Do vampires really exist in Europe?

Vampires, meaning bloodthirsty monsters, are legendary supernatural creatures cursed by God. By drinking the blood of human beings or other creatures, you can make yourself survive for a long time. The legend of early vampires spread in the Balkans and Slavic regions of Eastern Europe. With the constant adaptation of novels, movies and popular culture in the past century, the vampire's image has gradually evolved into a strange creature with supernatural power, and it is necessary to rely on blood sucking to maintain its vitality.

Legend editor

The legend of blood-sucking creatures can be traced back to thousands of years ago. In the myths and legends of early Mesopotamian civilization, ancient Hebrew civilization and ancient Roman civilization, there are demons who suck human sperm. The establishment of a truly modern vampire image mainly comes from the compilation, editing and publication of oral folklore in Eastern Europe in the18th century.

In the popular legend about vampires, vampires refer to corpses that can crawl out of graves to suck blood after death. It is described as the devil's body, body double, which sucks the victim's blood and injects vampire infectious toxins into the victim's body. In the early days of religious fanaticism, vampires were regarded as pagans, criminals, and living zombies who were reborn after death.

trait

Van helsing's vampire

Vampires in traditional eastern European folklore are very different from vampires in modern popular culture.

In the original works of vampires, those vampires who were "seen with their own eyes" had tall black bodies and red eyes, and they smelled as evil as the flames of hell. Others are described as a mass of black, cold and dark spiritual matter.

source

In traditional eastern European folklore, corpses that become vampires usually die for special reasons before they die. In different folklore, the reasons are also varied.

For example, in order to prevent these dead people from becoming vampires, special funerals are usually held (for example, burying face down, putting a sickle next to the body to dispel the demons who intend to occupy the body of the dead, putting a cross on the body, etc. )

origin

The most common explanation about the origin of vampire legend is porphyria. Porphyropathy is a term used to describe the symptoms of abnormal production of heme in blood. Some of these diseases, such as cutaneous hemorrhagic porphyria, can cause toxins to deposit on the skin. Patients with this disease are usually sensitive to light because light can activate these toxins in the skin. When toxins are activated, the skin will be eroded and disfigured, including the erosion of lips and gums. These factors may have caused patients to have a rotten appearance like a corpse, and they are also afraid of light.

Another explanation for vampires is tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a lung disease caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis. This disease is considered to be the origin of vampire legend, because tuberculosis patients usually become pale, afraid of light and cough up blood. This is actually because tuberculosis has damaged the patient's lungs, but it is easy to be mistaken for the patient just sucking other people's blood. Tuberculosis may be an explanation of the vampire legend, and another reason is that tuberculosis is easy to spread from person to person.

Another interesting explanation is general rigidity. This is a disease of the central nervous system, which will slow down the heartbeat and respiratory rate, and often make the patient completely unable to move. These symptoms may make people mistakenly think that the patient is dead. Therefore, when these patients are considered dead, it is easy to explain why this disease is associated with vampire legends.

Vampire culture flourished in the First World War, followed by a period of despair and desolation. Under the condition of underdeveloped medical care, some people who are not really dead but in shock are buried, and then they are regarded as immortals when they wake up or move again. During the epidemic period of the Black Death in Europe, when people were in extreme panic, they would have this fear of the dead, so as to continue their activities, so there appeared a German vampire legend like Neuntoter who had the ability to infect the Black Death. Vampire legends are more originated from cemetery legends, and Heigert cemetery is one of the typical representatives.

introduce

In many western stories today, Cain is the ancestor of vampires. Adam and his wife Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel. Abel is a shepherd and Cain is a farmer. On the day of offering sacrifices to God, Cain offered land products, while Abel offered some selected suckling sheep. God took a fancy to Abel's tribute, but not to Cain's. Cain was angry. I invited my brother Abel to the wild. When they got there, Cain killed Abel. Later, God knew about it and was very angry.

God punished him for wandering all his life, and he had to live on blood. Cain was afraid that others would kill him if they saw him, because he was too guilty, so God gave him a sign so that people would not kill him if they saw him. Cain's descendants formed today's vampire family.

