December 24, 2019 ▸ Myth & Folklore, Paranormal

Episode 440: Vampires: Blood, Blade, Buffy, and Bathory!

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On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we walk into the shadows and look at one of the most popular mythical creatures to ever exist: Vampires. The Vampire has existed in some form or another as far back as ancient Babylon and Greece, and there are versions of them that range from the classic Eastern European model to strange ones in the Japan and the Philippines. Their traits vary over time, and so do their cultural appeal. But at certain times in history, the fear of Vampires was real enough that people did very strange things to corpses to keep them from stalking the living.

So what are the common traits of the Vampire? Well, the biggie is of course that the person is dead but now alive again, or undead. Another key is that they drink human blood, but from there, the traits vary. Some eras and locations say the Vamps cast no shadow or reflection; they can mesmerize people; they can change shape; they are superhumanly strong. Weaknesses vary as well: crosses repel them sometimes, some can’t enter a house; then there is garlic, scattering seeds on the ground, or even repelling them with silver.

There seems to be no real single event or country that can be thought to be the start of the Vampire myth, but a big one for modern interpretations is Bram Stokers Dracula, based loosely around Vlad Tepes. Stoker wrote another story about a female vampire based on Lady Bathory as well, and these tended to create the smooth, sexy, sadistic monster that can control creatures of the night. From there, fiction took over, and Vampires were defined by Bella Lugosi, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, Twilight, and the Interview with a Vampire, just to name a few.

There are of course, “real world” Vampires who feel a physical compulsion to drink human blood. They do so secretly, so nobody judges them, but they number in the thousands. As late as the 1890s, there were Vampire panics in America, and somehow, this blood-sucking monster exists across all mythologies and all times, and shows no signs of going away any time soon.

Visit Our Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/vampire

https://www.livescience.com/24374-vampires-real-history.html

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/10/vampires-europe-new-england-halloween-history/

https://www.history.com/topics/folklore/vampire-history

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/15/real-life-vampires-interview

https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/strange-creatures/vampire.htm

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/english-vampire-0010927

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/a-natural-history-of-vampires/

https://aminoapps.com/c/anime/page/blog/vampires-and-japanese-mythology/Lkt8_ueXm8YjnwPqlBPkva0kmKJ7gw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region