Vampires

[Anonymous]

Matthew Bunson's The Vampire Encyclopaedia. The Vampire - A Casebook edited by Alan Dundes. Montague Summers stuff is considered to be something of a must have. Not that I have myself, and I'm okay without them. The encyclopaedia though is pretty much a must-have. The Casebook is a collection of essays exploring various aspects of vampire lore. Rather interesting. Or there's The Complete Book of Vampires by Leonard R. N. Ashley, who's written a few books which tend to cover things quite well without going into too much detail. I don't have the vampire book, but it's definitely one I'd consider getting.


There's also these links I was sent by a friend some time ago. I'm no sure if they still work, but they're work a look.
http://www.sacred-texts.com
Dracula is there too and a few interesting werewolf books. Its a great site generally

http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/vkk/index.htm
THE VAMPIRE
HIS KITH AND KIN
by Montague Summers

http://www.sacred-texts.com/goth/polidori/vampyr.htm
THE VAMPYRE
by John Polidori

 

[Anonymous]

Helen, those two books you listed are between $10-11 US from amazon.com, perfect for me! thanks for the suggestions Now to check out those websites you posted

 

[Anonymous]

No problem - Glad to be of assistance

 

[Anonymous]

Just have to ask, do any of you believe in the existence of Vampires?

 

[Anonymous]

i don't like vampires ecause they suck :hmph:

Bad joke !! So what??? Sue me :blah:

 

[Bilderberger]

I remember the days when Vampires were all over this board.

Them were the days when you could take a girl out for £5 and still have enough money left for fish and chips on the way home.

Whatever happened?

(SHUT UP! - You'll get youself in trouble)

 

[Yithian]

I remember the days when Vampires were all over this board.
...Whatever happened?

Someone ridded us of the Turbulent Priest!

 

[Bilderberger]

What happened - was he booted over a high gate?

(ouch - this is a dangerous game)

 

[Yithian]

What happened - was he booted over a high gate?

Yep, i heard it was owned by a bloke called cement-Terry. sorry - awful

 

[Bilderberger]

Booted all the way to.........now........what is that City called? Oh you know, it hosted the last Commonwealth games. Rains a lot. Got a famous football club.

Oh well, all in the past now.

 

[Anonymous]

Inverness? Scunthope? Juventas?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Dracual theme park

And a follow up:

Dracula Park to Suck in Vampire Tourists

Fri Oct 10,10:43 AM ET

By Radu Marinas

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Vampire lovers with a thirst for a thrill could soon be Romania-bound after investors said on Thursday a Disneyland-style Dracula theme park was back on track.



Under pressure from UNESCO (news - web sites) and other activists, Romania changed its plans to build the horror tourist draw near the historic birthplace in Transylvania of Vlad the Impaler -- said to have been the inspiration for the fictional Dracula.


UNESCO, the culture arm of the United Nations (news - web sites), and others said building the park near Sighisoara would have ruined the 13th century town, a World Heritage Site.


"All I can say is that the Dracula project is going ahead. We're drafting a detailed plan, subject to shareholder approval by the end of this year," Sorin Marica, the chairman of the Dracula Park SA firm which oversees the project told Reuters.


The theme park will now be sited in the Snagov Lake area, north of the capital, and not in Transylvania, which is a region of Romania.


Consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers said Snagov, 17 km (11 miles) from Bucharest airport and 40 km (25 miles) from the center of the capital of 2.5 million people was the most appropriate site.


Marica said horror rides, labyrinths and catacombs were still part of the plan for the park, due to be built on 100 hectares (250 acres) of state land with private funds to try to lure more tourists to the poor ex-communist country.


"We also aim to create a separate area (in the park) to promote the historic truth for Vlad Tepes," Marica said.


The headless body of Vlad Tepes, the real life 15th century Wallachian hero prince who fought off Ottoman invaders and defended Christendom, is believed to be buried at a monastery in the middle of Snagov Lake.


Vlad is believed to have been born in Sighisoara around 1431 to Vlad Dracul or Dragon. The young Vlad was named Dracula -- meaning son of Dracul -- by his father. But in Romanian, the word also means the devil.


The government had trumpeted the plan saying it would draw about one million tourists annually by 2006 -- 20 percent from abroad but appeared to lose interest.


But government spokeswoman Despina Neagoe said on Thursday: "I don't have any information on the Dracula park project.""

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...7&e=3&u=/nm/20031010/od_nm/romania_dracula_dc

 

[Timble2]

Did anyone see 'Incredible Stories' last night.

Interesting take on vampires, particularly vampire scares in New England, which were more of the traditional Eastern European, blood sucking corpse variety, rather that the elegant, slightly wasted aristocrats beloved of fiction.

