%3D0%3B |url-status=live}}</ref> Despite this being a popular explanation, it may be noted that a pagan worship of ''upyri'' was already attested in Old Russian in the 11–13th century.<ref>{{cite web |script-title=ru:Рыбаков Б.А. Язычество древних славян / М.: Издательство 'Наука,' 1981 г. |url=http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000031/index.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101226063300/http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000031/index.shtml |archive-date=26 December 2010 |access-date=28 February 2007 |language=ru}}</ref><ref name="period">{{cite journal |last=Зубов |first=Н.И. |year=1998 |script-title=ru:Загадка Периодизации Славянского Язычества В Древнерусских Списках "Слова Св. Григория&nbsp;... О Том, Како Первое Погани Суще Языци, Кланялися Идолом&nbsp;..." |url=http://kapija.narod.ru/Ethnoslavistics/zub_period.htm |url-status=dead |journal=Живая Старина |language=ru |volume=1 |issue=17 |pages=6–10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070225025712/http://kapija.narod.ru/Ethnoslavistics/zub_period.htm |archive-date=25 February 2007 |access-date=28 February 2007}}</ref> Some claim an origin from [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]].<ref>Matthew Bunson: ''Das Buch der Vampire.'' Scherz Verlag, p. 273 and following</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Norbert |last=Borrmann |title=Vampirismus oder die Sehnsucht nach Unsterblichkeit |language=de |trans-title= |publisher=Diederichs Verlag |page=13}}</ref> Oxford and others<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Katharina M. |date=1985 |title=The History of the Word "Vampire" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2709546 |journal=[[Journal of the History of Ideas]] |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=577–583 |doi=10.2307/2709546 |jstor=2709546 |issn=0022-5037 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> maintain a Turkish origin (from Turkish ''uber,'' meaning "witch"<ref name=":2" />), which passed to English via Hungarian and French derivation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=vampire |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115137575#:~:text=The%20word%20comes%20(in%20the,an%20abbreviation%20of%20this%20word. |access-date=2024-09-14 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en |archive-date=14 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240914220052/https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115137575#:~:text=The%20word%20comes%20(in%20the,an%20abbreviation%20of%20this%20word. |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=vampire |url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/vampire |website=Oxford Learner's Dictionary |access-date=14 September 2024 |archive-date=9 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240609224915/https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/vampire |url-status=live }}</ref> It is, however, almost universally accepted that the modern word "Vampire" is derived from the [[Slavic languages|Old Slavic]] languages<ref name=":2" /> form "онпыр (onpyr)", with the addition of the "v" sound in front of the large nasal vowel (on), characteristic of Old Bulgarian.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> Parallels are found in virtually all [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] and [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] languages: [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] and [[Macedonian language|Macedonian]] {{lang|mk|вампир}} ({{Transliteration|mk|vampir}}), [[Turkish language|Turkish]]: {{lang|tr|Ubır, Obur, Obır}}, [[Tatar language]]: {{lang|tt|Убыр}} ({{Transliteration|tt|Ubır}}), [[Chuvash language]]: {{lang|cv|Вупăр}} ({{Transliteration|cv|Vupăr}}), [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]]: {{lang|bs|вампир}} ({{Transliteration|bs|vampir}}), [[Croatian language|Croatian]] {{lang|fr|vampir}}, [[Czech language|Czech]] and [[Slovak language|Slovak]] {{lang|cs|upír}}, [[Polish language|Polish]] {{lang|pl|wąpierz}}, and (perhaps [[East Slavic languages|East Slavic]]-influenced) {{lang|zle|upiór}}, [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] {{lang|uk|упир}} ({{Transliteration|uk|upyr}}), [[Russian language|Russian]] {{lang|ru|упырь}} ({{Transliteration|ru|upyr'}}), [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]] {{lang|be|упыр}} ({{Transliteration|be|upyr}}), from [[Old East Slavic]] {{lang|orv|упирь}} ({{Transliteration|orv|upir'}}) (many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West; these are distinct from the original local words for the creature). In [[Albanian language|Albanian]] the words {{lang|sq|lu(v)gat}} and {{lang|sq|dhampir}} are used; the latter seems to be derived from the [[Gheg Albanian]] words {{lang|aln|dham}} 'tooth' and {{lang|aln|pir}} 'to drink'.<ref>{{cite web |last=Husić |first=Geoff |title=A Vampire by Any Other Name |url=https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6213/vampire_exhibit_catalog_2010.pdf;jsessionid=5B6036D02A0A800372E52679CB932EA0?sequence=3 |access-date=21 April 2022 |archive-date=20 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220820024335/https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/6213/vampire_exhibit_catalog_2010.pdf;jsessionid=5B6036D02A0A800372E52679CB932EA0?sequence=3 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Vasmer" /> The origin of the modern word Vampire ([[Upiór]] means [[Hortdan]], Vampire or [[witch]] in [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] and [[Slavs|Slavic]] myths.) comes from the term Ubir-Upiór, the origin of the word Ubir or Upiór is based on the regions around the [[Volga|Volga (Itil) River]] and [[Pontic steppes]]. Upiór myth is through the migrations of the [[Kipchaks|Kipchak]]-[[Cuman]] people to the [[Eurasian steppes]] allegedly spread. The Bulgarian format is впир (vpir, other names: onpyr, vopir, vpir, upir, upierz).<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last1=Yaltırık |first1=Mehmet Berk |title=Turkish: Türk Kültüründe Vampirler, English translation: Vampires in Turkic Culture |last2=Sarpkaya |first2=Seçkin |publisher=Karakum Yayınevi |year=2018 |pages=43–49 |language=Turkish}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{in lang|bg}}Mladenov, Stefan (1941). Etimologičeski i pravopisen rečnik na bǎlgarskiya knižoven ezik.</ref>

Czech linguist [[Václav Machek (linguist)|Václav Machek]] proposes Slovak verb {{lang|sk|vrepiť sa}} 'stick to, thrust into', or its hypothetical anagram {{lang|sk|vperiť sa}} (in Czech, the archaic verb {{lang|cs|vpeřit}} means 'to thrust violently') as an etymological background, and thus translates {{lang|cs|upír}} as 'someone who thrusts, bites'.<ref>MACHEK, V.: Etymologický slovník jazyka českého, 5th edition, NLN, Praha 2010</ref> The term was introduced to German readers by the Polish Jesuit priest [[Gabriel Rzączyński]] in 1721.<ref name=":2"/>

The word ''vampire'' (as ''vampyre'') first appeared in English in 1732, in news reports about vampire "epidemics" in eastern Europe.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Modern Vampire and Human Identity |date=2013 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-349-35069-8 |editor-last=Mutch |editor-first=Deborah |page=3}}</ref>{{efn|1=Vampires had already been discussed in [[French literature|French]]<ref>{{cite book|first=Keir|last=Vermeir|date=January 2012|chapter=Vampires as Creatures of the Imagination: Theories of Body, Soul, and Imagination in Early Modern Vampire Tracts (1659–1755)|editor-first=Y|editor-last=Haskell|title=Diseases of the Imagination and Imaginary Disease in the Early Modern Period|publisher=[[Brepols Publishers]]|location=Tunhout, Belgium|isbn=978-2-503-52796-3}}</ref> and [[German literature]].<ref name=barber5/>}} After Austria gained control of northern [[Serbia]] and [[Oltenia]] with the [[Treaty of Passarowitz]] in 1718, officials noted the local practice of [[exhuming]] bodies and "killing vampires".<ref name="barber5">Barber, p. 5.</ref> These reports, prepared between 1725 and 1732, received widespread publicity.<ref name="barber5" /><ref name="Dauzat 1938">{{cite book |last=Dauzat |first=Albert |title=Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française |publisher=Librairie Larousse |year=1938 |location=Paris, France |language=fr |oclc=904687}}</ref>

== Folk beliefs ==
{{see also|List of vampiric creatures in folklore}}
The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}} Cultures such as the [[Mesopotamia]]ns, [[Hebrews]], [[Ancient Greeks]], [[Meitei people|Manipuri]] and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] had tales of [[demon]]s and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}} Despite the occurrence of vampiric creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century [[southeastern Europe]],<ref name="SU223">{{cite book |first1=Alain |last1=Silver |first2=James |last2=Ursini |date=1997 |title=The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Interview with the Vampire |pages=22–23 |location=New York City |publisher=[[Limelight Editions]] |isbn=978-0-87910-395-8}}</ref> when [[oral culture|verbal traditions]] of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are [[revenant]]s of evil beings, [[suicide]] victims, or [[witches]], but they can also be created by a [[malevolent spirit]] [[demonic possession|possessing]] a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even [[public execution]]s of people believed to be vampires.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}}

=== Description and common attributes ===
[[File:Edvard Munch - Vampire (1895) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Love and Pain (Munch)|Vampire]]'' (1895) by [[Edvard Munch]]|alt=A painting of a woman with red hair.]]
It is difficult to make a single, definitive description of the folkloric vampire, though there are several elements common to many European legends. Vampires were usually reported as bloated in appearance, and ruddy, purplish, or dark in colour; these characteristics were often attributed to the recent drinking of blood, which was often seen seeping from the mouth and nose when one was seen in its shroud or coffin, and its left eye was often open.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=41–42}} It would be clad in the linen shroud it was buried in, and its teeth, hair, and nails may have grown somewhat, though in general fangs were not a feature.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=2}} Chewing sounds were reported emanating from graves.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wh9wDwAAQBAJ&dq=It+is+an+opinion+widely+spread+in+Germany%2C+that+certain+dead+persons+chew+in+their+graves%2C+and+devour+whatever+may+be+close+to+them%3B+that+they+are+even+heard+to+eat+like+pigs%2C+with+a+certain+low+cry%2C+and+as+if+growling+and+grunting.&pg=PA460 |title=The Phantom World |date=2018 |orig-date=1751 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3-7340-3275-2 |language=en}}</ref>

==== Creating vampires ====
[[File:Ernst6-thumb.gif|thumb|upright|Illustration of a vampire from [[Max Ernst]]'s ''[[Une Semaine de Bonté]]'' (1934)|alt=An image of a woman kissing a man with wings.]]

