As one of the most mysterious and bloodthirsty creatures in history, vampires have instilled fear in humanity for centuries.
Vampires and the Fear of Disease
In 1892, in a state of fear, a group of villagers in Exeter, Rhode Island, gathered at the town cemetery, shovels in hand, to undertake a task no one wanted. Slowly but surely, they began to dig through the fresh earth covering the grave of 19-year-old Mercy Brown. Brown had died about two months earlier, but something about her death made the townspeople anxious. They believed she was a vampire intent on draining the life from her sick brother.
A 19th-century painting depicting villagers burning the heart of someone believed to be a vampire. Photo: allthatsinteresting
After digging up the grave, the villagers found Brown’s corpse, with a reddened mark on her cheek. They believed she was indeed a vampire and proceeded to burn her heart and liver. Subsequently, they urged Brown’s brother to consume the ashes. Nevertheless, he also died, likely from tuberculosis, like their mother and another sister.
At that time, the act of exhuming Mercy Brown was understandable, as the villagers of Exeter lived in an era when vampires were feared. With fangs and a thirst for blood, these supernatural beings have haunted the darkest corners of human imagination for centuries.
Since the time when humanity feared the dark, it has also feared the invisible monsters that could lurk there. The history of vampires dates back a long way. Many ancient cultures have myths about vampire-like creatures, although they differ from modern legends.
In Mesopotamia, people feared beings called Ekimmu because they could sap human vitality. Meanwhile, ancient Egyptian mythology describes Sekhmet (the daughter of the sun god Re) as having an insatiable thirst for human blood. Jewish folklore depicts Lilith (believed by some to be Adam’s first wife) as a creature that feasts on her victims. Some stories suggest that Lilith is responsible for men experiencing erotic dreams and causing them to “spill their seed.”
These creatures share a common trait: they drain something vital from humans, whether it be life force, blood, or “seed.” Considering their actions towards humanity, these ancient souls resemble descriptions of vampires. According to modern human perceptions that formed later, vampires are blood-sucking entities with fangs that always avoid sunlight.
Modern descriptions of vampires began to take shape during the Middle Ages. According to PBS, the earliest reference to vampires may stem from an ancient Russian text written in 1047, which describes monsters known as “upir.” The term “vampire” itself did not appear until centuries later, specifically in 1725.
That year, in fear, villagers in Kisiljevo (now in Serbia) sought help from a priest named Frombald. They believed that a deceased man named Petar Blagojević was the cause of illness and death spreading throughout the village. Not only did his widow claim to have witnessed his actions, but nine other villagers also testified that he had lain upon them and choked them during the night. About 24 hours later, all had died.
Priest Frombald wrote to his superiors stating that the villagers knew exactly what they were facing: a vampyri – a term in Serbian meaning one who returns from the dead. Frombald conducted an autopsy and discovered that Blagojević’s corpse appeared remarkably fresh, with even fresh blood around his mouth. When the villagers decided to stake Blagojević’s corpse, Frombald reported that a significant amount of fresh blood flowed from the dead body. News of his report and similar accounts spread quickly.
Today, we know that it wasn’t only Serbians who waged a crusade against vampires. In recent years, archaeologists have uncovered vampire cemeteries in Poland. There, they found a woman buried with a sickle across her throat and a child with a lock around their ankle. Both dated back to the 17th century. Additionally, there was a mass grave containing headless vampires from the 18th to 19th centuries, with coins in their mouths and their bodies weighed down by bricks.
Similar to the case of Mercy Brown, the villagers of Kisiljevo killed Blagojević again, despite his death, to prevent the spread of disease around their village. Villagers in Poland likely did something similar, although in some cases, vampires may have simply been social outcasts.
In fact, scholars suspect that many modern perceptions of vampires are due to misunderstandings about diseases and their transmission.
In the cases of Blagojević and Brown, people used the idea of vampires to explain the spread of certain diseases. But they also used vampires to account for the symptoms of illnesses, which became signs of vampirism in the eyes of many.
Rabies is one example. The rabies outbreak in Europe during the 18th century was associated with vampire tales. Symptoms of the disease, such as insomnia and fear of light, align perfectly with modern conceptions of vampires – creatures that sleep during the day and lurk at night. Moreover, rabies spreads through animal bites, and people believed that vampires often bit their victims.
<pSimilarly, people suffering from pellagra (caused by a diet high in corn) might fear sunlight. Europeans consumed a lot of corn in the 18th century. Likewise, porphyria can cause blistering on the skin when victims are exposed to sunlight, as well as hallucinations.
