The next book from the Anna Katherine Co-op of Evil will be set in our Door-filled New York, and it will star vampires. I’ve gotten into a couple of comment-conversations with people regarding vampires and their current sexy popularity (while trying to explain that there are no sexy vamps in Salt and Silver!), and those conversations — and the thinking we’re doing regarding vampires in general — led me to wonder: How much does the average reader know about the foundations of vampire literature and/or folklore?

Vampire Lit

There is so much cool stuff out there, it is unbelievable. I am also vastly unqualified to talk about it, since it has been years since I wrote an academic paper, and I do not have a university library at my fingertips. Let us say the vampire has been a sexy (or at least highly/inappropriately sexed) thing in literature for a very long time — early 1700s, at least. Examples of this include John Polidori’s The Vampyre, the penny-dreadful Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood, Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and, of course, Stoker’s Dracula.

On top of this, there is the long history of balladry and so forth that talks about romantic (or pseudo-romantic) “undead” figures, much of which influenced the vampire fiction listed above, such as Gottfried August Bürger’s Lenore and the Child ballad The Suffolk Miracle. I can’t delve too deep into these, though, because really then I start heading into the realm of…

Vampire Folklore

Oh, I am so in love.

I say in one of the comments on the Darque Reviews blog post that:

In straight-up folklore, though, while there can be a sexual edge to whatever’s going on, mostly vampires are just representatives of the Unacceptable Other (for instance, in Mediterranean regions people with red hair are or could become vampires. And let’s not even talk about Bulgarian vampires — the one-nostril thing? Yeah, I’d stake one of those in a heartbeat).

The Other is what “monsters” typically are — they are those who are socially cast out of humanity due to unfortunate physical abnormalities, mental difficulties, personal/social nonconformity, or simply being “not from around here” (which is often related to “boy, you look just like our god of death, maybe that is not such a good thing”).

Folkloric/historic vampires are also representatives of death and disease. Dead bodies (due to soil composition and other such mundane things) don’t necessarily decompose at the same rate — mix that up with mass graves being continually reopened, and you can have a case of a dead girl being suspected of vampirism during a plague year. Chinese vampires apparently have a greenish fuzz on them — either from the fungus that grows on the funeral clothes, as suggested by Montague Summers in The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (1928), or perhaps from decomposition in general. Death isn’t pretty, and it’s tough to understand what’s going on if you don’t have a microscope and a lot of time on your hands with which to desecrate the dead.

Of course, death/disease/Othering all fall under a single psychological drive: they’re all a function of humans trying to describe/systematize the Unknown, and then apply logic thereafter. Why do livestock die off suddenly? What’s up with plagues? Why would anyone want to become a cannibal? Can anyone explain why young Lucille is so sexed up? Or is Lucille instead “wasting away” for unknown reasons? Heinrich-the-new-guy is awfully weird — almost too weird. Butterflies eating carrion is really… gross. And you know, cats aren’t a good idea (for reasons we won’t go into here), so I bet it’s extra bad if they jump over the dead.

If you follow the “humans will do what their brains tell them” psychological idea of folklore creation/perpetuation (which I sort of bring up in the magic post from earlier), then a lot of folklore regarding vampires becomes a lot more understandable — and manipulatable in a fictional context, if you’re so inclined (which I am). You can see this in all that wacky Victorian vampire literature, which took the Unknown concepts from folklore and applied them to both the views (either personal or popular) of sex at the time, and to the dangers of the widening world of communication and travel (hence why so many of the books listed above feature either Eastern European — rather than strictly British — locales, or feature vampires from locations other than England).

Interesting Things

Which gets me to the point of this post: Here, have some interesting vampire folklore! I’ve stolen them utterly from the Summers text, but you can find other (and more varied) sources easily. You might want to consider how this folklore could’ve started — maybe even how it’s changed into the sparkly sex-darlings we have today. And, of course: Wouldn’t it be neat if someone wrote vampire romances using some of this stuff?

All suicides, after death, become vampires.

A man who is murdered will arise as a vampire to avenge his death.

Vampires, upon rising from their graves, will first attack their family or loved ones.

Being cursed by one’s godfather can lead to becoming a vampire.

Being unbaptized (or not Christian) can lead to becoming a vampire.

Babies born between Christmas and Epiphany will probably become vampires after death (and their lives prior to death aren’t exactly fantastic either — for some explanation of this, you might want to consider both the religious significance of these dates, and also the medieval safe sex flowchart).

