The Children of the Night, What Music They Make!

Hello everyone! This is Casimir with The Skald’s Circle again. Today we’ll be talking about Vampires, particularly Eastern European vampires, because, well, I have an obsession.

Have vampires…recently?

Yes, they have recently taken the world by storm, and by recently, I refer to the release of Dracula, Interview with a Vampire, and, yes, Twilight. These are vampires that are everything that the modern conception of vampires has led us to believe that they should be. They are beautiful, charismatic, charming, and powerful blood drinkers. Aside from one of these, the original vampires from at least Eastern Europe are…. Well, decidedly different. The original Slavic vampires are described as being absolutely monstrous, very similar to werewolves actually, but that’s another topic entirely. If you look at Romanian folklore, vampires are absolutely horrifying. You have the Moroi, who are phantasms that drain blood from the living nearby their graves. The ones that are more commonly known though, are the Strigoi, and these ones are unique in a few ways. The first is that they come in both living and unliving varieties. The living ones are described as people with two souls, who could send their second soul out to roam with the other strigoi to drain the blood of humans and livestock. The unliving ones are reanimated corpses that sucked blood and attacked their living family.

However, I admit I find the vampire stories of the Slavic countries to be of a particular interest to me — shocking, I know. They had a very wide variety, depending on which Slavic country the myth originates in. For instance, in the Eastern Slavic countries, namely Russia, vampires are not described as drinking blood, nor do they have the traditional Slavic root word for “vampire”; they are called Eretik. The South Slavic vampire sounds rather familiar… after a point. It is said that south Slavic vampires go through a metamorphosis. They first start out as a shadowy thing that drains blood, it then turns into a jello-like boneless mass, which then eventually turns into a form like that it had when it lived. If it were a man, it could then go out and have children. These children, could, in turn, become vampires, however, they also had the special ability to be able to see and kill vampires, allowing them to become vampire hunters. It was also a common belief in Slavic countries, that those who hunt vampires are most likely to become them in life. Well, vampire hunters and really just about anyone who didn’t fit the stereotypical concept of being a good Christian. My personal favorite “most likely to become a vampire characteristic” is talks to themselves. If that’s the case, then I am taking resumes for evil minions after I raise from the dead as a decidedly Slavic blood-sucker.

These are just a few of the Eastern European vampire myths, and if you think that I don’t plan to touch on these at a later date, then you have another thing coming. I’d love to hear your favorite vampire stories from various cultures. If you have any you’d like to share, please go ahead and share them in the comments. We’d love to hear about them.

I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology folklore and history on History with The Skald’s Circle. If you’d like to know more, or perhaps discuss it with me I’m always more than willing. Also, if you have something you would like us to research, please let us know! Also if you learned something new, give us a like, and let us know, we really appreciate being noticed… Until then, I’ll be back next week with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources!

Sources:

Share this:

Related