Myths About Dracula And Vampires

You must have heard about vampires and Dracula. You must have also seen their movies or read books about them. Are they myth or reality? Is there anything such as a vampire or Dracula? Those of you who are superstitious might say they are real, but those of you who are not will say they are myth. Let's read how they were conceived, what they are afraid of and even how to become one.

How they started?

In 1897, an Irish writer, Bram Stoker published a book. It was about a Count who lived in a large abandoned castle and sucked people's blood by biting them with his long canine teeth. The book was called Count Dracula. This book was the beginning of a legend, Dracula. Authors around the world started to write stories about this blood-sucking creature. It is said that the writer, Bram Stoker got the idea from a forgotten creature, called Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula.

The word Vampire came into the English language in 1732, through an English translation of a German report of a much-publicized vampire staking in Serbia. The fear of vampires was so widely spread that even some government officials went out hunting and placing stakes on vampires. This scare was responsible for England's current vampire myths. However, vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world.

The different legends portray many varieties of vampires, from glowing red-eyed monsters with green or pink hair as in China, to the Greek Lamia, which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent. Japan believes in vampire foxes and Malaysia has its own version with trailing entrails known as Penanggalang.

The most common legend as portrayed in films and on television is of a blood drinking man who has the ability to change into a bat at will, wears a black cape with a suit underneath, has black jelled back hair and not to forget, has fangs in his mouth. He preys on his human victims at night, biting and sucking the blood from blood vessels in the side of the neck. He is an undead creature who cannot stand the sunlight, and usually sleeps in a coffin in the basement of an old mansion or a castle.

The first case took place in the mid 1700s. Peter Plogojowitz was a Serbian peasant who lived in the village of Kisilova, in the Rahm district. He died at the age of 62 and lay in his grave for 10 weeks when villagers reported seeing him at night. They claimed that he came to their beds at night and attacked them. Nine people died within a week. His wife then claimed to have seen him. The woman was extremely scared and quickly left the village.

It was then decided to dig up Plogojowitz's body to dispose of him and stop his night-time attacks. Once the body was dug up, people noticed that the body was odour-free with little, if no decomposition at all. The only thing that was decomposed was the nose and the skin - but the strange thing was that his skin was regrowing and new skin could be seen where the old had fallen away! The same was for his nails. There was also blood flowing from his mouth. They quickly destroyed the Vampires' body by driving a wooden stake through his heart, at which point it was said that fresh blood gushed from his body. There is also some talk of the body containing some other "wild signs", but it's not clear what these were. The body was then burnt and luckily there were no more attacks on the villagers.

How to ward off or kill a vampire?

• Garlic - will ward off
• Wooden stake through the heart - will kill
• Decapitation of the head - will kill
• Sunlight/fire - will burn and kill
• Nailing clothes to coffin walls - will ward off
• Falling snow - will burn and kill
• Rain or running water (rivers) - will burn and kill.
• A vampire cannot and will not drink the blood of the dead if he knows what's good for him (slightly deadly too).

How to become a vampire?

• A cat jumping over the corpse turns the dead body into a vampire.
• To be bitten by a vampire - will turn you into one (of course)
• Having red hair
• Wild dogs jumping over a dead body

After reading all these stories and writing this article, I don't want to be one of them. Happy blood drinking!