Bram Stoker may have popularized and solidified the modern idea of what a vampire is, and Anne Rice may have succeeded in making them less frightful, and the Twilight series has made them a bit fluffier still, but no matter how the image of the vampire is changed, literally having the life sucked out of you is still a scary idea.

Folkloric accounts of vampires has them behaving similarly to ghosts, they would haunt places they lived and cause minor mischeif, in addition to drinking blood from livestock and humans. Initially, they were thought of as appearing ruddy, from all the blood drinking, and bloated, from being undead and wore shroads. This is very different from what we see in modern films, where the vampires are inevitably pale and thin and ethereally attractive. Bloodsucking monsters may have been with us throughout the birth of man, but the term vampire itself was not popularized until 18th century Western Europe had a tremendous rise in cultural superstitions and they needed a unifying word to encompass the different types of blood-sucking ghouls that were being encountered.

Modern ideas of the vampire dictate that one can only create or be “made” into a vampire by being bitten by another vampire, but on older traditions a vampire can also be simply a revenant, or a malevelont person who returns after death, or a resurrected suicide victim. To ward off a vampire, the most common objects used throughout ancient folklore and modern fiction are garlic and holy water. It was later that rosary beads and the crucifix came to be used. Although vampires were also considered more active at night, it was not until more recently in vampire lore that it was thought they were vulnerable to sunlight.

Theories about the origin of the vampire myth range from symptoms of diseases that are now more fully understood to coma victims being buried alive – during and/or after which sounds might emenate from the coffin. Another links the idea to symptoms of rabies in humans and symptoms of porphyria, which is sensitivity to light.

Most modern fictional accounts of vampires can trace its influences back as far as the 1700’s beginning with poetry, but Bram Stoker’s account remains the most popularly considered source material.