The typical image and characteristics of vampires are: long and pointed teeth, fair skin and red eyes. Vampires are afraid of sunlight, which will burn to ashes. Because vampires are extremely resilient, it is difficult for ordinary weapons to kill vampires. Only sunlight can kill vampires. It is generally believed that vampires are afraid of crosses and garlic. It is generally believed that vampires are afraid of garlic because their sense of smell is much higher than that of ordinary people. The pungent smell of garlic makes vampires feel strongly uncomfortable. It is generally believed that garlic has bactericidal effect, so it can also be used to expel vampires. Vampires are creatures and have nothing to do with ghosts and gods. So vampires are afraid that the cross is fake. However, another theory holds that the original vampire exchanged souls with Satan and became a vampire, so he was afraid of the cross.
In some stories, the vampire has no shadow, can't see it in the mirror, and can't enter the house without being invited. There are animals that can be transformed into bats, mice or cats. For example, Stragies in Hungary can be transformed into crows, Murini in Romania can be transformed into various animals, or Gerakaka in Brazil can be transformed into snakes. Morrow, a vampire, can change his sex freely according to his prey.
(source)
It is speculated that the story of vampires first came from the Far East, and merchants brought the legend to Eastern Europe through trade routes. A modern version of the vampire myth was born. Slavic-speaking areas have the most vampire folklore, which can be traced back to the 9th century, when there was a fierce conflict between Christianity and pagan beliefs.
In the later recorded history, more and more events and characters that can really be associated with vampires gradually appeared. It may be because of these events that some legends really began.
On the other hand, some people who lived under the regime opposed to Christianity in the early days often thought that Christians sacrificed their altars by sucking blood or eating people. In ancient Rome, for example, there were some unwarranted accusations against Christians. In some stories created by the Japanese, vampires are often associated with Christian religious things. For example, Sola's heroine, a vampire variant, lives in Dapu Catholic Church at night, and it is also widely rumored that Catholics will suck human blood in the thirty-first episode of Dragon Horse Biography.
In fact, there was no word vampire in the modern sense before18th century. The word first appeared in English in 1732. Some people think that there should be a vampire myth in Europe at that time, when a large-scale Black Death broke out.
Dracula is widely regarded as the ancestor of vampires. Seen Vampires: Those who truly love immortality should be deeply impressed by the background of Dracula, a vampire during the Crusades.
Lilith, the female in the cartoon Blood of the Holy Spirit, is actually a Jewish folklore, not from Christianity. Derived from Hebrew belief.
From a realistic point of view, the original source of vampires should be corpses. The resurrection of a corpse is a mysterious and terrible thing. When primitive beliefs came into being, people didn't believe that their dead relatives would leave them, which led to some rituals of resurrection and sacrifice. Or, we can guess that under the condition of underdeveloped medical care, some people who are not really dead but are in a state of shock are buried, and then when they wake up or move again, they are considered immortals. During the epidemic period of the Black Death in Europe, when people were in extreme panic, it should be easy to predict such a thing, so there appeared a German vampire like Neuntoter who had the ability to infect the Black Death. Around the17th century, the existence of vampires was generally accepted.
Some people think that vampires are actually rabies patients, because rabies patients are afraid of light and water, become savage, bite people, and may hate pungent smells. So I hate garlic.
It is generally believed that vampires are actually porphyria patients. Porphyrin is a photosensitive substance existing in the skin. It mainly combines with metal ions to form hemoglobin, chlorophyll and other things. If porphyrin can't participate in heme synthesis normally and accumulate too much in human body, it will cause porphyria. The patient's skin color changes and can't be exposed to light-light will turn porphyrin into another substance, which will damage people's skin, and in severe cases, it will fester and blister, just like being burned by the sun. This disease is also called purpura.
(Image changes suddenly)
At first, people thought that the dead needed the living to sacrifice blood, but this was the general view of almost all primitive religions, and it seemed that only the soul or the evil god was sacrificed.
Obviously, the sudden death, the resurrection of the body and the need to drink human blood are all [1] in Slavic mythology. This vampire is no different from later zombies or zombies, just a symbol of pure terror.
It was only in the 18 and 19 centuries that they got rid of zombies or zombies, mainly in their self-will, especially the vampire myth that vampire masters thought it was no different from ordinary people. In Dracula's stories and other horror novels, vampires are often described as masters with noble titles (real ancestors) and servants who were bitten into slaves (later often referred to as "dead disciples" or "patients", etc.), and vampires are no longer really living dead.
In the mid-20th century, I am a Legend (novel) began to incorporate vampires into science fiction, and understood vampires as people with strange diseases. Pathogens spread vampire diseases. Because of their large number and finding a possible way of life, they are mutants who call themselves new human beings. At this time, vampires are also said to be a new race. But in its movie version, the legendary mutant turned into a zombie-like monster.
In order to have more power in science fiction, vampires need to have more complex settings as a whole, such as the blood of the Holy Spirit or vampire hunter D, the bloodsucking race of human beings in science fiction in the distant future, or humanoid creatures such as bloodsucking aliens and bionic people.
[Editor] Common methods to deal with vampires in novels
Usually cut off its head, take out its heart, or nail a stake made of white thorns on its heart. Russia is a poplar. And expose it to the sun, etc. It is said that the stake cannot be destroyed, only sunlight and flame can destroy it, and some people say that ultraviolet rays can kill it. Others say that vampires are not afraid of the sun if they are trained or take medicine.
