Post by amelia2020 on Sept 13, 2023 18:39:25 GMT
Here is a Real Vampire Story that I thought I would share with everyone. Now, I hope you enjoy this Real Vampire Story. Vampire is a popular legend, a creature, often fanged, that preys upon humans, generally by consuming their blood. Vampires have been featured in folklore and fiction of various cultures for hundreds of years, predominantly in Europe, although belief in them has waned in modern times. Because there is a long history of walking corpses and bloodsucking ghouls in folklore, it is difficult to pin down a distinct set of characteristics consistently attributed only to vampires.
Central to vampire myth, however, is the consumption of human blood or other essence (such as bodily fluids or psychic energy), followed closely by the possession of sharp teeth or fangs with which to facilitate this task. In most depictions, vampires are “undead”—that is to say, having been somehow revived after death—and many are said to rise nightly from their graves or coffins, often necessarily containing their native soil. Vampires are typically said to be of pale skin and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale. Another frequently cited physical characteristic is the inability to cast a reflection or shadow, which often translates into an inability to be photographed or recorded on film.
Creatures with vampiric characteristics have appeared at least as far back as ancient Greece, where stories were told of creatures that attacked people in their sleep and drained their bodily fluids. Tales of walking corpses that drank the blood of the living and spread plague flourished in medieval Europe in times of disease, and people lacking a modern understanding of infectious disease came to believe that those who became vampires preyed first upon their own families. Research from the 20th and 21st centuries has posited that characteristics associated with vampires can be traced back to certain diseases such as porphyria, which makes one sensitive to sunlight; tuberculosis, which causes wasting; pellagra, a disease that thins the skin; and rabies, which causes biting and general sensitivities that could lead to repulsion by light or garlic.
Vampire myths were especially popular in eastern Europe, and the word vampire most likely originates from that region. Digging up the bodies of suspected vampires was practiced in many cultures throughout Europe, and it is thought that the natural characteristics of decomposition—such as receding gums and the appearance of growing hair and fingernails—reinforced the belief that corpses were in fact continuing some manner of life after death. Also possibly contributing to this belief was the pronouncement of death for people who were not dead. Because of the constraints of medical diagnosis at the time, people who were very ill, or sometimes even very drunk, and in a coma or in shock were thought dead and later “miraculously” recovered—sometimes too late to prevent their burial. Belief in vampires led to such rituals as staking corpses through the heart before they were buried. In some cultures the dead were buried facedown to prevent them from finding their way out of their graves.
A person may become a vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to be bitten by a vampire. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide, contagion, or having a cat jump over a person’s corpse. Some people believed that babies born with teeth or on Christmas or between Christmas and Epiphany were predisposed to becoming vampires. While vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and they are indeed often said to have faster-than-normal healing capabilities, there are various methods for their destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are often depicted as being repelled by garlic, running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes and holy water. In some stories vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, thereby enabling potential victims to escape.
Vampires are evil mythological beings who roam the world at night searching for people whose blood they feed upon. They may be the best-known classic monsters of all. Most people associate vampires with Count Dracula, the legendary, blood-sucking subject of Bram Stoker’s epic novel, Dracula, which was published in 1897. But the history of vampires began long before Stoker was born. There are almost as many different characteristics of vampires as there are vampire legends. But the main characteristic of vampires (or vampires) is they drink human blood. They typically drain their victim’s blood using their sharp fangs, killing them and turning them into vampires. In general, vampires hunt at night since sunlight weakens their powers. Some may have the ability to morph into a bat or a wolf. Vampires have super strength and often have a hypnotic, sensual effect on their victims. They can’t see their image in a mirror and cast no shadows.
It’s thought Bram Stoker named Count Dracula after Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad Dracul was born in Transylvania, Romania. He ruled Walachia, Romania, off and on from 1456-1462. Some historians describe him as a just—yet brutally cruel—ruler who valiantly fought off the Ottoman Empire. He earned his nickname because his favorite way to kill his enemies was to impale them on a wooden stake. According to legend, Vlad Dracul enjoyed dining amidst his dying victims and dipping his bread in their blood. Whether those gory tales are true is unknown. Many people believe these stories sparked Stoker’s imagination to create Count Dracula, who was also from Transylvania, sucked his victim’s blood and could be killed by driving a stake through his heart. But, according to Dracula expert Elizabeth Miller, Stoker didn’t base Count Dracula’s life on Vlad Dracul. Nonetheless, the similarities between the two are intriguing.
Vampire superstition thrived in the Middle Ages, especially as the plague decimated entire towns. The disease often left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims, which to the uneducated was a sure sign of vampirism. It wasn’t uncommon for anyone with an unfamiliar physical or emotional illness to be labeled a vampire. Many researchers have pointed to porphyria, a blood disorder that can cause severe blisters on skin that’s exposed to sunlight, as a disease that may have been linked to the vampire legend. Some symptoms of porphyria can be temporarily relieved by ingesting blood. Other diseases blamed for promoting the vampire myth include rabies or goiter. When a suspected vampire died, their bodies were often disinterred to search for signs of vampirism. In some cases, a stake was thrust through the corpse’s heart to make sure they stayed dead. Other accounts describe the decapitation and burning of the corpses of suspected vampires well into the nineteenth century.