The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In [[Slavic folklore|Slavic]] and [[Chinese folklore|Chinese traditions]], any corpse that was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=33}} A body with a wound that had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In [[Russian folklore]], vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] while they were alive.<ref name="Strange & Amazing">{{cite book |author=Reader's Digest Association |title=The Reader's Digest Book of strange stories, amazing facts: stories that are bizarre, unusual, odd, astonishing, incredible&nbsp;... but true |year=1988 |publisher=[[Reader's Digest]] |location=New York City |isbn=978-0-949819-89-5 |pages=432–433 |chapter=Vampires Galore!}}</ref>

In [[Albanian folklore]], the [[dhampir]] is the hybrid child of the {{Transliteration|sq|[[karkanxholl]]}} (a [[lycanthropic]] creature with an iron [[Chain mail|mail]] shirt) or the {{Transliteration|sq|[[lugat]]}} (a water-dwelling [[ghost]] or monster). The dhampir sprung of a ''karkanxholl'' has the unique ability to discern the ''karkanxholl''; from this derives the expression ''the dhampir knows the lugat''. The lugat cannot be seen, he can only be killed by the dhampir, who themself is usually the son of a lugat. In different regions, animals can be revenants as lugats; also, living people during their sleep. {{Transliteration|sq|Dhampiraj}} is also an Albanian surname.<ref>{{cite book |last=Albanologjike |first=Gjurmime |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5biAAAAMAAJ&q=dhampiri |title=Folklor dhe etnologji |date=1985 |volume=15 |pages=58–148 |language=sq |access-date=12 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160519060955/https://books.google.com/books?id=O5biAAAAMAAJ&q=dhampiri |archive-date=19 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Prevention ====
Cultural practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such as [[scythe]]s or [[sickle]]s,{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=50–51}} near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method resembles the [[Ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] practice of placing an [[Charon's obol|obolus in the corpse's mouth]] to pay the toll to cross the [[River Styx]] in the underworld. The coin may have also been intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body, and this may have influenced later vampire folklore. This tradition persisted in modern Greek folklore about the ''[[vrykolakas]]'', in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "[[Jesus Christ]] conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body from becoming a vampire.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lawson |first=John Cuthbert |title=Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion |url=https://archive.org/details/moderngreekfolkl00laws |pages=[https://archive.org/details/moderngreekfolkl00laws/page/405 405]–406 |year=1910 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge, England |oclc=1465746 |isbn=978-0-524-02024-1}}</ref>

Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the [[patellar ligament|tendons at the knees]] or placing [[poppy]] seeds, [[millet]], or sand on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains,{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=49}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Abbott |first=George |year=1903 |title=Macedonian Folklore |url=https://archive.org/details/macedonianfolkl01abbogoog/page/n226/mode/2up |page=219 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]}}</ref> indicating an association of vampires with [[arithmomania]]. Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampiric being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain; this is a theme encountered in [[Folklore of India|myths from the Indian subcontinent]], as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings.<ref name=Jaramillo>{{cite book |last=Jaramillo Londoño |first=Agustín |title=Testamento del paisa |trans-title=Testament of the paisa |year=1986 |orig-year=1967 |edition=7th |publisher=Susaeta Ediciones |location=Medellín |isbn=978-958-95125-0-0 |language=es}}</ref>

==== Identifying vampires ====
Many rituals were used to identify a vampire. One method of finding a vampire's grave involved leading a virgin boy through a graveyard or church grounds on a virgin stallion—the horse would supposedly balk at the grave in question.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/> Generally a black horse was required, though in Albania it should be white.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=68–69}} Holes appearing in the earth over a grave were taken as a sign of vampirism.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=125}}

Corpses thought to be vampires were generally described as having a healthier appearance than expected, plump and showing little or no signs of decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=109}} In some cases, when suspected graves were opened, villagers even described the corpse as having fresh blood from a victim all over its face.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=114–115}} Evidence that a vampire was active in a given locality included death of cattle, sheep, relatives or neighbours. Folkloric vampires could also make their presence felt by engaging in minor [[poltergeist]]-styled activity, such as hurling stones on roofs or moving household objects,{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=96}} and [[mare (folklore)|pressing]] on people in their sleep.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=168–169}}

==== Protection ====
{{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=240
| image1 = GarlicBasket.jpg|width1=1600|height1=1200
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| footer = Garlic, Bibles, crucifixes, rosaries, holy water, and mirrors have all been seen in various folkloric traditions as [[Apotropaic magic|means of warding against]] or identifying vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=6}}<ref name="Burkhardt221"/>
}}

[[Apotropaic magic|Apotropaics]]—items able to ward off [[revenant]]s—are common in vampire folklore. [[Garlic]] is a common example;{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=63}} a branch of [[rosa acicularis|wild rose]] and [[Crataegus monogyna|hawthorn]] are sometimes associated with causing harm to vampires, and in Europe, [[mustard seed]]s would be sprinkled on the roof of a house to keep them away.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mappin|first=Jenni|title=Didjaknow: Truly Amazing & Crazy Facts About&nbsp;... Everything|year=2003|publisher=Pancake|location=Australia|isbn=978-0-330-40171-5|page=50}}</ref> Other apotropaics include sacred items, such as [[crucifix]], [[rosary]], or [[holy water]]. Some folklore also states that vampires are unable to walk on [[consecration|consecrated ground]], such as that of churches or temples, or cross running water.<ref name="Burkhardt221">{{cite book |last=Burkhardt |first=Dagmar |title=Beiträge zur Südosteuropa-Forschung: Anlässlich des I. Internationalen Balkanologenkongresses in Sofia 26. VIII.-1. IX. 1966 |chapter=Vampirglaube und Vampirsage auf dem Balkan |trans-chapter=Vampire belief and vampire legend in the Balkans |year=1966 |publisher=Rudolf Trofenik |location=Munich |oclc=1475919 |language=de |page=221}}</ref>

Although not traditionally regarded as an apotropaic, [[mirror]]s have been used to ward off vampires when placed, facing outwards, on a door (in some cultures, vampires do not have a reflection and sometimes do not cast a shadow, perhaps as a manifestation of the vampire's lack of a [[soul]] or their weakness to silver).<ref name=EoOc>{{cite book |last=Spence |first=Lewis |title=An Encyclopaedia of Occultism |year=1960 |publisher=University Books |location=New Hyde Parks |oclc=3417655 |isbn=978-0-486-42613-6}}</ref> This attribute is not universal (the Greek ''vrykolakas/tympanios'' was capable of both reflection and shadow), but was used by Bram Stoker in ''Dracula'' and has remained popular with subsequent authors and filmmakers.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=25}}

Some traditions also hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner; after the first invitation they can come and go as they please.<ref name=EoOc/> Though folkloric vampires were believed to be more active at night, they were not generally considered vulnerable to [[sunlight]].{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=25}}

Reports in 1693 and 1694 concerning citings of vampires in Poland and Russia claimed that when a vampire's grave was recognized, eating bread baked with its blood mixed into the flour,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1GqcY9ow3QC&dq=There+proceeds+from+his+body+a+great+quantity+of+blood%2C+which+some+mix+up+with+flour+to+make+bread+of%3B+and+that+bread+eaten+in+ordinary+protects+them+from+being+tormented+by+the+spirit%2C+which+returns+no+more.&pg=PA273 |title=The Phantom World: The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, &c., &c |date=1850 |publisher=A. Hart |page=273}}</ref> or simply drinking it, granted the possibility of protection. Other stories (primarily the [[Arnold Paole]] case) claimed the eating of dirt from the vampire's grave would have the same effect.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calmet |first=Augustin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1GqcY9ow3QC&dq=but+that+he+had+found+means+to+cure+himself+by+eating+earth+from+the+grave+of+the+vampire%2C&pg=PA265 |title=The Phantom World: The History and Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, &c., &c |date=1850 |publisher=A. Hart |page=265}}</ref>

==== Methods of destruction ====
[[File:Norre naeraa 600px.jpg|thumb|upright|right|A runestone with an inscription to keep the deceased in its grave<ref>{{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Stephen A. |title=Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2011 |pages=22–23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=shCXJLB6mDAC |isbn=978-0-8122-4290-4 |access-date=5 February 2018 |archive-date=7 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220307213753/https://books.google.com/books?id=shCXJLB6mDAC |url-status=live }}</ref>|alt=See caption]]
Methods of destroying suspected vampires varied, with [[impalement|staking]] the most commonly cited method, particularly in South Slavic cultures.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=73}} [[Ash tree|Ash]] was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states,<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Alseikaite-Gimbutiene |first=Marija |author-link=Marija Gimbutas |title=Die Bestattung in Litauen in der vorgeschichtlichen Zeit |trans-title=Burial in Lithuania in prehistoric times |year=1946 |location=Tübingen |oclc=1059867 |language=de}}</ref>{{pn|date=October 2025}}  or [[Crataegus monogyna|hawthorn]] in Serbia,<ref name="Vuk59">{{cite journal |last=Vukanović |first=T. P. |year=1959 |title=The Vampire |journal=Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society |volume=38 |pages=111–18}}</ref> with a record of [[oak]] in [[Silesia]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Klapper |first=Joseph |title=Die schlesischen Geschichten von den schädingenden Toten |trans-title=The Silesian stories of the damaging dead |journal=Mitteilungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde |volume=11 |pages=58–93 |year=1909 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2016|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|page=7|date=30 December 2015|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref> [[Populus tremula|Aspen]] was also used for stakes, as it was believed that [[Christ's cross]] was made from aspen (aspen branches on the graves of purported vampires were also believed to prevent their risings at night).<ref>{{cite book |first=Theresa |last=Cheung |title=The Element Encyclopedia of Vampires |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |year=2013 |page=35 |isbn=978-0-00-752473-0}}</ref> Potential vampires were most often staked through the heart, though the mouth was targeted in Russia and northern Germany<ref>{{cite book |last=Löwenstimm |first=A. |title=Aberglaube und Stafrecht |trans-title=Superstition and criminal law |page=99 |year=1897 |publisher=Berlin |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bachtold-Staubli |first=H. |title=Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens |trans-title=Dictionary of German Superstition |year=1934–1935 |publisher=Berlin |language=de}}</ref>{{pn|date=October 2025}} and the stomach in north-eastern Serbia.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Filipovic |first=Milenko |year=1962 |title=Die Leichenverbrennung bei den Südslaven |trans-title=The cremation of corpses among the South Slavs |journal=Wiener Völkerkundliche Mitteilungen |volume=10 |pages=61–71 |language=de}}</ref> Piercing the skin of the chest was a way of "deflating" the bloated vampire. This is similar to a practice of "[[anti-vampire burial]]": burying sharp objects, such as sickles, with the corpse, so that they may penetrate the skin if the body bloats sufficiently while transforming into a revenant.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=158}}

[[Decapitation]] was the preferred method in German and western Slavic areas, with the head buried between the feet, behind the [[buttocks]] or away from the body.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=73}} This act was seen as a way of hastening the departure of the soul, which in some cultures was said to linger in the corpse. The vampire's head, body, or clothes could also be spiked and pinned to the earth to prevent rising.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=157}}

[[File:Vampire skeleton of Sozopol in Sofia PD 2012 06.JPG|thumb|left|800-year-old skeleton found in Bulgaria stabbed through the chest with an iron rod<ref name="bulg"/>|alt=See caption]]
[[Romani people]] drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. In a 16th-century burial near [[Venice]], a brick forced into the mouth of a female corpse has been interpreted as a vampire-slaying ritual by the archaeologists who discovered it in 2006.<ref>Reported by Ariel David, "Italy dig unearths female 'vampire' in Venice", 13 March 2009, [[Associated Press]] via [[Yahoo! News]], [https://archive.today/20211014180118/https://www.webcitation.org/5fFdDvCQQ?url=http://fe8.story.media.ac4.yahoo.com/news/us/story/ap/20090313/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_vampire_of_venice/print archived]; also by Reuters, published under the headline "Researchers find remains that support medieval 'vampire'" in ''The Australian'', 13 March 2009, [https://web.archive.org/web/20090317093300/http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25180518-30417,00.html archived] with photo (scroll down).</ref> In [[Bulgaria]], over 100 skeletons with metal objects, such as [[plough]] bits, embedded in the torso have been discovered.<ref name="bulg">{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106 | title='Vampire' skeletons found in Bulgaria near Black Sea | work=BBC News | date=6 June 2012 | access-date=22 October 2019 | archive-date=24 April 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424154013/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106 | url-status=live }}</ref>

