Vampires

[BIg_Slim]

RE:vamps

Thankyou for the input stuneville.
very informative.

 

[PlagueRider]

I recall reading a few legends about vampires that were much older than Vlad the Impaler. I had a couple of books on vampires when I was little (I wanted to be one - no kidding). I can't remember any of them now, but I do recall that there were a few different kinds, depending on the culture, and that the one I found most disturbing didn't bite you and drink your blood, it stabbed you with it's pointy, hollow tongue and sucked the blood out of you. The image of that scared the crap out of me.

I think you might be referring a book that was collated in the Usborne Guide to the Supernatural world - if that's what it was called after all! It was a creepy thing that merged other books on ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc. I should still have mine somewhere, but that scared the crap out of me as a kid!

 

[whoisquilty]

How is Vlad Tepes a vampire?

Stoker borrowed his nickname in 1897 for his novel. The character's history was an extremely veiled account of Vlad's life. But that doesn't mean that the main character IS Vlad.

I've not read a single account that says that Vlad was a vampire.

 

[BIg_Slim]

I didnt say Vlad was a vampire i just said thats were stoker seemed to get
his vampire idea from tho apparently not due to what i read about a 5th century irish vampire ...wich is the earliest i can find!

 

[LaurenChurchill]

I think you might be referring a book that was collated in the Usborne Guide to the Supernatural world - if that's what it was called after all! It was a creepy thing that merged other books on ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc. I should still have mine somewhere, but that scared the crap out of me as a kid!

Yeah probably. I had a lot of the usborne books. This one was smaller than the other ones I had though. I remember it was specifically about vampires. And I recall in one of the books there was an image of a snake with a cat's head. That scared the carp out of me too.
Weird things scared me. Scary things didn't. Go figure. :?

Edit: Heh. Just realised I wrote "scared the carp outta me. I'll definitely be saying it like that from now on

 

[AnyankaJ]

But was it Scratch'n'Sniff?

 

[BIg_Slim]

LMAO
scratch and sniff :lol:

 

[goth13girl666]

i would love to know where the first vampire came from, they are truely fascinating to me.

 

[EnolaGaia]

"Vampire" unearthed in Venice plague grave

Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:24pm EDT

By Daniel Flynn ROME (Reuters) - Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.

Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death.

"This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire," Borrini told Reuters by telephone. "This helps ... authenticate how the myth of vampires was born."

The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave from the Venetian plague of 1576 -- in which the artist Titian died -- on Lazzaretto Nuovo, which lies around three km (2 miles) northeast of Venice and was used as a sanitorium for plague sufferers.

The succession of plagues which ravaged Europe between 1300 and 1700 fostered the belief in vampires, mainly because the decomposition of corpses was not well understood, Borrini said.

Gravediggers reopening mass graves would sometimes come across bodies bloated by gas, with hair still growing, and blood seeping from their mouths and believe them to be still alive.

The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead were often decayed by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the corpse's teeth, and vampires became known as "shroud-eaters."

According to medieval medical and religious texts, the "undead" were believed to spread pestilence in order to suck the remaining life from corpses until they acquired the strength to return to the streets again.

"To kill the vampire you had to remove the shroud from its mouth, which was its food like the milk of a child, and put something uneatable in there," said Borrini. "It's possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognized." ...

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEno ... RU20090312

 

[badwolf]

I've just spent a very enjoyable and nerdy day reading the whole of this thread and e-meandering around all (well, most of) the sites and stories referenced. I have alternatively been shouting at the computer and going "oooh, that's cool."

My academic background includes a period of study of the politics of visual representation, and when I was learning all the language and tricks of critically deconstructing images, I realised it all happily fitted in with my earliest interest in the paranormal and associated folklore.

I read Stoker's Dracula just as I got to Uni, in the late '90s, and the vampire myth of disease, sexuality, blood and death felt to me to be appropriate to ideas about AIDS, although in the earliest development of the stories of course it'd've been TB and rabies. The oral tradition of fairy tales and campfire stories impart valuable information and warnings of how to avoid the sickness and examples of early non-scientific ideas of what to do if the worst happens.

One of my 3 tutors' pet topics was Buffy and all the various representations contained therein.... although we've discussed all sorts of other subjects, I've not yet put it to her that the 1990s resurgence in interest in vampirism, and it's new sexy wardrobe, was a reaction to the threat of Aids, made slightly safer by advances in medicine that have all but stopped it being as deadly as it first was in the west.

