Table Of ContentVampires
A F G C
IELD UIDE TO THE REATURES
T S N
HAT TALK THE IGHT
By
Dr. Bob Curran
Illustrated by Ian Daniels
Franklin Lakes, NJ
Copyright 2005 by Dr. Bob Curran
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Con-
ventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or
by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invent-
ed, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.
VAMPIRES
EDITED AND TYPESET BY KRISTEN PARKES
Cover design by Lu Rossman/Digi Dog Design
Cover and Interior Illustrations by Ian Daniels
Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Curran, Bob.
Vampires: a field guide to the creatures that stalk the night / Bob Curran.
p.cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-56414-807-6 (pbk.)
1.Vampires. I. Title.
BF1556.c87 2005
398’.45—dc22
2005048431
Contents
Introduction 5
1. The Alp 13
2. The Alu/Ekimmu 25
3. The Aswang 35
4. El Chupacabra 45
5. The Dearg-Dul 55
6. Les Dames Blanches/Baobhan Sith 69
7. The Devil of Hjalta-Stad 81
8. The Dybbuk 95
9. The Gwarch y Rhibyn 107
10. The Jaracaca/Lobishomen 117
11. The Penanggal 127
12. The Rakshasa 137
13. The Sampiro 147
14. The Strigoii 157
15. The Tikoloshe 173
16. Vampire Ladies 183
17. The Vrykolokas 203
Index 213
About the Author and Illustrator 221
Introduction
ANCIENT FEARS
V
ampire. The very word conjures up visions of ruined
castles in Eastern Europe; of deathly pale and satur-
nine noblemen, wrapped in dark cloaks; of fangs
brushing the throat of some helpless female; of stakes and cru-
cifixes destroying ancient evil. Such things have become the
stock of vampire novels, films, and television programs. And,
of course, they bear only the vaguest resemblance to the ac-
tual truth, for the vampire is a more complex creature than
Hollywood would have us believe.
The idea of the vampire is tied up in ancient notions of
death. Like ourselves, peoples across time often wondered
what lay on the other side of death but, unlike today, they
usually had no context in which to place the Afterlife. Only a
few cultures had the concept of reward and punishment after
death—a feature of structured religious belief. All they knew
was that the dead simply went somewhere. This, of course,
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Vampires
prompted other questions: Where did they go? Were they
aware of what went on in the world that they’d left behind?
Could they intervene in the affairs of those who came after
them? What was their relationship with the living? What was
the afterlife like? Opinions varied widely.
For the ancient Hebrews, for example, the departed made
the journey to Sheol (literally meaning “the grave”), a dank,
subterranean place, filled with rivers, lakes, and eternal mist.
Here the spirits of the dead wandered aimlessly, barely aware
of what was occurring in the world they had left, and they
took little interest in the affairs of their descendants. The an-
cient Egyptians thought that the next world was very much
like this one, and that power and status would continue there
as it had in the world of the living. Thus, servants were mur-
dered as soon as their masters died so they could continue to
serve them beyond their demise. Those who crossed from one
plane of existence to the other took nothing with them that
had to do with the world that they’d left behind—it was doubt-
ful that they even remembered that world. The Vikings be-
lieved that the Afterlife was a great hall known as Valhalla
(the Hall of Heroes) that allegedly stretched into infinity to
accommodate all the souls that were there. It could only be
entered by those Vikings who died in battle or with a sword
in their hand. Throughout eternity there were feats of strength,
mock battles, drinking, and carousing amongst the dead who
assembled there, making it a warrior’s paradise. What became
of those departed Vikings who died in bed or without a sword
is unclear. Those who resided in Valhalla were, of course,
much too busy with their revelry and battles to take any ac-
count of what happened in the world of the living.
The ancient Celts, on the other hand, believed in a place
called the Otherworld, which was a place of the dead and a
place of fairies and other supernatural creatures. This unspeci-
fied realm has never been properly described and has varied
in its description from a beautiful landscape, which inspired
bards and poets; to a bleak and dismal place; to an unending
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Introduction
emptiness. From here, the dead could watch the affairs of the
world, in which they took a definite interest. Indeed, Celtic
tradition taught (as did some other ancient belief systems) that
they might from time to time return to the living world in or-
der to intervene in the affairs of day-to-day existence. It was
not, however, a nebulous, ethereal spirit that returned from
the Otherworld, but a solid corporeal entity, which might be
pretty much as he or she had been when alive. They might
return for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the dead returned
simply to enjoy the life that they had left behind—food,
warmth, comfort, the companionship of their loved ones. The
dead, it was thought, had the same needs and desires as the
living. They might also return for other purposes: to warn, to
admonish, to advise, to complete unfinished business, or, oc-
casionally, to take revenge.
