It’s Halloween! That means spooky movies, trick or treating, costumes, and everyone’s favorite Halloween monsters.
In a small survey a handful of students and faculty were asked the question, what is your favorite Halloween monster? Vampires were one of the most popular, along with zombies and skeletons.
While vampires themselves have been around for centuries, the version we know today is actually pretty new by historical standards, dating as far back as the Mesopotamian era with Lamashtu. Lamashtu was a demon goddess with the head of the lion, who preyed on unborn and newborn babies and sucked their blood.
One of the closest things to our modern day vampire, in terms of beauty and seduction, from ancient times is the empusa. Those who read the Percy Jackson series might recognize the name empusa. In “The Battle of the Labyrinth” the cheerleader, Kelli, is an empusa. Empusas are servants of the goddess Hecate, who among many other things is the goddess of witchcraft. Empusas are described as beautiful women with fire for hair, a metal leg, and a goat leg. They seduce men then drink their blood. Lamiai are another Greek myth similar to empusas. Instead of having two different legs, they have serpent-like tails. They also prey on men and drink their blood.
Early history’s vampire-like creatures were women a majority of the time. They either seduced men or ate children then drank their blood and maybe consumed flesh as well. An example of this would be the story of Queen Lamia of Libya. Lamia had children with the Greek god Zeus which enraged his wife Hera. Hera then took Lamia’s children and when she was unable to get her children back, Queen Lamia went mad and became a child consuming demon.
As the centuries progressed, many new cultures still had their own vampire legends. One of the most notable is from Slavic legend. The word vampire comes from the slavic language with the word upiór.
The 17th and 18th century saw a resurgence of the belief in vampires. This era also had a surge in diseases. The time period also saw fighting between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire, which spread the burial practices of the slavic people in Serbia via written works from soldiers. People would routinely dig up bodies in an attempt to determine the cause of death. What they found were bloated corpses that had longer hair and nails, and sometimes blood dripping from the corner of the mouth. Since they didn’t have the scientific knowledge to understand that the corpses' appearances were normal, they looked to the supernatural for an explanation.
To them the answer was vampires. The deceased were rising up from their graves to feast on the living. Bodies were beheaded, burned, and staked to prevent them from returning to the living. The empress of Austria, Maria Theresa, sent her own physician to examine the bodies and quell the growing panic. Laws were enacted to prevent the disturbance of graves and desecration of the dead.
Even after this panic died down, the tales of vampires continued to linger with folklore. “The Vampyre” by John William Polidori, “Carmilla” by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu were two novels published in the 19th century after the vampire panic. “Carmilla” was one of the inspirations for the most famous vampire ever written, Dracula. In 1897, Bram Stoker published his novel Dracula. While historical figures like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Báthory are considered to be some of Stoker’s inspirations, he mostly took from local folklore and the stories his mother told him while he was bedridden as a young child. Even though stakes and garlic were already part of vampire lore, Stoker created the weakness in sunlight, inability to see oneself in a mirror, and fear of crucifixes.
Dracula was not an instant success. It took the creation of the silent film Nosferatu to launch the story into fame. The creator of the film, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, did not pay for the rights to use Stoker’s story. Stoker’s widow Florence Balcombe sued the studio and sold the production rights to Hamilton Deane to avoid any more copyright battles. His adaptation of the story into a play became hugely popular. This is what cemented Dracula into the public eye for years to come.
So next time you see a Halloween movie containing vampires or read Twilight, remember that if it wasn’t for a copyright battle, we might not have our modern day vampires.
Sources: Wordhippo, Britannica , History Channel , Meda Chicago, National Geographic, “Vampire: Origins and Real History” by Fortress of Lugh, “Vampires: Folklore, fantasy, and fact- Micheal Molina” & “How did Dracula become the world’s most famous vampire? - Stanley Stephanic” by TED-Ed, & History Cooperative.
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