Long and sharp canine teeth: vampires usually suck blood by cutting their teeth into the victim's neck, and some can hide this feature under normal conditions-this has become one of the most important characteristics of vampires. Meanwhile, the vampire's skin is cold and pale. In braam stock's novel Dracula, vampires can also see through envelopes, change the shape of flames, drive away wolves and crawl like spiders. In the movie Twilight, vampires are handsome, powerful and extremely fast.

They can also become bats: vampires are always associated with bats nowadays, and they are usually surrounded by bats, and they can become vampire bats themselves.

Living in graves and coffins: During the day, vampires often rest in coffins or graves and exist in the form of corpses. Act only after the sun disappears. This is a universal and uncontroversial vampire feature. People think that vampires are afraid of the sun and will disappear in the sun. But later, it is said that the vampire's skin will glow like a diamond in the sun (Twilight), so vampires will not appear in sunny days in order not to expose their identity. But there is also a TV series (The Vampire Diaries), so long as you wear a special ring, you can move in the sun.

Other characteristics: based on the processing and beautification of vampires in the field of modern art, it also has the following characteristics.

Fair skin and bright red lips make them as handsome and beautiful as we imagined. They often have their own castles and are nobles themselves. These are several historical figures from the Middle Ages. The body has no temperature, no heartbeat and no need to breathe. It is extremely fast and powerful. I am not afraid of any attack except my fatal weakness. I am immortal. With great wisdom.

Children born by vampires and humans will face the choice of light and dark after birth. Entering the light is a vampire hunter who hunts all blood families, and entering the dark is a vampire.

2 historical source editing

The body of the blood clan

I don't call myself a vampire, but I usually call myself bloodline. To become a member of the blood clan, a mortal must first go through the process of "hugging". In other words, he must be sucked up by the blood clan members first, and then immediately accept the blood of the blood clan. It's not just that the other person can become a vampire after sucking blood, but a new blood clan after changing blood. The first hug often brings a very strong feeling, mixed with fear and ecstasy, and the blood clan will never forget it.

Once you become a member of the blood clan, you will get an immortal body. Blood clan is a kind of creature different from human beings, and its body tissue has completely changed. The teeth of the blood clan can be painted as long as they want, although most of the time they will be hidden to hide their identity. When the blood clan sucks blood, it will heal the wound in its own way to cover up the traces. The blood in the body flows by diffusion, and the blood vessels are no longer full of blood, so the skin of the blood clan is particularly pale. Sometimes, I even shed tears when I cry. Blood clan can use the blood in the body to heal themselves. When injured, the blood in the body will concentrate on the wound, and the wound will emit purple light and will soon heal.

Blood clan doesn't have to eat, but it needs to keep sucking blood. Whenever night falls, I will have a strong thirst for blood. This desire is even stronger than human hunger. My throat is like a tear, forcing me to suck human blood.

The nemesis of the blood clan (blood hunting)

Blood clan, mainly by constantly looking for blood to feed themselves, but there is a special existence "vampire hunter", referred to as "blood hunting". Most of them are human beings who exist to maintain the longevity of human race and fight vampires; There are also a few vampires who are tired of blood clan life and go hunting.

At first, it was thought that the dead needed the living to sacrifice blood, but this was the view of almost all primitive religions, and it seemed that only souls or evil spirits were sacrificed.

People often say that vampires are afraid of crosses. Because when they see the cross, they will recall the memory of sin, but they will not lose their lives. They should only have symptoms such as fear.

In Dracula's stories and other horror novels, they are often described as masters with noble titles and servants who have been bitten into slaves. Vampires are no longer real living dead, but long-lived living people who live like the dead.

In order to have more power in science fiction, vampires as a whole need more complicated settings, such as vampire knights, holy blood or vampire hunters, or vampire aliens and bionic humans.

Generating class

Ancestors (first generation)

Cain, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, was cursed by God for killing his brother and became an immortal who was forced to suck blood. After meeting Lilith who abandoned the Garden of Eden, he accepted Lilith's guidance and learned how to extract powerful power from blood. The blood clan classified the day when the ancestor Cain was enlightened as the first year of blood enlightenment. Cain is the source of vampires and the starting point of this evil blood.

