The Vampire

Philip Burne-Jones, The Vampire (1897)

(Image from Wikipedia)

As long as I can recall, I've been fascinated by the image of the vampire. I don't really know much about the folklore on vampires although I thought that the word "vampire" had come into English through German but ultimately from the Slavic language family, as Wikipedia reports:

English vampire comes from German Vampir, in turn from early Old Polish *vąper' (where ą is a nasal a, and both p and r' are palatalized), in turn from Old Slavic *oper (with a nasal o) or Old Church Slavonic opiri. It is similar to Serbian verb piriti, "to swell", and to Greek apyros, "not undergone by fire." The Slavic word, like its cognate netopyr' ("bat"), comes from the PIE root for "to fly."

Yet, the Online Etymological Dictionary finds a different, albeit related etymology:

vampire: 1734, from Fr. vampire or Ger. Vampir (1732, in an account of Hungarian vampires), from Hung. vampir, from O.C.S. [Old Church Slavonic] opiri (cf. Serb. vampir, Bulg. vapir, Ukrainian uper), said by Slavic linguist Franc Miklošič to be ult. from Kazan Tatar ubyr "witch."

I'll leave the etymology to the experts. I only bring up vampires now because of yesterday's blog entry on the succubus -- which Wikipedia linked to Lilith, as readers will recall -- for Wikipedia also links the vampire to Lilith, noting that Lilith has been called "the mother of all vampires."

I recall from reading Bram Stoker's Dracula back in the 8th grade that female vampires feed on infants, which I suspect provides one link to Lilith, who was believed to prey upon infants, much as the Mesopotamian lilu did. Also, the etymology for Lilith connects her to the word for night.

Some time back, I posted a very short poem of mine, "Vampire":

Fine frost that laces window panes,
the icy-blooded vampire's veins;
seductive, sensual spoor of death,
its frozen, freezing undead breath;
one cold, controlled, alluring art,
its solitary lover's heart.

I composed this around 1992, just before I met my wife -- who seduced me away from such undead obsessions and brought me into the world of the living.

My interest in the undead is undying, however, as is that of other scholars whose interest is more scholarly than mine, such as Phil Harland, whose blog Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean notes the link between the vampire figure and Satan (at least in Bram Stoker's version), which brings us back around to Lilith.

The image above, The Vampire (1897), by Philip Burne-Jones (son of the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones), reminds me of Henry Fuseli's two nightmare images, at least one of which also has the subtitle "Incubus," the male version of the succubus, as you will recall from yesterday's post, which again returns us to Lilith.

Interestingly, in the above image, Philip Burne-Jones has given his vampire a shadow, whereas some lore about vampires reports that they do not cast shadows.

As for me, I cast my lot with those who say that vampires don't cast shadows. Why? Because vampires don't exist ... although, in the middle of a dark night, even their nonexistence can feel creepy...