Further measures included pouring boiling water over the grave or complete incineration of the body. In Southeastern Europe, a vampire could also be killed by being shot or drowned, by repeating the funeral service, by sprinkling [[holy water]] on the body, or by [[exorcism]]. In Romania, garlic could be placed in the mouth, and as recently as the 19th century, the precaution of shooting a bullet through the [[coffin]] was taken. For resistant cases, the body was [[dismembered]] and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and administered to family members as a cure. In [[Old Saxony|Saxon regions]] of Germany, a [[lemon]] was placed in the mouth of suspected vampires.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=154}}

=== Ancient beliefs ===
[[File:Lilith (John Collier painting).jpg|thumb|left|upright|''[[Lilith (painting)|Lilith]]'', 1887 by [[John Collier (painter)|John Collier]]. Stories of Lilith depict her as a demon drinking blood.|alt=A painting of a naked woman with a snake wrapped around her.]]
Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McNally|first1=Raymond T.|last2=Florescu|first2=Radu|title=In Search of Dracula|year=1994|publisher=[[Houghton Mifflin]]|location=Boston, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0-395-65783-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/insearchofdracul00mcna/page/117 117]|url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofdracul00mcna/page/117}}</ref> The term ''vampire'' did not exist in ancient times. [[Blood drinking]] and similar activities were attributed to [[demon]]s or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the [[devil]] was considered synonymous with the vampire.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=24–25}} Almost every culture associates blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, or in some cases a deity. In India tales of [[vetala|vetālas]], ghoulish beings that inhabit corpses, have been compiled in the ''[[Baital Pachisi|Baitāl Pacīsī]]''; a prominent story in the ''[[Kathāsaritsāgara]]'' tells of King [[Vikramāditya]] and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one.<ref>{{cite book|last=Burton|first=Sir Richard R.|author-link=Richard Francis Burton|title=Vikram and The Vampire: Classic Hindu Tales of Adventure, Magic, and Romance|orig-year=1870|year=1893|publisher=Tylston and Edwards|location=London|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/vav/vav00.htm|access-date=28 September 2007|isbn=978-0-89281-475-6|archive-date=7 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107164840/http://sacred-texts.com/goth/vav/vav00.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> ''[[Piśāca]]'', the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=200}}

The [[Persian Empire|Persians]] were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated [[pottery]] shards.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|p=14}} Ancient [[Babylonia]] and [[Assyria]] had tales of the mythical [[Lilith#Mesopotamian religions|Lilitu]],<ref name="Hurwitz"/> synonymous with and giving rise to [[Lilith]] ([[Hebrew]] לילית) and her daughters the [[Lilu (mythology)|Lilu]] from [[Demonology|Hebrew demonology]]. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies,<ref name="Hurwitz">{{cite book |last=Hurwitz |first=Siegmund |others=Gela Jacobson (trans.) |pages=39–51 |year=1992 |orig-year=1980 |title=Lilith, the First Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine |location=Einsiedeln, Switzerland |isbn=978-3-85630-522-2 |publisher=Daimon Verlag}}</ref> and [[estries]], female shapeshifting, blood-drinking demons, were said to roam the night among the population, seeking victims. According to ''[[Sefer Hasidim]]'', estries were creatures created in the twilight hours before [[Genesis creation narrative#Seventh day: divine rest|God rested]]. An injured estrie could be healed by eating bread and salt given to her by her attacker.<ref>{{cite web|last=Shael|first=Rabbi|url=https://shaelsiegel.blogspot.com/2009/06/vampires-einstein-and-jewish-folklore.html|title=Rabbi Shael Speaks&nbsp;... Tachles: Vampires, Einstein and Jewish Folklore|website=Shaelsiegel.blogspot.com|date=1 June 2009|access-date=5 December 2010|archive-date=5 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005071949/http://shaelsiegel.blogspot.com/2009/06/vampires-einstein-and-jewish-folklore.html|url-status=live}}</ref><!-- covers previous two sentences -->

[[Greco-Roman mythology]] described the [[Empusa]]e,{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=189–190}} the [[Lamia]],{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=205–206}} the [[Mormo]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html |title=Philostr Vit. Apoll. iv. 25; Suid. s. v. |access-date=24 October 2020 |archive-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027063134/https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and the [[striges]]. Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess [[Hecate]] and was described as a demonic, [[bronze]]-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood.{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=189–190}} The Lamia preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood, as did the ''gelloudes'' or [[Gello]].{{sfn|Graves|1990|pp=205–206}} Like the Lamia, the ''striges'' feasted on children, but also preyed on adults. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds in general, and were later incorporated into Roman mythology as ''strix'', a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Oliphant|first=Samuel Grant|date= 1913|title=The Story of the Strix: Ancient|journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association|volume=44|pages=133–49|doi=10.2307/282549|issn=0065-9711|jstor=282549}}</ref>

In [[Turkic mythology]], an ''ubır'' is a vampiric creature characterized by various regional depictions. According to legends, individuals heavily steeped in sin and practitioners of [[black magic]] transform into ubırs upon their death, taking on a bestial form within their graves. Ubırs possess the ability to shape-shift, assuming the forms of both humans and various animals. Furthermore, they can seize the soul of a living being and exert control over its body. Someone inhabited by a vampire constantly experiences hunger, becoming increasingly aggressive when unable to find sustenance, ultimately resorting to drinking human blood.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2023-08-25 |title=Ubır: A Vampire-Like Creature in Turkic Mythology and Folk Beliefs |url=https://ulukayin.org/ubir-english/ |access-date=2024-01-26 |website=ULUKAYIN English |language=en-US |archive-date=26 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240126093031/https://ulukayin.org/ubir-english/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Medieval and later European folklore ===
{{main|Vampire folklore by region}}
[[File:Execution of the Vampire by René de Moraine.png|alt=See caption|thumb|Lithograph showing townsfolk burning the exhumed skeleton of an alleged vampire]]
Many myths surrounding vampires originated during the [[medieval period]]. With the arrival of [[Christianity]] in [[Greece]], and other parts of [[Europe]], the vampire "began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics."<ref name="Hansen2011">{{cite book|author=Regina Hansen|title=Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery|date=3 May 2011|publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]|language=English|isbn=978-0786464746|quote=After the arrival of Christianity in Greece, however, the vampire began to take on decidedly Christian characteristics. The vampire was now no longer a demon from a supernatural realm but a reanimated corpse, a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had arisen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers. The transformation of vampire myths to include Christian elements happened throughout Europe; as various regions converted to Christianity, their vampires also became "Christianized" (Beresford 42, 44–51).}}</ref> As various regions of the continent [[converted to Christianity]], the vampire was viewed as "a dead person who retained a semblance of life and could leave its grave-much in the same way that Jesus had risen after His death and burial and appeared before His followers."<ref name="Hansen2011"/> In the [[Middle Ages]], the [[Christian Church]]es reinterpreted vampires from their previous folk existence into minions of [[Satan]], and used an [[allegory]] to communicate a doctrine to [[Christians]]: "Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself."<ref name="Joshi2010">{{cite book|author= S. T. Joshi=|title=Encyclopædia of the Vampire: The Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture|date=4 November 2010|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|language=English|isbn=978-0313378331|quote=The church had by this time co-opted vampires from their previous folk existence and reinterpreted them as minions of the Christian devil, so it was an easy enough analogy to draw: Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author= Regina Hansen|title=Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film: Essays on Belief, Spectacle, Ritual and Imagery|date=3 May 2011|publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]|language=English|isbn=978-0786464746|quote=Perhaps the strongest link between vampires and Christianity is the importance of blood in the Christian, especially the Roman Catholic, tradition. Just as the vampire must consume blood in order to continue its unnaturally eternal life, so Christians must consume the blood of Jesus to be granted salvation and life after death.}}</ref> The interpretation of vampires under the Christian Churches established connotations that are still associated in the vampire genre today.<ref name="LarssonSteiner2011">{{cite book|author= Mariah Larsson, Ann Steiner|title=Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media and a Contemporary Cultural Experience|date=1 December 2011|publisher=Nordic Academic Press|language=English|isbn=978-9185509638|quote=The fear of vampirism embodied in these early conceptions was used by the Church in order to impose its fundamental values on soviety. The Church therefore changed some of the typical vampire traits and gave them more religious connotations that are still very much in evidence in the vampire genre today. For example, the destruction of the vampire became a religious rite; crucifixes and holy water bestowed protection; and drinking the blood of a sinner strengthened the power of the Devil, while taking Communion afforded the communicant protection. Besides their roots in folklore and the influence of Christianity, vampire traits were shaped in the development of vampire literature.}}</ref> For example, the "ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association."<ref name="Stevenson2003">{{cite book|author= Gregory Stevenson|title=Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer|year=2003|publisher=[[University Press of America]]|language=English|isbn=0761828338|quote=If so, then the ability of the cross to hurt and ward off vampires is distinctly due to its Christian association.}}</ref><ref name="Holte1997">{{cite book|author= James Craig Holte|title=Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations|year=1997|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]]|language=English|isbn=0313292159|quote=Christian belief played an important part in the development of vampire lore. According to Montague Summers, who describes the Christian position in detail in ''The Vampire: His Kith and Kin'', Christianity accepts the existence of vampires and sees the power of the devil behind their creation. Since vampires are servants of Satan, the Church has power over them. Thus vampires flee from and can be destroyed by the crucifix, relics of saints, the sign of the cross, holy water, and above all, a consecrated host.}}</ref>

The 12th-century British historians and chroniclers [[Walter Map]] and [[William of Newburgh]] recorded accounts of revenants,{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}}<ref>{{cite web|author=William of Newburgh|author2=Paul Halsall|author-link=William of Newburgh|title=Book 5, Chapter 22–24|website=Historia rerum Anglicarum|publisher=Fordham University|year=2000|access-date=16 October 2007|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.html|archive-date=19 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219150159/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/williamofnewburgh-five.html|url-status=live}}</ref> though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant.{{sfn|Jones|1931|p=121}} The [[Scandinavian folklore|Old Norse]] ''[[draugr]]'' is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to vampires.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Ármann | last=Jakobsson |year=2009 | title=The Fearless Vampire Killers: A Note about the Icelandic ''Draugr'' and Demonic Contamination in ''Grettis Saga'' | journal=Folklore | issue=120 | page=309}}</ref> Vampiric beings were rarely written about in Jewish literature; the 16th-century rabbi [[David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra]] (Radbaz) wrote of an uncharitable old woman whose body was unguarded and unburied for three days after she died and rose as a vampiric entity, killing hundreds of people. He linked this event to the lack of a ''[[shemira|shmirah]]'' (guarding) after death as the corpse could be a vessel for evil spirits.<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law|last1=Epstein|first1=Saul|last2=Robinson|first2=Sara Libby|journal=Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural|year=2012|volume=1|issue=2|pages=232–51|doi=10.5325/preternature.1.2.0232|issn=2161-2188}}</ref>

