What is a Vampire?
Vampires are mythological revenants who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. In folkloric tales, the undead often visited
loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the villages and
neighborhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance. These early vampires are markedly different from the modern gaunt, pale vampire whose legend dates from the early Nineteenth Century.
Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Variants on the vampire myth were known by different names, such as vampir in Serbia, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century; however, it was Bram Stoker's Dracula that became the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a
distinctive vampire genre, with books, films, and television shows.
The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre and continues to endure to this day.
