Mythology of True Blood and the Sookie Books

Science Fiction (?)
Werewolves and Vampires
By Aslinn Dhan

Dr. Frankenstein: "It's Alive!!! It's Alive!! My creation is alive! Oh that I would be as God!" Frankenstein (1931) Censored sequence

We are used to seeing monsters who are created through the world of science. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is considered the first book of science fiction. She takes what the scientists knew about the human anatomy and the elements of electricity and plenty of metaphysical thought and combined them to create the Monster. If you haven't ever read the book, it would be interesting for you to note that the Monster had a name. His name in the beginning was Adam, like the first man God created. Her story of the man made man was a commentary on science and it's awesome responsibility to humanity and the ways that responsibility can be abused.

And though this may be the first written science based horror novel, the idea is not unique in story telling. The Jews have a story of a being called the Golem. Golem was made by a group of rabbis, using both science and faith, to create an indestructible creature who would protect the Jewish people. He was made of clay and was larger than life. To bring him to life, an inscription was made on his forehead in Hebrew. To deactivate him, one need only rub away the inscription. The legend was so prevalent that when Hitler heard rumors of a Golem in the Warsaw ghetto, he sent his SS and a scientific team to go and find the creature and learn how it is used.

Homunculus is an age old creature rumored to have been made by witches as servants. There are various recipes for the homunculus, using things like afterbirth, heavy metals like lead, blood, semen, roots and herbs and fermented in the ground for a number of days, usually from full moon to full moon, when the homunculus will then be born and follow the instructions of the witch.

If you look at the way the Werewolf and Vampire mythos begins, both begin with a bite, as a type of infection, transferred by the bite. Both have transformative powers, endowing the creature with super human abilities. It also has the power to strip them of their humanity. The use of curatives: silver, garlic, wolfbane, hawthorn, or roses suggests the possibility of inoculation against the "disease".

As science becomes more sophisticated, so does it's involvement in these ancient stories. For example, look at the book The Island of Dr. Moreau. Dr. Moreau is a scientist interested in breeding a group of humans who have both human and animal qualities. This leads to a group of mutants, neither human nor animal. The monster in Alien through the film franchise undergoes mutation in film three when the monster pops out of a dog. Then in four, there is the DNA scrambled "construct" made of Lt. Ripley's blood.

For Vampires, look at the film Life Force which have Vampires coming from outer space, a starving race looking for food. In the film Perfect Creature the Vampires are not made in the traditional sense but born in a lab, genetically created all male with the natural urges for blood bred out of them until a virus comes up and resurrects the old hungers. And the desire to breed. The Vampires want most of all to be able to reproduce themselves sexually.

Even in Charlaine Harris' world, the Vampires are out of the coffin because they have adopted the use of synthetic blood and an official explanation as to why they are Vampire: a virus. Though this is meant to be the official explanation, Sookie and the characters close to Vampires know the simple truth and that is their Vampire neighbors are dead. Or Undead.

But stories that seem to cheat death through science is simply a desire to avoid the inevitable truth that we will all die someday. That is primarily because we aren't sure of what comes next. The fear of the next step into something or nothing makes us fascinated with the notion of immortality, or at least a greatly extended life. That is why Vampires and werewolves fascinate us still, after all this time. Even the werewolf has it's allure with it's strength and "hard-to-kill-ability" attracts us.

Source: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, The Werewolf Book by Brad Steiger, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft by Judika Illes, The Arbitel of Magick by Robert Turner.

Psychic Vampires By Aslinn Dhan

Have you ever known some one whose personality and over dramatic life simply drains the sun from the sky, leaving you emotionally spent afterwards? If you have, then you may have been in contact with a psychic Vampire.

Psychic Vampires are people who consume life force in the form of chi, or the energies that living things, especially humans, project in the form of auras. Psychic Vampires must only involve themselves in your personal space to absorb your chi. Psychic Vampires also enjoy chi absorption through exposure to excitement in crowds, as in bars or sporting events when emotions run high, at sites of violence or during sex.

Psychic Vampires may very well cultivate the Vampiric/Goth look but most are unassuming people. They have no interest in harming their host and are fairly innocuous.

The Psychic Vampire comes to us with the growing interest in the processes of the mind. The first thought on Psychic Vampirirsm is the notion that humans create energies all around them and it is through harnessing these energies that humans can manifest change in the natural world, the basis of magik.

There was also thought that the Vampire was not a real creature, not a corporeal creature, but an astral self, that we all act as Vampires sometime in our life, probably more often than we think. In the metaphysical world, the astral self is your most free and independent self and by learning to send out your astral self, you can maintain your physical self and be stronger. And when your physical self dies, the astral form of your being still exists and walks the earth.

We are most in tune to our astral self and the astral selves of others when we sleep. As our physical bodies wind down, we release our astral selves to explore the world independently. From this notion of the astral self, we may have discovered the origins of the creatures incubus and succubus and even the Nightmare.

Though some thinkers attribute the idea of the atral self to the metaphysician Paraclesus, the notion is actually more modern. In the 1960's the premier writer in psychial research, Scott Rogo, writes that the Psychic Vampire, also thought of as the astral self, is the revenant or ghost who causes an inexplicable draining of vitality.

Spiritualists and modern mystics who consider themselves as representatives of the Ascended Masters (great philosophers who have passed through this plane of existance like Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus and others) claim that all of our modern ills, such as addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, are all attributable to be possessed by Psychic Vampires who must be exorcised (for a nominal fee, of course).

Noted satanist, Anton LaVey, taught his members to resist the energy of Psychic Vampires (notably any Christian who might try to convert the member from the satanist belief. "Jesus Christ," Anton LaVey liked to note, "was the most insidious of the Psychic Vampires." (Marchant, page 87)). This was a way to teach his members discipline and deepened their mindset toward the beliefs of the satanic church.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton, The Life of the Notorious Anton LeVey by Guy Marchant, The Psychic Vampire by Elisabeth Huston, Dream Lovers by Stephanie Michaelson, and Psychic Self Defense by Dion Fortune

Healed
What does Vampire Blood do to Mortals
By Aslinn Dhan

Bill: "Want to drink the blood they collected? I understand it makes humans feel more healthy, improves their sex life," Episode One True Blood


Sookie: "Did you feed on the Rattrays?"
Bill: "Yes, after I'd given you my blood, while you were healing. You drank a lot of my blood,"
Sookie: "What will that do to me?"
Bill: "Well, you'll have keener senses"
Sookie: "What else?"
Bill: "Your libido will be more active,"
Sookie: "Anything else?"
Bill: "I'll always be able to feel you. I can find you real fast. If you were ever in trouble that can come in quite handy," Epsiode Two True Blood

With that arched eyebrow, Eric was telling me that this was my best bet, that he would try not to hurt me, that being tied to him was infinitely preferable to being tied to Andre.

I knew all this not only because I wasn't stupid but because we were bound together. Both Eric and Bill had had my blood and I theirs. For the first time, I understood there was a real connection. Didn't I see the two of them as more human than Vampire? It was the blood exchange. All Together Dead (p. 177-178)


Van Helsing: "The Vampire has baptised her in his own blood," Bram Stoker's Dracula (film)



The central characteristic of the Vampire story is the blood. While legends of antiquity are indifferent to the notion of a blood bond or the potential properties of Vampire blood in an "unmade human" the first instances of potency of Vampire blood in humans who have not been made Vampires comes from the Stoker's novel Dracula.

Dracula creates blood bonds with humans and other Vampires alike as he goes through his travels in Stoker's novel. With his Vampiric wives, number one, as their maker and with the poor pre-True Blood fangbanger Renfield (whom he drives mad, as some humans who consume Vampire blood do in True Blood and the Charlaine Harris novels) and with Lucy as her seducer and maker and with Mina as her suitor when they go to desecrate his resting place at Carfax Abbey. The blood bond forged between Mina and Dracula creates a psychic link wherein Dracula can hear the plans of Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker as they travel to capture Dracula and kill him before he can get home.

In the film version of Dracula, Mina becomes more sexualized after having the Count's blood, as she attempts to seduce Van Helsing as they camp on the mountain going up to the castle.

The suggestion of healing from Vampire blood is not obvious. Taking in consideration that blood typing was unknown at the time of Bram Stoker's writing, Van Helsing's blood transfusion in the vain attempt at saving Lucy Westerna's life may suggest some sort of change, certainly in the quality of Lucy's blood. Her human blood was dying and required blood. If you think about it in those terms then you can ignore the detractors who scoff at Van Helsings crude untyped blood transfusion and say: He wasn't transfusing blood for Lucy, he was transfusing blood to feed the Vampiric blood in Lucy's blood stream so it wouldn't completely consume Lucy's blood.

But what about healing properties? We know that Vampires can heal themselves when they have been injured to a certain extent. And if you are a devotee of Hammer films, you know that Dracula has been reanimated by either complicated spells or rituals or by simply removing the stake from the ash and bone riddled remains where it miraculously heals it's self.

In the film Interview with a Vampire, the initial feeding wound of the maker, Lestat to Louie, is healed. Claudia is healed as well as she is certainly dying of malaria (or plague) when Lestat and Louie fed from her and made her Vampire.

The notion of healing properties of Vampire blood in Humans may be a play on the belief in the spiritual healing power of Christ's blood. Since all things through Christ are spiritual until the Resurrection and eternal life for Vampires is physical and temporal, the ability to heal, rather than "save" may be a Vampiric mirror reflecting the Vampire's position as in between the worlds of life and death and eternity.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, Vampires: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers, The Anne Rice Reader by Sheila Donahue

Requiet in Pacem
The Vampire's Resting Place
By Aslinn Dhan

Bill places his hand flat on a panel under the stairwell and gently pushes. There is a light clicking sound and and the panel opens to reveal a dark, closet like space. He crouches down and opens a trap door hidden under a carpet in his floor. You can see the sandy earth beneath the house and two or three books. He stands and looks at Sookie

Bill: This is where I spend my days.
Sookie: Does anyone ever get in there with you?
Bill: This is not a place for you.
Sookie: So, we'll never sleep beside each other.
Bill: No one else knows where I rest. Episode Seven True Blood

Crypts, vaults, coffins, closets, basements, windowless rooms, crawlspaces, inside walls, the earth itself becomes the daytime hiding places of the Vampire. What is the significance of the places that the Vampire chooses to sleep? Is there a deeper, more significan't reason for the Vampire's lair other than the fact they are dead until dark.

In Egyptian lore, the Vampire sleeps in the necropolis, the city of the dead, not far from the center of Egypt. Though in modern times, the necropolis was meant to mean the cemetery, in Egypt, it was the funereal and preservation district, the place where funereal preparation businesses flourished as the belief in eternal life was more and more closely linked to earthly physical preservation. The Vampire lived in the dark places, the secret places of death to feed and walk, unnoticed by the people who lived and worked there as well.

And then, there is the act of death and burial itself among many cultures which may cause the Vampire to be born. If you remember the essay on The Roma, their funeral rights were very complicated and had to be performed carefully or a Vampire or a werewolf would be borne of the improperly performed ritual. If the ritual is flawed, then the dead arise and walk among the people and return simply to the last place it was at rest, it's grave or resting place.

With Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Vampire had to sleep not only in a coffin or box, but a coffin or box of the homeland soil. If you recall, Dracula bought several pieces of property around London. At first Harker thought it was to control the values of the property around him. Later Jonathan realizes it was so to enable Dracula to have more than one daytime resting place.