I really must see what she thinks.

 

[Myrtlee]

Your theory makes a lot of sense - I've studied cultural theory and I could dissect Buffy til the cows come home.

It's particularly interesting that although much is made of the sexual symbolism behind the idea of the vampire, the character of Angel is effectively neutered in the early series of Buffy - he does not feed and is not permitted the release of sexual ecstasy. The vampire is made safe and sanitised in the 90s landscape - to link with your theory perhaps this is because now society is aware of how to protect itself from STDs and they no longer hold any fear? Buffy is ALWAYS able to eliminate the vampire threat.

Of course, later in the final couple of series we see Buffy actively seeking out a dangerous, thrilling and ill-advised relationship with the vampire Spike. This is a very different experience because it is definitely sexual and both parties get satisfaction from it. Haven't quite worked out what that symbolises yet...

 

[badwolf]

Since films like The Lost Boys (1987) and Interview with the Vampire (1994), the mainstream cultural idea about vampires has become a creature of the night; a being for whom ageing has stopped, usually allowing them eternal youth; the threat is of sexual intoxication that results in the loss of your life, and eternal undeath is a state of life limited only by the need to feed and avoid daylight (read as getting HIV, taking medication and using a condom?). The loss of grace, or your mortal soul, which used to be attached, is no longer the fear (society's not that religious anymore). Vampirism can be managed, and the afflicted can live an almost normal life, as long as they abstain for the behaviour although they are pathologically driven to do it. Given that, Vampirism would appear to be sex itself in the age of AIDS.



Ooh great Myrtlee! Maybe I could bounce some ideas off you some time?

Somehow I managed to miss out on Buffy when it was being broadcast, and have probably seen the most important episodes (to get the gist of what was going on), but not in chronological order, so I'm all over the place. I've just started occasionally immersing myself in box sets to try to figure it out. My OH loves Buffy, but gets a bit sick of me going off on different tangents, armed with the back of an envelope, a pen, and a wild look in my eyes, about how Buffy either sets up, questions, subverts, then replaces or occasionally reaffirms various ideas about women, the paranormal, sexuality, religion, family, race, life, the universe and everything.

There was another lass on my course who'd just got her BA in painting with a dissertation about vampirism in surrealist art, and was moving on to representations of the werewolf for her MA. We had some verrrrry cool conversations. Werewolves are my favourite creatures, and I'm still trying to figure them out. (Mine was about the inability of photography to represent any minority as anything but a stereotype...
The tutor who was into Buffy's other pet subjects were the Alien films and Elvis. The other 2 tutors on the course were experts on (among other things) Frida Kahlo, religious and sexual symbolism in the gardens of English stately homes of the 16th-18th centuries, the map of the London Underground and miniaturised reconstructions of sea battles of the 2nd world war. I bloody loved that course!)

 

[PeniG]

It's nice to see people having fun with symbolism, but don't get too dis-anchored from reality.

"Society" doesn't know a darn thing about STDs. "Society" is an enormous bunch of individuals, most of whom know myths or nothing at all. One in four teen-agers in America has an STD (thank you, abstinence-only education), and HIV still spreads in the adult population worldwide for reasons ranging from disempowerment to self-deception. And HIV+ people still have to deal with fear and villification - it's a long time since anybody called for a quarantine, but it isn't that long ago that a man was charged with "assault with a deadly weapon" for spitting on a cop. Yet people still go around having anonymous sex in tea rooms, perfectly intelligent characters with plenty of access to prophylactics on TV shows get unplanned pregnancies all the time (but nobody gets STDs except on "very special episodes"), and education is limited by law in many places to "just don't have sex till you're married and you'll be fine."

Buffy's dangerplay with Spike in the fifth season is probably the closest American media has come to talking frankly about the subject in the last 20 years.

 

[badwolf]

PeniG - I should have put a few limiting factors in that last post - I should've distinguished between the representations and reality of society, which isn't unified or monolithic or average at all. What representations in tv and movies tell us about society is limited and affected by the points of view and interests of the writers, directors, producers, studios, stations, governments, what is deemed to be acceptable for broadcast, and everything else. The audience needs to be interested in the story, and the story needs to feel right, familiar, almost like real life, just somehow more exciting and colourful. Any message, by the time it's out there to be received, is almost invisible unless you look for it. No-one wants to be lectured to (unless you were on my course - another Aliens lecture? Fantastic!).

