A vampire

Vampire is a word of unknown, though rather late, origin, found in German, Romance and most Slavic languages; but it is not in Church Slavonic, nor in medieval Latin, nor even in Ancient and Middle German. It came to the West of Europe from Germany, where, in turn, it was adopted from the South Slavic language. It means a dead man who has risen from the grave, who sucks the blood of sleeping people.

Below we will describe a brief history of beliefs in vampires.

Stories of the dead shedding blood are found in almost all cultures around the world, including the most ancient. Vampire—like spirits called Lilu are mentioned in early Babylonian demonology, and blood-sucking akshars are mentioned in even earlier Sumerian mythology. In India, stories about vetals, vampire-like creatures that inhabit corpses, were common in Sanskrit short stories.

The myth of vampires in the form in which it is known to us appeared in Eastern Europe from Slavic folklore, where vampires were creatures that kill people by drinking their blood or by strangulation (this is discussed in more detail in the next section).

In the XVIII century in Eastern Europe, the threat of vampires was taken very seriously. Even civil servants were involved in the hunt for them.

It all started with an outbreak of complaints about vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734. Two well-known (and for the first time fully documented by the authorities) cases involved Peter Blagojevich (Peter Plogojowitz) and Arnold Paole (Arnold Paole) from Serbia. According to the story, Blagojevich died at the age of 62, but returned a couple of times after his death, asking for food from his son. The son refused and was found dead the next day. Soon Blagojevich returned and attacked some neighbors who died of blood loss.

In another famous case, Arnold Paole, a former soldier turned farmer who was allegedly attacked by a vampire a few years ago, died while haymaking. After his death, people began to die and everyone believed that it was Paole who was hunting the neighbors.

In the XVIII—XIX centuries, the belief in vampires reached not only the ears of the King of England, but also spread throughout New England, in particular to Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. There are many documented cases in these areas where families dug up those they used to love and took out the hearts of corpses, believing that the deceased was a vampire responsible for illnesses and deaths in the family (although the word "vampire" was never used to describe him or her).

The belief in vampires still exists. Although some cultures have retained their original beliefs in the undead, most modern believers are influenced by the artistic image of the vampire as he appears in films and literature.

In the 1970s, there were rumors (spread by the local press) about a vampire hunting at the Highgate Cemetery in London. Adult vampire hunters crowded into the cemetery in large numbers. Among several books describing this case, one can note the books of Sean Manchester, a local resident who was one of the first to suggest the existence of the "Highgate Vampire" and who claimed to have expelled and destroyed all the vampire nest in the area.

In the modern folklore of Puerto Rico and Mexico, the chupacabra is considered to be the creature that feeds on the flesh or drinks the blood of domestic animals. This gives reason to consider her another kind of vampire.

In late 2002 and early 2003, hysteria about the so-called vampire attacks spread across the African country of Malawi. The mob stoned one to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was in cahoots with vampires.

In Romania in February 2004, some relatives of the late Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They pulled out his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it and mixed the ashes with water to drink it later.

In January 2005, rumors surfaced that someone had bitten several people in Birmingham, England. Then there were rumors of a vampire wandering around the neighborhood. However, the local police claimed that such crimes were not reported. Apparently, this case was an urban legend.

In 2006, the American mathematical physicist Costas J. Efthimiou (PhD in mathematical physics, associate professor at the University of Central Florida), together with his student Sohang Gandhi, published an article that used geometric progression to try to expose the peculiarities of vampire nutrition, arguing that if every feeding If a vampire gives birth to another vampire, then it's only a matter of time when the entire population of the Earth will consist of vampires, or when vampires will die out. However, the idea that a vampire victim becomes a vampire herself does not appear in all vampire folklore, and is not generally accepted among modern people who believe in vampires.

Some types of vampires (for example, East Slavic), not only drink blood, but also have a sexually erotic interest, thus feeding on vital energy. From such love, a woman loses weight, turns pale, pines, gets sick, loses vitality, becomes withdrawn, silent and dies.

It is difficult to make a general description of the folklore vampire, since its features vary greatly from different cultures. Below we will give a few common features of vampires:

• A vampire is a relatively immortal being, you can kill him, but he does not age.

• It is a supernatural being, and it possesses physical strength that is many times greater than human strength, not to mention supernatural abilities.

• The appearance of a European vampire consists mostly of features by which it can be distinguished from an ordinary corpse, once the grave of a suspected vampire is opened. The vampire has a healthy appearance and ruddy skin (possibly pale), he is often plump, he has regrown hair and nails, and besides, he is not decomposed at all.

• The most common ways to destroy a vampire is to drive an aspen stake into his heart, decapitate and completely incinerate the body.

• Chinese vampire stories also claim that if a vampire stumbles across a bag of rice on his way, he/she will count all the grains. Similar myths are recorded on the Indian peninsula, in South America

• The objects protecting against vampires (as well as from other supernatural beings) were garlic (this is more typical of European legends), sunlight, wild rose stalk, hawthorn and all sacred things (cross, holy water, crucifix, rosary beads, star of David, etc.), as well as aloe, suspended behind or near the door, according to South American superstitions. In eastern legends, sacred things like the Shinto seal were often protected from vampires. In the Christian tradition, vampires cannot enter a church or other sacred place, as they are servants of the devil.

• It is sometimes believed that vampires can change shape. They could transform into wolves, rats, moths, spiders, snakes, owls, ravens and many others.

• Vampires from European legends do not cast shadows and have no reflection. Perhaps this is due to the vampire's lack of a soul.

• Some peoples have a belief that a vampire cannot enter a house without an invitation.

Despite this, the phenomenon is not vampirism itself as such, since bloodlust, as a type of nutrition, is inherent in creatures known to science.

Although it is now the 21st century, myths and legends firmly live in human society. The myth of the vampire phenomenon is no exception. If earlier the image of a vampire terrified a person, now it is being romanticized. Imitators appear in this image, ranging from harmless teenagers walking through cemeteries at night, and ending with violent maniacs who actually drink the blood of their victims.

In the modern world, in addition to the established image of a vampire as a person who has risen from the grave and drinks blood, new variations have appeared. Since blood was considered a receptacle of vital energy, now simply energy is considered food for vampires in human form. Hence the belief in energy vampires. Thirst for blood, as a type of food, mostly remained only for animals of unknown origin (for example, chupacabra).