Symbolically, the earth is the place of renewal and regeneration. In the depth of the earth somewhere on a metaphysical plane is Hell or Sheol or Hades, the land of the dead. The dead, whether man or animal, decays and becomes a part of the soil it was sprung from and for some, re-materialize in the form of the grasses and flowers.

The Vampire withstands all of that. He goes in the grave and does not decay, he does not return to the earth. It is because, as Bill told Sookie in Living Dead In Dallas, "we are no longer of the same clay." (page 230) They have surpassed the life given them by God and exist as some other beyond the realm of God. And beyond his mercy. To sleep the sleep of the undead is to be lost from the salvation of God.

In Stoker's Dracula and it's various incarnations, Dracula sleeps alone in his coffin but sometimes, when Mina is made a sort of half Vampire, she is found sleeping snuggled against his prone body, not quite sleeping like a Vampire, but not sleeping like a human either.

Bill , whether he means to or not, is drawing an unbreachable line for Sookie, one that she cannot cross. The fact is, Sookie will never be happy with an arrangement where her lover slips out of her bed just before dawn to sleep their deathly sleep.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton and The Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker and edited by Matthew Crum

Havin' My Baby
Can Vampires Have Biological Children?
By Aslinn Dhan

[. ] "Do you know, I didn't know if you could do it?"
His eyebrows raised interrogatively. "Do...?"
"Get___" and I stopped, trying to think of a pleasant way to put it. I'd seen more crudity this evening than I'd seen in my lifetime, and I didn't want to add to it. "An erection," I said, avoiding his eyes.
"You know better now." He sounded like he was trying not to be amused. "We can have sex, but we can't make children or have them. Doesn't it make you feel better that Diane can't have a baby?" Dead Until Dark (p 72-73)

Of course this is in the world of Charlaine Harris, but the most ancient mythologies say that Vampires routinely have children by mortals. The lore suggests that this is the way lesser demons and imps are made. Most of the Vampire lore points to the legends of incubus and succubus, the Vampiric demon spirits who seduce sleepers by implanting impure thoughts in their head and then having sex with them.

And as mentioned before in Roma lore, a male Vampire may rise and appear to his wife and spend the night having sex with her until he is satisfied that she is pregnant with the Little Vampire, a human who can see Vampires and identify them. Whether a female Vampire can appear to her husband and become pregnant is not mentioned in the lore.

In some of the mythologies, Vampires often settle with a human for the specific purpose of having children, though they may soon abandon the spouse and child to continue their more active Vampire lives.

In later writings of occultists trying to understand the question of the 'natural' instincts and abilities of the Vampire, the lore shifts to renounce the notion that Vampires can reproduce biologically. The Vampire in their natural state is dead, therefore there is no living seed or egg to accomplish the act of reproduction.

There is the notion that Vampires would find the ability to impregnate a human or be impregnated by a human undesireable, particularly if this was one of the ways to make a new Vampire as they would not wish to make too many as they would then be competition for food.

And then, in later lore, the Vampire is stripped of sexual ability and desire is focused on the blood only, making feeding an all purpose lust and release experience, as in Anne Rice's books.

There is a fascinating story from the early 1600's about a small nest of Vampires who actually adopted orphan humans to raise as their 'familiars' who would then care for and guard the Vampires during the day, much like a familiar. Some of these orphans were later made Vampire as a 'reward' for serving their Vampire parents well.

As the Vampire once again became the focus of sexual desirability, the question of Vampires being biological parents were ignored until the film Van Helsing the main plot of which is concerning Dracula's attempts to acquire a supernatural being whose life force is strong enough to feed his many children gotten on his three Vampire brides so they can hatch and be a legion of Vampires.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton and The Vampire and his Kith and Kin by Montague Summers

Intimations on Immortality
Cheating Death
By Aslinn Dhan

"To walk without fear, to love without regret and to live for all eternity, this dark gift you can give me," Wolf (film)

"Take me away from all this death," Bram Stoker's Dracula (film)

"I give you eternal life and everlasting love," Bram Stoker's Dracula (film)

Louie: "What do you see when you look at her?"
Woman: "I see a child who will never die." Interview with a Vampire (film)

Eric: "Sookie," he said, suddenly serious, "I have been dead a few hundred years. I am used to it. But she is not quite gone. There is a spark. Do you want me to bring her over?"

I was shocked speechless. How could I make that decision?

And while I thought about it, he said, "She is gone." Living dead in Dallas (212)

Sookie: "But that is never going to happen me. And you won't ever turn me." I was absolutely serious.
Eric: "No. I won't ever force you into subservience. And I will never turn you, since you don't want it."
Sookie: "Even if I am going to die, don't turn me. I would hate that more than anything."
Eric: "I agree to that. No matter how much I might want to keep you."
Dead and Gone (179)

Bill: "Drink before the wound closes,"
Sookie: "I don't want to be a Vampire,"
Bill: "You won't be. God-damn it Sookie do you want to live?" True Blood Episode Two

"The monkey's paw!" she cried. "Do you still have it?"
"Of course, but what good would it do us now?"
"You made only one wish, you have two wishes left! Go and get it and wish my boy alive again!" The Monkey's Paw (Saki page 12)

"Sometimes, Louis, they find out dead is better," Pet Semetary (144)

"You told me the aunts have a spell,"
"Yeah, but they said he would come back as something dark, something evil,"
"Jimmy already is dark and evil, and anyway I don't care how he comes back so long as he's got a pulse!" Practical Magic (film)

One of the alluring notions of Vampire and Werewolf stories is their seeming eternal nature. Of course both can be killed, but it is very hard to do and with this hard-to-killablity, the idea of walking through the centuries with little or no fear of death is very exciting to the mortal, so susceptible to disease and so frail in the face of injury. This is particularly so in a time of disease like times of plague when the living who did not catch the dread disease were looked on with suspicion by the sick. There was a tale told in my husband's community in Long Fork, Mill Creek, West Virginia that there were two old women, witchy women, he explained, who did not fall ill to the Spanish flu and it was said that they were well because of the deals they made with the devil.

In later times, suspicions included the possibility of the immune being werewolves and Vampires. Sometimes, it was worth your life to pretend that you had at least a touch of any raging plague rather than appear too healthy while all around you people died horrible deaths.

To cheat death, and cheat God's righteous judgement, was to be an abomination. But how many of us would long to see our dead loved ones, a mother, a father, a grandparent, a beloved wife or husband alive again? What lengths will you go through? And would you love them no matter how they were changed?

What about yourself? What if you were very sure you were dying and you could have access to the means to be healed and virtually immortal? Would you do it? Think carefully? Are you sure?

In the mythos, there are some tales of people seeking out the immortal children of the night and asking for their death ending curse/blessing. They deny the satisfaction of the fates because of their fear of the unknown world that awaits us after death.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a tale of a woman whose husband was dying and she had heard that living in a cave not far from the city was a creature we in modern times would call Vampire. She went to this creature and asked that it come and cure her husband. The creature explained that it could do this very thing but she had to be sure that this was what she wanted. She begged the creature to come and do whatever was necessary to make her husband well. The creature did. Afterwards it told her that he would never be allowed to go to the next world when he eventually died many centuries from now and he would be different from the husband she had known.

Her husband slept for many days and finally he woke in the night and said he was hungry. The woman prepared him food, but he could not eat it and instead grabbed one of his young children and drank it's blood and ate it raw. The woman was horrified, but she loved her husband and could not turn her heart away from him. Each night her husband rose and complained of hunger and each night he refused her food and took one of his children and consumed them.

Finally, the wife went back to the creature and told him that she wanted her husband to die again. The creature said that she must burn her husband's body in sight of a holy place and that she could not use fire she made. She was puzzled, but she went back and when her husband fell asleep with the dawn, she had his body bound and wrapped in a great robe and taken to the temple of their gods. The sun was bright and fierce and her husband slept still, wrapped in his robes. She began to pray to her gods and they revealed to her the answer to the creature's puzzling caveat. She looked up at the blazing sun and went and unwrapped her husband's body and the light began to burn his body. In sadness she threw herself on top of her husband's body and gave herself to death.

So the notion of everything for a price is real. What would you being will trade for this eternal life? Would you live in the shadows and drink the blood of your fellow men, perhaps killing them in the process? Would you be willing to turn your back on your life and walk away from lovers, friends and children? Would you want to live in fear that you might be found and hated and feared and rightly so?

Or would you embrace your life and welcome your immortality and be relieved that death would never know your name?

Sources: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, The Werewolf Book by Brad Steiner, The Encyclopedia of the Undead by John and Caitlin Matthews and Judika Illes, The Epic of Gilgamesh (traditional)

R.N. Renfield
The First Fangbanger in Literature
By Aslinn Dhan

In the book Dracula by Bram Stoker, Dracula's first victim is R.N. Renfield, his real estate broker. When he finds his way back to London, he is definitely mad and is placed in the care of Dr. Seward at the insane asylum near Carfax Abbey. Dr. Seward is so fascinated with Renfield that he tells the poor man "I have to invent a new classification of lunatic," and in his notes, he says that Renfield suffers from melancholia and zoophagy, the desire to consume life.

Renfield believes that he can be of use to his master by devouring things that are alive. He eats insects: Flies, spiders, worms and roaches. He lures birds into his cell and catches and eats those. He kills and eats rats and mice (though these make him sick) and asks for a kitten which he can teach and feed. It is Renfield's belief that each life he consumes is added to his own, making him rich in souls, thus making him a very rich source of nutrition as well. "A Special Vintage" so to speak.

Clinical Vampirism, a mental disorder, is called Renfield Syndrome. Named after Stoker's character, the disorder is characterized by:

1. A morbid fascination with blood at an early age, when the taste of blood becomes associated with positive/negative experiences.

2. First comes the auto vampirism, where the person drinks their own blood. This is followed by the eating of live insects and the biting of animals, usually pets and sipping their blood and progresses to the drinking of human blood from people. Consensual blood drinking usually involves sex. Lust murders may associate drinking blood of their victims as a final act of domination. Drinking blood, whether consensual or not usually involves sexual activity.

3. About the same time, blood takes on a mystical or magikal quality.

4. The afflicted Vampire develops their own blood drinking rituals.

Fangbangers in the world of Charlaine Harris are people interested in having sex with and being fed from by any Vampire. It is the act of being fed from and the allure of sexual mastery by Vampires that draw them to places where they can meet and be associated with and be blood meals for Vampires.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatry VI by The American Psychiatric Association


Part Two: The Renfield

Renfield Part Two

"The blood exchange has worked both ways," he said. "I've had the blood of many women. I've had almost utter control over them. But they never drank mine. It's been decades, maybe centuries since I gave any woman my blood. Maybe not since I turned Pam."

"Is this the general policy among Vampires you know?" I wasn't quite sure how to ask what I wanted to know.

He hesitated, and nodded. "For the most part. There are some Vampires who like to take total control over a human___make that human their Renfield." He used the term with distaste. Dead and Gone(178)

In Charaine Harris' latest offering to the Southern Vampire Mysteries, Eric and Sookie touch on the subject of the ultra subservient devotee of the Vampire: The Renfield.

