Aubrey Sherman

This book was interesting to read, but a bit disappointing due to the lack of in depth information about the lore, legends or folklore from europe to Britain about historical or urban legends about vampires or revenants.
If you are looking for a extensive and very detailed accounts of vampires then you will feel a bit let down which is a shame, the type of book this is a missed opportunity due to lack of information and doesn't seem very thoroughly researched. There are a lot of accounts of vampires documented by vampireologists but the amount of detail is glossed over and very vague and there is no known reason why a person has become a revenant
(a vampire) Bram Stoker wrote the infamous novel Dracula and the author of the bo ok seems to think that was the only vampire book written at the time but there have been many authors that have created interesting vampiric characters not just Bram Stoker!
I would have prefered it if this book was about the folklore related to vampires and cryptids or other creatures from urban legends and folklore that had vampiric traits.
I am surprised that the Atlas vampire murder which was never solved was not included in the chapter of the book involving vampiric crimes, since the murderer was a vampire, he used a ladle after cutting the throat of the victim to drink their blood. There are more countries that could have been mentioned but won't such as Italy, France, Haiti, New Orleans, The Caribbean and there is also a lack of visual representation of what the vampires might have looked like. I wish there was a book that was similar in thee to this but about various types of mythological, cryptozoological, folkloric and from legends and urban legends because there are a lot of creatures that might not be a vampire but it has vampiric traits such as drinking the blood of their intended victim. Some vampire lore is not explain for example if a vampire died and it reduced to ash can they be resurrected by a necromancer, witch, satanist? Can vampires enter an abandoned home? Do vampires have a gender or sexuality? Can they walk in sunlight? Can a vampire shapeshift like dracula? Why isn't the full extent of dracula's powers ever explained?
Can a vampire sire children ad if they do will their children become a vampire or would they born as a vampire?
My favourite chapters or sections of chapters would have to be historical vampire sightings, vampiric crimes reading about Gille de rais, Elizabeth Bathory or vampiric serial killers was interesting.
I liked the section about vampires in pop culture, iconic, interesting, terrifying, bloodthirsty yet still sexy, attractive (vampires have a sexual lure or aura in the same way a werewolf does, people are drawn to them but they don't know why but they find the person seductive, sexually alluring or attractive sometime against their will) Vampires have a way of mesmerising people that are susceptible to hypnosis, so they are easy to glamour (to control the mind of another person, but to also make them forget that they have bee fed on by a vampire).
Vampires from europe: Greek/Slavic vampires
Zeus created a vampire princess called Lamia also spelt a Lamiae (in some cultures a Lamia is also a demon)
The Lamia had the upper body of a woman and the lower part of her body was serpentine, it was a shapeshifter and seduced men
Empusa & Mormo: Empusa was a one legged vampiric succubus while Mormo bit children that were behaving badly.
The Vrykolakas: A reanimated dead revenant. The vrykolakas are demos that cause misery to the living, they torment them.
Usually the following would become a vrykolakas: an unborn/stillborn baby, a sinful lifestyle, excommunicated from the church or being born on a holy day. A lot of the reason why a person become a revenant after death is usually related to how they lived their life, if it was a unholy lifestyle or sinful or if the person was evil.
There are also a lot of similarities between many countries related to how the vampire/revenant was discovered, due to documented accounts of sightings of the vampires and, the townspeople that were plagued by fear, blood loss, disease and death, until the vampire(s) were killed and permanently prevent the vampire from harming anyone else.
Usually the grave was dug up, the limbs were removed, staked, or sometime there were stones placed onto the corpse to prevent it rising from the grave, the heart was also removed, burnt, sometimes consumed to "cure" people of vampirism which didn't always work. The limbs were cut off and sometimes burnt, the head was decapitated and garlic was placed in the mouth.

There are some lesser known facts about european vampires which are interesting however such as Slavic vampires can shapeshift into bat or butterfly.
Lesser known names of vampires: Kukudhi (Albanian), Lampir Tenati (Montenegro), Upyr (Ukraine), Opyri Vipir (Bulgaria), Volkolak Pricosac (Croatia), Nosophoros (Greece), Vampir (Hungary), Upierczi (Russia), Vampyres (Serbia)

The Upir & Nelapsi: A vampire wit two hearts and two souls that kill people with their crushing embrace, it spreads disease and has an evil eye.
Pijavica: A person born that has led an evil life or born from an incestuous union.
1689 was one of many of the earliest documented accounts of a vampire in europe.

