Vampire Myths Around The World
Dear Sara,
Which cultures have or had vampire myths?
Sincerely, Max S.
Dear Max,
We can thank Mary Shelley’s friend John Polidori (despite the use of his name as a fictional character, he was a real person) 1819 work THE VAMPYRE and, later but more influentially, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel DRACULA for popularizing the mythology we’re most familiar with these days. However, the notion of blood-drinkers and/or the living undead has been around for a surprisingly long time, in a surprisingly wide range of lands and locations. An incomplete list includes the Balkans (which encompass Transylvania) as one obvious source, but variations on vampire myths also come from ancient Greece, China, Babylon, Syria, Persia, Africa, Hebrew tradition and later Prussia, Serbia, Germany, Austria and France, to name a few.
-Sara Bellum