The second generation (? )

Driven by loneliness, Cain created the second generation vampire by using animal viscera and his own blood. The second generation is thought to have five people. Later, they chased the descendants of Adam and Eve together, but they were regarded as magical things and were driven away by these "brothers". In grief and indignation, the second generation of vampires began to try to build a "dark Eden". They gave birth to their own 13 offspring, which is the most powerful third generation among vampires. After God launched Noah's flood, the third generation of vampires, as survivors, joined forces to kill their father. Among them, enoch, Zillah and Irade were confirmed to have been killed, while the other two remained anonymous and their whereabouts were unknown. This story and later predictions about the end of the third generation of vampires after betrayal are taboo history within the vampire family, with a very long history, so there are few descriptions about the second generation of vampires.

The third generation (ancient people/ancient style)

The descendants of the second generation of vampires, the most powerful generation of vampires, claimed to have the ability to stand side by side with God, so they became the main leaders of later generations of vampires (later called the third generation of "blood lodge"). The third generation established an independent family, that is, the later "Thirteen Clans", and every third-generation vampire was the ancestor of his own family. Because of the long history, the modern younger generation can only know the existence of these ancient people in legends. The third generation has the highest authority among the existing blood families, is the core of vampires, and is feared by all blood families. Thirteen blood feuds fought bravely and ruthlessly, killing creatures in order to improve their own and family strength. They found that the blood of the blood clan can make mortals immortal and sanctify the blood clan, thus opening the prelude to the inheritance of the evil blood clan of vampires. The thirteen blood clans eventually turned against each other, fighting endlessly for years and spreading their own blood (the blood clans called this war the Millennium Jihad /Jehad). Most of the victims of the war are mortals. After that, the flood triggered by God did not feed on blood, but it was seriously damaged and had to sleep. In order to continue the jihad, each of the thirteen blood clans has a clan (fourth to sixth generations), and each clan inherits the characteristics of the creator, so it is different. Unexpectedly, the clans indulged in ease, formed alliances with each other, and left their ancestors behind. Thirteen hounds have not recovered from their serious injuries and are very angry. One of the most powerful left a doomsday prophecy: "When I woke up, there was no night in the world, and the hot sun hung high, turning mortals into steam and blood families into loose powder. God will only take back a scorched earth. " Before going to bed, Shi San vowed that when he returned to this world, he must destroy these traitors.

Fourth and fifth generation (/methodilah/methodilah)

Thousands of years ago, they appeared in this world under the banner of methuselah. They were the first humans to gain vampire power through the "first hug". Although they are not descendants of the "ancients" (the third generation), they inherited the blood of the third generation vampires after their "first embrace". Legend has it that their power can be close to their ancestors, and these descendants will inherit their rights after the third generation sleeps. Nowadays, there are fewer and fewer active methuselah. It is said that some of them have entered hibernation. But what is certain is that the core leadership of the Secret Party (Camarilla) and the ruler of the Magic Party are both powerful members of methuselah. Because methuselah betrayed the "legacy" of the third generation of vampires, he became the object of hatred of these ancestors, so this generation of blood clan was extremely afraid of the ancients, and they kept hiding the unfavorable parts about the ancients in various history. "Antique" is even a forbidden word in methuselah customs.

Sixth generation, seventh generation and eighth generation (elders/elders)

Most vampires who participated in jihad belong to these generations. Because their leader has strong senses and magic, he is usually regarded as a foot soldier by the third generation vampires and methuselah. Although some of them have begun to realize that they are pawns in other people's hands, they still can't change their destiny. The secret party members who belong to these generations are mostly old people for centuries, and those young secret party members are also used to calling them elders.

The ninth and tenth generations (name unknown)

Like these two generations of vampires, life should be quite dangerous. Compared with the previous two generations, because of their youth, they are inferior to their elders in both ability and experience. Moreover, it is difficult for them to seize the opportunity to improve their ability and status in vampire society. Among them, only a few members can make a difference in the strict social hierarchy of the blood clan and become top dignitaries. But for future generations, their strength and prestige are still beyond doubt.