Renfield in the book Dracula had gone mad after becoming the creature for the Vampire. He searched for a way to make him absolutely neccesary to the master and to find a purpose in Dracula's world where he would forever serve Dracula in absolute devotion. When that didn't pan out, Renfield declared,"You promised me eternal life; but you give it to the pretty woman," Because he has revealed the promise Dracula made him and tried to warn Mina Harker of the Count's plans for her, Dracula murders his creature, which may have been the best thing for him; his therapy was going no where.

In some literary circles examining literature from a homosexual view, the critics suggest that the promise was not just a spititual one, but one of a love bond. This may well be the suggestion, but for me, the promise is purely of power, to be as Dracula is, to be Vampire and not be this degraded and victimized thing. Had Renfield become Vampire, he would have been a true beast, railing against his weakness which led him to be predated by the Count to begin with.

It may very well have been a favor the Count did for us to destroy his insane servant.

Source: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, The Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker and Matthew Crum, Gay Images in Classic Literature by Anthony DuPlessy, Homoerotic Themes in Vampire Mythology by Cynthia Moore

Vampire Hunters By Aslinn Dhan

Sam "You know who I wish would come here? Someone like Buffy or Blade or any of those bad ass Vampire Killers, come and take care of Mr. Bill Compton." Episode 4 True Blood

With the dawn of the Vampire story it only follows that you would have Vampire Killers. Considering that most cultures believed the children of the night were evil or demonic, the first Vampire Killers were shamans and then with the ascendancy of Christianity, the priest was your man to go to to get rid of those pesky creatures. The spiritual equivalent of calling the bug man to spray around your house.

Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger were the first to write the authoritative manual on the subject of killing all things evil. Dominican priests, they were charged by Papal Bull issued by Pope Innocent VIII to be the High Inquisitors of Northern Europe. Presiding mainly over the cases of witchcraft, these two priests also heard stories of other creatures, most notably the werewolf and the Vampire.

Because there was no written authority to guide other witch hunters and Inquisitors, they wrote the classical Malleus Malificarum, translated loosely as The Witch Hammer. While the good fathers did not believe that people actually turned into werewolves nor did they believe the dead rose to drink the blood of their fellow citizens, they believed witches could use spells to cause people to believe they were these things and the best way to cure these poor afflicted victims of the devil was to catch and torture and eventually execute the witches, lifting whatever demonically powered curse had been placed on these poor souls. Later, Spanish priest Franscesco Guazzo wrote his own witch hunter manual, the Compendium Malificarum to add to the already popular work.

With the Protestant Reformation, the use of the two witch hunter manuals were still popular, though Protestant ministers usually down played the use of such things as holy water, Marian (Mary) based prayers, and the use of the Host (Holy Communion wafer) as papist and superstitious, they did cling to the notion that torture and confession and execution was the best way to handle the situation when dealing with witches. (So, it didn't really matter which witch hunter caught you, Protestant or Catholic, you were still dead meat)

Then, a Protestant minister named Reginald Scot wrote his own witch hunter manual, created especially for Protestant members. It is basically the same as the Catholic versions, except that along with witches and Vampires and werewolves, he also added Catholics to the list of heretics who were "stake-worthy", so to speak. His book, called The Discovery of Witchcraft, was the staple of Protestant witch hunters.

In America, two rising stars in religious thought and demonology would start a witch hunt that would become famous for ruthlessly rooting out and convicting people on testimony evidence alone. Cotton and Increase Mather were Quaker ministers and scholars of the kingdom of Satan. The most famous of the brothers, Cotton, wrote a book called The Invisible Kingdom. In it, he warns the faithful that the devil and his cohorts in the form of all the children of the night, particularly Incubus and Succubus, demons who act in the same manner as Vampires, live and breathe and enjoy evil lives all around us. When a scrawny little servant girl named Abigail began pointing at the townspeople crying witch in a little nowhere village called Salem, the pastors feverishly referred to The Invisible Kingdom to figure out what to do next.

One of the things that got 20 men and women killed in those dark years of the Salem witch hunts was the notion of spectral evidence. All one simply had to say was "Goody Good appeared to me night before last and sat on my chest and threatened me and scratched me and drank my blood," That was enough for an indictment and and execution.

After the terrors of that time, Increase and Cotton both wrote in their journals and later books that there should have been more to the testimony than spectral evidence. That was mighty white of them considering that 19 people had been hanged and one crushed to death solely based on spectral evidence.

But it was from these real life people that we get the quintessential Vampire Hunters. These are usually grizzled old men who have spent their lives hunting down all forms of evil, collecting every imaginable tome on the subject, and turning to their sense of righteous cause to hunt down those undead demons of the netherworld. Beware evil doers wherever you are!!

The most famous of these Vampire killers is of course Abraham Van Helsing. Just as one thinks of the name Dracula when thinking about Vampires, Van Helsing is the first name that pops up when thinking about Vampire hunters.

Van Helsing uses everything in his arsenal to hunt, capture and kill the undead. Religious artifacts, including a specially blessed wax Host, crucifixes, rosaries, holy water, relics of the saints, The Roman Ritual of exorcism, mirrors, silver daggers, garlic, both the cloves and the flowers (Remember Lucy, they are medicinal) and the ever popular wooden stake made of ash (legend had it that the ash tree was the tree of the true Cross Jesus was crucified on).

Vampire hunters had to be mentally and physically strong. They also had to have impeccable spiritual health as well. When one went out to deal out a little death to one of those evil blood suckers, you had to have a spotless soul and have gone to Church and taken Holy Communion before setting out.

Today's Vampire hunters are quite different. Buffy, a young teenage girl, is one of the most modern of the Vampire hunters in popular fiction. We also have Blade, who is part Vampire, part human, BloodRayne, who is a Vampire who hunts her own kind, Angel, the Vampire with a soul, who fights all manner of evil as well as rogue Vampires, and of course Theodore and Steve Newlin in the Southern Vampire novels. They rely on their wits, their various weapons, to include holy water filled bullets, cross bows complete with ash wood arrows, and the martial arts.

Sources: The Malleus Malificarum by Sprenger and Kramer, The Compendium Malificarum by Guazzo, The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton, The Invisible Kingdom by Cotton Mather, The Discovery of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot, The Roman Ritual, The Devil Worshippers: A social study of the Salem witch trials by Annamarie Phillips

A Stake to the Heart: Killing a Vampire

A Stake to the Heart
Mythology of Vampire Killing

The most prevelent weapon against the Vampire is the stake to the heart. The old fashioned wooden stake was meant to be sharpened to a point and driven into the heart of the Vampire which would then render him to ashes. The stake also became a phallic symbol in the movies and post Victorian representations of the Vampire when the Vampire killer, usually an aggrieved husband or suitor, would come not just to kill the count but to "release" his lady love from the curse of having been made Vampire.

But what sort of wood should it be? It depends on your local belief about the Crucifixion.

No one knows what tree was used to make the Cross upon which Christ was crucifed but there are plenty of legends. (And if you happen to know any of those legends beyond what I have written here, please add them.) Some say it was the dogwood, that in the time of Christ, the dogwood was a much larger tree but after Jesus was executed, the tree was sorrowful and dwindled down to the elegant tree it is today. Even the blossom becomes a part of the legend as the small red lines inthe petals are symbolic of the five wounds of Christ. Therefore, the dogwood was used in in some areas to make Vampire stakes.

Weeping Willow shares the same common sort of tale with the dogwood and was also used to make stakes. Oak is sort of an obvious choice because it is a very hard wood and was also thought to be the crucifixion tree.

Trees associated with magik were sometimes tapped. Wood from the hawthorn or elm was used because they are thought of as "protective trees" and trees from which wands are made. Holly trees are often used as well. Pine was certainly a handy tree and could have been used, if you wanted to experiment. Maybe you wouldn't if you were hunting Vampires.

Ash seems to be a pretty popular tree. It is said that the ash tree was prized for it's Vampire killing ability because according to legend, that is the wood Peter's staff was suppposedly made of. Peter was the head of the Christian church when Christ ascended and when Peter went to Rome to preach and convert, he thrust his walking stick into the ground at the entrance to Rome and it took root and bloomed, symbolic of the taking root of the Christian faith in Rome. And Charlaine Harris says that the ash is the wood that the stake is made of that is used by the assassin in Club Dead when Sookie is staked.

"I dithered, ashamed and frightened, the decision was made for me. The man with the black hair reached inside his coat and the fanaticism roiling in his head reached fever pitch. He pulled out the long sharpened piece of ash, and then it happened." (Club Dead page 171)

Sources: Judeo-Christian Myths and Legends by Sylvia Langston, By Oak, Ash and Hawthorn by Anantha Moore, The Elemental Encyclopedia of Witchcraft by Judika Illes, The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Vampires and Vampirism by Montague Summers.

The Ankh
The Ankh
By Aslinn Dhan

The Ankh was used by Ancient Egyptians as a symbol of eternal life and was later used by the Coptic Christians in Egypt. Formed by a T-cross with a loop, the symbol was one of eternal life and the world beyond the human existence. The loop was thought to represent the universe and the T for man or the microcosm. They are also sex symbols showing the union between man and woman, the god Osiris and the goddess Isis.

Gods and kings and queens of Egypt are often depicted holding the ankh to symbolize their power over life an death. It also symbolizes safe passage through the world of the now to the afterworld. It is the key that unlocks the doors between these two planes of existence. Magikally, it is linked with clairvoyance.

As an amulet, it was often placed in the folds of mummy wrappings and people wore them to protect them from death and to give them knowledge.

Source: Signs and Symbols by Mark O'Connor and Raje Airy

Greek and Roman Tattooing
By Aslinn Dhan

Since Godric is featured in the next season of True Blood and he is depicted as having tattoos of an ancient Roman style in the book, I thought I would add this tid about tattooing practices and attitudes about tattooing in the ancient Roman world.

Greek and Roman Tattoos

Tattooing was only associated with barbarians in early Greek and Roman times. The Greeks learned tattooing from the Persians, and used it to mark slaves and criminals so they could be identified if they tried to escape. The Romans in turn adopted the practice from the Greeks, and in late antiquity when the Roman army consisted largely of mercenaries; they also were tattooed so that deserters could be identified.

Many Greek and Roman authors mentioned tattooing as punishment. Plato thought that individuals guilty of sacrilege should be tattooed and banished from the Republic.

Suetone, a early writer reports that the degenerate and sadistic Roman Emperor, Caligula, amused himself by capriciously ordering members of his court to be tattooed.

According to the historian, Zonare, the Greek emperor, Theophilus, took revenge on two monks who had publicly criticized him by having eleven verses of obscene iambic pentameter tattooed on their foreheads.

Hadrian's Roman soldiers 'had military tattoo'

'It's a little known fact, but it would appear that all of the legionaries and some of the auxiliaries on Hadrian's Wall would have had a tattoo', says Newcastle University's Museum of Antiquities Director of Archaeological Museums and Roman expert, Lindsay Allason-Jones.

The evidence comes from the Roman writer Vegetius, whose Epitome of Military Science, written around the 4th Century AD, is the only account of Roman military practice to have survived intact.

'Vegetius recorded that a recruit to the Roman army "should not be tattooed with the pinpricks of the official mark as soon as he has been selected, but first be thoroughly tested in exercises so that it may be established whether he is truly fitted for so much effort",' says Lindsay. (Source: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitome of Military Science, Chapter .

'We do not know what this official mark looked like. It was possibly an eagle or the symbol of the soldier's legion or unit', she said.