Additionally, there was the plague – a disease that sometimes caused patients to have bleeding mouth sores. This disease spread rapidly and seemed inexplicable. Following that was tuberculosis – the cause of the villagers of Exeter’s fear of Mercy Brown. Tuberculosis causes victims to lose weight, cough up blood, and die slowly. For some, it seemed as though a supernatural force was “draining” their life away.
At that time, disease played a significant role in shaping the earliest versions of vampires. People not only blamed vampires for spreading illness from their graves, but some scholars also argued that the symptoms of diseases matched the characteristics of vampires.
Of course, all of this might still be obscure lore if vampires had not appeared in bestselling novels.
Vampires in Literature
In the decades following the staking of Blagojević’s corpse, vampires began to appear in poetry and prose. German poet Heinrich August Ossenfelder wrote “Der Vampir” in 1748, telling the story of a young woman seduced by a vampire.
Actor Bela Lugosi as Dracula in 1931. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Following him, English poets also wrote about vampires, including John Stagg with the poem The Vampyre in 1810 and Lord Byron with the poem The Giaour in 1813. In 1819, the story The Vampyre by John William Polidori emerged, possibly the first English prose work about vampires. This work tells the chilling tale of a nobleman who seduces women and drinks their blood.
Between 1845 and 1847, vampire stories spread even further with the release of Varney the Vampire, which describes several common characteristics of vampires, such as having long fangs.
Then, in 1897, Bram Stoker’s work Dracula was published. The characters in Stoker’s novel describe Dracula as having sharp teeth and an unusually pale complexion, a cruel appearance, and showcasing <em“the smile that Judas in hell could be proud of.” Dracula possesses supernatural powers, casts no shadow, and turns humans into vampires by drinking their blood.
Additionally, he has the ability to transform into a bat. However, Stoker’s vampires also have weaknesses, such as a fear of crucifixes and garlic. Descriptions of Count Dracula have changed over the years. Some films portray Dracula as sweet and charming; others depict him as a terrifying and bloodthirsty figure. Although Stoker was not the first writer to describe a vampire, Dracula is the character many envision when thinking of the appearance and behavior of vampires.
In summary, Dracula is a fictional character, but it is said that art is rooted in life. So has there been any real-life examples of vampires?
A question arises: do vampires exist? For the villagers who exhumed Mercy Brown and Petar Blagojević, they would undoubtedly answer yes. But the real answer depends on how we define the term vampire.
If we consider vampires to be undead beings or those who can transform into bats, then the answer is no, such creatures do not exist. However, in reality, there have been violent rulers and mass murderers throughout human history.
Vlad the Impaler. (Image: Wikimedia Commons).
The most famous example is the brutal ruler of Wallachia in the 15th century (now part of Romania) known as Vlad the Impaler. This ruler was also called Vlad Dracula and had a penchant for blood. He impaled thousands of enemies and once wrote a letter bragging about killing 23,884 Turkish soldiers. He is even said to have caused the deaths of over 60,000 others.
It is also rumored that Vlad Dracula dipped bread in the blood of his enemies before eating it. However, this information is difficult to verify. Some believe that the author Bram Stoker based the character Dracula on Vlad Dracula. Scholars have debated the authenticity of this claim in recent years, and National Geographic confirmed that Stoker drew from various sources.
In fact, Stoker came across the name Dracula while reading a historical book. He then wrote an important note: “Voivode (Dracula): Dracula in Wallachian means devil. The Wallachians had a habit of using Dracula as a surname for those who were well-known for their bravery, cruel actions, or cunning.”
Subsequently, the world witnessed serial killers with clear vampire tendencies. Fritz Haarmann is one example. He was a serial killer in Germany in the early 20th century and was nicknamed the “Hanover Vampire.” He earned this nickname because he killed some victims by biting into their trachea, which he described as a “love bite.”
It is evident that while vampires do not actually lurk in the shadows, the truth is that these creatures have haunted human imagination since ancient times. Vampire demons like Lilith first appeared centuries ago. The medieval fears of death and disease only reinforced the gruesome legends of vampires.
However, it was the authors in more recent history who helped shape our modern image of vampires. The poem “Varney the Vampire” and, of course, Bram Stoker’s work Dracula vividly portrayed the familiar bloodsucking ghost that terrifies audiences today.
Today, vampires have undergone a new transformation through films like Twilight and television shows like True Blood, continuing to refresh the vampire legend once again.