Generation 1 1 to generation 13 (servant/servant)

These vampires are generally close to or over 100 years old. Although the blood clan is still a very young group, they already have considerable ability. Most vampires today come from these generations. It is the main component of the blood clan. This generation attaches great importance to the tradition of observing commandments in order to win the attention of their elders.

Generation 14 and generation 15 (childe/freshman)

In modern midnight, more and more vampires appear. They are the14th generation and the15th generation. These modern-born blood families are different from vampires in the traditional sense. God's curse and the constant dilution of vampire blood. Not only have their personal abilities declined greatly, but some people can actually move in the sun for a short time, and at the same time they can live in human society without showing obvious clues. Sadly, however, some unfortunate people will have the same aging and death process as human beings, but their aging speed is much slower than that of ordinary people.

Job description

First, the prince (Infante): Usually they have lived for 200 to 1000 years. They have many powerful abilities and occupy a place in the blood clan society, and at least 65,438+000 children or servants have mastered considerable power.

2. Elder: Unlike the elder, this elder is the elder who manages the clan, not the highest Kamara Council elder of the whole blood clan. Usually has lived for 200 to 1000 years, higher than the prince.

Third, the Lord (suzerain): It was the blood clan that gave the Kamalira conference territory. The original intention of suzerain is suzerain, which means that he is the supreme master of a territory. Generally once a century, no re-election.

4. Kings, Grand Duke, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron and Knight.

Opposing race

Werewolves; Hardman

As for the two most important opposing races mentioned in western theory, besides vampires (who feed on human blood), there is another race mentioned, that is, werewolves.

Injury and death

Vampire injury

Early vampires were evil spirits who simply sucked human blood, similar to werewolves in European legends. After the Middle Ages, especially the rise of romanticism, vampires have a strong color of sex and lust because of their unique way of existence. The main attack method is blood sucking, and a few are cannibalism. As a vampire, you can often seduce the opposite sex and unconsciously take the other person's life.

When vampires attack, they generally don't make the victims feel pain. In many vampire works, many victims (both men and women) become their food with smiles and happy expressions. The results of vampire attacks are different, and there are roughly the following categories:

Pure blood-sucking: the victim will not die or become a vampire after being attacked, but will be weak due to blood loss. The derivative of this method is that sometimes vampires will suck the blood of the victims, causing people to bleed to death.

Sucking blood instead of others: As before, the victim will become a vampire after death, or with the spread of the virus, the person attacked by vampires will become a vampire in a short time. It is said that the zombies who become similar are relatively low-level, lack wisdom and become simple bloodthirsty lunatics.

Death of a vampire

Just as human death is divided into suicide and homicide, so is vampire.

In a long time, enduring a lonely and boring life, Rao is a noble and fickle blood clan and can't help but have the idea of suicide. However, as a child of Satan, it is difficult for him to break free and commit suicide against his instinct from birth. And even under strong stimulation, suicide is a very ugly and ferocious way to die, so the blood clan rarely chooses this noble way to die. So, what is their common way of "suicide"?

In fact, it is to cultivate a blood clan stronger than oneself (generally choose a blood clan that is deeply bound to oneself). In the long years, he constantly stimulated him and destroyed his life, which made him have a strong hatred for himself (you know, the crime of killing his own people is enough to make him escape for a lifetime). However, as a proud race, it is difficult for the blood clan to allow others to be better than themselves. Therefore, if a blood clan consciously does these things and lets the other party surpass themselves, we can define this behavior as suicide.

As for homicide, because the blood clan is very resilient, if you want to destroy a blood clan, it will all be destroyed except the holy power.

Sunlight is the biggest enemy of vampires, garlic and ordinary crosses are useless, even crosses stained with holy water can only temporarily seal vampires.