But when might they return? Although theoretically they
might return at any time—and some of them, it was believed,
actually did—the common consensus was that they only did
so at certain times: when the stars were propitious. In Celtic
Western Europe, for instance, the dead mainly returned on
two nights of the year: at the festivals of May Eve and Samhain
(October 31). These were dates on which the seasons changed.
Spring gave way to summer, and autumn yielded to the dark-
ness of winter. Although people now tend to celebrate Hal-
loween (October 31) as the premier supernatural festival, we
must also keep in mind that April 30, once widely known
throughout the Germanic and Scandinavian worlds as
Walpugisnacht, was also a time when dark creatures held sway
over the world. At such times, the Veil between the worlds of
the living and the dead was very thin. The hours of midday
and midnight were also transitional periods when the super-
natural barriers became almost nonexistent and allowed the
dead to cross. We are all familiar with the ghost at midnight
(when one day merged into another), but midday (when the
morning passed into the afternoon) was also a significant time.
Both the ancient Greeks and Romans believed it was when the
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Vampires
legions of the dead, together with the forces of evil, were at
their most powerful.
One of the most potent reasons for the dead returning from
the grave was to remind those who were living that the dead
could still see them and might still watch over them. In some
instances, the dead took on the role of moral arbiter, perhaps
instructing a descendant to mend his or her ways or to act in a
more kindly way toward his or her peers. The tale of Scrooge
in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol contains elements of
that ancient belief.
Christian Dogma and Vampires
The spread of structured and organized religion—Chris-
tianity, in particular—brought about a profound change in how
the living viewed the returning dead. For instance, in Celtic
Western Europe, the Christian Church had to contend with
old, pagan beliefs, many of which it incorporated, in modi-
fied forms, into the Church’s own religious dogma. One such
belief was the notion of the Celtic Otherworld to which spirits
went after death. This, of course, did not completely fit in with
the Church’s structured notions of heaven and hell, where re-
wards and punishments were meted out. So, it seems, a form
of compromise was reached. Like many other pagan ideals,
the otherworld became incorporated into the Christian canon
in the guise of purgatory, a place of waiting and testing for the
soul before it achieved its final reward or punishment. This
was a clever compromise, because it not only successfully in-
corporated ancient beliefs, it also had the potential to make
money for the Church. The soul could be released from purga-
tory, it was believed, only through having prayers and Masses
formally said for it. And the only person who could do this was
the priest, who had to be paid for doing so. Consequently, a
special day was set aside for the remembrance of the dead when
Masses were said for the repose of their souls: All Saint’s Day
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Introduction
(November 1). This coincided with the ancient Celtic festival of
Samhain, a day for remembering the dead. The Church now taught
that God permitted the departed to return on the evening before
All Souls Day to remind the living of their obligation to them. If
their families were neglectful of such obligations, the dogma con-
tinued, and the angry dead might take physical revenge against
them. Moreover, the dead who had not been correctly buried
according to the rites of the Church (when, once again, the priest
had to be paid) might be permitted to return to punish those
who survived them for their miserliness and neglect.
The notion of the angry and vengeful dead quickly caught
on; it was Church dogma, after all. It was thought that the re-
turning dead—substantial and near corporeal entities—might
attack the property of their remaining family, such as their
cattle and other livestock. From the necks of the animals they
might drink blood, causing the creature to be weak and use-
less. And sometimes, in an act of ultimate revenge, the material
cadaver might even attack the family and drink their blood. The
myth of the vengeful, blood-drinking dead was being created.
But it was not only the Christian religion that was the basis
of the vampire motif. Other religious structures had their own
orthodoxies and to disobey these was to invite supernatural
retaliation. There were other elements as well—religious and
national differences; differing ethnic and cultural perspectives;
the personality of the person concerned—all of which could
create a vampire. The foreigner, the scold, the misanthrope,
the person with a different religious or cultural viewpoint all
could become a dangerous revenant after their demise. Not
only might they attack their own families but they might sav-
age other members of the community as well. Gradually, a
whole mythos was created around the dead—a mythos of
which there were many versions, depending on the religion
and culture involved.
Almost every culture (past and present) in the world has its
beliefs regarding the returning dead, and all of these reflected
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