Lindsay has even unearthed evidence that the legionaries would have sported the tattoo on their hands. Aetius, the 6th century Roman doctor, recording that tattoos were found on the hands of soldiers, even documented the Roman technique for tattooing, which included first washing the area to be tattooed with leek juice, known for it's antiseptic properties. Aetius even went so far as to document the formula for the tattooing ink, which combined Egyptian pine wood (especially the bark), corroded bronze, gall and vitriol with more leek juice. The design was pricked into the skin with pointed needles 'until blood is drawn', and then the ink was rubbed on. (see below)

Stigma

The Latin word for "tattoo" was stigma, and the original meaning is reflected in modern dictionaries. Among the definitions of "stigma" listed in the Webster dictionary are "a prick with a pointed instrument", "a distinguishing mark …cut into the flesh of a slave or a criminal", and "a mark of disgrace or reproach."

The oldest known description of tattoo techniques together with a formula for tattoo ink, is found in Medicae artis principes by the sixth century Roman physician, Aetius. He writes:

Stigmates are the marks that are made on the face and other parts of the body. We see such marks on the hands of soldiers. To perform the operation they use ink made according to this formula:

Egyptian pine wood (acacia) and especially the bark, one pound; corroded bronze, two ounces; gall, two ounces; vitriol, one ounce. Mix well and sift.

Grind the corroded bronze with vinegar and mix it with the other ingredients to make a powder. Soak the powder in two parts of water and one part of leek juice and mix thoroughly.

First wash the place to be tattooed with leek juice and then prick in the design with pointed needles until blood is drawn. Then rub in the ink.

Early tattoo removal

Because of the disgrace associated with tattooing, Greek and Roman physicians did a brisk business in tattoo removal, and Aetius had a recipe for that. He wrote:

In cases where we wish to remove such tattoos, we must use the following preparations…There follow two prescriptions, one involving lime, gypsum and sodium carbonate, the other pepper, rue and honey. When applying firs clean the tattoos with nitre, smear them with resin of terebinth, and bandage for five days. On the sixth prick the tattoos with a pin, sponge away the blood, and then spread a little salt on the pricks, then after an interval of stadioi (presumably the time taken to travel this distance), apply the aforesaid prescription and cover it with a linen bandage. Leave it on five days, and on the sixth smear on some of prescription with a feather. The tattoos are removed in twenty days, without great ulceration and without a scar.” Translated by C.P. Jones

Other Greek and Roman physicians had special formulas that they used:

Pigeon feces mixed with vinegar and applied as a poultice "for a long time"

The Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes (circa 300 B.C.) described the brutally tattooed face of his father, a former slave, as "a narrative of his master's harshness."

During the early Roman Empire, slaves exported to Asia were tattooed "tax paid." Words, acronyms, sentences, and doggerel were inscribed on the bodies of slaves and convicts, both as identification and punishment. A common phrase etched on the forehead of Roman slaves was "Stop me, I'm a runaway."


This would suggest that Godric was likely made Vampire sometime in the 4th century AD, making him about 600 years older than Eric. It is quite possible that Godric could have been a part of Hadrian's army and could just as easily had crude Pictish tattoos as well as Roman tattoos.

The Picts inhabited Scotland.

Don't Fear the Reaper
The Angel of Death
By Aslinn Dhan

All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper
We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper
Baby I'm your man...

The Reaper- Blue Oyster Cult

Long Shadow: This one wanted to die.
Sookie: How do you know?
Long Shadow: We are Death. They all do, in their own way.

S1 E4 True Blood

Eric: Are you Death?
Godric: Yes.
Eric: But you are a little boy.

S2 E5

And behold! I saw a pale horse and a pale rider and he who sat upon it was Death. The Revelation of John Douay Rheims Catholic Edition of the Bible.

We have seen it's image in rock videos, album and cd covers, movies and works of art, but what do we know about the personification of death and how is it seen through the cultures and are Vampires the angels of Death?

Stephen King once wrote that death was a mystery and writing a secret. As long as men have been on the earth and experienced the last breath of life leaving the body, we have been horribly fascinated with the notion of death. We have even given death a face.

The skeletal form, shrouded or enshrouded, carrying his scythe is pulled right out of the Bible. In the Book of Revelation, when God has decided to gather up the last of the earth, he sends Death, with a crown upon it's skull and the reaper in it's hand to mow down all that stands to prepare for the judgement and ultimate end of the world and the rebirth of the new.

In our imaginations, we have created an angel no one wishes to see. This being is the herald of the end of life as you know it. In art and literature, the reaper is without compassion, horrible in it's representation of man's final decay, and merciless. It exists in all cultures. The Valkyrie, for one, were warrior women of Valhalla who came to claim the souls of the brave. Among the Celts, the death angels were among the Mabh, the servants of the goddess who embraced and sometimes physically loved the dying warriors on the battlefield as they gave up their last breath. Among the Lakota Sioux, the White Buffalo Woman also came to claim the dead and dying. The Cherokee believed the daughters of Selu, the earth mother of the Corn, came to escort brave ones to the Nightland.

Egypt was highly death centered in her culture and had Anubis, the carrier of the dead (yep, that's why they call the air company in True Blood Anubis Air) who helped the dead cross the river of death to the afterworld where they would face tests to see if they were righteous enough to go on to eternal bliss. In Greek and Roman mythology, you have the Ferryman who will transport you to the otherworld across the River Styx, the river of death. Greeks and Romans were buried with coins on their eyes and in their mouths to pay the Ferryman.

The Mayan carried bits of jade to pay their way to the Jaguar god to be admitted into their land of rest. In Hindi tradition, Yama gathers up the dead and dying in his lasso and brings them to have their lives accounted for to see if they are reincarnated or if they have been enlightened enough to go into the state of bliss and be integrated into the one soul.

In the Occult, the image of death, such as found on the tarot card is a symbol of change. Of all the cards of the 72 card deck, I think this symbolizes the Vampire the most because of the change that occurs when a Vampire is made.

No matter your personal belief in the after life, there are tales that challenge the notion of death. And the Vampire is one of them. But are they death, as Longshadow explained?

That the Vampire does not die a natural death, in that they grow old and eventually die causes their story to become the conundrum to the notion that all earthly flesh in it's state of earthly and corruption escapes the final end of the story set before us in most religions and precludes the need for salvation. But Vampires die, often at the hands of the "righteous", in violent, painful ways, melting to nothingness. If anything, the Vampire is simply a reminder that not all is eternal, longlived perhaps, but not eternal and subject to the end of days as we all are. Theirs just seem to be more horrific.

The Vampire is a victim of circumstance, in their making and in their means of survival. Montague Summers wrote in his book, Vampires and Vampirism:

The Vampire has no choice, he is the creature of the night, damned to his existence, evil because it feeds off his fellows. But you would do this moonlight devil the same as you would a dog in the heat of it's madness, but you may have pity in your heart because they have no human soul to save. (page 325)


Sources: Egypt and Her Cults by Answar Abdi Rubin, The Legends and Religions of the Hindi by Mark Davidson Richardson, The Noonday Devil by Sarah Mitchellson, The Encyclopedia of the Occult by Lewis Spencer, Vampires and Vampirism by Montague Summers, Death and Dying: A Cultural Synopsis by David Hume, The Tarot by A. S. MacGregor, The Spirit Book by Raymond Buckland, The Encyclopedia of the Occult by John Michael Greer.

That Viking Vampire By Aslinn Dhan

Eric slid out of the booth and rose to his considerable height--about six foot four. His mane of blond hair ripped down his back, and his blue eyes sparkled from his white, white face. Eric has bold features, high cheekbones, and a square jaw. He looked like a lawless Viking, the kind that could pillage a village in no time at all; and that's exactly what he had been. Dead as a Doornail, page 29-30.

Though there is much in Norse mythology about men who become animals, there are but brief references in the Norse legends to creatures who can be construed as Vampires.

In the world of the Norse, only those things with corporeal form were given much thought. Straight forward contact with enemies or threats were regarded as more dangerous than the ethereal realm of dead. What little there was written about spirits could go either way, the spirit could be good or evil. Not a gigantic revelation.

There were some beliefs, however that some of these ghosts could and did act in a Vampiric way and the best way to deal with these creatures was they way the Norse dealt with most threats in their world, they used a sword and decapitated them or, as in the rest of Europe, staked them through the heart.

In the ancient Eyrbyggia Saga from Iceland, the story goes that Thorolf, the first settler of Iceland died and rose from his grave after he was buried. Cattle that went near his grave were spooked or went insane and died. He haunted his wife and she died. As a remedy, the people dug Thorolf up and buried him somewhere else, but he returned. Finally his grave was opened again and the body was burned and the ashes scattered. Though there is no direct mention of Vampirism in the saga, the fact that wife died after his visitations has Vampiric suggestion.

In the Grettis Saga, there was a tale about a man who was mistreated by his employer and when the man died, he fed upon the people of the employer's household until he wwas dug up and decapitated.

Closer to the more familiar Vampire legend is the belief in the Mara, or Night Mare. The Night Mare was a wraith that ran down the night darked roads of the villages, taking hapless night travelers on a wild ride. The Night Mare is also thought of a kind of Succubus who visited men in their sleep and crouched on their chests and sucked their breath and sometimes sucked their blood while they slept. She also did something that is a classical characteristic of some Roman and Greek myths concerning the Fates.

The three Fates were Clotho, the spinner of the thread of life, the one who measures the length of a man's days, Lachesis, the caster of lots, who determined the path a man's life may go, and Atropos, who cut the thread of a man's life at the end of his days.

Much like Clotho and Atropos, the Night Mare of Norse mythology counts down a man's life by counting his teeth. Once she has finished counting the teeth and the man has not awakened, his soul is hers to feast upon.

This counting behavior is not unusual in the Vampiric lore. Sabine Baring Gould in his book The World of the Vampire noted that Vampires are what we would could today obsessive compulsive. If someone is in the shadow of the Vampire, all the intended victim need do is show the Vampire their hair. The Vampire will immediately begin counting the hairs of the victim's head. If they can remain calm and not break the Vampire's concentration, the Vampire will happily sit and count the hairs on one's head til dawn catches them above ground.

With the emergence of Eric's character and the story of his being made in True Blood we will all be waited with bated breath to see how things work out for that Viking Vampire.

Sorces: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, The Norton Book of Norse Mythology, Edward Keith, editor, Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, and The World of the Vampire by Sabine Baring Gould

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream By Aslinn Dhan

Sookie: "Bill, what's wrong?"
Bill: "I had a dream is all, you go back to sleep," Espisode Six- True Blood

Ever think about the expression "sleep like the dead"? That profound, imperturbable sleep that comes to you from exhaustion, illness or drink?

The notion of Vampires needing sleep, rather than simple exile from the sun, is one under a fair amount of scrutiny in the lore of the Vampire. Though ancient lore suggests that Vampires lie down in the grave or in their coffins to escape the sun, more modern writers seem to suggest that Vampires, like humans, need their rest.

The term "Vampire sleep" comes from Bram Stoker. Van Helsing goes into Dracula's castle and finds the three Vampiric women in their Vampire sleep. Upon finding Dracula, Stoker writes in Chapter Four:

He was either dead or alseep. I could not say which_for the
eyes were open and stoney, but without the glassiness of
death_and his cheeks had the warmth of life through the
pallor, and the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign
of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I
bent over to find any sign of life, but in vain.