In 1645, the Greek librarian of the Vatican, [[Leo Allatius]], produced the first methodological description of the Balkan beliefs in vampires (Greek: vrykolakas) in his work ''De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus'' ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks").<ref>{{cite book| last = Melton| first= J. Gordon | title= The Vampire Book: The encyclopedia of the Undead | pages=9–10 | isbn=978-1-57859-350-7| publisher= Visible Ink Press | year= 2010}}</ref> Vampires properly originating in folklore were widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}} An early recording of the time came from the region of [[Istria]] in modern [[Croatia]], in 1672; Local reports described a panic among the villagers inspired by the belief that [[Jure Grando]] had become a vampire after dying in 1656, drinking blood from victims and sexually harassing his widow. The village leader ordered a stake to be driven through his heart. Later, his corpse was also beheaded.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bohn |first1=Thomas M. |title=The Vampire: Origins of a European Myth |date=2019 |publisher=Berghahn Books |location=Cologne |isbn=978-1-78920-293-9 |pages=47–49}}</ref><!-- cites previous 3 sentences -->

[[File:Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern 002.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=Première page du ''Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern'' (1734), ouvrage de vampirologie de Michael Ranft|Title page of ''treatise on the chewing and smacking of the dead in graves'' (1734), a book on vampirology by [[Michael Ranft]]]]
From 1679, Philippe Rohr devotes an essay to the dead who chew their shrouds in their graves, a subject resumed by Otto in 1732, and then by [[Michael Ranft]] in 1734. The subject was based on the observation that when digging up graves, it was discovered that some corpses had at some point either devoured the interior fabric of their coffin or their own limbs.<ref name=marigny93>{{cite book|last1=Marigny|first1=Jean|title=Sang pour Sang, Le Réveil des Vampires, Gallimard, coll|date=1993|isbn=978-2-07-053203-2|pages=50–52|publisher=Gallimard }}</ref> Ranft described in his treatise of a tradition in some parts of Germany, that to prevent the dead from masticating they placed a mound of dirt under their chin in the coffin, placed a piece of money and a stone in the mouth, or tied a handkerchief tightly around the throat.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2015|date=1751|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|pages=442–443|title-link=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref> In 1732 an anonymous writer writing as "the doctor Weimar" discusses the non-putrefaction of these creatures, from a theological point of view.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lecouteux|first1=Claude|title=Historie des vampires: Autopsie d'un mythe|date=1993|publisher=Imago|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-911416-29-3|pages=9–10}}</ref> In 1733, Johann Christoph Harenberg wrote a general treatise on vampirism and the [[Marquis d'Argens]] cites local cases. Theologians and clergymen also address the topic.<ref name=marigny93/>

Some theological disputes arose. The non-decay of vampires' bodies could recall the incorruption of the bodies of the saints of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Indeed, vampires were traditionally considered highly problematic within Christianity, as their apparent immortal existence ran against the Christian belief that all true believers may look forward to an eternal existence with body and soul as they were [[resurrection|resurrected]], but only at the end of time when Jesus [[Last Judgment|returns to judge the living and the dead]]. Those who are resurrected as immortal before this are thus in no way part of the divine plan of salvation. The imperfect state of the vampire body and how they, in spite of their immortal nature, still needed to feed of the blood of the living, further reflected the problematic aspect of the vampires. Contrary to how the incorruptible saints foreshadowed the immortality promised all true Christians at the end of time, the immortality of the undead vampires was thus not a sign of salvation, but of perdition.<ref name=Endsjø>{{cite book|last=Endsjø|first=Dag Øistein|title=Flesh and Bones Forever: A History of Immortality|year=2023|publisher=Apocryphile Press|location=Hannacroix|isbn=978-1-958061-36-7|pages=178–179}}</ref> The unholy dimension of vampirism may also be reflected in how, in parts of Russia, the very word [[heretic]], ''eretik'', was synonymous with a vampire. Whoever denied God or his commandments became an ''eretik'' after his death, the improperly immortal figure that wandered the night in search of people to feed on.<ref>Felix J. Oinas 1978. "Heretics as vampires and demons in Russia" in The Slavic and East European Journal 22:4 (1978):433</ref> A paragraph on vampires was included in the second edition (1749) of ''De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione'', On the [[beatification]] of the servants of God and on [[canonization]] of the blessed, written by Prospero Lambertini ([[Pope Benedict XIV]]).<ref>{{cite book|author=Lambertini, P.|year=1749|title=De servorum Dei beatificatione et sanctorum canonizatione|volume=Pars prima|chapter= XXXI|pages=323–24}}</ref> In his opinion, while the [[incorruptibility|incorruption]] of the bodies of saints was the effect of a divine intervention, all the phenomena attributed to vampires were purely natural or the fruit of "imagination, terror and fear". In other words, vampires did not exist.<ref>{{cite journal|author=de Ceglia F.P.|title=The Archbishop's Vampires. Giuseppe Davanzati's Dissertation and the Reaction of Scientific Italian Catholicism to the Moravian Events|journal= Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences|volume=61|issue=166/167|year=2011|pages=487–510|doi=10.1484/J.ARIHS.5.101493}}</ref>

====18th-century vampire controversy====
[[File:Dom Augustin Calmet.jpeg|thumb|upright|right|[[Dom Augustine Calmet]] (1750)]]
In the early 18th century, despite the decline of many popular folkloric beliefs during the [[Age of Enlightenment]], there was a dramatic increase in the popular belief in vampires, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout much of Europe.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}} The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in [[East Prussia]] in 1721 and in the [[Habsburg monarchy]] from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. The first infamous vampire case involved the corpses of [[Petar Blagojević]] from Serbia. Blagojević was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Blagojević supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}}

In the second case, [[Miloš Čečar]], an ex-soldier-turned-farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while [[hay]]ing. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area; it was widely believed that Miloš had returned to prey on the neighbours.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283318599|title=Vampire Evolution|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|date=2003|journal=METAphor|access-date=20 November 2015|issue=3|page=20|archive-date=12 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210112222202/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283318599_Vampire_Evolution|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=15–21}}

The Blagojević and Čečar incidents were well-documented. Government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=15–21}} The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}} Even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=5–9}}

The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "vampire controversy,"<ref name="Melton1994">{{cite encyclopedia |entry=Vampire |title=The Vampire Book |author=J. Gordon Melton |publisher=Visible Ink Press |year=1994 |page=630 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampirebookencyc0000melt/page/630 |quote=the vampire controversy of the 1730s [p.467] ... the eighteenth-century vampire controversy [p. 630]}}</ref> continued for a generation. At least sixteen contemporary treatises discussed the theological and philosophical implications of the vampire epidemic.<ref name="Frayling1978">{{cite book |chapter=From the orang-utan to the vampire: towards an anthropology of Rousseau |title=Rousseau after two hundred years (Proceedings of the Cambridge Bicentennial Colloqium) |author1=Christopher Frayling |author2=Robert Wokler |editor=R. A. Leigh |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Bristol |year=1982 |page=122 |quote=For details of the sixteen formal treatises and dissertations that discussed the implications of the 1731–32 'epidemic' (most of them written by German doctors and theologians), see Tony Faivre, ''Les Vampires'' (Paris, 1962), pp. 154–9; Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker, ''Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern'' (München, 1973), pp. 519–23; and Frayling's introduction to ''The Vampyre'' (London, 1978), pp. 31–4.}}</ref>
[[Dom Augustine Calmet]], a French theologian and scholar, published a comprehensive treatise in 1751 titled ''[[Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants]]'' which investigated and analysed the evidence for vampirism.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}}{{efn|1=Calmet conducted extensive research and amassed judicial reports of vampiric incidents and extensively researched theological and mythological accounts as well, using the scientific method in his analysis to come up with methods for determining the validity for cases of this nature. As he stated in his treatise:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustin|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. Translated by Rev Henry Christmas & Brett Warren. 2015|date=1751|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|pages=303–304|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref>

<blockquote>They see, it is said, men who have been dead for several months, come back to earth, talk, walk, infest villages, ill use both men and beasts, suck the blood of their near relations, make them ill, and finally cause their death; so that people can only save themselves from their dangerous visits and their hauntings by exhuming them, impaling them, cutting off their heads, tearing out the heart, or burning them. These revenants are called by the name of oupires or vampires, that is to say, [[leech]]es; and such particulars are related of them, so singular, so detailed, and invested with such probable circumstances and such judicial information, that one can hardly refuse to credit the belief which is held in those countries, that these revenants come out of their tombs and produce those effects which are proclaimed of them.</blockquote>}} Numerous readers, including both [[Voltaire]] (critical) and numerous [[demonologist]]s (supportive), interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}}{{efn|1=In the ''[[Philosophical Dictionary]],'' Voltaire wrote:<ref>{{cite book|title=Philosophical Dictionary|author=Voltaire|year=1984|orig-year=1764|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-14-044257-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/philosophicaldic0000volt}}</ref>

{{blockquote|These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into [[tuberculosis|consumption]]; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, [[Silesia]], [[Moravia]], Austria, and [[Alsace-Lorraine|Lorraine]], that the dead made this good cheer.}} }}

The controversy in Austria ceased when Empress [[Maria Theresa]] sent her personal physician, [[Gerard van Swieten]], to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. Van Swieten concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and the desecration of bodies, thus ending the vampire epidemic. Other European countries followed suit. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local folklore.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=101-106}}

=== Non-European beliefs ===
Beings having many of the attributes of European vampires appear in the folklore of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and India. Classified as vampires, all share the thirst for blood.<ref name=attwater>{{cite journal|author=Atwater, Cheryl|year=2000|title=Living in Death: The Evolution of Modern Vampirism|journal=Anthropology of Consciousness|volume=11|issue=1–2|pages=70–77|doi=10.1525/ac.2000.11.1-2.70}}</ref>