The last scares were as late as the 1890s when villagers dug up the graves of the members of a family who had wasted away and died one after another, to find which was the vampire, and having identified the least decomposed corpse as the perpetrator cut out and burnt its heart.

An interesting suggestion from a folklorist and a forensic scientist who had examined the bones of supposed vampire, was that the myth arose from medieval misinterpretations of tuberculosis, where before the concept of infectious disease was understood the spread of the disease through a family or community, with people wasting away and and coughing up blood before dying could be taken as something supernatural stalking and preying on the living.

The traditional descriptions of the vampire in its grave, bloated, red-faced, claw-like fingernails, sound very like the normal post-mortem changes in a decomposing body.

It left a lot of questions unanswered and unasked, but showed one possible way in which a disease could have contributed to the myth of the vampire. (It's obviously not the only source)

 

[Anonymous]

I visited Exeter's catabombs last weekend, as part of Weird Weekend by the Centre for Fortean Zoology. They had a ghost walk on the Sunday. We didn't actually go into the catacombs (which is by arrangement apparently) but a couple in the party did photograph 'orbs' in the entrance to the catacombes. Make of that what you will.

The cemetary is allegedly the haunt of a vampire, and several exsanguinated corpses have been found around there over many years. Mind you, why you'd assume the vampire was in the catacombs is beyond me....

Still, very interesting place. Quite odd.

 

[Jerry_B]

An interesting suggestion from a folklorist and a forensic scientist who had examined the bones of supposed vampire, was that the myth arose from medieval misinterpretations of tuberculosis, where before the concept of infectious disease was understood the spread of the disease through a family or community, with people wasting away and and coughing up blood before dying could be taken as something supernatural stalking and preying on the living.

In Romanian folklore, vampires are associated with disease and death, so that's an interesting link.

 

[athyra]

I saw an interesting essay linking rabies with vampirism.

Rabies itself was spread in eastern europe primarily through two animal vectors: bats and wolves. Hence, the association: someone comes in contact with these, the person becomes rabid, and is now a "vampire"

Symptoms of rabies itself bears striking parallels to vampirism.

People in latter stages of rabies start to have extremely hightened senses, light itself becomes painful to the eye, including the sun and mirrors. As well, strong scents become a deterrant, hence the garlic protection.

Rabies affects the brain as well, causing the sufferer to suffer psychosis and severe hydrophobia. They also seem to have a fixation with biting, which would be the means of transmission to family members.

People infected with rabies are also afflicted with insomnia, and are typically unable to sleep during the night and are up and roaming. Facial spasms cause the lips to jerk back and reveal teeth more prominently. Rabies victims also do not swallow their saliva, and vomit blood. The saliva is often tinged pink from regurgitated blood. If you see someone attack a person, and then later vomit blood, seems a logical conclusion that you'd then assume that they were drinking the blood?

Death from rabies (forget what typically causes death), often prevents the blood from coagulating/coagulates slowly. As well, Eastern Europe tends to be cold and wet, preserving bodies. The conditions are also ideal for a process which turns subcutaneous layers of fat into a wax-like substance. When the bodies were exumed, there would appear to be little decay and blood would still flow

Combine this with the fact that vampire legends themselves only became as prominent as they were in the 16th-17th century, which just HAPPENED to coincide with a major outbreak of rabies in Eastern Europe, and it would seem that rabies is explained.

To verify what I've said, do a google search of "rabies giving rise to vampire legends in Eastern Europe" and you should get some hits.

The parallels, in my mind, are FAR to similar, and in fact rabies explains pretty much all the archetypal vampire traits. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Vlad the Impaler was NOT considered a vampire, btw. His name was taken by Bram Stokers, but before Bram there was no association with vampires.

Vlad the Impaler was a romanian (wallachian I think?) hero. He drove back the ottoman (i think) turks, and hurt them so badly and scared them so much with his man made "forests" that he was able to somehow preserve the orthodox christian state from the muslims. He wasn't a nice guy, he was extremely ruthless and thought nothing of impaling tens of thousands of his enemies on spikes, but he had a REASON to do it. He didn't do it for fun, he did it for the immense psychological impact it would have on his enemies.

He was no worse then the "enlightened" romans who would erect 'forests' of their own. Impaling, while more grisly, is not all that much worse then crucifixion.

 

[Timble2]

The programme also mentioned the rabies idea, but it didn't fit with the 19th century events in New England as well as tuberculosis - and the bones of the suspected vampire revealed that he had suffered from tuberculosis.


There's probably no one disease that explain the whole vampire phenomena, at different times and different places any mysterious disease that killed its victims in a bizarre manner could be attributed to something stalking the village in the night.