If you eat a sheep that’s been killed by a wolf, you’re vampiric chances are pretty high.

Of course, if you’re bitten by a vampire, well. We all know what that means.

If you’re a witch, odds are you’re dabbling in vampirism.

Vampires are generally nocturnal — except when they’re not.

Vampires often have long claws or nails.

Vampires can appear very bloated following, presumably, a feast of blood.

Vampires can turn into mist — or may exist as mist. Like, you know, the plague.

Vampire breath smells super-bad.

People with hare-lips are probably vampires.

People with vast facial port-wine birthmarks are likely to be vampires.

Blue-eyed? Will probably become a vampire.

Red-haired? You totally are a vampire.

Born with teeth? Guess.

Do you hold the traits of someone totally charismatic and sexy? Vampire. No, really.

And finally, I’m just going to quote this directly, because how can I not? Enjoy!:

The vampire is, as we have said, generally believed to embrace his victim who has been thrown into a trance-like sleep, and after greedily kissing the throat suddenly to bite deep into the jugular vein and absorb the warm crimson blood. It has long since been recognized by medico-psychologists that there exists a definite connexion between the fascination of blood and sexual excitation. Owing to custom, to inhibitions and education this emotion generally remains latent, although a certain mental sadism is by no means a mark of degeneracy.

This wasn’t always the case, obviously, and for a really fun game of “how can I shoehorn this neat thing into a book?”, check out the “receipt” (recipe) books from the Victorians and earlier. Middle-class Victorians, leaving aside their crazy “we must have a different chair for every possible activity we can think of” method of interior decoration, were all about the reusing and repurposing of materials, and never wanting to buy what they could possibly create in their own home. So when I look at the late Regency (heading into Victorian) book The New Family Receipt-Book: containing eight hundred truly valuable receipts In various Branches of Domestic Economy (1820), my heart kind of goes pitter-pat with the mischief I could get my characters into. For instance, on pg 224 we have:

Thunder Powder.

Take separately three parts of good dry saltpetre, two parts of dry salt of tartar, and pound them well together in a mortar; then add thereto one part, or rather more, of flower of brimstone, and take care to pound and mix the whole perfectly together: put this composition into a bottle with a glass stopper, for use.

Put about two drachms of this mixture in an iron spoon, over a moderate fire, but not in the flame; in a short time it will melt, and go off with an explosion like thunder or a loaded cannon.

“A bottle with a glass stopper, for use”? “Go off with an explosion”? I’m thinking of about five ways to abuse this recipe right now, and I don’t even fight demons for a living. Some research with a relevant dictionary of chemistry, a little updating to match your time period, and you’ve got a nifty trick to show the reader and a sly way of getting your characters past those werewolves on the corner. A win all the way around.

(Hey, if you have any neat ways of exploding things — or making an awesomely big noise — stick it in the comments. I love neat new info. Info with explosives.)

Several years pass, and up on Google Books there appears a copy of the book with the fairies, Fairy Tales, Legends and Romances Illustrating Shakespeare and Other Early English Writers, to Which Are Prefixed Two Preliminary Dissertations: 1. On Pigmies, 2. On Fairies, by Joseph Ritson (1875). I do a little dance of joy.

Anyway. The first spell, on page 276. Before reading, please remember that just because it’s public domain magic doesn’t mean that you should do it. None of us are widely read enough to come out of that sort of encounter safely. From Chapter XVII:

Conjurations for Fairies:

FROM MS. Ashmole 1406, written about the year 1600. One of these has been printed by Dr Percy. The impiety of the originals has been omitted ; but it runs through all the old charms and conjurations, and affords a curious picture of the times. The three last are given from a MS. in my own possession.

An excellent way to gett a fayrie, but for myselfe I call Margarett Sarratice, but this will obteine any one that is not allready bownd.

First, gett a broad square cristall or Venus glasse, in length and breadth three inches. Than lay that glasse or christall in the bloud of a white henne three Wednesdayes, or three Fridayes ; then take it out and wash it with holy aqua, and fumigate it. Then take three hazle stickes or wands of an yeare groth, pill them fayre and white, and make soe longe as you write the spiritts name, or fayries name, which you call three times, on every sticke being made flatt one one side. Then bury them under some hill, whereas you suppose fayries haunt, the Wednesday before you call her, and the Friday followinge take them uppe, and call her at eight or three or ten of the clocke, which be good plannetts and howres for that turne. But when you call, be in cleane life, and turne thy face towardes the East ; and when you have her, bind her to that stone ore glasse.