==== Africa ====
Various regions of Africa have folktales featuring beings with vampiric abilities: in [[West Africa]] the [[Ashanti people]] tell of the iron-toothed and tree-dwelling ''[[asanbosam]]'',{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=11}} and the [[Ewe people]] of the ''[[adze (folklore)|adze]],'' which can take the form of a [[firefly]] and hunts children.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=2}} The eastern [[Cape Peninsula|Cape]] region has the ''[[impundulu]],'' which can take the form of a large taloned bird and can summon thunder and lightning, and the [[Betsileo]] people of [[Madagascar]] tell of the ''ramanga'', an outlaw or living vampire who drinks the blood and eats the nail clippings of nobles.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=219}} In colonial East Africa, rumors circulated to the effect that employees of the state such as firemen and nurses were vampires, known in Swahili as ''wazimamoto''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=White|first=Luise|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/9780520922297|title=Speaking with Vampires|date=31 December 2000|publisher=University of California Press|doi=10.1525/9780520922297|isbn=978-0-520-92229-7|s2cid=258526552 |access-date=15 December 2020|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715155012/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520922297/html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Americas ====
The ''[[Rougarou]]'' is an example of how a vampire belief can result from a combination of beliefs, here a mixture of French and African Vodu or [[West African Vodun|voodoo]]. The term ''Rougarou'' possibly comes from the French {{lang|fr|[[loup-garou]]}} (meaning "werewolf") and is common in the [[culture of Mauritius]]. The stories of the ''Rougarou'' are widespread through the [[Caribbean Islands]] and [[Louisiana]] in the United States.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=162–163}} Similar female monsters are the ''[[Soucouyant]]'' of [[Trinidad]], and the ''[[Tunda]]'' and ''[[Patasola]]'' of [[Colombian folklore]], while the [[Mapuche]] of southern [[Chile]] have the bloodsucking snake known as the ''[[Peuchen]]''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Martinez Vilches, Oscar|title=Chiloe Misterioso: Turismo, Mitologia Chilota, leyendas|year=1992|page=179|publisher=Ediciones de la Voz de Chiloe|location=Chile|oclc=33852127|language=es}}</ref> ''[[Aloe vera]]'' hung backwards behind or near a door was thought to ward off vampiric beings in South American folklore.<ref name=Jaramillo/> [[Aztec mythology]] described tales of the [[Cihuateteo]], skull-faced spirits of those who died in childbirth who stole children and entered into sexual liaisons with the living, driving them mad.<ref name="Strange & Amazing"/>

During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was [[New England vampire panic|widespread in parts of New England]], particularly in [[Rhode Island]] and eastern [[Connecticut]]. There are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family, although the term "vampire" was never used to describe the dead. The deadly disease [[tuberculosis]], or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member who had died of consumption themselves.<ref name=sledzik>{{cite journal|last=Sledzik|first=Paul S.|author2=Nicholas Bellantoni|year=1994|title=Bioarcheological and biocultural evidence for the New England vampire folk belief|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=94|issue=2|pages=269–274|doi=10.1002/ajpa.1330940210 |pmid=8085617 |bibcode=1994AJPA...94..269S }}</ref> The most famous, and most recently recorded, case of suspected vampirism is that of nineteen-year-old [[Mercy Brown]], who died in [[Exeter, Rhode Island]], in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death, cut out her heart and burned it to ashes.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Vampires and Death in New England, 1784 to 1892|author=Bell, Michael E.|journal=Anthropology and Humanism|year=2006|volume=31|issue=2|pages=124–40|doi=10.1525/ahu.2006.31.2.124}}</ref>

[[Sarah Roberts (subject of vampire legend)|Sarah Roberts]] (1872–1913) was an Englishwoman who died and was buried in [[Pisco, Peru]]. After her death, a legend evolved that she was a vampire and bride of Dracula. On June 9, 1993, the 80th anniversary of her death, locals in Pisco feared she would come back to life and take her revenge.<ref name="lanc">{{cite news |last1=Henfield |first1=Sally |title=The 'Peruvian vampire' – from East Lancashire |url=https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/4385196.peruvian-vampire---east-lancashire/ |access-date=3 October 2024 |work=Lancashire Telegraph |date=21 May 2009}}</ref>

==== Asia ====
Vampires have appeared in [[Japanese cinema]] since the late 1950s; the folklore behind it is western in origin.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|pp=137–138}} The [[Rokurokubi#Nukekubi|Nukekubi]] is a being whose head and neck detach from its body to fly about seeking human prey at night.<ref>{{cite book|title=Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things|url=https://archive.org/details/kwaidanstories00hearrich|last=Hearn|first=Lafcadio|author-link=Lafcadio Hearn|year=1903|publisher=Houghton, Mifflin and Company|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-585-15043-7}}</ref> Legends of female vampiric beings who can detach parts of their upper body also occur in the [[Philippine mythology|Philippines]], [[Malay folklore|Malaysia]], and [[Folklore of Indonesia|Indonesia]]. There are two main vampiric creatures in the Philippines: the [[Tagalog people|Tagalog]] ''[[Mandurugo]]'' ("blood-sucker") and the [[Visayan]] ''[[Manananggal]]'' ("self-segmenter"). The mandurugo is a variety of the [[aswang]] that takes the form of an attractive girl by day, and develops wings and a long, hollow, threadlike tongue by night. The tongue is used to suck up blood from a sleeping victim.<ref name="ramos"/> The ''manananggal'' is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge batlike wings and prey on unsuspecting, sleeping pregnant women in their homes. They use an elongated proboscis-like tongue to suck [[fetus]]es from these pregnant women. They also prefer to eat entrails (specifically the [[heart]] and the [[liver]]) and the phlegm of sick people.<ref name="ramos">{{cite book|last=Ramos|first=Maximo D.|title=Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology|orig-year=1971|year=1990|publisher=Phoenix Publishing|location=Quezon|isbn=978-971-06-0691-7}}</ref>

The Malaysian ''[[Penanggalan]]'' is a woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of [[black magic]] or other unnatural means, and is most commonly described in local folklore to be dark or demonic in nature. She is able to detach her fanged head which flies around in the night looking for blood, typically from pregnant women.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=197}} Malaysians hung ''jeruju'' (thistles) around the doors and windows of houses, hoping the ''Penanggalan'' would not enter for fear of catching its intestines on the thorns.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=34}} The [[Leyak]] is a similar being from [[Balinese mythology|Balinese folklore]] of Indonesia.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Witchcraft, Grief, and the Ambivalence of Emotions|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=26|issue=3|year=1999|pages=711–737|doi=10.1525/ae.1999.26.3.711|first=Michele|last=Stephen}}</ref> A ''[[Kuntilanak]]'' or ''Matianak'' in Indonesia,{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=208}} or ''[[Pontianak (folklore)|Pontianak]]'' or ''[[Langsuir]]'' in Malaysia,{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=150}} is a woman who [[Maternal mortality in fiction|died during childbirth]] and became undead, seeking revenge and terrorising villages. She appeared as an attractive woman with long black hair that covered a hole in the back of her neck, with which she sucked the blood of children. Filling the hole with her hair would drive her off. Corpses had their mouths filled with glass beads, eggs under each armpit, and needles in their palms to prevent them from becoming ''langsuir.'' This description would also fit the [[Sundel bolong|Sundel Bolongs]].{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|p=35}}

[[File:Stilt house, Black Thai - Vietnam Museum of Ethnology - Hanoi, Vietnam - DSC02781.JPG|thumb|right|A stilt house typical of the [[Tai Dam]] ethnic minority of Vietnam, whose communities were said to be terrorized by the blood-sucking ''ma cà rồng''|alt=See caption]]
In [[Vietnam]], the word used to translate Western vampires, "ma cà rồng", originally referred to a type of demon that haunts modern-day [[Phú Thọ Province]], within the communities of the [[Tai Dam]] [[Ethnic minorities of Vietnam|ethnic minority]]. The word was first mentioned in the chronicles of 18th-century [[Confucian]] scholar [[Lê Quý Đôn]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lê Quý Đôn |title=Kiến văn tiểu lục |date=2007 |publisher=NXB Văn hóa-Thông tin |page=353}}</ref> who spoke of a creature that lives among humans, but stuffs its toes into its [[nostrils]] at night and flies by its ears into houses with pregnant women to suck their blood. Having fed on these women, the ''ma cà rồng'' then returns to its house and cleans itself by dipping its toes into barrels of [[sappanwood]] water. This allows the ''ma cà rồng'' to live undetected among humans during the day, before heading out to attack again by night.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Trương Quốc Dụng |title=Thoái thực ký văn |date=2020 |publisher=Writers' Association Publishing House}}</ref>

[[Jiangshi]], sometimes called "Chinese vampires" by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb life essence ([[qì]]) from their victims. They are said to be created when a person's soul (魄 [[Hun and po|''pò'']]) fails to leave the deceased's body.<ref>{{cite book|last=Suckling|first=Nigel|title=Vampires|year=2006|publisher=Facts, Figures & Fun|location=London|isbn=978-1-904332-48-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/vampires0000suck/page/31 31]|url=https://archive.org/details/vampires0000suck/page/31}}</ref> ''Jiangshi'' are usually represented as mindless creatures with no independent thought.<ref>{{cite book|last=劉|first=天賜|title=僵屍與吸血鬼|year=2008|publisher=Joint Publishing (H.K.)|location=Hong Kong|isbn=978-962-04-2735-0|page=196}}</ref> This monster has greenish-white furry skin, perhaps derived from fungus or [[mould]] growing on corpses.<ref>{{cite book|last=de Groot|first=J.J.M.|title=The Religious System of China|year=1910|publisher=[[E.J. Brill]]|oclc=7022203}}<!--many recent editions for this--></ref> Jiangshi legends have inspired a [[Jiangshi fiction|genre of jiangshi films]] and literature in Hong Kong and East Asia. Films like ''[[Encounters of the Spooky Kind]]'' and ''[[Mr. Vampire]]'' were released during the jiangshi cinematic boom of the 1980s and 1990s.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lam|first=Stephanie|year=2009|title=Hop on Pop: Jiangshi Films in a Transnational Context|journal=CineAction|issue=78|pages=46–51}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Hudson|first=Dave|title=Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms|year=2009|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8108-6923-3|page=215}}</ref>

=== Modern beliefs ===
In modern fiction, the vampire tends to be depicted as a suave, charismatic [[villain]].{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=2}} Vampire hunting societies still exist, but they are largely formed for social reasons.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}} Allegations of vampire attacks swept through [[Malawi]] during late 2002 and early 2003, with mobs stoning one person to death and attacking at least four others, including Governor [[Eric Chiwaya]], based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.<ref>{{cite news|first=Raphael|last=Tenthani|title='Vampires' strike Malawi villages|work=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2602461.stm|date=23 December 2002|access-date=29 December 2007|archive-date=18 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818193930/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2602461.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> Fears and violence recurred in late 2017, with 6 people accused of being vampires killed.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/mobs-in-malawi-have-killed-six-people-for-being-vampires/|title=Mobs in Malawi have killed six people for being "vampires"|date=19 October 2017|work=VICE News|access-date=2 January 2018|language=en|archive-date=2 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102020221/https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/j5jxnx/mobs-in-malawi-have-killed-six-people-for-being-vampires|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:VampireE3.jpg|thumb|upright|A vampire costume|alt=A woman showing teeth with fangs.]]
In early 1970, local press spread rumours that a vampire haunted [[Highgate Cemetery]] in London. Amateur [[vampire hunter]]s flocked in large numbers to the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "[[Highgate Vampire]]" and who later claimed to have [[exorcised]] and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Highgate Vampire: The Infernal World of the Undead Unearthed at London's Highgate Cemetery and Environs|last=Manchester|first=Sean|year=1991|location=London|publisher=Gothic Press|isbn=978-1-872486-01-7}}</ref> In January 2005, rumours circulated that an attacker had bitten a number of people in [[Birmingham]], England, fuelling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. Local police stated that no such crime had been reported and that the case appears to be an [[urban legend]].<ref name=guardian1>{{cite news|title=Reality Bites|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,3604,1392607,00.html|date=18 January 2005|access-date=29 December 2007|location=London|first=Stuart|last=Jeffries|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715154949/https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/18/britishidentity.stuartjeffries|url-status=live}}</ref>