When there's an old idea that suddenly gets dusted down and finds a new resonance, it's usually chiming with a fear or concern in it's audience, but that particular thing might not be the only meaning or purpose it serves.

The vampire myth from it's development in the dark ages until it's explosion in popularity with Dracula did nothing to stop the spread of TB, rabies, the black death, or bubonic plague. The church and background of Christianity wouldn't've been much help - with the cultural upheaval of the catholics fighting heretical sects and the emergence of protestantism in Europe, either denying vampires existed or confirming them as evil beings and sending the priests in. Pretty much the same trouble as we have now!

 

[Myrtlee]

There was another lass on my course who'd just got her BA in painting with a dissertation about vampirism in surrealist art, and was moving on to representations of the werewolf for her MA. We had some verrrrry cool conversations. Werewolves are my favourite creatures, and I'm still trying to figure them out. (Mine was about the inability of photography to represent any minority as anything but a stereotype...
The tutor who was into Buffy's other pet subjects were the Alien films and Elvis. The other 2 tutors on the course were experts on (among other things) Frida Kahlo, religious and sexual symbolism in the gardens of English stately homes of the 16th-18th centuries, the map of the London Underground and miniaturised reconstructions of sea battles of the 2nd world war. I bloody loved that course!)

ooh I could go dangerously off topic and tell you all about my memories of uni!! <<far away look in my eyes>> :lol:

You've also got me thinking about how the state of being undead is a little like how the rest of society perceive "the teenager": living a strange, disconnected half-life.

I haven't read the Twilight series of books but a colleague of mine (I'm a secondary school teacher) commented that the main boy character is a very "safe" love interest, despite the fact that he is vampire - something about him not being able to touch the girl???

Perhaps the fact that STDs are still so prevalent in America (and probably the rest of the Western world) is something to do with this denial of the historically documented sexual power of the idea of a vampire? If popular culture didn't try to make everything safe maybe awareness of the real dangers of the real world would be higher?

Just an idea! (and I don't really know what I'm talking about here, so please don't anyone get offended! )

 

[ramonmercado]

Police reward in 'vampire'-murder
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8325879.stm

Police say Mark Adrian Perry may have changed his name and appearance
Australian police have offered a reward of Aus$1m ( US $926,000, £567,000) to find a man suspected of ordering the killing of a self-proclaimed vampire.

Mark Adrian Perry allegedly ordered the 2003,murder of Shane Chartres-Abbot, a prostitute,who said he drank blood.

At the time of his death, Mr Chartres-Abbot was on trial for allegedly raping,Mr Perry's former girlfriend and biting off part of her tongue.

Police in Victoria state say they believe Mr Perry is in Australia.

A 'centuries-old vampire'

Mr Chartres-Abbot was shotin broad daylight in Melbourne, in front of his father and pregnant girlfriend.

A man has already been convicted for carrying out the shooting,but Mr Perry - who is believed to have ordered the killing - is still at large.

"There will be some people who know where Perry is and $1m is a lot of money," said Victoria state police Det Insp Steve Waddell.

Mr Chartres-Abbot had allegedly told Mr Perry's former girlfriend that he was a centuries-old vampire who drank blood to survive.

Mr Perry was last seen in Queensland in 2007. Police said they believed he had changed his name and appearance.

 

[badwolf]

Just heard this discussion on the popularity and meaning of contemporary representations of vampires on Radio 4,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nds0m#synopsis

Just what we were saying above!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

We all know that garlic flowers keep vampires away, right?

http://video.hollywoodreporter.com/services/player/bcpid6555681001?bctid=60612147001

I'm guessing Lawndale, California, can only be a few miles down the road from Sunnydale.

:lol:

Merged two Vampire Threads. P_M

 

[rynner2]

New Zealand man 'attacked by vampires'
A New Zealand man has been bitten by three people who drank his blood during an alleged vampire-style attack in the dark.
By Paul Chapman in Wellington
Published: 7:00AM BST 06 May 2010

Details of the bizarre late night incident on Mount Victoria, an unlit beauty spot that overlooks the capital, Wellington, emerged after two people appeared in court jointly charged with wounding with intent to render a man unconscious.

James Phillip Brooks, 22, and Xenia Gregoriana Borichevsky, 19, were both remanded on bail without entering a plea.

A warrant was issued for the arrest of a third accused, James Eric Orr, 19, who failed to appear at Wellington District Court.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail.