Apparently, Dracula needed his times of rest, which he took primarily during the day, becoming vulnerable to any and all attacks. But, Stoker notes, though he is fairly immobile, he was still aware of his surroundings, conscious of things around him. Jonathan Harker was about to stake Dracula at one point as the Count was lying at rest and when Dracula moved his head a little, Harker dropped his stake and ran.

The Vampires in the world of Charlaine Harris are fairly unconscious. In Club Dead part of torturing a Vampire was to keep the Vampire awake after sun up. Sookie often talks about Bill going to Vampire sleep as terrifying because, as she put it, he simply died. In All Together Dead when Vampires have to be removed to safety in daylight hours, their human charges have to work hard at either waking them or hauling them out, dead to the world.

One of the fascinating things about Charlaine Harris' approach to dealing with Vampire behavior is the notion of down time. In down time, the Vampires go on "screen saver". As Sookie notes, Vampires do not feel the need to justify filling space, they don't fidget, and when they have the chance they simply stop in stasis and remain that way until they are spoken to, or someone moves the mouse, so to speak. Sookie explains that must be the way they got through their long lives and avoided unneccesary wear and tear on their psyche's as time passed before their eyes and they adapted to constant change in dress, manners and mores.

In the world Alan Ball creates, Bill, sleeps but though he sleeps under the floor boards of his house (and sometimes the soil of the graveyard) he sleeps the more natural sleep of the living. When he shows Sookie his resting place, there are books for him to read if he wakes during the night or to read himself to sleep and he has a light with a switch down there so he can illuminate his resting place. And Bill even dreams.

These are fairly unique characteristics of the notion of Vampire sleep.

Source: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton

Part Two

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream Part II
Dream Sending

As I was perusing Dracula, late in the night, like you do, I found this interesting little tid bit and investigated it.

In witchcraft, there is a magikal way to send messages and intentions through dreaming. This talent, called dream sending, is rooted in the long held belief that dreaming is the symbolic life of the astral soul, the sentient part of yourself while you sleep.

Dreaming and dream sending appear in the book Dracula. In the book, when Jonathan Harker is held captive in castle Dracula, he has a nightmare in which he is attacked by three Vampiric women. Despite the warnings of Count Dracula, he falls asleep in a forbidden part of the castle. The women begin to seduce Harker, in the dream, and is nearly bitten by the Vampire Brides when Dracula himself stops them. Of course, those of us who have read the novel know this is what happened. The Vampiric women send Jonathan Harker a clear signal of what they are going to do.

Further, Dracula communicates to both Lucy Westerna and Mina Harker through the use of dream influence. Mina even reveals to the Count each step of the plot to kill him by Van Helsing and the rest as they travel in Dracula's wake.

In the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows much of the back story and forshadowing of events is told through the dreaming lives of the characters. Barnabus Collins, who plays the Vampire hero in the show, often relates information and strengthens bonds between himself and others through dreams.

Sources: The Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker and edited by Matthew Crum, The Elemental Encyclopedia of Witchcraft by Judika Illes, Dream Weaver: The life of the dreaming prophet Edgar Cayce by Charlotte Cavanaugh

Shackin' Up
Vampires Who Live Together
By Aslinn Dhan

Bill: "They live in a nest, and when Vampires live in a nest, they often become more cruel, they become laws unto themselves, whereas Vampires such as I, who live alone, hold on to some semblence of our former humanity." Episode Three- True Blood

The notion of creating community or an artificial family among Vampires is something that is fairly new to the Vampire mythos. The first record of Vampires cohabiting is of course Dracula, when Jonathan Harker meets Dracula's Vampiric wives. Why Dracula chose these women is a mystery to scholars of the book. According to Vampire lore and legend up to that point Vampires have no interest in one another. Another Vampire in a single Vampire's territory means there is another predator in their hunting grounds.

Perhaps the notion is meant to show that Dracula has always been searching for Elizabet, his doomed wife, for many years and when he found some fragment of her in another woman's being, he turned her in a desperate attempt to capture it. Apparently, however, Dracula tires of them and keeps them in some form of bondage as their maker. In Dracula the Count interrupts his Vampire wives from feeding on Jonathan Harker. They complain "Are we to have nothing?" With this plea, Dracula produces an new born baby and gives it to his wives to satisfy their hungers.

In Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice suggests that Vampires actually enjoy having a partner, a companion with whom they can travel, hunt and otherwise hobnob with. That was Lestat's desire when he made Louie. His reasoning for making Claudia is an attempt to give someone to Louis to take care of so he would be less introspective, less self absorbed in his self loathing. And in the film, Claudia asks Louie to make her a companion for herself, as she senses that Louie would like to go with Armand.

The European Vampires in Le Theatre Vampyre live in a classical nest, as much for comraderie than protection. And they do seem very strange to Louie. Louie sees them as self absorbed, absurd caricatures of Vampires, living the life of Vampire absolutely and completely with all the arrogance of Vampires we even see today in True Blood. Within their nest, they have their own laws. They are shocked to see Claudia. "We never make them so young, so defenseless," Armand tells Louie. "There is no greater crime among us," says a Vampire. "What crime?" asks Louie. "Kill your own kind," he answers.

In the film Lost Boys, Keifer Sutherland is the leader of the Vampire nest there in Santa Carla. They gather like a gang inside the sunken lobby of what appears to be a hotel where they have made their nest. Again, it appears the young Vampires live together for comraderie, for the energy they build for themselves before they go to hunt. The whole point of the story is so that the head Vampire can have a wife to help him take care of the lost boys.

True Blood is no different. Liam, Diane and Malcolm live together for the friendship and good times. The nest of Stan Davis in Living Dead in Dallas, the nest/court of Russell Edgington in Mississippi in Club Dead, and the nest/court of Queen Sophie Anne in Louisiana are examples of the smallest Vampire families to the largest. In this world, nest mates even call themselves brother and sister.

Despite the Vampire's claims of superiority, they long for a structured, non-judgemental setting so they can be themselves, feel comfortable and accepted, somewhere where they have people around them of similar tastes and attitudes. In other words, a family and home.

Sources: The Annoted Dracula by Bram Stoker and Matthew Crum. The Anne Rice Reader by Sheila Donahue, The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, and The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Say What?
Explanations About the Cause of Vampirism
By Aslinn Dhan

As stories about Vampires and Vampirism began to flood across Europe, there were many attempts at trying to explain the phenomenon. Some generally ignored the reports and chalked it up to superstition. But there were many who tried to figure out the basis for the story.

One of the things they noticed about the reports of Vampirism was the person who was supposed to be a Vampire usually reappeared after dying from a lingering illness. Because of reported sightings, the people would then dig up the corpse and made several observations about the corpse. They all seemed to be in good condition, even healthy condition, though they were still dead. The bodies had no sign of decay. The skin had a rosy coloring on it, as if it were still warm and alive. The hair and nails appeared to grow. Like a snake, when the skin peeled away, there appeared to be fresh skin underneath. There was still blood present and when the corpse was subjected to a pin prick, it bled. Some observers noticed that in some cases of men, there was an erection.

If a stake was driven into the body, it seemed to try to raise up in reaction and sometimes, the body "moaned" as it was staked. There were even reports of evidence that there were bite marks on the fingers and hands, a sign of auto vampirism. Then there was the tricky situation involving cases of premature burial, where the person is in a state of rest so profound that it appears dead and lays that way for several days and is buried, only to have the person wake at their viewing or in their coffin, under the ground.

Premature burial was so prevelant a situation that Montague Summers offers a lengthy discourse in his book The Vampire: His Kith and Kin about it as an explanation for Vampirism before laying his case that there were real Vampires that walked among us.

Then there is always the possibility of ignorance about the processes the body goes through after death, especially before the time of professional embalming. Many people did not know that decay could be greatly delayed by sealing the corpse in fairly airtight conditions, or that when things decayed, heat was generated, and that blood tended to pool in the body and then resurface itself as the muscles and tissues began to disolve in decomposition, or that rigor mortis is not forever, that within a few hours, the body actually begins to soften and become pliable again.

Vampire epidemics was thought to be the spread of some class of disease. High on the list was Plague. Pnuemonic (interferring with the lungs) and Bubonic (lymphatic) plague killed milions in the dark ages all the way up to the 1660's when nearly a thrid of England's population died of the disease. We've also spoken of tuberculosis.

Rabies epidemics were common, wherein in the final stages, the victims went mad and tried to bite and brutalize those around them. Even in modern times, porphyria is stated as the possible Vampire disease. Porphyria is the name given to a family of seven diseases. Collectively, it is a disease of the blood, causing the body to be unable to make heme, an important component of blood. It is characterised by extreme light sensitivity, anemia, and evidence of bloody tears and urine and in men, ejaculate. It was reported that George III of England (yes, the king we Americans fought during the Revolution) was afflicted with porphyria.

Pope Benedict XIV declared the myths of Vampires and any other children of the night as a way for greedy priests to make money by charging people for exorcisms and special rituals to keep a creature in the grave.

In !980, a reseacher named Paul Barber analyzed all the arguments explaining the myth and various cases of Vampirism being told around the world. He came to the conclusion that the myths arose out of ignorance of the death process and concluded there were no real Vampires, that people who had bloodlust were simply mentally ill.. Reports of seeing the dead was the mourning of loved ones.

There is still a persistent belief in Vampires today. Despite everything we now know about the death process, there are those who still believe that the dead can still rise and walk among us. Perhaps that is the true immortality here, that so long as people still believe, they shall never truly die.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton. The Physician's Desk Reference to Disease, The Merk Manual of Disease, Dead and Buried: the Ways of Death in the Nineteenth Century by Clayton Hume, The Papal Encyclical on Matters of Superstition by Pope Benedict XIV (1860), The Social Effects of the Plague in Europe by David Houseman, The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers.

The Tracks of My Tears
The Vampire Cry
By Aslinn Dhan

I pulled a Kleenex out of the box on the baker's rack and dabbed at my face. Bill was crying, too, and I handed him one. He looked at it in surprise, as if he expected to see something different-maybe a mongrammed cotton handkerchief. He patted at his own cheeks. The Kleenex turned pink. Living Dead In Dallas, page 288

The notion of Vampires crying is not unique to the world created by Charlaine Harris. Though they are universally thought of as creatures devoid of a soul, thus unable to feel true emotion, Vampires are often described as weeping. Though the situations and characteristics vary, intense sadness, anger and frustration can cause the Vampire to express the most intimate sign of emotion by crying.

Some of the folklore says that Vampires cry true tears of saline, like living humans. Others say that Vampires weep ammonia or urine. Still others speak of tears of blood. The notion that Vampiric tears are bloody may be based on the belief there are human diseases which cause Vampires, or inspired the belief in Vampires. Diseases like porphyria, which caused bloody tears. Other diseases like hemmoragic fever, caused blood to come out in urine, sweat, feces, semen, saliva, and in tears.

But if Vampires cry, why do they cry bloody tears. Some take a very pragmatic approach. Vampires cry bloody tears because of their diet, they don't consume anything but blood, ergot, they produce bloody tears. Others, like our oft cited friend, Montague Summers writes in his book Vampires: Their Kith and Kin, "The tears of the damned are tears of extreme suffering. As these creatures [Vampires] are creatures of Satan and among the damned, their tears, if left to leave their eyes, stream as red as the blood they drink," (p 182)

In Judeo-Christian mythology, the devil, himself cries. When Lucifer is cast out of heaven into Sheol he loses the radiant beauty he once had when he was the angel Lucifer, The Light Bringer. He looks up at heaven, curses God and cries tears of blood.