The ''[[chupacabra]]'' ("goat-sucker") of [[Puerto Rico]] and [[Mexico]] is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of [[domesticated animal]]s, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s.<ref name="trail">{{cite web|author=Stephen Wagner|url=http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm|title=On the trail of the Chupacabras|access-date=5 October 2007|archive-date=19 September 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050919215215/http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In Europe, where much of the vampire folklore originates, the vampire is usually considered a fictitious being; many communities may have embraced the revenant for economic purposes. In some cases, especially in small localities, beliefs are still rampant and sightings or claims of vampire attacks occur frequently. In Romania during February 2004, several relatives of Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it.<ref>{{cite news|last=Taylor | first= T.|date=28 October 2007|title=The real vampire slayers|work=The Independent|url=http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3096920.ece|access-date=14 December 2007|location=London|archive-date=19 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219095645/http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article3096920.ece|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Origins of vampire beliefs ==
Commentators have offered many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs and related [[mass hysteria]]. Everything ranging from [[premature burial]] to the early ignorance of the body's [[decomposition]] cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=1–4}}

=== Pathology ===
==== Decomposition ====
Author Paul Barber stated that belief in vampires resulted from people of [[pre-industrial societies]] attempting to explain the natural, but to them inexplicable, process of death and decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=1–4}} People sometimes suspected vampirism when a cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when disinterred. Rates of decomposition vary depending on temperature and soil composition, and many of the signs are little known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all or to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life.<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.csicop.org/si/show/staking_claims_the_vampires_of_folklore_and_fiction/|title=Staking Claims: The Vampires of Folklore and Fiction|last=Barber|first=Paul|date=March–April 1996|journal=[[Skeptical Inquirer]]|access-date=29 June 2015|volume=20|issue=2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150701000450/http://www.csicop.org/si/show/staking_claims_the_vampires_of_folklore_and_fiction/|archive-date=1 July 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy"—changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the [[Arnold Paole|Arnold Paole case]], an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbours to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=117}} The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity.{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=114–115}} Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=105}} The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan-like sound when the gases moved past the vocal cords, or a sound reminiscent of [[flatulence]] when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the [[Petar Blagojevich]] case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect".{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=119}} After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Blagojevich case—the [[dermis]] and [[Nail bed (anatomy)|nail beds]] emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails".{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=119}}

==== Premature burial ====
Vampire legends may have also been influenced by individuals being [[buried alive]] because of shortcomings in the medical knowledge of the time. In some cases in which people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads, noses or faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding".{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=48–49}} A problem with this theory is the question of how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for any extended period without food, water or fresh air. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=128}} Another likely cause of disordered tombs is [[grave robbery]].{{sfn|Barber|1988|pp=137–138}}

==== Disease ====
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with clusters of deaths from unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community.<ref name=sledzik/> The epidemic allusion is obvious in the classical cases of Petar Blagojevich and Arnold Paole, and even more so in the case of [[Mercy Brown]] and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, tuberculosis, was associated with outbreaks of vampirism. As with the pneumonic form of [[bubonic plague]], it was associated with breakdown of lung tissue which would cause blood to appear at the lips.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=115}}

In 1985, biochemist [[David Dolphin]] proposed a link between the rare blood disorder [[porphyria]] and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous [[haem]], he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cox |first1=Ann M. |title=Porphyria and vampirism: another myth in the making |journal=Postgraduate Medical Journal |date=1995 |volume=71 |issue=841 |pages=643–644 |doi=10.1136/pgmj.71.841.643-a|pmid=7494765 |pmc=2398345 |s2cid=29495879 }}</ref>

The theory has been rebuffed medically as suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the haem in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional (bloodsucking) vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood.{{sfn|Barber|1988|p=100}} Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. In any case, Dolphin did not go on to publish his work more widely.<ref>{{cite web |last=Adams |first=Cecil |title=Did vampires suffer from the disease porphyria—or not? |website=The Straight Dope |publisher=Chicago Reader |date=7 May 1999 |access-date=25 December 2007 |url=http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html |archive-date=20 July 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080720115852/http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Despite being dismissed by experts, the link gained media attention<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pierach |first=Claus A. |title=Vampire Label Unfair To Porphyria Sufferers |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=13 June 1985 |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E4D71239F930A25755C0A963948260 |access-date=25 December 2007 |archive-date=21 April 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080421062059/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E4D71239F930A25755C0A963948260 |url-status=live}}</ref> and entered popular modern folklore.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kujtan |first=Peter W. |title=Porphyria: The Vampire Disease |publisher=The Mississauga News online |date=29 October 2005 |url=http://www.bydewey.com/drkporphyria.html |access-date=9 November 2009 |archive-date=24 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124132104/https://www.bydewey.com/drkporphyria.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

Juan Gómez-Alonso, a neurologist, examined the possible link of rabies with vampire folklore. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to hypersensitivity, which is a symptom of rabies. It can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (thus becoming nocturnal) and [[hypersexuality]]. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection (an allusion to the legend that vampires have no reflection). [[Wolves]] and [[bat]]s, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gómez-Alonso |first=Juan |year=1998 |title=Rabies: a possible explanation for the vampire legend |journal=Neurology |volume=51|issue=3 |pages=856–59 |pmid=9748039 |doi=10.1212/WNL.51.3.856 |s2cid=219202098}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=24 September 1998 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm |title=Rabies-The Vampire's Kiss |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=18 March 2007 |archive-date=17 March 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060317102944/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/178623.stm |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Psychodynamic theories ===
In his 1931 treatise ''On the Nightmare'', Welsh [[psychoanalyst]] [[Ernest Jones]] asserted that vampires are symbolic of several unconscious drives and [[defence mechanism]]s. Emotions such as love, guilt, and hate fuel the idea of the return of the dead to the grave. Desiring a reunion with loved ones, mourners may [[psychological projection|project]] the idea that the recently dead must in return yearn the same. From this arises the belief that folkloric vampires and revenants visit relatives, particularly their spouses, first.{{sfn|Jones|1931|pp=100–102}}

In cases where there was unconscious guilt associated with the relationship, the wish for reunion may be subverted by anxiety. This may lead to [[Repression (psychoanalysis)|repression]], which [[Sigmund Freud]] had linked with the development of morbid dread.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Jones|first=Ernest|year=1911|title=The Pathology of Morbid Anxiety|journal=Journal of Abnormal Psychology|volume=6|issue=2|pages=81–106|doi=10.1037/h0074306|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1429155|access-date=5 July 2019|archive-date=3 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003143621/https://zenodo.org/record/1429155|url-status=live}}</ref> Jones surmised in this case the original wish of a (sexual) reunion may be drastically changed: desire is replaced by fear; love is replaced by sadism, and the object or loved one is replaced by an unknown entity. The sexual aspect may or may not be present.{{sfn|Jones|1931|p=106}} Some modern critics have proposed a simpler theory: People identify with immortal vampires because, by so doing, they overcome, or at least temporarily escape from, their [[fear of dying]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=KXOUiGfJ8_oC&pg=PT205&lpg=PP1&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html McMahon, ''Twilight of an Idol'', p. 193] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202044326/https://books.google.com/books?id=KXOUiGfJ8_oC&pg=PT205&lpg=PP1&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html |date=2 February 2017 }}</ref>

Jones linked the innate sexuality of bloodsucking with [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]], with a folkloric connection with [[incubus]]-like behaviour. He added that when more normal aspects of sexuality are repressed, regressed forms may be expressed, in particular [[Sadistic personality disorder#Freud and psychoanalysis|sadism]]; he felt that [[Psychosexual development#Oral stage|oral sadism]] is integral in vampiric behaviour.{{sfn|Jones|1931|pp=116–120}}

=== Political interpretations ===
[[File:The Irish Vampire - Punch (24 October 1885), 199 - BL.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Editorial cartoon|Political cartoon]] from 1885, depicting the [[Irish National League]] as the "Irish Vampire" preying on a sleeping woman|alt=See caption]]

The reinvention of the vampire myth in the modern era is not without political overtones.<ref>{{cite book|last=Glover|first=David|year=1996|title=Vampires, Mummies, and Liberals: Bram Stoker and the Politics of Popular Fiction|publisher=Duke University Press|place=Durham, NC.|isbn=978-0-8223-1798-2 }}</ref> The aristocratic Count Dracula, alone in his castle apart from a few demented retainers, appearing only at night to feed on his peasantry, is symbolic of the parasitic ''[[ancien régime]]''. In his entry for "Vampires" in the ''Dictionnaire philosophique'' (1764), Voltaire notices how the mid-18th century coincided with the decline of the folkloric belief in the existence of vampires but that now "there were stock-jobbers, brokers, and men of business, who sucked the blood of the people in broad daylight; but they were not dead, though corrupted. These true suckers lived not in cemeteries, but in very agreeable palaces".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/complete.html |title=Vampires. – Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. VII (Philosophical Dictionary Part 5) (1764) |access-date=11 June 2019 |archive-date=18 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318065646/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/complete.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Karl Marx]] defined capital as "dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks".{{efn|1=An extensive discussion of the different uses of the vampire metaphor in Marx's writings can be found in {{cite web |last=Policante |first=A. |url=http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Policante.pdf |title=Vampires of Capital: Gothic Reflections between horror and hope |year=2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128025458/http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/Policante.pdf |archive-date=28 January 2012 }} in [http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/2010.html Cultural Logic] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206054043/http://clogic.eserver.org/2010/2010.html |date=6 December 2015 }}, 2010.}} [[Werner Herzog]], in his ''[[Nosferatu the Vampyre]]'', gives this political interpretation an extra ironic twist when protagonist [[Jonathan Harker]], a middle-class solicitor, becomes the next vampire; in this way the capitalist [[bourgeois]] becomes the next parasitic class.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Brass|first=Tom|journal=Dialectical Anthropology|volume=25|pages=205–237|year=2000|title=Nymphs, Shepherds, and Vampires: The Agrarian Myth on Film|doi=10.1023/A:1011615201664|issue=3/4|s2cid=141136948}}</ref>

=== Psychopathology ===
A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. [[Serial killer]]s [[Peter Kürten]] and [[Richard Trenton Chase]] were both called "vampires" in the [[tabloid journalism|tabloids]] after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. In 1932, an unsolved murder case in [[Stockholm]], Sweden, was nicknamed the "[[Atlas Vampire|Vampire murder]]", because of the circumstances of the victim's death.<ref name=Stig1>{{cite book|last=Linnell|first=Stig|title=Stockholms spökhus och andra ruskiga ställen|orig-year=1968|year=1993|publisher=Raben Prisma|isbn=978-91-518-2738-4|language=sv}}</ref> The late-16th-century Hungarian countess and mass murderer [[Elizabeth Báthory]] became infamous in later centuries' works, which depicted her bathing in her victims' blood to retain beauty or youth.{{sfn|Hoyt|1984|pp=68–71}}