It is believed the victim, whose name has been suppressed by the court, passed out after being bitten on the night of February 20.

Outside the court, Mr Brooks said he understood there was blood drinking during the incident but added: "That wasn't me.

"Do I look like a vampire? I'm out during the daytime," he told the city's Dominion-Post newspaper.

Mr Brooks, who has a number of facial piercings and a mohawk haircut, said: "I may look like a punk but I'm not a punk. I'm just different.

"Yeah, I bit a guy. He hit on my missus. My girlfriend and my mate were biting him.

"If I'd hit him, I'd have really hurt him, so I thought I'll bite him seeing as they're already biting him."

He said drinking blood "wasn't my agenda".

Police refused to discuss the case because it is before the courts.

Ms Borichevsky's bail conditions were relaxed by the court after her lawyer asked the judge to lift a night-time curfew on her.

Dr Marc Wilson, a senior lecturer in psychology at Wellington's Victoria University, who specialises in studying paranormal beliefs, said drinking human blood was "incredibly unusual".

He said human teeth were not designed for breaking skin and sucking blood.

"You could do it but you would have to really want to."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... pires.html

 

[Zilch5]

Colorado woman blames vampire for car crash

FRUITA, Colo. - If a Western Slope woman is to be believed, vampires may be lurking in Colorado's Grand Valley.

The woman claims she spotted a vampire in the middle of a dirt road near Fruita, Colo. Sunday night. She told Colorado State Troopers she was startled by the undead being, threw her SUV into reverse, and crashed into a canal.

She was not injured.

State Troopers say the woman's husband arrived at the scene and took her home. The vampire, which was not seen by anyone else, apparently let her get away.

Troopers do not suspect drugs or alcohol to be factors in the crash.

He must not have been hungry - or more likely, had a dislike of SUVs.

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-vampire-c ... 0779.story

 

[ramonmercado]

I wonder if Vampires ever hold up Blood Bank Vans? Hmmm, could be a good idea for a film.

 

[Spudrick68]

PeniG - pardon my ignorance but you mentioned people meeting in tea rooms for casual sex, what is a tea room? Is it a euphemism or is it like Betty's in York?! :shock:
I'm English so apologise for needing an explanation. Thank you in advance.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Apologies in advance if I'm just being dense, but exactly how did the Colorado lady realize that the person she spied on the road was a vampire?

 

[Spudrick68]

No need for an answer, just googled it and found a book - Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex In Public Places by Laud Humphreys.

You do learn something new every day. I didn't know what a coconut or banana was until yertserday.

 

[Zilch5]

Apologies in advance if I'm just being dense, but exactly how did the Colorado lady realize that the person she spied on the road was a vampire?

That's a very good question actually...

Also - I don't know anything about tea rooms, bananas and coconuts either so it will be an interesting evening on Google I suppose. :lol:

 

[OldTimeRadio]

To demonstrate just how obsolete my world-view is, to me a "tea room" remains a quiet and secluded little restaurant over on the south side of Shady Street where spinster Miss Jessop and her life-long friend the Widow Abernathy share luncheon every Thursday at two p. m.

 

[LaurenChurchill]

And now I feel like cucumber sandwiches. Off to the shops for me then

 

[Anome]

I must have been hanging out in the wrong tea rooms...

 

[escargot]

Cucumber sandwiches, eh. You dirty devil. :lol:

 

[Peripart]

To demonstrate just how obsolete my world-view is, to me a "tea room" remains a quiet and secluded little restaurant over on the south side of Shady Street where spinster Miss Jessop and her life-long friend the Widow Abernathy share luncheon every Thursday at two p. m.

It's what they're doing at 3pm that'd make your eyes water. Filthy devils - who knew, eh?

Apologies in advance if I'm just being dense, but exactly how did the Colorado lady realize that the person she spied on the road was a vampire?

Exactly my first thought - she didn't stop to talk, so what was the giveaway? A face that looked pale in her headlights? Hardly conclusive evidence, is it?

The woman claims she spotted a vampire in the middle of a dirt road near Fruita, Colo. Sunday night. She told Colorado State Troopers she was startled by the undead being, threw her SUV into reverse, and crashed into a canal.

Sounds like an interesting insurance claim! As excuses for driving into a canal go, though, it's a good 'un. As you say, there's nothing in the very brief account to say what evidence led the woman to believe that she's seen a supernatural being, and not just some poor soul wandering home from the local bar.