BTW: Vlad Tepes was probably kinder the Romans when it came to making examples of his enemies, impaling is a lot quicker than crucifixion. Not that either process is going to win you any humanitarian awards.
Dracula was a nick-name, I've seen it translated as 'Son of the Devil', 'Devil' and 'Son of the Dragon' - anybody know any medieval Eastern European languages?

 

[athyra]

No, the New England deaths were, iirc, almost definitively pinned to tuberculosis.

But you must remember, the New Englanders weren't the ones who originated the myth: they'd gotten it 2nd or 3rd hand. The myth was already in existence before the new england wave.

When faced with the unexplainable, they delved into the supernatural to attempt an explanation. The closest figure they could come up with, was the vampire.

The new england wave was a permutation of the original folklore.

Of course, there may be a cause from before the rabies epidemic, but that almost certainly the genesis of the 'modern' vampire legends.

 

[Anonymous]

Dracula is more or less an embelleshiment of a brutal yet respected leader. If one wants to research vampires, they need to realize that there are several types of vampires. Most vampire beliefs are routed in ancient times.

 

[Melf]

Death from rabies (forget what typically causes death)

hydrophobia:- fear of water

and there as far i know there has been NO substaniated
attacks by wolves on humans

 

[Anonymous]

hydrophobia:- fear of water

and there as far i know there has been NO substaniated
attacks by wolves on humans

Beast of Gevaudan was a wolf. albeit a giant, and unusually aggressive one, it confirmed killed 60 some people in France.

 

[Yithian]

The Cross and the Stake

This messageboard deals with vampire lore from an avowedly Christian viewpoint. The tone's not to my taste but, that aside, there are some good (older) posts on the vampire in literature, legend and folklore:

http://groups.msn.com/TheCrossandTheStake/_whatsnew.msnw

 

[Anonymous]

If you get the chance, try and get hold of a copy of the book that Marc Alexander wrote about the work of the exorcist Rev. Donald Omand - fascinating stuff, and includes an encounter with a 'real' vampire!

 

[Anonymous]

blood sucking persons

and no, i'm not talking about lawyers!!! :blah:

and no i'm not a religious nut, but if you want books about vampires, try reading the story of Cain and Able in Genesis. Pretty much the first ever story that resulted in vampirism....of a sort.

There's also a lot of vamps in chinese legends, if you look closely enough. And in Indian culture too(as in India).
:vampire:

 

[skitster]

Re: Vampires...

ANyone know of any good, factual books or websites dedicated to the topic. Taken an interest to the topic recently.

Bit of a Johnny-come-lately with this one but ...... top factual vampire books, beyond the good Rev Summers 'Kith and Kin' and 'in Europe', are 'Vampires,Burial and Death' by Paul Barber and 'Children of the Night' by Tony Thorne, though he does do a bit of academic willy-waving in the book.

'The Phantom World' by Culmet is where most newer books got their reports from too. Wordsworth printed a cheap edition of it a few years ago with the FLS

 

[escargot]

A tobacconist here in Szeged sells 'Vampirefag' which I take to be a make of ciggy. I hope so anyway.

Did a Google on it- :eek!!!!:

 

[Anonymous]

A tobacconist here in Szeged sells 'Vampirefag' which I take to be a make of ciggy. I hope so anyway. :

I'm going to resist the temptation to make the obvious Michael Jackson joke here.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Not sure if you will find this related or not, but I read a few years ago (perhaps you will find it on one of those sites), that a skeleton was uncovered in Scotland, in the 1800's. The authorities immediately assumed it might be King Arthur, or someone of that ilk, because of the armour and swords accompanying the skeleton. They noted that the skeleton was oddly preserved for something so old and when they took it to a school nearby until they could take it to the official museum, they examined it, and lo and behold it had a retractable jaw and fangs! Huge ones!
After that, I never heard anything else about it, but a few years ago, I met a guy through mutual friends who said he volunteered for a dig where they found skeletons with fangs, and that the archeologist in charge tried to get them to believe some bogus story about cannibals sharpening their teeth. He said this was impossible because the teeth were too long, almost jutting out of the mouth, and that there were cavities on the bottom jaw, like pockets, where the teeth fit into place when the jaws were shut.

Unbelievabley scary, but true!

WW

 

[Anonymous]

Blimey! I'd love to see pictures of that!

 

[DetroitBob]

Vlad the Impaler

Doesn't most vampire lore trail back to Vlad the Impaler?

The theory is that Vlad, (who put his enemies heads on a
pike that all could see, thus the "Impaler" nickname), was
such an evil character that all the stories passed down are
simply an attempt at explaining how someone could be such
bad news.............i.e. - he was some supernatural evil creature.