=== Vampire bats ===
{{main|Vampire bat}}
[[File:Desmodus rotundus A Catenazzi.jpg|thumb|A [[vampire bat]] in Peru|alt=See caption]]
Although many cultures have stories about them, [[vampire bat]]s have only recently become an integral part of the traditional vampire lore. Vampire bats were integrated into vampire folklore after they were discovered on the South American mainland in the 16th century.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}} There are no vampire bats in Europe, but [[bat]]s and [[owl]]s have long been associated with the supernatural and omens, mainly because of their nocturnal habits.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}}<ref name="Cooper92">{{cite book|last=Cooper|first=J.C.|title=Symbolic and Mythological Animals|pages=25–26|year=1992|publisher=Aquarian Press|location=London|isbn=978-1-85538-118-6}}</ref>

The three species of vampire bats are all [[endemic]] to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any [[Old World]] relatives within human memory. It is therefore impossible that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the vampire bat. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' records their folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. The danger of [[rabies]] infection aside, the vampire bat's bite is usually not harmful to a person, but the bat has been known to actively feed on humans and large prey such as cattle and often leaves the trademark, two-prong bite mark on its victim's skin.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}}

The literary [[Count Dracula|Dracula]] transforms into a bat several times in the novel, and vampire bats themselves are mentioned twice in it. The 1927 stage production of ''Dracula'' followed the novel in having Dracula turn into a bat, as did the [[Dracula (1931 English-language film)|film]], where [[Béla Lugosi]] would transform into a bat.{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=95–96}} The bat transformation scene was used again by [[Lon Chaney Jr.]] in 1943's ''[[Son of Dracula (1943 film)|Son of Dracula]]''.{{sfn|Skal|1996|pp=19–21}}

== In modern culture ==
{{see also|List of vampires}}
<!--**This section is a general overview, do not add cultural references here, add them to the subarticles... Thanks.*****-->
The vampire is now a fixture in popular fiction. Such fiction began with 18th-century poetry and continued with 19th-century short stories, the first and most influential of which was [[John Polidori]]'s "[[The Vampyre]]" (1819), featuring the vampire [[Lord Ruthven (vampire)|Lord Ruthven]].<ref name=":1">{{cite journal|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280805194|title=From Nosteratu to Von Carstein: shifts in the portrayal of vampires|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|date=2001|journal=Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies|access-date=1 November 2015|issue=16|pages=97–106|archive-date=25 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151125163106/http://www.researchgate.net/publication/280805194_From_Nosteratu_to_Von_Carstein_shifts_in_the_portrayal_of_vampires|url-status=live}}</ref> Lord Ruthven's exploits were further explored in a series of vampire plays in which he was the [[antihero]]. The vampire theme continued in [[penny dreadful]] serial publications such as ''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' (1847) and culminated in the pre-eminent vampire novel in history: ''[[Dracula]]'' by [[Bram Stoker]], published in 1897.<ref name="Christopher">{{cite book |last=Frayling |first=Christopher |title=Vampyres, Lord Byron to Count Dracula |year=1991 |location=London |publisher=Faber |isbn=978-0-571-16792-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571167920 |url-access=registration }}</ref>

Over time, some attributes now regarded as integral became incorporated into the vampire's profile: fangs and vulnerability to sunlight appeared over the course of the 19th century, with Varney the Vampire and Count Dracula both bearing protruding teeth,{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=99}} and [[Count Orlok]] of [[Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau|Murnau's]] ''[[Nosferatu]]'' (1922) fearing daylight.{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=104}} The cloak appeared in stage productions of the 1920s, with a high collar introduced by playwright [[Hamilton Deane]] to help Dracula 'vanish' on stage.{{sfn|Skal|1996|p=62}} Lord Ruthven and Varney were able to be healed by moonlight, although no account of this is known in traditional folklore.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=38–39}} Implied though not often explicitly documented in folklore, [[immortality]] is one attribute which features heavily in vampire films and literature. Much is made of the price of eternal life, namely the incessant need for the blood of former equals.{{sfn|Bunson|1993|p=131}}

=== Literature ===
{{main|Vampire literature}}
[[File:Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood.jpg|thumb|upright|Cover from one of the original serialized editions of ''[[Varney the Vampire]]''|alt=See caption]]
The vampire or revenant first appeared in poems such as ''The Vampire'' (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, ''[[Lenore (ballad)|Lenore]]'' (1773) by [[Gottfried August Bürger]], ''Die Braut von Corinth'' (''The Bride of Corinth'') (1797) by [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], [[Robert Southey]]'s ''Thalaba the Destroyer'' (1801), [[John Stagg (poet)|John Stagg]]'s "The Vampyre" (1810), [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]]'s [[Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson|"The Spectral Horseman"]] (1810) ("Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore") and "Ballad" in ''[[St. Irvyne]]'' (1811) about a reanimated corpse, Sister Rosa, [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'s unfinished ''[[Christabel (poem)|Christabel]]'' and [[Lord Byron]]'s ''[[The Giaour]]''.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=114–115}}

Byron was also credited with the first prose fiction piece concerned with vampires: "The Vampyre" (1819). This was in reality authored by Byron's personal physician, [[John Polidori]], who adapted an enigmatic fragmentary tale of his illustrious patient, "[[Fragment of a Novel]]" (1819), also known as "The Burial: A Fragment".{{sfn|Cohen|1989|pp=271–274}}<ref name="Christopher"/> Byron's own dominating personality, mediated by his lover [[Lady Caroline Lamb]] in her unflattering ''roman-a-clef'' ''Glenarvon'' (a Gothic fantasia based on Byron's wild life), was used as a model for Polidori's undead protagonist [[Lord Ruthven (vampire)|Lord Ruthven]]. ''The Vampyre'' was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=37–38}}

''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' was a popular mid-[[Victorian era]] [[gothic horror]] story by [[James Malcolm Rymer]] and [[Thomas Peckett Prest]], which first appeared from 1845 to 1847 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as ''[[penny dreadful]]s'' because of their low price and gruesome contents.<ref name=":1"/> Published in book form in 1847, the story runs to 868 double-columned pages. It has a distinctly suspenseful style, using vivid imagery to describe the horrifying exploits of Varney.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=38–39}} Another important addition to the genre was [[Sheridan Le Fanu]]'s [[lesbian vampire]] story ''[[Carmilla]]'' (1871). Like Varney before her, the vampiress Carmilla is portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light as the compulsion of her condition is highlighted.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|pp=40–41}}

[[File:Carmilla.jpg|thumb|''[[Carmilla]]'' by [[Sheridan Le Fanu]], illustrated by [[D. H. Friston]], 1872|alt=A person is lying in a bed while another person is reaching on the bed towards them.]]

No effort to depict vampires in popular fiction was as influential or as definitive as Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897).{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=43}} Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease of contagious demonic possession, with its undertones of sex, blood and death, struck a chord in [[Victorian era|Victorian]] Europe where [[tuberculosis]] and [[syphilis]] were common. The vampiric traits described in Stoker's work merged with and dominated folkloric tradition, eventually evolving into the modern fictional vampire.<ref name=":1"/>

Drawing on past works such as ''The Vampyre'' and ''Carmilla'', Stoker began to research his new book in the late 19th century, reading works such as ''The Land Beyond the Forest'' (1888) by [[Emily Gerard]] and other books about [[Transylvania]] and vampires. In London, a colleague mentioned to him the story of [[Vlad Țepeș]], the "real-life Dracula", and Stoker immediately incorporated this story into his book. The first chapter of the book was omitted when it was published in 1897, but it was released in 1914 as "[[Dracula's Guest]]".{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=82–85}}

The latter part of the 20th century saw the rise of multi-volume vampire epics as well as a renewed interest in the subject in books. The first of these was Gothic romance writer [[Marilyn Ross]]'s ''[[Barnabas Collins]]'' series (1966–71), loosely based on the contemporary American TV series ''[[Dark Shadows]]''. It also set the trend for seeing vampires as poetic [[tragic hero]]es rather than as the more traditional embodiment of evil. This formula was followed in novelist Anne Rice's highly popular ''[[Vampire Chronicles]]'' (1976–2003),{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=205}} and [[Stephenie Meyer]]'s [[Twilight (novel series)|Twilight]] series (2005–2008).<ref name="slate">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2205143/ |title=I Vant To Upend Your Expectations: Why film vampires always break all the vampire rules |last=Beam |first=Christopher |date=20 November 2008 |magazine=[[Slate Magazine]] |access-date=17 July 2009 |archive-date=16 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110916173859/http://www.slate.com/id/2205143/ |url-status=live}}</ref> In the 2006 [[Peter Watts (author)|Peter Watts]]'s novel ''[[Blindsight (Watts novel)|Blindsight]]'', vampires are depicted as a subspecies of [[homo sapiens]] that predated on humanity until the dawn of civilization. The various supernatural characteristics and abilities traditionally assigned to vampires by folklore are justified on naturalistic and scientific basis.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Galaxy |first=Geek's Guide to the |title='Blindsight' Is the Epitome of Science Fiction Horror |url=https://www.wired.com/2023/10/geeks-guide-peter-watts/ |access-date=2024-06-30 |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028 |archive-date=30 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240630080300/https://www.wired.com/2023/10/geeks-guide-peter-watts/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Film and television ===
{{main|Vampire film|List of vampire films|List of vampire television series}}
[[File:Dracula_(1931_film_poster_-_Style_F).jpg|thumb|[[Count Dracula]], a vampire who emigrates from [[Transylvania]] to England and preys upon the blood of living victims, poster of ''[[Dracula (1931 English-language film)|Dracula]]'' (1931)]]
Considered one of the preeminent figures of the classic horror film, the vampire has proven to be a rich subject for the film, television, and gaming industries. [[Count Dracula in popular culture|Dracula is a major character]] in more films than any other but [[Sherlock Holmes]], and many early films were either based on the novel ''Dracula'' or closely derived from it. These included the 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film ''[[Nosferatu]]'', directed by [[F. W. Murnau]] and featuring the first film portrayal of Dracula—although names and characters were intended to mimic ''Dracula''{{'}}s.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Keatley |first=Avery |title=Try as she might, Bram Stoker's widow couldn't kill 'Nosferatu' |language=en |work=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu |access-date=20 April 2022 |archive-date=4 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220404182540/https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1086605684/try-as-she-might-bram-stokers-widow-couldnt-kill-nosferatu |url-status=live}}</ref> Universal's ''[[Dracula (1931 English-language film)|Dracula]]'' (1931), starring [[Béla Lugosi]] as the Count and directed by [[Tod Browning]], was the first [[talking film]] to portray Dracula. Both Lugosi's performance and the film overall were influential in the blossoming [[horror film]] genre, now able to use sound and special effects much more efficiently than in the [[Silent film era|Silent Film Era]]. The influence of this 1931 film lasted throughout the rest of the 20th century and up through the present day. [[Stephen King]], [[Francis Ford Coppola]], [[Hammer Horror]], and [[Philip Saville]] each have at one time or another derived inspiration from this film directly either through staging or even through directly quoting the film, particularly how Stoker's line "''Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make!''" is delivered by Lugosi; for example Coppola paid homage to this moment with Gary Oldman in his interpretation of the tale in 1992 and King has credited this film as an inspiration for his character Kurt Barlow repeatedly in interviews.<ref>{{cite web |last=Eisenberg |first=Eric |url=https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2567212/adapting-stephen-king-salems-lot-vampiric-terror-tv-miniseries-tobe-hooper |title=Adapting Stephen King's Salem's Lot: How Does The Vampiric Terror Of 1979's TV Miniseries Hold Up? |publisher=Cinemablend |date=12 May 2021 |access-date=5 May 2022 |archive-date=27 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427163847/https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2567212/adapting-stephen-king-salems-lot-vampiric-terror-tv-miniseries-tobe-hooper |url-status=live }}</ref> It is for these reasons that the film was selected by the US [[Library of Congress]] to be in the [[National Film Registry]] in 2000.<ref>{{cite web |title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ |access-date=20 April 2022 |website=Library of Congress |archive-date=28 July 2019 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20190728162129/https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The legend of the vampire continued through the film industry when Dracula was reincarnated in the pertinent [[Hammer Horror]] series of films, starring [[Christopher Lee]] as the Count. The successful 1958 ''[[Dracula (1958 film)|Dracula]]'' starring Lee was followed by seven sequels. Lee returned as Dracula in all but two of these and became well known in the role.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=92–95}} By the 1970s, vampires in films had diversified with works such as ''[[Count Yorga, Vampire]]'' (1970), an African Count in 1972's ''[[Blacula]]'', the BBC's ''[[Count Dracula (1977 film)|Count Dracula]]'' featuring French actor [[Louis Jourdan]] as Dracula and [[Frank Finlay]] as [[Abraham Van Helsing]], and a Nosferatu-like vampire in 1979's ''[[Salem's Lot (1979 TV miniseries)|Salem's Lot]]'', and a remake of ''Nosferatu'' itself, titled [[Nosferatu the Vampyre]] with [[Klaus Kinski]] the same year. Several films featured the characterization of a female, often lesbian, vampire such as Hammer Horror's ''[[The Vampire Lovers]]'' (1970), based on ''Carmilla'', though the plotlines still revolved around a central evil vampire character.{{sfn|Marigny|1994|pp=92–95}}

