In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive.
Vampire, in popular legend, a creature, often fanged, that preys upon humans, generally by consuming their blood. Vampires have been featured in folklore and fiction of various cultures for hundreds of years, predominantly in Europe, although belief in them has waned in modern times.
There are almost as many different characteristics of vampires as there are vampire legends. But the main characteristic of vampires (or vampyres) is they drink human blood. They typically...
In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.
Between 1725 and the 1750s, villagers in central Europe witnessed a mass hysteria frenzy that would later be known as the Great Vampire Epidemic, the largest vampire epidemic in history: killing several people, terrorizing thousands, and marking the rise of the vampire.
One of history's most famous — and bloodthirsty — legendary creatures, vampires have terrified human beings for centuries. In 1892, a group of frightened villagers in Exeter, Rhode Island gathered at the town’s graveyard with shovels and a grim task.
There is a long tradition in these legends and literatures forewarning against the vampire as a malevolent imitation of humanity, setting the vampire at the intersection of themes of sexuality, religion, politics, and death.