John Polidori, in his book The Vampyr, says the Vampire cries tears of blood because he is cut off from God and mourns the loss of Holy Communion and the loss of true earthly love. This description jives with what we know about Polidori, who was a defrocked and excommunicated priest. (He was a homosexual and pedophile and companion of Gordon, Lord Bryon) For him, the Vampire is himself, trying to cope with lusts he felt he had no control over and the loss of salvation because of who he was.

Lord Byron, himself excommunican't, endowed his Vampire with the ability to cry as well, though he writes that his Vampire used it to cozen the women who would feel pity, thinking that because the Vampire cried tears of blood, he must suffer more from melancholy. An unrepentant atheist, Byron may have also been attempting to mock Christ, who sweated blood at the Garden of Gethsemane.

Modern tales of Vampire depict Vampires crying as well. Bram Stoker's Count Dracula cried lavender tears, as the Vampire consumes the rich blood of his victims and what is left is a pale colored fluid in their bodies. In the film, Pale Blood the Vampires also have a pale colored blood (sort of pale pink or lavender). In Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of Dracula, the Count cries pale tears of a lavender color and evn loses his beauty, which may be a result of the profuse loss of blood, making him age and even become something a little less human.

In the film The Wisdom of Crocodiles, Jude Law portrays a Vampiric man who is dying because he will not feed from a woman he fell in love with. His blood begins as red but turns pale as he comes closer to death. In the end, the Vampire dies in a puddle of thick pale fluid, his face stained with tears of the same matter.

Sources: The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers, Satan: The Myth, Lore and Religious Study of Lucifer by Alexandra Storr, The Vampyr by John Polidori, The Vampyre: A Fragment by Gordon, Lord Byron, The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton.

Who's Good to Eat Around Here?
The Skinny on Cannibalism
By Aslinn Dhan


Okay, I know what you are saying out there as you peruse this essay. You are saying man, is she off target. But the truth is, Vampire and Werewolf stories are deeply rooted in man's taboos and fears of being eaten. And it goes back to the first organized groups of prehistory man.

There is much debate about how man lived in the dawn of human existance. There are some anthropologists who believe that before the ice age, man was primarily a vegetarian animal, living off the fruits and vegetables of the land. Protein was largely in the form of grubs and bugs. Large scale meat consumption was not until the time of the ice age when it was difficult to get the vegetable foods in any quantity to survive. This is when early man begins to observe the great hunters of the world they knew, the great cats and the organized animals who lived in their own communities, like the wolf.

Meat was high energy, high nutrition food. It could be stored in the ice and snow, the animals made a variety of foods, like soups and stews as well as roasted meat and their skins and hides could be made into warm clothing and shelters. The blood was also very nutritious and on though it could not be stored, it could be used right away. Hunters who were perhaps far from home and hungry would drink the blood of their kill and have energy to haul the meat back to the others. Blood then becomes sacred to the hunter.

Eventually, the weather breaks up and the land softens from it's layer of ice and plants begin to spring back up. People begin, once again, to eat vegetables but to their diets they add meat. Meat and taters, not just a modern idea. And, man being who he is, learns that certain grasses and herbs and simple salt made meat even more savory.

But when did man begin to kill other humans for food? No one can really pin point it. There may have simply been times of desperation. When the game was gone and the vegetation was gone and all that was left was each other. And since man is like any other animal, you simply had to know where the choicest cuts were and then, there was always the blood. And chemically, human blood is as nutritious as animal blood. Especially back then, when men were still primative and there weren't many diseases borne in the blood.

But, as man's identity became more complex, taboos began to form about all aspects of life, including eating. Dietary restrictions based on religion and social practices are not new, they have been with man since his dawning. One of the things that early man realized fairly quickly was that cannibalism decreased your numbers. And you needed numbers to help with the daily tasks of living.

However, as in all things men do, they tended to become fixated or addicted to what was considered rare or taboo. While some people might accept the neccesity of cannibalism during times of distress or starvation, others felt entitled to it. Or addicted to it.

For example, there are cases of cannibals who were so enthralled with eating human flesh and drinking human blood, that they become outcasts. Tecumsah, the great Shawnee statesman and warrior had a brother who was an inveterate cannibal, so much so that he was eventually expelled from the tribe. The Aztecs and Inca were noted for their blood sacrifices and consuming the dead of warriors and those "chosen by the gods". Celts, Norse, and African tribes also indulged in cannibalism.

To try and understand the man who simply craved human flesh without neccesity or cause, early man usually attributed these cravings to the spirits, the Wendigo, for example. The Aztecs had Lord Night Wind, who could alternately be benevolent or cruel, depending on his disposition. The Celts and the Norse believed the spirits of animals possessed those who craved long pig. Faeries were often the blame for creating blood lust. Asians tended to point the finger at vengeful ancestors who felt they were not being given appropriate respect by their progeny.

In Greek and Roman mythology, King Lycan was said to have been a cannibal and even invited Zeus to a great feast featuring human flesh and this caused him to be cursed as a werewolf by Zeus.

Vampires were said to be the reanimated corpses of cannibals. This especially held with the belief that once a man eats human flesh he will crave it always.

As man becomes even more sophistocated, cannibalism is considered even more of a taboo. Even religious scholars are writing treatises on the evils of cannibalism. It is noted that Nostradamus predicted in his prophesies that man would become maneaters in the end of days. To be a cannibal is to be a savage, beyond the reach of salvation and God's love.

Acts of cannibalism are considered signs of the devil. And because early thinkers did not understand things like psychological and social disassociation, paranoia, schizophrenia, and antisocial behavior and even multiple personality, the only source for this madness was the devil.

And cannibalism was not simply defined as the eating of human flesh, but the drinking of blood.

Cannibalism is not something from the far past or the dark ages of man's history. There is a villian's gallery of men and women who practiced cannibalism, most notably, Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad Tepes, Jack the Ripper, Andre Chikatilo, Jeffery Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Ed Gein and a host of other modern day ghouls.

But, somewhere along the way, the Vampire has been disassociated with the gruesome idea of cannibalism. Perhaps it is because they are interested in only the blood. Perhaps it is because we have sexualized them to an extent that their blood drinking is fetishistic. Werewolves are still vicious creatures. But the Vampire has managed to clean up his act so to speak and become alluring, despite the fact they long to feed on us, even those they love.

Sources: Man to Wolf by Robert Eisler, Man of the Ice Age by Alexander Cook, Noble Savage by Stephen McCallister, Of Monsters and Men by Andrew Hall, If You Hunt Monsters by Robert Ressler

Back in Black
Vampires and Weres in the Gothic Subculture
By Aslinn Dhan

"Life is dark, life is sad, all is not well, and most people you meet will try to hurt you." Voltaire (musician)

"You laugh at me because I am different. I laugh at you because you are all the same" tee shirt on a 12 year old goth in Huntington, WV.

There are two ways to look at the word Gothic. Gothic, as in literature, is a genre of writing that tells story of taboos and mysteries. The plots of the story found in the Gothic genre are settings where the hero/heroine is isolated in house or castle, surrounded by people who know some or all of the secret that is creating the atmospheric tension, laden with taboos against culture or custom with supernatural or psychological undertones.

Tales like Jane Eyre or Turn of the Screw or Southern Gothic like Streetcar Named Desire and even To Kill a Mockingbird all contain the elements of the classic Gothic literary genre.

Then you have the Gothic lifestyle. This has it's underpinnings in the 50's beatnick movement and traveled through the 60's and 70's with the burgeoning punk and early metal scene. Goths adopt an air of overall disdain for the ordinary or mainstream as artificial or stifling. They see the world as a dismal place and death as the cure for all that ails the world. The Gothic movement is in perpetual mourning for freedom and the death of personal choice because of societal expectations. The world of darkness is not so much a world of evil but a congregation of those seeking solace from the over bright, over hyped world of mainstreamed ideals that may make you look alive, but kill the soul.

Over time, however, the Gothic movement has taken a serious rap to the image with things like the Columbine massacres and various joy murders perpetrated by people who the press paints as goth because it is simply easier to point at them and label them as goth. Being goth means being other and being other means you should be afraid, be very afraid.

And being other, the goths are fascinated and invested in the look, fashion and ideals of the supernaturals of myth and legend. Vampires, werewolves, and witches are natural members of the Gothic world. It may be that these creatures represent the noble beauty of the Vampire of myth and legend, the savagery of the man who embraces the beast, the ultimate nonconformist, or the person so in tune with the natural world that the artificially lit, plastic world of the mainstream is defeated with the wave of the hand and the mumbling of a few well chosen words. To embrace the beauty, savagery and magik of the supernatural world is to be above the mainstream.

Goths adopt a funereal look, mimicking the Vampiric stereotype, they have their own music and their rules. Though not necessarily tolerant, they are not necessarily confrontational. They simply want to be left alone. Religion and politics are a part of the artificial world. Believe it if you want, leave it alone if you want. Just leave me out of it, go sell crazy somewhere else.

In the world of Charlaine Harris, the Gothic style is adopted by the Vampires of Fangtasia to fulfill the expectations of humans who want to walk on the dark side. Humans, they note, have a certain expectation of what Vampires are and how they are. To sell the image of Vampire and be successful business people, Eric and Pam adopt the Gothic image. As Charlaine Harris notes, Eric is a jeans and tee shirt type of guy and Pam is better suited to pastels (Alice in Wonderland with fangs). But when on display, they know how to dress the part. The werewolves adopt a less goth, more motorcycle gang look, as they are pack animals. Witches look like everyone else.

But this all goes back to the notion of other. What is it you want to convey with your look? Does wearing all black make you a bad guy? Does wearing pastel colors make you look harmless? Will wearing a dog collar get you laid? It all depends on how those things make you feel.

Sources: Goth: More than Basic Black by Sean Hattery, Social Implications of the Gothic Movement by Michael David Hone, Art and Artifice: The Goth Movement by Margret Walker, Going Goth by Terry MacDonald, The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, and The Werewolf Book by Brad Steiger

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Reflections of a Vampire
By Aslinn Dhan

Sookie: "Hey, I thought you couldn't see yourself in the mirror!"
Bill: "We spread many of the myths about ourselves. If we could be seen in the mirror, that was one way we could prove we were not Vampire." Episode Seven True Blood

The idea that Vampires can not be seen in the mirror was begun in Bram Stoker's Dracula and perpetuated ever since. But where did Stoker get the idea?

The idea comes from the myriad of myths about the dead and as Vampires are animated dead creatures, the mythos of the mirror was included in the Vampire "culture".

Legends have it that mirrors reflect the soul. Mirror was covered in the deathroom of the sick because there was a belief that the soul would not move on, sort of like a spiritual Narcissus who fell in love with his reflection, so much so that he could not bear to leave it for anything.

In Southern and Appalachian belief, if the mirror in the deathroom was not covered, the image of the dead would be trapped in the reflective surface forever. In others, mirrors were considered gateways of the kingdom of the dead and the presence of the dead body would entice entities both good and evil to come through the mirror and inhabit the body.

