How did vampires originate? If vampires did (or do) exit, where did they come from? The answers to these questions have varied widely as the vampire has appeared in the folklore of different countries and various fiction writers have speculated on the nature of vampirism.
Just as tales of vampires were inspired by childbirth problems, they also originated from unusual circumstances surrounding births. Children who were different at birth were considered to be vampire candidates. For example, among the Kushubian (Polish) people, children born with a membrane cap on their heads or with two teeth were likely to become vampires unless dealt with properly while growing up.
Similarly, some vampre stories originated from problems surrounding the death of a loved one. In eastern Europe, vampires were individuals who returned from the grave to attack their spouses, their immediate families, and possibly other acquaintences in the village. Symtoms of vampiric attack included nightmares, apparitions of the bed, and the death of family members by a wasting disease (such as tuberculosis). Some of the symptoms point to the vampire as a product of the greiving process, espcially the continued ties of the living to the dead,often taking the form of unfnished emotional business. Thus, vampires were seen as originating as a product from the failure of the family (in a time before the existence of funeral parlors) to perform the funeral and burial rites with exactly precision. A common event that allegedly led to the creation of a vampire was allowing an animal such as a cat to jump over the body of a dead person prior to burial. Vampirism was also caused by unexpected and sudden violet deaths, either from accidents or suicides.
Suicides were also part of a largerclass of vampiresthat existed as a result of the immoral behavior of the person who became a vampire. The vampire served as an instrument of social control for the moral leaders of the community. Thus, people who stepped outside of the moral leaders of the community not only jeopordized their souls, and might become vampires. A potential vampire committed evil acts, amoung them suicide, and anyone guilty of great evil, espcecially of an antisocial nature, was thought likely to become a vampire after death. In some Christian countries, notably Russia and Greece, heresy could also lead to vampirism. The heretic was one type of person who died in the state of excommunication from the church. Excommunication could be pronounced for a number of unforgiven sins from actions directly attacking the church to more common immoralities such as adultry or murder. Heresy was also associated in some cultures with witchcraft, defined as consorting with Satan and/or the working of malevolent antisocial magic. Witches who practiced their craft in their earthly lives might become vampires after their deaths.
Things were quite different in eastern Europe. There, vampires were former members of the community. Vampires could draw other members of the community into their vampiric existence by commtaminating former family and neighbors, usually by biting them. In the famous case od Arnold Paul, the vampiric state was passed by meat from cows that had been bitten by Paul.
The imaginary vampire of the nineteenth-century romanticism was an isolated individual. Unlike the eastern European vampire, the literary vampire did not exist in a village culture as a symbol of warning residents of the dangerous and devilish life outside the boundaries of approved village life. The imaginary vampire was a victim of irresistible supernatural attack. Against their wills, they were overwhelmed by the vampiric state and, much like drug addicts, forced to live lives built around their blood lust. The majority of beliefs associated with the origins of vampires were irrelevant to the creators of the literary vampire, although on occasion one element might be picked up to give a novel twist to a vampiric tale.
Underlying much of the modern vampire lore was the belief that vampires attacked humans and, through that attack, drew victims into their world. Again, like drug addicts might share an addiction and turn others into addicts, so the vampire infected nonvampires with their condition. Writers have generally suggested that vampires primarily, if not exclusively, created new vampires by their bites. The radical simplification of the vampire myth can be seen in Dracula, especially its treatment on the stage and screen. Stoker did not deal directly with the problem of Dracula's origin as a vampire. In Dr. Abraham Van Helsing's famous speech in chapter 18, where he described in some detail the nature of the vampire, he suggested that Dracula became a vampire because "he had dealings with the Evil One." More importantly, however, was his ability to transform people into vampires. Dracula's bite was a necessary part of that transformation, but, of itself, not sufficient. Jonathan Harker was bitten a number of times by three vampire women, but did not become a vampire. Lucy Westenra did turn into a vampire and Mina Murray was in the process of being transformed into a vampire when the men interrupted Dracula. In the key scene in chapter 21, Dracula, having previously drunk Mina's blood, forced her to drink his. Thus, in Dracula new vampires originated not from the bite of the vampire but by an exchange of blood. Other authors have used similar means of transformation with their characters, however, in Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire Lois was the one to drain Claudia, while it was Lestat who gave her his blood and brought her across. This suggests that it is not an exchange of blood, but the draining of one's mortal blood and replacement with vampiric blood which is vital for the transformation.
Bram Stoker had little material to draw upon in considering this point. John Polidori avoided the question in his original vampire story. Varney the Vampyre, the subject of the 1840s novel, became a vampire as punishment for accidentally killing his son, but the actual manner of transformation was not revealed. Sheridan Le Fanu was familiar with the folkloric tradition and suggested suicide as the cause of new vampires, but saw the death of a person previously bitten by a vampire as the basic means of spreading vampirism. His anti-heroin Carmilla was the product of a vampire's bite.
In the rewriting of Dracula for stage and screen, the scene from the book where Mina consumes Dracula's blood was deleted. It was considered to risqué, but without it some other means had to be found to transmit the vampiric state. Thus came the suggestion that merely the vampire's bite transmitted the condition-the common assumption of most vampire novels and movies. At times, vampires require multiple bites or had to take enough blood to cause the death of the victim.
While most books and movies have not dealt with the questions of vampire origins apart from the passing of the vampiric condition through the bite of a preexisting vampire, occasionally writers have attempted to create a vampire myth that covers the origin of the first vampire. Among the most intriguing of recent origin stories was that told by Anne Rice in the third of her vampire chronicles, The Queen of the Damned. Akasha and Enkil ruled as queen and king of ancient Egypt. At one point Akasha had two witches, Maharet and Mekere, brought to her court. They allowed her to see the world of spirits, but then one of the spirits, Amel, attacked her. Akasha turned on the two witches and in her rage ordered them raped publicly and then banished. However, both Akasha and Enkil were intrigued by the spirit world and began to explore it on their own. Meanwhile, an uprising occurred and the rulers were seriously wounded. Akasha's soul escaped from her body temporarily only to encounter the spirit of Amel who joined himself to her. Her soul reentered her body and brought Amel with it. Fused with her brain and heart, the presence of Amel turned her into a vampire. She, in turn, past the vampiric condition to Enkil and their steward, Khayman, by the more traditional bite. All other vampires in the book, who originated from a vampire's bite, have a lineage that can ultimately be traced to these first three vampires.
Most prominent amoung the few stories in which vampirism originated with a bat was Dark Shadows. The Dark Shadows storyline, took Barnabus Collins back to 1795 to his origin as a vampire. Spurning the witch Angelique's love for him, Barnabus wound up in a fight with her and shot her. Wounded and near death, she cursed Barnabus and a bat attacked him. He died from the bite and arose from the grave as a vampire. Subsequently, Barnabus created other vampires in common manner--by biting them and draining their blood to the point of death.
Science fiction also suggested a second origin for the vampire: disease. Not incompatible with either vampire bats or outer space aliens, disease (either in the form of germs or altered blood chemistry) provided a nonsupernatueral explanation of the vampire's existance--an opinion demanded by many seculized readers or theatergoers. Disease explained the vampire's strange behavior, from its nocturnal existance to the "allergy" to garlic to its blood lust. This idea was explored most prominently in Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.
In the end however, the science the science fiction space vampire was like its supernatural cousin. Whatever its origin the vampire was the bearer--at least potentially--of its condition to anyone it attacked, and the vampire's bite was the most common way to spread vampirism.