The [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] [[soap opera]] ''[[Dark Shadows]]'', on American television from 1966 to 1971, featured the vampire character [[Barnabas Collins]], portrayed by [[Jonathan Frid]], which proved partly responsible for making the series one of the most popular of its type, amassing a total of 1,225 episodes in its nearly five-year run. The pilot for the later 1972 television series ''[[Kolchak: The Night Stalker]]'' revolved around a reporter hunting a vampire on the [[Las Vegas Strip]]. Later films showed more diversity in plotline, with some focusing on the vampire-hunter, such as [[Blade (character)|Blade]] in the [[Marvel Comics]]' ''[[Blade (franchise)|Blade]]'' films and the film ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.<ref name=":1"/> ''Buffy'', released in 1992, foreshadowed a vampiric presence on television, with its adaptation to a [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|series of the same name]] and its spin-off ''[[Angel (1999 TV series)|Angel]]''. Others showed the vampire as a protagonist, such as 1983's ''[[The Hunger (1983 film)|The Hunger]]'', 1994's ''[[Interview with the Vampire (film)|Interview with the Vampire]]'' and its indirect sequel ''[[Queen of the Damned]]'', and the 2007 series ''[[Moonlight (American TV series)|Moonlight]]''. The 1992 film ''[[Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992 film)|Bram Stoker's Dracula]]'' by [[Francis Ford Coppola]] became the then-highest grossing vampire film ever.{{sfn|Silver|Ursini|1997|p=208}}

This increase of interest in vampiric plotlines led to the vampire being depicted in films such as ''[[Underworld (2003 film)|Underworld]]'' and ''[[Van Helsing (film)|Van Helsing]]'', the Russian ''[[Night Watch (2004 film)|Night Watch]]'' and a TV miniseries remake of ''[[Salem's Lot (2004 TV miniseries)|Salem's Lot]]'', both from 2004. The series ''[[Blood Ties (TV series)|Blood Ties]]'' premiered on [[Lifetime Television]] in 2007, featuring a character portrayed as Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate-son-of-[[Henry VIII|Henry-VIII-of-England]]-turned-vampire, in modern-day [[Toronto]], with a female former Toronto detective in the starring role. A 2008 series from HBO, entitled ''[[True Blood]]'', gives a [[Southern Gothic]] take on the vampire theme, while taking on the discussion on what the actual existence of vampires would mean to for instance [[equality before the law]] and religious beliefs.<ref name="slate" /> In 2008 ''[[Being Human (UK TV series)|Being Human]]'' premiered in Britain and featured a vampire that shared a flat with a werewolf and a ghost.<ref>Germania, Monica (2012): Being Human? Twenty-First-Century Monsters. In: Edwards, Justin & Monnet, Agnieszka Soltysik (Publisher): The Gothic in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture: Pop Goth. New York: Taylor, pp. 57–70</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/06/top-10_most_important_vampire_programs_in_tv_history.html|author=Dan Martin|title=Top-10 most important vampire programs in TV history|date=19 June 2014|publisher=Cleveland.com|access-date=8 August 2014|archive-date=21 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021111509/https://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/06/top-10_most_important_vampire_programs_in_tv_history.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The continuing popularity of the vampire theme has been ascribed to a combination of two factors: the representation of [[human sexual activity|sexuality]] and the perennial dread of mortality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bartlett |first1=Wayne |first2=Flavia |last2=Idriceanu |title=Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth |year=2005 |publisher=NPI Media Group |location=London |isbn=978-0-7509-3736-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/legendsofbloodva0000bart/page/46 46] |url=https://archive.org/details/legendsofbloodva0000bart/page/46}}</ref>

=== Video games ===
{{main|Vampires in popular culture}}

The [[role-playing game]] ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' has been influential upon modern vampire fiction and elements of its terminology, such as ''embrace'' and ''sire'', appear in contemporary fiction.<ref name=":1"/> Popular [[List of vampire video games|video games about vampires]] include ''[[Castlevania]]'', which is an extension of the original Bram Stoker novel ''Dracula'', and ''[[Legacy of Kain]]''.<ref name=joshi>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=stJxdpZVl_wC&pg=PA646 |title=Icons of horror and the supernatural |volume=2 |last=Joshi |first=S. T. |pages=645–646 |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |location=Westport, Connecticut |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-313-33782-6 |access-date=30 October 2020 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225150423/https://books.google.com/books?id=stJxdpZVl_wC&pg=PA646 |url-status=live}}</ref> The role-playing game ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' features vampires.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-dungeons-and-dragons-imagines-and-customizes-its-unique-monsters |title=How Dungeons and Dragons reimagines and customizes iconic folklore monsters |first=James |last=Grebey |publisher=[[SyfyWire]] |date=3 June 2019 |access-date=22 March 2020 |archive-date=22 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322023827/https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-dungeons-and-dragons-imagines-and-customizes-its-unique-monsters |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Modern vampire subcultures ===
{{Main|Vampire lifestyle}}
{{See also|Psychic vampirism}}

''[[Vampire lifestyle]]'' is a term for a contemporary subculture of people, largely within the [[Goth subculture]], who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, [[horror film]]s, the fiction of [[Anne Rice]], and the styles of Victorian England.<ref>{{cite book |last=Skal |first=David J. |title=The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror | pages=342–343 |year=1993 |publisher=Penguin |location=New York |isbn=978-0-14-024002-3}}</ref> Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both blood-related vampirism, commonly referred to as ''sanguine vampirism'', and ''[[psychic vampirism]]'', or supposed feeding from [[pranic]] energy.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Jøn|first=A. Asbjørn|year=2002|title=The Psychic Vampire and Vampyre Subculture|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283273380|journal=Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies|issue=12|pages=143–148|issn=0819-0852|access-date=9 November 2015|archive-date=15 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715154950/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283273380_The_Psychic_Vampire_and_Vampyre_Subculture|url-status=live}}<!-- ISBN 1-86389-831-X--></ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Benecke|first1=Mark|last2=Fischer|first2=Ines|date=2015|title=Vampyres among us! – Volume III: Quantitative Study of Central European 'Vampyre' Subculture Members|url=http://www.roterdrache.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=138|publisher=Roter Drache|isbn=978-3-939459-95-8|access-date=2 February 2016|archive-date=10 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710053810/http://www.roterdrache.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=138|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Cited texts===
{{Refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Barber |first=Paul |title=Vampires, Burial and Death: Folklore and Reality |year=1988 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-300-04126-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampiresburialde0000barb_n4n9 |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last=Bunson |first=Matthew |title=The Vampire Encyclopedia |year=1993 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-27748-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampireencyclope0000buns |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Daniel |title=[[The Encyclopedia of Monsters]]: Bigfoot, Chinese Wildman, Nessie, Sea Ape, Werewolf and many more&nbsp;… |year=1989 |publisher=Michael O'Mara Books Ltd |location=London |isbn=978-0-948397-94-3}}<!-- This book is in the Internet Archive, but you might need to check the attribution more thoroughly. -->
* {{cite book|last=Graves|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Graves|title=The Greek Myths|orig-year=1955|year=1990|publisher=Penguin|location=London|isbn=978-0-14-001026-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Hoyt |first=Olga |title=Lust for Blood: The Consuming Story of Vampires |year=1984 |chapter=The Monk's Investigation |publisher=Scarborough House |location=Chelsea |isbn=978-0-8128-8511-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/lustforbloodcons0000hoyt |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Ernest |title=On the Nightmare |chapter=The Vampire |year=1931 |publisher=Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis |location=London |oclc=2382718 |isbn=978-0-394-54835-7}}<!-- This book is in the Internet Archive, but you might need to check the attribution more thoroughly. -->
* {{cite book |last=Marigny |first=Jean |author-link=Jean Marigny |title=Vampires: The World of the Undead |series="[[Découvertes Gallimard|New Horizons]]" series |year=1994 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-30041-1|title-link=Vampires: The World of the Undead}}
* {{cite book |last=Skal |first=David J. |title=V is for Vampire |year=1996 |location=New York |publisher=Plume |isbn=978-0-452-27173-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/visforvampirethe00skal |url-access=registration }}
* {{cite book |last=Silver |first=Alain |author2=James Ursini |title=The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker's Dracula |year=1993 |publisher=Limelight |location=New York |isbn=978-0-87910-170-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/vampirefilmfromn0000silv |url-access=registration}}
{{Refend}}

== External links ==
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