The Irish had very strong superstitious beliefs about death and the mirror being covered was one of them. Another was the act of tying the legs together so the dead could not rise and walk. In modern times, as Irish immigrants in America began filtering into law enforcement, it is believed this act of restraining the feet led to the use of the toe tag, a symbolic gesture to the ancient superstition.

There is also the tale that Satan could be identified in the mirror. Since the devil can take on a pleasing shape, if he stood before the mirror, his true form could be seen and he would be known for what he is. In ancient times, early exorcists carried mirrors in their kits to force the devil to see his true face and flee from his victim.

Because Vampires have been historically portrayed as being without a soul because they are dead and because they are evil, the popular addition to the mythos makes sense though it is not a part of more ancient Vampire lore.

Sources: The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton, Vampires and Vampirism by Montague Summers, Vampires in Lore and Legend by Montague Summers, Malleus Malificarum by Kramer and Sprenger, and The Roman Ritual of the Catholic Church

I Want to be in Pictures
The First Celluloid Vampire
By Aslinn Dhan

Nosferatu was the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. FW Murnau had not successfully secured the rights to the book from Widow Stoker so, the director simply thought that he could change a few key elements and it would be perfectly alright.

Of course, one of the most stressful parts of a film is finding the right cast. Think of the great roles. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Would you believe me if I told you Margaret Mitchell wanted Groucho Marx cast as Rhett? It's true.

Murnau knew that the most important role to cast was the Count (Orlock in his film, one of those all important changes he made to try to avoid copyright infringement). After the entire cast was found, they moved them to Prague for filming. Everyone asked Murnau who he had cast as the Count.

The actor he cast, he explained, would join them soon and he would be everything they imagined a very old Vampire to be. They began filming the beginning of the movie. The cast and crew waited for the appearance of the Vampire.

The man Murnau cast was a German actor named Max Schreck. He simply appeared on the set one night, completely gadded up as the count. This is when he gave his cast certain rules about their contact with the Count, as Murnau called him.

The Count would not appear before dark and would always be in make-up and in character. You were to address him as Count. Count Orlock would not be dining with the cast and crew and he had made his own arrangements for his care. Max Schreck believed, the director explained, in total immersion into the character. And boy was he immersed.

In casual conversation, Schreck told of his being made Vampire, explained the way Vampires feed, their taboos and traditions, and the fact that there weren't many true Vampires left. He observed all the taboos we have been accustomed to in all the Vampire fiction we enjoy today: the invitation into a mortal's home, the fear of religious artifacts, fear of mirrors, and the inability to cross running water (something no evil creature can do). Murnau could photograph him for the movie because "he allowed it" if he rescinded his permission to be photographed, his image would not appear in the film. His manner was so strange and so creepy, his co-stars did not like being alone with him between takes. It did not help when one of the camera men supposedly died. Schreck even bit the actor who was playing the "Renfield" character during a scene and it frightened the man into a panic attack.

Rumors and legends began to form and grow. There was a tale being told that during a break after doing one scene, the Count caught a bat in mid flight and bit off it's head, Ozzie Osbourne style, and drained it of it's blood. The actor portraying the "Van Helsing" character said that he was on the set with Schreck and was about to do the "mirror test" and discovered that Schrek cast no reflection.

Had Murnau hired a real Vampire to play the part of a Vampire? "A Vampire playing the part of a human playing a Vampire. How avant garde," as Claudia said(Interview with a Vampire). Anyway, that is what the legend said. With the film's later troubles with Mrs. Stoker, and the copyright infringement problems and the notoriety it received, though very few actually saw the film, the legend grew.

The legend said that Murnau met Schreck who revealed to him that he was a real Vampire, several centuries old. Murnau told him about the project he was getting ready to do, the film version of Dracula. According to the legend, the Vampire was uninterested until he mentioned the name of a beautiful actress the Vampire confessed to being attracted to. Supposedly, he made a deal with Murnau to do the part if he could have the actress in the end to feed from her. Murnau, desperate to get his project off the ground, agreed to his demands.

The Count was difficult to handle, and boy was he creepy, but he looked and acted just the way a Vampire should act on the film. Legend has it that when the director got ready to film the final scene, the actress in question would actually stake the Count. If he were a real Vampire, and Murnau believed he was, he would die from being staked. Thing was, as the legend goes, the actress was a laudanum addict and was in no shape to stake anyone. So Murnau came up with another plan. The Count would greet the sun. This would of course go along with many of the other changes he made to try to get around Widow Stoker.

So they begin to film the iconic scene, the ugly rat faced, rat fanged Count Orlock is creeping up to the bedside of his lovely victim. He leans down, leering at her. He leans closer, caressing her face, cupping her breast, stroking her neck. He puts his face in her neck, nuzzling her and then he bites her! Legend goes on to say that he drained the pour drugged actress of her blood and as a result the Vampire is drugged, too. ("Good, I could use a cocktail!") The crew then raises part of the set to let the sunshine into the room and Orlock whirls around and goes up in a puff of smoke. Murnau rolls film the whole time. What the audience will see will be the real death of a real Vampire.

The story takes on greater dimensions through the years. There is a story that the actor Max Schreck appeared in no actor's union roles, no other films, and is recorded in no employment lists. It was as if he did not exist.

So, was Max Schreck a Vampire? Actually no. Schreck did go on to make a few other films, but they were supporting roles. Because of the extensive amounts of make-up and the fact the film did not surface for some decades after his death, he went virtually unknown.

But here's a little something to ponder. The actress in Nosferatu? She really did die at the end of the film. She was found to be overdosed and strangely anemic, there was hardly any blood in her at all.

Source: The Shadow of the Vampire: The true story of the classic film Nosferatu by Kenneth Howard and Shadow of the Vampire (2000) film and The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves and other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Strange Stories Told About the Making of Gone With the Wind by Patsy McDonald


Werewolves

I Want to be in Pictures, Too
The First Celluloid Werewolf

The first film to portray a werewolf was a silent picture made in 1913 by Bison Films of Canada. It was called simply, The Werewolf

The plot is fairly simple. A Native American shaman turns her daughter into a werewolf to kill white settlers. The transformation scene uses an actual wolf.

Because of the quality of celluloid film to decay, no more than ten minutes exist of the original 45 minute film.

The first major film to be made about werewolves was made in 1935 and it was called The Werewolf of London. and starred Henry Hull. Hull's character goes to Tibet to find a rare flower called the moon poppy. He finds the flower but in the process, he is bitten by a strange creature. Once he returns to London, he begins his monthly transformations into a werewolf.

A strange man from Asia comes to him and explains that Hull is a werewolf. What the Asian man does not tell him is that he too is a werewolf and he begins to murder hapless people in London. Hull pursues the werewolf and kills him.

Hull tries to make an antidote out of the moon poppy which he has been told will cure him of his lycan'thropy. In the meantime, however, he accidentally murders his wife in his wolf form. The police come and shoot him and when he dies, he regains his human form.

Sources: The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.

True Blood
The Blood is the Life
By Aslinn Dhan

We all have it. That sticky, coppery, red stuff that pulls oxygen through our bodies and gives us life. It is also heavily symbolic. We speak of bloodlines, nobility or culture or family ties borne in the blood. Women menstruate and shed blood during birth, men shed blood in hunting, some traditions even do a ritual called "blooding" when a young boy hunts and kills for the first time and is smeared with the blood of his first kill. Blood is shed for war, for celebration, for bonding and for salvation. Blood truly is the life.

The symbolism of blood in every culture in the world cannot be ignored. It is endowed with magik and a sense of marvel. The importance of blood makes up many of the taboos and traditions of both ancient and modern societies today and differ from one culture to the next.

In religious cultures, blood sacrifice for expiation of sin or for the blessings of the gods is a regular phenomenon. In hunting cultures, wearing of the blood on the skin or blessing weapons with blood was similar to the use of holy water. In war the drinking of the blood of your enemies was thought to endow the victor with the strengths and courage of their foe, and one could seal the bonds of friendship, love and priesthood with blood.

The early Hebrews were commanded by God to avoid the drinking or eating of blood because blood was the life force of all animals. God tells Noah in Genesis:

But you must not eat the flesh with the life, which is
the blood, still in it. And further, for your life-blood, I will
demand satisfaction; from every animal I will demand it,
and from a man also will require satisfaction for the
death of his fellow-man.

He that shed the blood of a man, for that man, his blood
shall be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.


And the color of blood, once it hits the open air, turns red and that color is full of sacred importance. Red is the color of power, or royalty and of rage. It is the color of wine. Because of it's life giving properties, it is associated with fertility, especially semen. It is sexually charged because of the act of sex itself when a woman is deflowered.

In Christian practices, the saving power of Christ's sacrifice comes through the brutal letting of his blood during his trial, punishment and crucifixion. His institution of the rite of Holy Communion is central to the rituals of Christians and the symbolic use of wine or grape juice to stand in for blood suggests the power that even mere symbolic blood has.

As early non-Christian beliefs began to enter the consciousness of the early Christian philosophers, the Vampiric lore began to take on an additional dimension. The notion of everlasting life (spiritual) through the drinking of Christ's blood in Holy Communion and the the physical eternal life(or, at least the incredibly extended life) of the Vampire, began to take on the spectre of the blasphemous. The idea that a creature who is technically dead, who walks only at night, who claims to be able to extend the "gift" of "eternal" life without benefit of Christ's saving grace was considered dangerous, irreligious and the act of evil.

Anne Rice was what Catholics called "fallen away". She eschewed the teachings of the Church and it's strict often overbearing rules, especially on women. As she wrote about her Vampires, she explored the notion of Holy Communion and the blood drinking of her Vampires. In Memnoch the Devil Memnoch takes Lestat to the crucifixion and Lestat tastes the actual blood of Christ. This leads to a great epiphany for the Vampire as he tries to understand his role in the world and his relationship, or apparent lack thereof, with God. In later years, however, after a devistating illness brought on by diabetes and the death of her husband, Anne Rice has abandoned her Vampire stories for writing books about the Church, having found her way back.

In True Blood, when Amy and Jason do V together for the first time, she explains that using Vampire blood was what Holy Communion was really meant to be about, not the rituals of the Christian Church. The ecstasy she and Jason experiences with the V is tantamount to the intimacy that Christians are supposed to have with Holy Communion but is somehow lost with repetition and strictitures on who is worthy of taking Communion.

Bill expounds on the importance of the blood exchange with Jessica when he tries to explain the mystical nature of her Vampiric transformation. "I drained you of your blood and your blood was replaced with mine and then I shared my essence with you when we slept in the ground. It's magical, even we don't understand how it works"

Blood is more than the stuff that runs through our veins. It is endowed with all things concerning life. That is why it is prevelant in most all horror stories and legends of the children of the night.

Sources: The Anne Rice Reader by Sheila Donahue, The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton and The Malleus Malficarum by Kramer and Sprenger and The World of the Vampire by Sabine Baring Gould

The Inquisition
All the questions you are afraid to answer
By Aslinn Dhan

Magister "Are you questioning my authority? I am the Magister_ I was trained in the Inquisition." Episode 9 True Blood

Depending on who you ask, the question what was the Inquisition will be answered in many ways. And what does it have to do with the legend and lore of Vampires, Werewolves and Shapeshifters? A lot.

