Love of Vampires

Vampire books, movies and lore…

Have you ever wondered how to become a vampire? Well, I have and I found out there is not just one answer. Just like the vampire itself, how to become a vampire has made a fascinating progression and evolution.

I think it goes without saying… but please do not try any of this stuff as it can be extremely dangerous!

Lets go way back – some of the earliest beliefs on how to become a vampire are less gory than one would think. Some believed that a child born under certain circumstances or omens would become a vampire. Others believed that the victim of a violent death or suicide would make the transformation. If a body with an open wound (um… ew!) was not treated and cleaned with boiling water, some believed the body would transform into a vampire.

In the Chinese and Slavic legends and folklore, a vampire could be created if an animal (most commonly a cat or dog) jumped over the grave of a person recently deceased. In Russian vampire folklore they believed that people (mostly considered witches) who rebelled against the church would become vampires.

As we turn more towards the modern vampire that came into being in the late 1800′s with the literary vampires (The Vampyre, Dracula & Carmilla), we get the more widely known and accepted ways on how to become a vampire: the bite.

This is the most widely known concept of becoming a vampire. The bite of the vampire, or the vampire’s kiss. Yes, just being bitten could turn one into a vampire.

I think the most fascinating turn on the bite of the vampire is the concept that a vampire must drain it’s victim nearly to the point of death, and then the victim must drink of the vampire’s blood. I find it so intriguing because this means the vampire has a choice, which can then be completely romanticized. The choice – to turn or not to turn… hmmm the vampire Hamlet. Nope, doesn’t work for me!

Then we go even further into the evolution on how to become a vampire and we get concepts such as a virus. Movies like 28 Days Later and Ultraviolet are examples of the viral vampire. And last, but not least, we have the realm of wonderful authors that come up with their own twists. Stephenie Meyer’s vampires from the Twilight Saga have a venom in their saliva and the House of Night series by the Casts have vampires who are kind of “called” into the life by a goddess and make a slow transformation into a vampire, marked by tattoos at each step in the transformation.

I am sure there are many more ways to become a vampire – and many more in the making.  Keep em coming!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 2:36 pm and is filed under My Vampire Obsession, Vampire folklore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.