VAMPIRE
"The true vampire is horrible to see. Skinny and hairy in the waking state, it becomes, well-fed when lying in his coffin, fat and swollen to bursting. The fresh blood drips from the mouth, nose and ears. Her skin is glowing and his fetid breath. "
(Roland Villeneuve, vampirologo and demonology, in Loups-et garous vampires - werewolves and vampires)
This quotation, taken from Roland Villeneuve, is in turn picked up by Prospero Lambertini, aka Pope Benedict XIV, in a text of the eighteenth century. As you can see this description of the figure of the vampire has something repugnant and abominable that deviates far from the literary and cinematic tradition which we are accustomed today. Also widespread in the nineteenth century, this vision, however, was destined to be forgotten thanks to the success of some major authors of the Gothic novel, which at that time began to find fortune throughout Europe.
The gentleman vampire, the charismatic figure, with a strong aura that attracts to itself the victim without too much effort, was born in 1819 when the physician John Polidori he published his short novel The Vampyre, whose protagonist, Lord Ruthven, was obtained from the beloved / hated Lord Byron. From here on the vampire in literature, got more and more success, through Carmilla, the vampire Le Fanu, and Varney, vampire classic animated files in installments, ending with the highest pinnacle of the genre, that Bram Stoker's Dracula, which merged into whether some elements of European folklore and part of the literary topos of the time, creating a perfect and while the original topic and timeless and exciting adventure.
etymology of the name
Vampires, as handed down by tradition, are the dead who come back from the grave to suck the living life essence (preferably the blood). The word vampire has Slavic origin: due to the root-pi, magician, sorcerer, and the Lithuanian verb wempti, drink, suck. Vampir called in Croatia and Serbia, in Bulgaria wampyr, upiór in Poland upir in Russia, are distinguished not only names but also the characteristics and modus operandi for a long time were considered far from being a fantastic match of legends lost in time.
THE ORIGINS OF MYTH
Drawing of a vampiroLe origins of the vampires are as old as the world itself: there are many, in fact, the archaeological findings that indicate how old was the fear of vampirism. For example, in many prehistoric burial remains have been found on the body probably planted with stones to prevent the dead back from beyond. The oldest vampire text that you are aware, then, is a Babylonian tablet in the British Museum on which is engraved a magic formula that is used to protect against demons sucking blood, etimmé.
In ancient Jewish tradition then this is the Aluka (bloodsucker), a creature that attacks the travelers who got lost in the wilderness is no coincidence between the precepts of the Torah, there is also a ban on drinking the blood of vehicle 'vital essence of living beings, you probably remember the old fears vampires. The same biblical figure of Lilith, the demon that takes Assyrian Lilitu, was a kind of demon succubus (a female version of the incubus, demons from the spectral shape rather than body). Before and evil wife of Adam, Lilith in the Jewish tradition is considered the mother of all vampires: like all slaves, is greedy of human semen and this comes at night in bed with men drain their life force. From Lilith also take the Lilin, who suck the blood of children. According to tradition, if a baby smiles in his sleep during the night of the Jewish Sabbath, it is said that Lilith is playing with: to save, the rubs his nose three times and say the phrase inaugural Adam, Eve, Lilith out! .
Even the Greeks and Romans had their own vampire mythology, vampires mostly represented by women, who joined with some European shamanic tradition. The lamia, for example, queen of the slaves, is a sort of witch, who sometimes appears in the form of a beautiful girl, sometimes as an old woman sometimes even look like an animal, preferably a snake-headed woman. In ancient Rome, then, there is also the stix, direct ancestor of the Italian industry and Strigoi Romanians. The Stix, the shape of a bird of prey and bloodthirsty, who was drinking with a long, sharp beak, is thus described by Ovid: It is said that
strazino
infants and children still full of blood guzzling
They have a gullet name of owls: because of the name is that usually at night
horribly screeching
Another girl was the lethal empusa that for a particular charm, looks like a beautiful girl, when in reality hides monstrous and repulsive features (it has a foot bronze statue of a donkey dung). How mormos, vampire a bit 'more pleasing, were at the service of Hecate, goddess of the night, dark magic and protector of witches.
James Robinson describes it thus in the Vertigo miniseries Witchcraft:
Hecate. Queen of Darkness. Queen of the night. She who has three bodies and three heads. Virgin, mother and older. Heaven, earth and hell. Artemis, Diana, and Proserpina. One who has no name. Queen of the ghosts.
Queen of witches.
And get to the first vampire story: back in Philostratus Life of Apollonius of Tyana the story of young Menippus who saves his master from Apollonius empusa a terrible plots, using a loose tongue and lots of imagination. Testimonials
even more important on the undead come to us from ancient Rome guide to some Flegone Tralli, freedman of the emperor Hadrian, who tells the story of Philinnio (which was revived in poetry by Goethe - read on- line translation of Benedetto Croce - that the environment in Corinth and was likely source of the story of Arria Marcella Théophile Gautier), a young dead coming back, with the consent of the gods, for the love of a young, machetes. The young woman is discovered by his parents, and this meeting brings her death, it seems permanently, but the population turns to the essay that Ryllus
ordered them for any reason that would allow the body to Philinnio was relocated in the tomb, but make sure it was immediately incinerated in a far away place, outside the city walls.
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