It took the Christian church about 1000 years to really organize, develop the creed, study the scriptures (after they were collected and put in some general order), regularize the rites and rituals, and set up the various missions, religious orders, and general identity. There were numerous conferences and gatherings of religious thinkers, scholars and philosophers. Their goal was to set up a uniform and united church that would be both hometown based and missionary.

It was also a time when the Church was creating her relationships with Kings and other ruling governments all over the known world. To convert the monarch and have him bend to the will of the church in both matters of state and religion was an important one. And by the end of the first millennium, the church was as powerful as the kings. After all, you had to be anointed by the Church in order to be the king with his God-given rights to rule the people.

Though the Church was happy to be a part of secular government, they were very interested in making sure everyone was a Christian. Clinging to beliefs thought of as old fashioned, or heathen or pagan was irritating and troublesome. But some beliefs were cultural and long ingrained in the practices and thought of the people.

In the matter of the children of the night, the Church first held a benevolent, amused view that belief in Vampires and Werewolves and Shapeshifters was superstition. The Church had no real position on their reality or non-reality. It was something to simply discourage. That is Church as a universal ruling and deciding body. Local priests often dealt with the matters of the undead and supernatural. They were as much ingrained with the cultural and local beliefs of the people and they still clung to the notion that the noonday devil could come into the world by the pale moonlight.

Strangely, it was not an issue to the Church until they heard reports that priests in what we would call Eastern Europe were burning some of the dead. Now, the Church frowned on cremation because it denied the Resurrection. In the Christian religion the faithful believes there will come a day when all those who died faithful to the Church would be resurrected body and soul to first stand before God and be judged and second to be rewarded with entry into heaven. If you were cremated, the body was gone and could not be resurrected. The modern Church now accepts cremation so long as the person does not use the act of cremation as a statement of unbelief in the Resurrection.

Upon investigation, priests and people alike told stories of people, who because they were cursed, rose from the grave and fed on their fellow humans or changed into a snarling and evil beast who fed on their fellow humans. Which ever it was, you were lunch. The Church maintained that this was superstition, a minor evil but one that must be stopped and forbade any form of cremation or other deviation from the rites of Christian Burial.

Eventually though, the Church experts on evil, called demonologists, began to write some rather lurid papers on the invisible kingdom of Satan on earth. The Devil, they said, was everywhere and no where as deeply as the witches.

You didn't have to be a witch to be accused of witchcraft. You could be a luckless midwife, an herbalist, a primitive veterinarian, a juggler or ventriloquist (Yes, really), a budding anatomist, a stargazer, or a faithful Jew or Muslim. And all that had to happen was to be accused.

This is where the Inquisition began. Now the priest wasn't simply your confessor, he was your Inquisitor. And if you didn't answer the questions correctly, you were in a world of hurt. Literally.

Torture ranged from being questioned for hours on end to the most brutal forms of physical pain. Rape, castration, being burned, blinded and having hands, feet, and tongues cut off were common tools of the Inquisition. Men, women and children and animals were subjected to every known horror devised by man. If you were accused you were dead meat, but none more so than the hapless woman.

Women had no civil rights. They were considered weak and evil because of the sin of the garden when Eve tempted Adam. They could hear the whisperings of the devil more clearly than a man. They could cause impotence, abortions, cause storms and droughts, they killed crops and herds, and they had sex with the devil in the form of incubus and they called succubus to torment men.

They also cavorted with the undead and the unnatural. You know who I mean. Those pesky night feeders who seduced and savaged the innocent that drank the blood and ate the flesh.

Kramer and Sprenger wrote in their Malleus Malificarum or Witch Hammer that "The witch has access to the world of evil. They call upon the devil in his many guises to do their will and every soul they collect gains them favor in the form of powers from their king." (257)

But, the priests note, the devil only uses a sort of glamour. This glamour convinces ordinary folk that they are blood drinkers and werewolves and able to take animal shapes and forms. The devil cannot do anything without the willingness of the person to do it and without the permission of God.

The permission of God? Certainly. In the book of Job, the Lord had a get together with the angels of heaven. Satan, having once been an angel, crashes the conference. He tells God that people are turning away from him. God says, that isn't so, check it out, there's Job. He's a great believer.

The devil counters that of course Job is a believer, look at him. He is rich, he has a wonderful wife and family, he has servants and slaves and cattle and a fine home. Take all that stuff away and he'll turn his back on you. God said, okay, I'll make a deal with you. You may do anything you like, save kill him, and I know that Job will never turn his back on me. God gave permission to the devil to do whatever he liked to Job except kill him. So, you have to have the permission of God.

People accused of being Vampire or Werewolf were tested. Just as those who were accused of being a witch. Over time, the priests of the Inquisition began to collect the lore they were at first told was superstition and added this information to their witch hunter manuals. It is from many of these books that we have the Christian elements to to the Vampire and Werewolf lore we have today.

Today, the Church is embarrassed by the history of the Inquisition. Many Church scholars try to soft pedal, reinvent and even cloak the truth of the evils of the Inquisition. As a Catholic and something of a historian and folklorist myself, I think it is wrong to have a history that does not acknowledge the reality of history. After all, if you do not know history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Sources: The Malleus Malficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, The World of the Vampire by Sabine Baring Gould,The Vampire Book by J Gordon Melton
The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Vampires and Vampirism by Montague Summers, The Vampire in Lore and Legend by Montague Summers, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend by Montague Summers, The Roman Ritual of the Catholic Church and The Truth About the Inquisition by Bishop Paul Gellen

Native American Mythos and Werewolves and Vampires By Aslinn Dhan

Because Native Americans practiced their own nature based religion, shape shifting was an integral part of the spiritual system of most Native American tribes. There are, however, no true Vampire tales among the Native Americans with the exception of the Wendigo.

Despite what we have seen on shows like Charmed and the b-horror movie The Wendigo, this spirit is a human, usually a man who is seen during times of famine.

The story comes from the American North East to the North West and is shared by many tribes including the Sioux and the Mohegan (not be confused with the Mohicans), the Shawnee, Cherokee and the Massopoquoddy.

Legend has it that a man was in a village struck with hunger. It was the dead of winter. In desperation he killed one of the old people of the village (though some tales say it was his father, others say one of his children) and ate him. When the chief found out, he was banished from the village in terrible snow storm where he perished. His body was found frozen on a lonely deer path and left there as a warning to anyone else who might consider perpetrating the desperate but barbarous act of cannibalism.

Later, two hunters from another village come into this man's village and they told a story of how they were camped not far and a stranger in tattered clothes and very starved with brown stains on his mouth and hands came and sat by their fire. The two explained they had started out with four in their party but when they woke the next morning they found their friends were dead and had been partially devoured.

The chief consulted with the medicine man/shaman to ask about this stranger with the strange brown stains on his mouth and hands. The shaman said that it must be the man they cast out and they must find his body and give it the proper funeral rituals. When the chief went to look for the body, it was gone, there was not even a hair to indicate a body had ever been there.

The legend grew and as others told the tale the creature acquired the name Wendigo, which loosely translated means Night Walker. And it was further said that any village who refused charity to a stranger would be visited by the Night Walker who would take the flesh, blood and souls of the people of the village who did not know how to be courteous and generous to the starving stranger.

The Harcourt Book of Native American Legends by Johnathon Ferrar and Merideth Vasquez and Taboo Tales of the Cherokee by Mary Christian-Fox and The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

The Crossroads
By Aslinn Dhan and Renee, Child of the Night

by Robert Johnson

I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knee.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knee.
Asked the Lord above for mercy, "Save me if you please."

I went down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed by.

I'm going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side.
Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side.
You can still 'barrelhouse', baby, on the riverside.

Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side.
Going down to Rosedale, take my rider by my side.
You can still 'barrelhouse', baby, on the riverside.

You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown.
You can run, you can run, tell my friend-boy Willie Brown.
And I'm standing at the crossroads, believe I'm sinking down.

Renee made mention of the crossroads and it inspired me to put together this bit of information to go with her little tid about the crossroads.

First of all, the crossroads were originally described as a place where the road splits, creating a three way intersection. This is because the number three is a magikal number in many religions: The three Fates, the triune goddess: Maiden, Mother and Crone, the Law or Return of Three, the Holy Trinity. Later it simply became an intersection of two roads, like a cross or X.

Crossroads are prime magikal areas. In Faery mythology, the Fae go from one rade to another, taking familiar roads and paths, leaving magik along the way. The greatest concentrations of magik were at the crossroads, where Fae and wise human alike can use it to work their good work.

Followers of the Old Religion used to leave food at the crossroads for Hecate, the goddess of the Wise Ones (commonly known as Witches) In Vou Dou and Hoo Doo, the crossroads was the home of Legba (Elegba or Eliugia) the maker of deals and the guardian of magikal places. Magik workers use the crossroads to do their best work.

The Japanese erected Phallic (penis shaped) symbols to protect travelers. And the most common practice in nearly all cultures was to hang criminals at the crossroads to prevent them from going to purgatory and thus preventing them from being forgiven and eventually going to heaven. Suicides and Vampires were buried at crossroads to prevent them from rising up and lock their souls in the earth to prevent them hauntings. And people were indeed staked in the chest to prevent hauntings as well before they are buried in the crossroads.

As well as the literal crossroads, there are the metaphoric crossroads, which is midnight, the place between night and day. The Metaphysical, especially dealing with magik and the gods and spirits and with fertility, and as Christianity rose up and destroyed the Old Religion, it became a sinister place to make deals with the devil, as Robert Johnson is reported to have done.

Sources: The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft by Judika Illes, The Witch Book by Raymond Buckland, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult by John Michael Greer, and Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee

Hands Proclaim the Man By Aslinn Dhan

One of the things that has been discussed in the forum at True-Blood.net and on some articles about the show is the way the Vampires seem to have this reddish stain on their nails and cuticles and the reddish cast to their eyes. This is just a little bit why.

In the mythology about blood and cannibalism, there are myths about the fact that if you indulge in these sorts of activities that your hands will bear the signs that can never be washed off.

This sort of leads into the reason too that the Vampires have bloody tears and are red around the eyes, sort of permanent sort of "pink eye" coloration around their eyes, most obvious in Caucasian Vampires.

According to Montague Summers, Vampires are marked forever in several ways for their blood lust. He remarks that the Vampire's hands are always stained with the blood of their victims (as well as their mouths and eyes). In one investigation of a suspected Vampire, the corpse had a red discoloration of the finger nails and the cuticles. Of course, as we know more about the way a corpse goes into decay, we know that soft tissues often become a pooling spot for blood and leaves the areas discolored.

There are also legends about eating meat raw that leaves the hands stained with blood. This is even noted in the book To Kill a Mocking Bird when Jem describes Boo Radley as having stained hands from eating animals raw. In the Bible, when Cain kills Abel, Cain's hands are stained with the blood of his brother.

This condition trickles into the Vampire mythology when Bram Stoker tells us about Dracula, who not only had filthy hands but hands covered on the palms with hair (an allusion to Oananism or masturbation). The Count also had foul breath and discolored teeth and long nails and reddish rims of his eyes, all the hall marks of a predator and the eater of raw flesh and drinker of blood.

The use of a stain on the nails and cuticles and the reddening around the eyes of our Bon Temps Vampires is a nod to the old lore. And Stephen Moyer has mentioned that getting the stuff off is real chore in and of itself.

Sources: Vampires in Legend and Lore by Montague Summers and The Annotated Dracula by Matthew Crum