Gypsies and vampire lore: (Types of vampires):
Kali-Sara or the black goddess
Mullo: A creature that drinks the blood of a relative that did not observe proper burial rights
The Bulgarians believed in a religious perspective or myth that a deceased person would travel around the area near where they lived when they were alive with their guardian angel for 40 days before going to the spiritual realm. Living a life as a drunk or sinful person or a sudden and violent death would mean you would possibly become a vampire after death.
Vampiric children: Ustrels (a baby born on a saturday but died before being baptised)
They are an invisible spirit of a child that preys on livestock.
The Bosnian Lampir: A disease ridden rotting corpse that rises from the grave to infect others and cause grief, the people infected by it became ill and died. The Russian Uppyr: Anyone that strays from religion will be a likely target for vampirism. "the decaging reanimated remains of the dead that won't stay dead and buried" Witches are also possible targets for vampirism.

Romanian/German vampires: Strigoi Vul (also known as Strigoi Mort a living vampire):
Nachzehrer: (After-eaters) Corpses of women who died during chid birth, they attack and devour their living victims. They partially gnawed their own hands, arms and extremities.
The Alp: A creature that preys people while they are sleeping that takes many forms depending on what part of Germany it is seen it.
Some of the forms it takes are: A sorcerer in the form of a bird or a cat to cause mischief (it is a witch's familiar)
A sexual predator in human form that attacks sleeping women, it has the ability to enter the mind of the sleeping victim and creates horrific nightmares, convulsions and fits of hysteria. When the alp is present there is an intense feeling of pressure on the chest, or suffocation while sleeping.
Schrattl: A creature that eats the funerary shroud and attacks family members, livestock, the rest of the community until they are driven insane, they were thought of as the cause or spread of disease or plague. Woodwives: Fairies that attack people for venturing too far into a forest.

British/North and South American vampires:
Highgate Cemetery vampire: For a long time since the 1960's people have witnessed with their own eyes sightings of a spectral vampire, demonic entities and more in the Highgate Cemetery, in London.
Satanic rituals have been performed in the cemetery and may be the reason why demonic entities have been seen in the cemetery.
Animals have sacrificed and seen in the cemetery as well.
The vampire sightings eventually leads to a "vampire hunt" in the cemetery but it proved to be unsuccessful. The Welsh hag: This is a female demon that appears as a young maiden, mature matron or old crone. Normally people see her washing blood stained clothing in a river, seeing her is an omen of impending doom or death. Gwrach y hibyn: Similar to a banshee in nature attacks sleeping children or anyone that is defenseless or vulnerable draining the blood of their victims until they die. When it is near dried blood around their mouth is seen.
Dearg- due- A woman who fell in love with a peasant, while she was from a different class and her father forced to marry an old man from her social class instead. She rose from her grave to take revenge on her father and husband by draining their blood while they slept. Stones were placed on her grave to prevent her from rising from her grave.
Leanan sidhe- A muse for artists
Abhartach- A dwarf magician that repeatedly rose from his grave, until he was killed by Mac Cumhail with a sword made from a yew tree.
The dwarf was buried upside down and the grave was surrounded by thorns
Berwick- Sightings of a reanimated male corpse were preceded by spectral hounds. A woman was attacked while sleeping, her blood was drained. He died due to the plague and after death spread disease and fear. His face was reported as "a brown face and flaming red eyes" When the vampire was discovered it was shot in the leg, then the corpse was dug up and burnt.

