Hello Strangers,

I am nothing if not (in)consistent. Today (eleven o’clock at night,) I am going to do things a bit differently; I am going to reveal to you the surprising and potentially very inaccurate history of the folkloric tradition of vampires as I have learned it.

Beginning in the Slavic region of Europe, ‘wampyrs’ or ‘vampyrs’ were not blood sucking demons but were actually mythic creatures that sucked the rain from the storm clouds and causing the droughts that starved communities. Similar to the gods of other communities, they served as explanations for weather patterns and as causes of human suffering.

After this, it came to mean a race of creatures that devoured celestial bodies including the sun, and also the moon. They were thought to be the cause of eclipses and blood moons, when they would bite the moon, turning it red. Now, interestingly, this is also where the werewolf myth begins. Part of the vampyr myth was that they could shapeshift into creatures like crows, cats, rabbits, and, you guessed it, wolves. Because of this, and because of the new lore surrounding the moon and stars, historians have a difficult time deciding which myths belong to which creatures, and the meanings of the name that they shared for a long time. To this day, there is conflict between vampires and werewolves not only in the interpretation of their stories, but also as characters in the stories themsleves.

After all of this, we arrive at the familiar tale of the blood sucking demon. There wasn’t much to tell here, it was simply a terrifying supernatural creature, feeding on the blood of humans. Until it became something else. Something closer to a human.

If a human were to turn into a vampire, (forgive my many spellings of the word, I know it’s distracting,) there was usually a reason for it. Parents might curse their child, and when that child died, they would return as a vampire, roaming restlessly in search of human blood. They might be a child born out of wedlock, a union not blessed by God. I take issue with that kind of assertion, because I believe that God is merciful and that every person will have a chance to repent of their sins and be saved. I take issues with stories that twist our perception of reality, but it was a cultural belief at the time The third way one could become a vampire was through sorcery. If a magician was already playing with dark forces, then when they died, their corpse might be overtaken by a demon and used to steal blood. Not just human either, a lot of sheep and cattle were killed for a very long time.

From this myth, we find the introduction of the vampire into mainstream media in England, and then America: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. (This statement ignores the many myths already present in distinctive stories held by various Native American tribes, and it is an interesting note that while the modern vampire can be traced back to Slavic origins, there are cultures all over the world from Africa, to Asia, to the Americas and beyond who have their own tales of blood-sucking creatures similar to the vampire.) But! Nonetheless, Dracula was a beginning of the vampire for the American people. A nearly human, but still greedy, conniving, lusting, blood thirsty monster. And yet even in the novel, there was some sympathy for him.

Dracula is modern, but Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, are contemporary examples of the vampire in literature, and they have undergone yet another shift. While they maintain their warnings of and brushes with female sexuality, lust, and demonology, these vampires are no longer demons, even if they maintain their offensive religious imagery. Religion is even touched on directly and from the vampire’s perspective in Twilight; Edward Cullen thinks that as a vampire, he is beyond saving, beyond the grace of God, and unwanted by God. In The Vampire Diaries, the two leading brothers struggle to find a sense of morality and love. Also undead politics and eating people. But the point is, vampires have changed in a fundamental way: they are no longer demons, they are representations of fallen man.

Within the realm of storytelling, vampires are at a place at last where they might seek redemption. Instead of representing fear, evil, and famine, they represent the human lost. The unwanted. The dangerous, and the people who think they are too far gone. It is time, in fiction, for the vampire’s redemption.

All stories are a product of their time and culture. We tell stories based on the state of reality, and of the thoughts in our heads that maybe we are not ready to think about in their realest forms. Our culture today is lost, listless, restless, and evil. But fully human. And in the stories of today, there is an ingrained belief that even a vampire can be redeemed.

I have a hero complex, but I will never save anybody, in any way. My small dream at the end of this Saturday is a prayer that the lost would come home.

All my love to you,

–Mabel