An atmosphere of superstition

/kloc-in the 0/8th century, reason won under the Enlightenment, and various superstitions were seriously frustrated during this period. On the contrary, the worship of vampires developed unprecedentedly in this period, which became a social phenomenon and attracted the attention of religious circles.

A lot of academic discussions about vampires have been published. On the other hand, rationalists criticized similar articles, which became a long and fierce debate between works. In this case, it is impossible for the church to remain silent. 1746, he published "On possessed ghosts, excommunicated Christians, vampires and Prometheans in Hungary, Moldavia and other places" (written by Calme, Dean of the Monastery of Senones). His original intention is to refute vampire superstition, but the book lists a large number of related examples, which has aroused people's debate.

There are only two results of this battle: first, this superstition was once hearsay in many areas, and second, everyone accepted the word vampire, thus systematically fixing "vampire". Its other words "vampir", "vampir" and "wampire" are in Latin. In addition, since then, three characteristics of vampires have been generally accepted: it is a possessed ghost, not an empty ghost, nor a devil; Vampires come out of graves and coffins at night and suck the blood of the living to prolong their lives; People who have been attacked by vampires will also become vampires after death (with the first hug).

European superstitious customs

Romania

In Europe, Romania has always been the most complicated place for vampire superstition. Transylvania, Romania, as the residence of Dracula, the protagonist in the novel Dracula, is a well-deserved "hometown of vampires".

In Romania, vampires are called strigoi, Curcoi and Curoi. There are also vampire-like products, such as Moroi (greeting adult vampire), Procolici (Romanian vampire closest to werewolf), colac (living or vampire-like ghost, which will cause solar eclipse and lunar eclipse), Samaca (half bear, half human, old woman who drinks human blood).

In ancient times, farmers in the mountainous areas of Romania believed that cats, which can move day and night, would turn the dead into vampires when they passed away. Dogs are animals related to hell. If you pass the dead, the dead will become vampires. The rooster is related to the sun and can announce the dawn. Its crow can drive away vampires, and vampires can do whatever they want after it dies. So sacrifice a rooster to the dead, and the dead will become vampires. So people should be very careful when they are buried in coffins after death. Romanians nailed nails on the forehead of the deceased, stuck needles in the deceased, or put garlic in the deceased's mouth to prevent the deceased from becoming vampires.

The ceremony of beheading vampires is called "big compensation" and it will be held at dawn. The person who presided over the ceremony stabbed the vampire's heart with a stake, cut off his head with a grave digger, burned the body to ashes, drifted in the wind or buried it at the intersection of two roads. In order to save the victims from vampires, Romanians created some "exorcism spells" and then recited them three times when they were cooking medicine. After reading for a while, I will drink peony fiber with black hen's eggs on Saturday evening, and then say a spell.

Poland

Upior (also known as Upier (male) and Upierzcya (female)), this creature and its name originated from Slavic countries in Eastern Europe, mainly Poland, but it is different from those found in neighboring areas. The main difference is the hook tongue used to suck a lot of blood and the time of sleep.

This creature sleeps in the middle of the night. They only get up between noon and midnight and are famous for their endless thirst. These vampires have an amazing love for blood. No matter how much they inhale, they will never be satisfied, and even like to sleep in a pool of blood. UPIOR also likes curly shroud-the kind used at his funeral.

Poles will carefully put some jewels on those dead bodies to ward off evil spirits, so that the bodies will not become terrible things. They will put the dead face down and put wicker crosses under their armpits, breasts and chin. Bury the body in the ground with a lot of soil. For further protection, relatives of the deceased will eat blood bread, which is a kind of toast made by mixing vampire blood and flour in some form. This is thought to make them immune to any attack by vampires. At the same time, wooden pillars and beheading were also quite popular at that time.

Italy

The seat of the Roman Empire and later the Christian center, opposite to the birthplace of the undead. Christianity and later the Catholic Church established a system of monk rule in the Vatican, which made bloodthirsty people in most important and recognized vampire areas in the west change their temperament and began to fear crosses, holy water, religion and saints.

