Vampires: Origins and Real History

Tracing the origins of the Vampire, its etymology and historical descriptions and powers, links to other European creatures, witches, werewolves and the hungry dead of ancient days.

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[huldrrrr]

I don't understand why we can't have a movie based on old vampire folklore instead of the endless teen dramas and dracula remakes over and over again

[lifesajoke]

I remember my girlfriend's grandmother kept a broom next to or hanging on all the doors in her house. When I asked her why she did it she said they were there in case a vampire comes in the night while she sleeps they have to stop and count all the bristles and by the time they finish the sun would come up and they would have to leave. She was dead serious in her belief of them.

[sherryglisson]

If you are in Romania and ask them about Dracula you d BETTER do so in a respectful manner otherwise those people will be very angry with you because to them he was a great hero who kept the Turks out of THIER lands throughout at least part of his lifetime....

[lthink]

I'm from Romania and in the country side it is still belived that the dead will come out at night as a Strigoi and they will eat you. 10 years ago my grandpa died and grandma paid the grave digger to put a stake through his heart so that he will not come back as a strigoi at night, i don't believe in any supernatural but i find it interesting that people even in this era still practice some of the old traditions
Edit: and i saw on the news that some people used a horse to see if there were any vampiers/strigoi in the cemetery, if the horse didn't walked over a grave it was marked as a strigoi's grave

[musashidanmcgrath]

I recently spent a few weeks traveling through Transylvania and I visited the castle that inspired Bram Stoker's castle in the novel. I also visited the real Dracula's(Vlad Dracul) childhood home. Beautiful region, Transylvania.

[QalOrt]

The Count from Sesamie Street is more a vampire than those of Twilight

[tommylanigan]

There is an Irish legend about a cruel vampire called Abhartach that seems to have been a big inspiration for Bram Stoker. There was a manuscript about it titled "Abhartach, Dreach-fhoula" in Trinity College at the time bram attended There. Dreach fhoula is Irish, Pronounced Droch-ula. It means bad or tainted blood. Balor Otherworld channel has video coming out about it

[fellipecarvalho]

I have been researching dark entities/creatures in the occult and esoteric and I have decided to share some of my conclusions here for those who might be interested.

It seems that every werewolf is a vampire, but not every vampire is a werewolf. This is because in a occult context, a vampire is any being that feeds on the vital energy of the living, this entity being a dead spirit or a living person. Succubi, black magicians (dark mages who astral project and "fly" (strigoi) using their power to feed on others), ghouls (spirits obsessed with the vital energy released by dead bodies in graveyards) are all vampiric.

And werewolves, spirits whose astrospiritual body is deformed into a lupine shape over the course of either very intense connections with negative energy or long periods of time spent in limbo as a restless obsessed spirit, are also vampires, since they feed on the energy and emotions of the living.

The classical draculean vampire then, in this context could be considered a merge of several distinct negative entities, since nothing really makes it impossible for one individual to have all the characteristics of multiple entities. Dracula would be a black magician, capable of changing his astrospiritual body at will to that of a wolven human, shapeshifting, and also feasting on the vital energy of others, through astral projecting and commiting psychic attacks.

Even the capacity for people to be turned into vampires as described in the book is explainable, since an entity truly becomes vampiric when it grows addicted to the energy of others, once it has drained others so frequently that it no longer knows how to produce its own energy, needing to feed on victims to survive. This is how a victim may also become a vampire, after being drained extensively of their own individual energy, the victim might start draining others to survive, since its own production is insufficient, slowly becoming another attacker.

[Master_Blackthorne]

One of the most important points about the vampire myth you covered is that vampirism is a family affair. In the little known novella by Alexis Tolstoy "The Family of the Vurdalak" you have the afflicted grandfather coming back after killing a Turkish vampire who has been murdering his shepherds. He acts strangely and refuses food, but starts to kill and transform his family into vampires one by one. Nineteenth Century writers tend to make the vampire a noble, but I think that grew out of the idea that titled people oppressed the peasants on their land. It was like a perverted droit du seigneur act. The historical Dracula's usual victims were the common people especially the Transylvanian Saxons who wrote the worst stories about him.

[katarinamiljenovic]

I'm a person who's majoring in Russian, and takes Slavic mythology and folklore. Word vampire comes from South Slavic mythology. In Serbian vampire is vampir/вампир. Recently I read about it and found out that vampires (in South Slavic mythology) can come from people who were born out side of marriage. Also as you said we still kept tradition of bringing food to dead, pray for 40 days because South Slavs would do so to make sure that their soul would be at peace and they wouldn't turn into a vampire. If people would go missing or were found dead they'd dig up dead and stab their heart with wood. It's also believed that the child must get baptized because if not they might become vampires. My English is not that good, I'm sorry.

[davidclark]

Pre dracula, there was, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the penny dreadful comics, in these there was a story of Varny the vampire. A more comical aspect of the vampire. It was reading those that gave Bram stoker his initial inspiration to bring the vampire legend into a more hostile and mysterious creature that was Dracula.

[jerrydrouillard]

Vlad was called Dracula because his father was known as Dracul, meaning devil or dragon. Dracula means son of the devil or son of the dragon.

[killerfrank]

As someone who has read extensively about vampire legends, I have to say your video gave a fresh and fascinating take on the subject. Well done Sir, you've earned one more subscriber.

[Onikag]

13:33

Yes vampires are werewolves. Or rather werewolves are vampires who have no control over their bloodlust while vampires are far more refined. This is also why Dracula is able to transform into a werewolf while also being a vampire.

[Sandra-kvvf]

Vampires from different parts of the world over thousands of years. Giving us these stories is fabulous and very intriguing! The Countess and Dracula haha we know Vladimir was a great warrior using the only fear tactics he could really mess with his enemies minds! Love it!
But back to this story so wonderful! Thank You!

[TheHornedKing]

First off, it's nice that you mention the missconception that Count Dracula was directly based off of Vlad the impaler.
Second, I would like to add something, regarding what you mentioned of vampires that appear bloated from all the blood in them. When a human body decomposes, at some point the stomach will start to swell as it gets filled with gasses produced by the decay. Around the same time, blood starts leaking out of orifices, like the mouth.
Put together, it's easy to see how a superstitious person who knows nothing about this, would conclude that the corpse was so full of blood they got bloated from it, and would assumed the corpse had come back to (un)life and sucked it out of someone. Indeed, that is exactly what we see in documented cases of vampirism.
It also helps explaining why the idea of corpses coming back to life to drink the blood of the living, is a concept we see in so many cultures all over the world.

[elizabethdesousa]

That was an excellent presentation. Thanks Fortress of Lugh

[AmandaHugandKiss]

One really important thing to understand about vampires is that Japanese as well as many ancient cultures around the world has some version of vampires.
In many Asian cultures vampires are very similar to those mentioned in this video well before any European countries had been in contact with these cultures. As are zombies, found in many ancient cultures well before European countries started to migrate to these countries/continent.

[hanswolpertinger]

God, I love your videos. When it comes to documentaries, your work is top-tier.

[ConanCamelPuncher]

Dude your voice is so fitting for your presentation style just awesome