Mercy Brown may rival Count Dracula as the most notorious vampire. Unlike Count Dracula, however, Mercy was a real person. She lived in Exeter, Rhode Island and was the daughter of George Brown, a farmer. After George lost many family members, including Mercy, in the late 1800s to tuberculosis, his community used Mercy as a scapegoat to explain their deaths. It was common at that time to blame several deaths in one family on the “undead.” The bodies of each dead family member were often exhumed and searched for signs of vampirism. When Mercy’s body was exhumed and didn’t display severe decay (not surprising, since her body was placed in an above-ground vault during a New England winter), the townspeople accused her of being a vampire and making her family sick from her icy grave. They cut out her heart, burned it, then fed the ashes to her sick brother. Perhaps not surprisingly, he died shortly thereafter.
Although modern science has silenced the vampire fears of the past, people who call themselves vampires do exist. They’re normal-seeming people who drink small amounts of blood in a (perhaps misguided) effort to stay healthy. Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the Internet and in cities and towns around the world. To avoid rekindling vampire superstitions, most modern vampires keep to themselves and typically conduct their “feeding” rituals—which include drinking the blood of willing donors—in private. Some vampires don’t ingest human blood but claim to feed off the energy of others. Many state that if they don’t feed regularly, they become agitated or depressed. Vampires became mainstream after Dracula was published. Since then, Count Dracula’s legendary persona has been the topic of many films, books and television shows. Given the fascination people have with all things horror, vampires—real or imagined—are likely to continue to inhabit the earth for years to come.
Over the years, vampires have taken many forms. And I don’t mean just turning into bats. While the vampire myth originated in Europe, most cultures have folk tales surrounding vampiric creatures. The most predominant feature of vampires (or vampires) is the consumption of a person’s vital essence, most often in the form of blood. It’s interesting to note that the pale and sophisticated vampire which has become commonplace in the media did not exist before the 19th century. One of the best movies of all time is Howard Storm, Now Howard Storm's horror-comedy is best known as the first starring vehicle of Jim Carrey, who plays a bumbling high-school student seduced by a beautiful woman who turns out to be an ancient vampire. Once Bitten received marginally positive reviews and opened atop the U.S. box office. Years later, Carrey became the first star in history to earn a standard $20 million per picture. Thanks for reading my Real Vampire Story. Have a good one!
Central to vampire myth, however, is the consumption of human blood or other essence (such as bodily fluids or psychic energy), followed closely by the possession of sharp teeth or fangs with which to facilitate this task. In most depictions, vampires are “undead”—that is to say, having been somehow revived after death—and many are said to rise nightly from their graves or coffins, often necessarily containing their native soil. Vampires are typically said to be of pale skin and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale. Another frequently cited physical characteristic is the inability to cast a reflection or shadow, which often translates into an inability to be photographed or recorded on film.
Creatures with vampiric characteristics have appeared at least as far back as ancient Greece, where stories were told of creatures that attacked people in their sleep and drained their bodily fluids. Tales of walking corpses that drank the blood of the living and spread plague flourished in medieval Europe in times of disease, and people lacking a modern understanding of infectious disease came to believe that those who became vampires preyed first upon their own families. Research from the 20th and 21st centuries has posited that characteristics associated with vampires can be traced back to certain diseases such as porphyria, which makes one sensitive to sunlight; tuberculosis, which causes wasting; pellagra, a disease that thins the skin; and rabies, which causes biting and general sensitivities that could lead to repulsion by light or garlic.
Vampire myths were especially popular in eastern Europe, and the word vampire most likely originates from that region. Digging up the bodies of suspected vampires was practiced in many cultures throughout Europe, and it is thought that the natural characteristics of decomposition—such as receding gums and the appearance of growing hair and fingernails—reinforced the belief that corpses were in fact continuing some manner of life after death. Also possibly contributing to this belief was the pronouncement of death for people who were not dead. Because of the constraints of medical diagnosis at the time, people who were very ill, or sometimes even very drunk, and in a coma or in shock were thought dead and later “miraculously” recovered—sometimes too late to prevent their burial. Belief in vampires led to such rituals as staking corpses through the heart before they were buried. In some cultures the dead were buried facedown to prevent them from finding their way out of their graves.
A person may become a vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to be bitten by a vampire. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide, contagion, or having a cat jump over a person’s corpse. Some people believed that babies born with teeth or on Christmas or between Christmas and Epiphany were predisposed to becoming vampires. While vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and they are indeed often said to have faster-than-normal healing capabilities, there are various methods for their destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are often depicted as being repelled by garlic, running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes and holy water. In some stories vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, thereby enabling potential victims to escape.