Although Italy has many customs related to death, the dead, ghosts or the return of souls, there is no fashionable vampire population in Italy, such as Abbuzzi (or Abruzzo). In central Italy, there are some quite interesting sayings that every year 165438+ 10/month 1 is the day when the deceased goes home. This superstition is related to the religious elements handed down from ancient Rome.

Slavic vampire

Slavic nations, including Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Poland, have the richest vampire myths and legends in the world. In the 9th and10th centuries, there was a power conflict between the Orthodox Church and the Holy See here, which led to the split of 1054. This has caused a huge difference in the development of vampire legends-the Vatican believes that immortals are saints; The orthodox church thinks it is: vampire.

The myth of Slavic vampires developed in the conflict between paganism and Christianity in the ninth century. Christianity has won, but the legend of vampires and many other pagan beliefs continue. In order to protect their houses from vampires, Serbs usually cross the doors and windows with tar. In Russia, people scatter poppy seeds or rose thorns on the way to the cemetery. Russians also use poplar stakes to pierce vampires' hearts, and other countries use hawthorn wood.

3 Other related editors

Related figures

Gilles de Rais

Baron Dreiser was a French aristocrat in the15th century. He loves alchemy and hopes to find a stone in his blood. To this end, he did not hesitate to torture and imprison more than 300 children. It is said that the child he took will not live for one night. He sometimes beheaded them, sometimes cut their throats and laughed at the blood flowing out. Others saw Baron Dreiser kissing the children's foreheads and cutting their internal organs after they died. 1440, Dreiser's crime was exposed and he was hanged by his personal servant.

Vlad III

Vlad III, supervisor of Wallachia) 1442, Vlad and his younger brother were sent to Constantinople, the capital of Ottoman Turkey, and held hostage for six years. Later, with the support of the Sultan of Turkey, he led an army to attack Rawakia and regained power. The first thing I did after I took office was to clean up dissidents and treat criminals with harsh means and various severe punishments. What really scared the Turks was the battle of 1462. Vlad was betrayed by his allies and fled to the capital. When the Turkish army chased after the gate, it was shocking that more than 20,000 soldiers captured in the war were stripped naked for public display, and were interspersed with wooden stakes that surrounded the city for one kilometer. Crows and vultures kept pecking at these bodies, and there was a strong smell of carrion around them. Seeing this gruesome scene, all the Turkish soldiers were heartbroken and had no fighting spirit, so they had to evacuate. For the Turkish envoy who didn't want to take off his hat in front of Vlad, he ordered: "Since he didn't want to take off his hat, let him never take it off." So the messenger was nailed into the nail from the top of his hat. Stories like this stopped the powerful Turkish army. At the same time, Vlad III's bloodthirsty name spread like wildfire, and the title of "Drakula" (the devil) spread all over Europe. He finally died on the battlefield near Bucharest. Vlad's tyrannical behavior added rich materials for many chroniclers at that time. Now, his name is inseparable from vampires. His method of worshipping blood for fun has taken thousands of lives.

Countess Basoli.

What we are most familiar with is/kloc-the bloody case of Countess Bartoli in the 7th century. It has been proved that this beautiful woman, who learned witchcraft from her servant, abused and killed more than 300 girls in Seyit Castle built in Carpathian Mountains, and drank their blood happily, even filled her bathtub with blood, making herself young and beautiful forever. 16 10 12.30, the countess's cousin Gyorg Thurso captured the castle and executed the countess's criminal. Madame was imprisoned in the castle until her death.

It is not difficult to see that the above three characters belong to the aristocratic class, rich and have status, and have considerable upbringing. This is a vampire literary work based on them several years later. The beauty, elegance, temperament, temptation and powerful prototype of vampires are full of strong lust. Under this cloak, people are also encouraged to maintain vigorous energy for the ancient form of vampire superstition.

So for me, it's a bit second-class to have this kind of imagination, but personally I still think vampires are cool (not including when sucking human blood). Believe it or not, I just hope that these legends will not be annihilated, and let me continue to level 2.

Your question is so profound that no one can answer it.

(ps: You'd better not believe those rumors on the Internet. What I have seen these days is the scientific truth! ! ! ! )