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Vampires, I am totally smitten!
Did you know that the vampire myth has been around for thousands of years?
- In Ancient Egypt the vampire is said to be born from sorcery! Egyptian history tells of a vampire spirit which would feast on the blood of newborns.
- The Greeks feared the Lamia who disguised as a beautiful woman who would stalk Greek men and drink their blood.
- Ancient Romans were stalked by a bloodthirsty demon known as a Strager.
- A Babalonian winged creature who hunted humans for eternity was called Ekimmu.
- Asia has the Chinese Jianshi, evil spirits who attack people and drain their energy.
- These blood-drinking wrathful deities also appear in the Tibetan Book of the Dead!
- During the time of the Middle Ages in Europe, the interest in vampires and revenants surged.
- In 1443 the Hungarians named a restless corpse Nosferatu 'the undead.'
- Hebrew mythology speaks of Lilith, Adams first wife, who was evicted from The Garden of Eden and indulged in the blood of first born babies!
- The word vampire was first used in 'English' in 1790 and is derived from the Hungarian word Vampir, which was used to describe a Slavic mythical creature called a Upir, which ate the living!
- A skeleton, buried in the cemetery of Vecchiano, Pisa shows vampire like qualities was uncovered with a brick suck in its jaw.
- Paul Barber, a folklorist studied the beliefs of revenants and noted that centuries ago babies were killed at birth if they were born with defects such as being born with teeth, an extra nipple, lack of cartilage in the nose or a split lower lip as it was believed they were children of the dead.
Even before Bram Stoker, and his novel 'Dracula,' the human race has been enthralled with this mythological creature
THE
VAMPIRE!
10 comments:
I love hearing about all of these facts and myths, it's interesting that the myth goes so far back. It makes you wonder what made people start to believe in them. I particularly love the vampire skeleton, creepy!
I don't think vampire lore or novels about vampires will ever disappear. I Love them. I almost always have at least one vamp themed novel in queue on my TBR list.
Very interesting facts. I find it amazing how different cultures, in different lands, came up with same sort of legends.
A restless corpse, huh?
Fantastic.
I am in full blown research mode for my next book and this blog hop has been perfect!
Great stuff.
Tim
The Other Side
Vampires rock and the various mythos surrounding them are fascinating. I researched a ton of them before I came up with my story for this, including several you mentioned. I never saw the brick story though. Morbidly awesome, lol.
Good facts! My mom was diagnosed with haemochromatosis sometime before she died, though in her case it was caused by a genetic problem. She was also the biggest vampire lover I knew. Fascinating coincidence.
I've done some research on vamps of lore, and I find it rather fascinating how so many cultures around the globe, from antiquity on, have believed in some kind of bloodsucker...makes me wonder if this taps into some Jungian "collective unconscious" or if there's some kernel of truth in all the legends...(Where there're fangs, there's fire???) ;-)
Vampires are here to stay. Thanks for this interesting and informative post!!
Great legends and pics :)
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