Legend has it that the smell of garlic, crosses, etc. Can inhibit the ability of vampires. But it doesn't work for all vampires. Vampires are afraid of the cross, usually because there are religious believers before conversion, and the cross can play a deterrent role (psychological role), but without believers before death, the cross or holy water is useless.
I'm worried that people who have been bitten by vampires will become vampires, and I believe pagans, criminals and suicides will come back from the dead. So after death, the body will be beheaded or nailed to a stake or spike. People also put garlic in the mouth of the dead. Sometimes poppy seeds are scattered in coffins or knotted ropes, because vampires are said to like to count.
People will also dig up the body and check whether there are any traces of being bitten by vampires, including that the body is not rotted, there is blood on the mouth, and hair or nails continue to grow after death. In the past, due to some characteristics of vampires, people would judge vampires by their hatred of silver, garlic, light and holy water, long teeth and long hair on their palms.
In fact, hair and nails continue to grow after death, mainly because muscles contract after death, which leads to the exposure of hair and nails that were originally hidden in the body. Create the illusion of growth. In the middle ages, most of the exhumations were during the epidemic, and people thought vampires were doing evil. When this sign is discovered, the body will be burned to the bone. It is recorded that the body dug up during excavation has become a skeleton. At that time, people were not at ease, so they picked up the thigh bones and put them on their chests, overlapping them to prevent their bodies from becoming vampires.
The general method can only deal with the human vampire race, but it is ineffective for humanoid and subhuman vampires. The only way to deal with it is pure physical strength, such as military-grade firearms or epee, beheading it or blowing it to pieces.
(Legends about vampires in various countries)
Vampires in the west can usually become human beings or vampire bats, but they are very elegant aristocratic gentlemen in human form. So generally speaking, vampires are divided into nationalities, just like humans. For example, vampires in Europe and America are as gentlemen as Europeans. Many people in the west think that vampires are reflected in legends all over the world. For example, in the legend of China, because zombies, like vampires, bite people and spread "viruses", making the bitten people become zombies, and zombies come out of the graves after nightfall (but vampires don't come out of the graves because vampires don't die first) ... These are very similar to vampire legends. But vampires are still different from zombies, because they still have their own selves and thoughts. Vampire legends in some parts of Europe have powerful supernatural powers, such as Veracruz in Romania or Nairas in Slovakia.
Japan, India, the Philippines and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have similar legends. In the 20th century, there were a lot of legends about vampires in European and American popular culture. It is mentioned in a novel that people can become vampires only after being sucked by vampires and then drinking their blood. This process is called "hug", and newborn vampires are regarded as the descendants of vampires who "hug" them for the first time. The premise of the first hug is that you must be bitten twice. The third time, if the vampire wants to, then you start to "hug".
Vampires must remain mysterious, so they don't come into contact with people easily. If necessary, they will become a fog or a small animal like mosquitoes.
Some legends believe that vampires can't enter the victim's home directly unless they are invited by the other party. When they need to enter the victim's room to suck blood, they will use hypnosis-like ability to put the victim to sleep before entering the room.
[Editor] A scientific explanation of vampires and related historical facts
Some studies think that the legendary vampire may be related to rabies, because quite a few symptoms are consistent with it: photophobia, aversion to pungent odor (such as garlic), pale face, mouth muscle twitching and desire to bite (becoming fangs and being good at biting), transmission route (infection after being bitten) and so on. And think that the legend of vampires may be related to the large-scale outbreak in ancient times.
At present, the accepted explanation about vampires is that people who are considered vampires are actually porphyria (purpura disease). Hematoporphyriosis, also known as hemorhodopsin, is a metabolic disease caused by abnormal production and excretion of porphyrin, which has many genetic factors. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria is the accumulation of porphyrin, one of its precursors, due to the lack of heme synthase. Violet will accumulate in blood and urine, and urine will be red. Because of its strong absorption of light, patients' skin will be sensitive to light, teeth will fluoresce, and anemia will occur. According to the site of porphyrin metabolism disorder, it can be divided into erythropoietic hematoporphyrin disease and hepatic hematoporphyrin disease. This disease is more common in infants and can also occur in adults. It is called delayed cutaneous hematoporphyrin disease. Patients with this disease are afraid of light (light can cause skin ulceration, scab and large area of black pigmentation), allergic to garlic (the pungent smell of garlic can cause this disease), and their eyes are red. Supplementing hemoglobin is beneficial to relieve the disease. A few extreme patients think that drinking blood can supplement hemoglobin, which leads to the legend of vampires.
/kloc-in the 0/4th century, a large area of plague occurred in Europe. In order to avoid infection, people often bury patients in a hurry without carefully identifying whether they are really dead. For some reason, when people opened the grave, they found that the body had changed its posture and was stained with blood. This is only because the person who was buried at that time was not dead, but just struggled after waking up in the coffin. However, in East Prussia, Silesia and Bohemia, due to poverty and lack of education at that time.
18th century is the golden age of vampires. 17 10, the plague became popular again, and East Prussia suffered greatly. In order to dispel people's fears, or the government and people agree that the culprit of the plague is vampires, the authorities have taken many appalling measures, such as opening all the graves in a cemetery to see who's body has not rotted or whether nails and hair continue to grow after death.