Vampires are evil mythological beings who roam the world at night searching for people whose blood they feed upon. They may be the best-known classic monsters of all. Most people associate vampires with Count Dracula, the legendary, blood-sucking subject of Bram Stoker’s epic novel, Dracula, which was published in 1897. But the history of vampires began long before Stoker was born. There are almost as many different characteristics of vampires as there are vampire legends. But the main characteristic of vampires (or vampires) is they drink human blood. They typically drain their victim’s blood using their sharp fangs, killing them and turning them into vampires. In general, vampires hunt at night since sunlight weakens their powers. Some may have the ability to morph into a bat or a wolf. Vampires have super strength and often have a hypnotic, sensual effect on their victims. They can’t see their image in a mirror and cast no shadows.
It’s thought Bram Stoker named Count Dracula after Vlad Dracul, also known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad Dracul was born in Transylvania, Romania. He ruled Walachia, Romania, off and on from 1456-1462. Some historians describe him as a just—yet brutally cruel—ruler who valiantly fought off the Ottoman Empire. He earned his nickname because his favorite way to kill his enemies was to impale them on a wooden stake. According to legend, Vlad Dracul enjoyed dining amidst his dying victims and dipping his bread in their blood. Whether those gory tales are true is unknown. Many people believe these stories sparked Stoker’s imagination to create Count Dracula, who was also from Transylvania, sucked his victim’s blood and could be killed by driving a stake through his heart. But, according to Dracula expert Elizabeth Miller, Stoker didn’t base Count Dracula’s life on Vlad Dracul. Nonetheless, the similarities between the two are intriguing.
Vampire superstition thrived in the Middle Ages, especially as the plague decimated entire towns. The disease often left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims, which to the uneducated was a sure sign of vampirism. It wasn’t uncommon for anyone with an unfamiliar physical or emotional illness to be labeled a vampire. Many researchers have pointed to porphyria, a blood disorder that can cause severe blisters on skin that’s exposed to sunlight, as a disease that may have been linked to the vampire legend. Some symptoms of porphyria can be temporarily relieved by ingesting blood. Other diseases blamed for promoting the vampire myth include rabies or goiter. When a suspected vampire died, their bodies were often disinterred to search for signs of vampirism. In some cases, a stake was thrust through the corpse’s heart to make sure they stayed dead. Other accounts describe the decapitation and burning of the corpses of suspected vampires well into the nineteenth century.
Mercy Brown may rival Count Dracula as the most notorious vampire. Unlike Count Dracula, however, Mercy was a real person. She lived in Exeter, Rhode Island and was the daughter of George Brown, a farmer. After George lost many family members, including Mercy, in the late 1800s to tuberculosis, his community used Mercy as a scapegoat to explain their deaths. It was common at that time to blame several deaths in one family on the “undead.” The bodies of each dead family member were often exhumed and searched for signs of vampirism. When Mercy’s body was exhumed and didn’t display severe decay (not surprising, since her body was placed in an above-ground vault during a New England winter), the townspeople accused her of being a vampire and making her family sick from her icy grave. They cut out her heart, burned it, then fed the ashes to her sick brother. Perhaps not surprisingly, he died shortly thereafter.
Although modern science has silenced the vampire fears of the past, people who call themselves vampires do exist. They’re normal-seeming people who drink small amounts of blood in a (perhaps misguided) effort to stay healthy. Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the Internet and in cities and towns around the world. To avoid rekindling vampire superstitions, most modern vampires keep to themselves and typically conduct their “feeding” rituals—which include drinking the blood of willing donors—in private. Some vampires don’t ingest human blood but claim to feed off the energy of others. Many state that if they don’t feed regularly, they become agitated or depressed. Vampires became mainstream after Dracula was published. Since then, Count Dracula’s legendary persona has been the topic of many films, books and television shows. Given the fascination people have with all things horror, vampires—real or imagined—are likely to continue to inhabit the earth for years to come.
Over the years, vampires have taken many forms. And I don’t mean just turning into bats. While the vampire myth originated in Europe, most cultures have folk tales surrounding vampiric creatures. The most predominant feature of vampires (or vampires) is the consumption of a person’s vital essence, most often in the form of blood. It’s interesting to note that the pale and sophisticated vampire which has become commonplace in the media did not exist before the 19th century. One of the best movies of all time is Howard Storm, Now Howard Storm's horror-comedy is best known as the first starring vehicle of Jim Carrey, who plays a bumbling high-school student seduced by a beautiful woman who turns out to be an ancient vampire. Once Bitten received marginally positive reviews and opened atop the U.S. box office. Years later, Carrey became the first star in history to earn a standard $20 million per picture. Thanks for reading my Real Vampire Story. Have a good one!