The Vampire Way Seeing the Vampires in Our Life In stark contrast to the other monsters that inhabited our literature in the last centuries, the vampire was distinct in its ability to live among us. It blended into human society disguised as one of us, maybe a little odd, but certainly within the bounds of normal variation in humankind. Dracula moved through London with little problem until targeted by a group seeking to confirm his vampiric nature. The vampire''s enemies must first accept the fact that vampires exist, learn the characteristics of the vampire life, and then search out and identify the particular vampires in their midst. Origins of the Vampire How did vampires originate? If vampires did (or do) exist, where did they come from? The answers to these questions have varied widely as the vampire has appeared in the folklore of different countries and various fiction writers have speculated on the nature of vampirism. The Folkloric Vampire: The vampire figure in folklore emerged as an answer to otherwise unsolvable problems within culture. The vampire was seen as the cause of certain unexplainable evils, accounted for the appearance of some extraordinary occurrences within the society, and was often cited as the end product of immoral behavior. The earliest vampires seem to have originated as an explanation of problems in childbirth.

For example, the langsuyar --the primary vampire figure of Malaysia--was a beautiful young woman who had given birth to a stillborn child. Upon hearing of her child''s fate, she clapped her hands and flew away into the trees. Henceforth, she attacked children and sucked their blood. A similar tale was told of the lamiai , the original vampire of Greece. Just as tales of vampires were inspired by childbirth problems, they also originated from unusual circumstances surrounding births. Children who were different at birth were considered to be vampire candidates. For example, among the Kashubian people of Poland, children born with a membrane cap on their heads or with two teeth were likely to become vampires unless dealt with properly while growing up. Similarly, some vampire stories originated from problems surrounding the death of a loved one.

In eastern Europe, vampires were individuals who returned from the grave to attack their spouses, their immediate families, and possibly other acquaintances in the village. Symptoms of vampiric attack included nightmares, apparitions of the dead, and the death of family members by a wasting disease (such as tuberculosis). Some of the symptoms point to the vampire as a product of the grieving process, especially the continued ties of the living to the dead, often taking the form of unfinished emotional business. Thus, vampires were seen as originating from the failure of the family (in a time before the existence of funeral parlors) to perform the funeral and burial rites with exacting precision. A common event that allegedly led to the creation of a vampire was allowing an animal such as a cat to jump over the body of a dead person prior to burial. Vampirism was also caused by unexpected and sudden, violent deaths, either from accidents or suicides. Victims of suicides were also part of a larger class of vampires that existed as a result of the immoral behavior of the person who became a vampire. The vampire served as an instrument of social control for the moral leaders of the community.

Thus, people who stepped outside of the moral and religious boundaries of the community not only jeopardized their souls but might become vampires. A potential vampire committed evil acts, among them suicide, and anyone guilty of great evil, especially of an antisocial nature, was thought likely to become a vampire after death. In some Christian countries, notably Russia and Greece, heresy could also lead to vampirism. The heretic was one type of person who died in a state of excommunication from the church. Excommunication could be pronounced for a number of unforgiven sins from actions directly attacking the church to more common immoralities such as adultery or murder. Heresy was also associated in some cultures with witchcraft, defined as consorting with Satan and/or the working of malevolent, antisocial magic. Witches who practiced their craft in their earthly lives might become vampires after their deaths. Vampire Contamination: After the first vampire was created, a community of vampires might soon follow.

When a particular vampire figure, such as the original lamiai , took its place in the mythology of a people as a lesser deity or demon, they sometimes multiplied into a set of similar beings. Thus, Greek mythology posed the existence of numerous lamiai , a class of demonic entities. They were assumed to exist as part of the larger supernatural environment and, as such, the question of their origin was never raised. Also, such demonic entities did not create new vampires by attacking people. Their victims might suffer either physical harm or death as the result of the vampire''s assault, but they did not become vampires. Things were quite different in eastern Europe. There, vampires were former members of the community. Vampires could draw other members of the community into their vampiric existence by contaminating former family and neighbors, usually by biting them.

In the famous case of Arnold Paul, the vampiric state was passed by meat from cows that had been bitten by Paul. The Literary Vampire: In the nineteenth century, the vampire figure was wrenched from its rural social context in eastern Europe and brought into the relatively secularized culture of western European cities. It was introduced into the romantic imagination of writers cut off from the mythological context in which the vampire originated. Those writers had to recreate a new context from the few bits of knowledge they possessed. In examining the few vampire cases at their disposal, most prominently the Arnold Paul case, they learned that vampires were created by people being bitten by other vampires. The imaginary vampire of nineteenth-century romanticism was an isolated individual. Unlike the Eastern European vampire, the literary vampire did not exist in a village culture as a symbol that warned residents of the dangerous and devilish life outside the boundaries of approved village life. The imaginary vampire was a victim of irresistible supernatural attack.

Against their wills, they were overwhelmed by the vampiric state and, much like drug addicts, forced to live lives built around their blood lust. The majority of beliefs associated with the origins of vampires were irrelevant to the creators of the literary vampire, although on occasion one element might be picked up to give a novel twist to a vampire tale. Underlying much of the modern vampire lore was the belief that vampires attacked humans and, through that attack, drew victims into their world. Again, like drug addicts might share an addiction and turn others into addicts, so the vampire infected nonvampires with their condition. Writers have generally suggested that vampires primarily, if not exclusively, created new vampires by their bites. The radical simplification of the vampire myth can be seen in Dracula (1897), especially its treatment on the stage and screen. Bram Stoker did not deal directly with the problem of Dracula''s origin as a vampire. In Dr.

Abraham Van Helsing famous speech in chapter 18, where he described in some detail the nature of the vampire, he suggested that Dracula became a vampire because he "had dealings with the Evil One." More important, however, was his ability to transform people into vampires. Dracula''s bite was a necessary part of that transmission, but, of itself, not sufficient. Jonathan Harker was bitten a number of times by the three vampire women but did not become a vampire. On the other hand, following multiple bites from Dracula, Lucy Westenra did turn into a vampire and Mina Murray was in the process of being transformed into a vampire when the men interrupted Dracula. In the key scene in chapter 21, Dracula, having previously drunk Mina''s blood, forced her to drink his. Thus, in Dracula new vampires originated not from the bite of the vampire but by an exchange of blood. Bram Stoker had little material to draw upon in considering this question of the vampire''s origin.

The question was avoided by John Polidori in his original vampire story. Varney the Vampyre , the subject of the 1840s novel, became a vampire as punishment for accidently killing his son, but the actual manner of transformation was not revealed. Sheridan Le Fanu was familiar with the folkloric tradition and suggested suicide as the cause of new vampires but saw the death of a person previously bitten by a vampire as the basic means of spreading vampirism. His anti-heroine, Carmilla was the product of a vampire''s bite. In the rewriting of Dracula for screen and stage, the scene from the book during which Mina consumed Dracula''s blood was deleted. It was considered too risqué, but without it some other means had to be found to transmit the vampiric state, and thus came the suggestion that merely the vampire''s bite transmitted the condition--the common assumption in most vampire novels and movies. At times, vampires required multiple bites, or the bite had to take enough blood to cause the death of the victim. While most vampire books and movies have not dealt with the question of vampire origins apart from the passing of the vampiric condition through the bite of a preexisting vampire, occasionally writers have attempted to create a vampire myth that covers the ancient origin of the original vampire(s).

Among the more intriguing of recent origin stories was that told by Anne Rice in the third of her "Vampire.