Vlad Tepes (the prince of Wallachia, Romania/Transylvania) He was a hero to his people and protected his people from the invading Turks of the Ottoman empire. The reason he impaled people onto wooden spikes because he w as imprisoned with his brother by the Turks and raped so he impaled people as an act of revenge.
(There is a documentary about Vlad Tepes so that's how I know)
The night battle: 15,000 Turks were killed. Order of the dragon or also known as Dracul (which means order of the dragon) The order was an organization of knights in the 15th century, that fought against the muslim turks. Vlad the ii (1431) was named dracul which is why it means order of the dragon. Vlad ii passed his name down to his son Vlad Tepes (Vlad the impaler)
The caves of bones Carpathian area of Romania (2002) Radiocarbon dating human remains dated the remains to be 40,000 years old which are the oldest human remains to be found anywhere in europe.
Vampire grave: A skeleton vampire from the 13th or 14th century was discovered, (in Socopol) also another skeleton vampire was discovered from the 8th or 9th century (they died during the black plague)

Vampiric crimes/Vampiric murderers/serial killers: Giles montmorency laval de rais (AKA Baron de rais) was a french nobleman and infamous perverted, sadistic and evil torturer of innocents. He fought alongside Joan of arc, but always had evil intentions in his black heart. In 1435 he left the military and became involved in dabbling in the occult and satanism and sacrificed 50 young boys in blood-soaked sacrificial ceremonies. It wasn't until 1440 that he was convicted for his disturbing, sadistic and cruel and evil actions that led to his own destruction which was well deserved. The exact details of the gruesome things were too shocking and disturbing to be documented so now there is no true accurate account of what he did or why. He did however engage in drinking the blood of his victims, cannibalism, monstrous sexual perversions that involve rape. He was found guilty and hanged for his crimes.
Erzebet Bathory: Erzebet (also known as Elizabeth Bathory, the countess of blood or blood countess) was a Hungarian princess born into royalty in 1560. She was married at the age of 15 to Ferenk Madasdy who shared her sadistic and torturous methods from him, since he taught her about BDSM/sadism or torture. They both fueled each other's desire to inflict as much pain as possible, and shed blood, the blood was the most important aspect of the torture because Elizabeth believed that the blood of virgins would keep her from aging, it would restore her beauty and youth forever.
Similar in nature due her sadistic sadism, to Giles de rais both have earned their infamous status in history and will never be forgotten.
They both shared a literal bloodlust to maim, torture and beat their victims, torture them to death, they both gained a sick pleasure from what they did to their numerous victims. She had inherited epilepsy,and familial madness, her relatives practised witchcraft, alchemy and satanism. She would tie up a naked servant girl outside discovered in honey, and then left them to be stung by wasps. Other victims were tied up outside, naked and froze to death. Her husband died in 1604 but she continued torturing her servants who were originally peasant girls from lower class families, but then Elizabeth decided to kiss girls from noble families until rumours started to spread about what was going on at Csejte castle in Hungary, now all remains are ruins. People still claim to feel her presence at the castle ruins even in modern times.
Her main motivation was blood, she took sadistic pleasure from torturing and inflicting pain onto the servant girls and watching them die.
Body parts were removed or manipulated from the bodies with scissors, hot pokers were used to burn the victims, their blood was drained, their flesh was consumed, sometimes the victims were forced to eat their own flesh and then they were beaten to death.
Elizabeth Bathory was animalistic, had an insatiable thirst for blood and very cruel and unforgiving, felt no remorse for anything she ever did, be ause she enjoyed being a serial killer. Elizabeth Bathory was not caught until 1609 she was caught, and convicted of 80 murders but may have killed up to 650 people, she had the nerve to claim she was innocent and her servants supposedly died of disease.
She was found guilty and died three years later after being walled up in her castle.
I regret selling the copy I had of this book, due to the information in the book being vague, now it's difficult to find a copy of it.
I did enjoy reading the book though.… (mer)

The author covers all aspects of vampire lore including folk traditions and modern literature and film. I read the book for the chapters on vampires in the folklore of different cultures. In these chapters the author includes revenants or the undead whether blood drinkers or not. There are a lot of stories about trying to keep the dead buried. In the past people feared the dead would come back to terrorize them.

There was one chapter that I skipped because it disturbed me. It was on people who killed for blood. Reality is much more frightening than fiction.

This is a good overview of vampires and I recommend it to people just starting to become interested in vampirism. If you have already read books about vampire lore and fiction you might want to skip it. I already new much of what was in the book.… (mer)