Halloween approaches, so let's take a peek at a classic creature of the night: the vampire!

Definition and Etymology

The oldest English-language dictionary I own with a "vampire" entry is The Century Dictionary from 1891. This dictionary has an encyclopedic thoroughness and wonderful etymological information. Here is its entry on "vampire," from volume 6, page 6693:

vampire (vam'pīr), n. and a. [Formerly also vampyre; < F. vampire = Sp. Pg. vampiro = D. vampier = G. vampyr = Sw. Dan. vampyr (NL. vampyrus), < Serv. vampir = Bulg. vampir, vapir, vepir, vupir = Pol. wampir, also upior = Little Russ. vampyr, vepyr, vopyr, opyr, upyr, opir, uper = White Russ. upir = Russ. vampirŭ, also upirĭ, upyrĭ, obyrĭ (the Pol. wampir, Russ. vampirŭ, appar. < Serv.), a vampire; cf. North Turk. uber, a witch.] I. n. 1. A kind of spectral being or ghost still possessing a human body, which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races on the lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night, and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werwolves, heretics, and other outcasts become vampires, as do also the illegitimate offspring of parents themselves illegitimate, and any one killed by a vampire. On the discovery of a vampire's grave, the body, which, it is supposed, will be found all fresh and ruddy, must be disinterred, thrust through with a whitethorn stake, and burned in order to render it harmless.

2. Hence, a person who preys on others; an extortioner or blood-sucker. — 3. Same as vampire-bat. — 4. Theat., a small trap made of two flaps held together by a spring, used for sudden appearances and disappearances of one person. — False vampire, a leaf-nosed bat of South America, erroneously supposed to suck blood. See vampire-bat (b)(1), and cut under Vampyri. — Spectacled vampire. Same as spectacled stenoderm (which see, under stenoderm).

II. a. Of or pertaining to a vampire; resembling a vampire in character; blood-sucking; extortionate; vampiric.

The strong but disinterested wish to co-operate in restoring this noble University to its natural pre-eminence by relieving it from the vampire oppression under which it has pined so long in almost lifeless exhaustion.

Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions, p. 446.

Facts and Figures

The oldest work I have with an entry on the vampire is a facsimile of Brockhaus's Bilder-Conversations-Lexikon from 1841. This will start as our base for what the vampire is, what it does, and how it can be defeated. The entry "Vampyr" can be found in volume 4, on pages 552 (translation given after):

Vampyr heißt in der Naturgeschichte eine große, in den Tropenländern heimische Art Fledermaus (s. d.); ein im Morgenlande seit alten Zeiten herrschender Aberglaube denkt sich aber unter demselben Namen gespenstische Wesen, welche des Nachts umgehen, den Schlafenden das Blut aussaugen und sie dadurch umbringen sollen. Auf diese Art Gestorbene sollten dann wieder Vampyre werden, was die alten griech. Christen schon ungefähr ebenso von Denen glaubten, welche im Kirchenbann starben und die angeblichen Gespenster derselben Brukolakä nannten. In Griechenland, Serbien, Dalmatien, Ungarn ist der Aberglaube an Vampyre noch immer verbreitet und war vor ungefähr 100 Jahren die Veranlassung zu großen Besorgnissen und gerichtlichen Untersuchungen in einigen Gegenden von Ungarn, welche die Aufmerksamkeit von ganz Europa rege machten. In einem Dorfe an der serbischen Grenze sollte nämlich ein Hayduck am Bisse eines Vampyrs gestorben und hierauf ebenfalls als Vampyr seine Freunde und Bekannten gequält, ja mehre derselben schon umgebracht haben. Seine Leiche ward daher mehre Wochen nach dem Tode wieder ausgegraben, ihr ein Pfahl durchs Herz gestoßen und der Kopf abgeschnitten, was auch mit den angeblich durch ihn Umgebrachten geschach und als ein Mittel gilt, solchen Vampyren ein Ende zu machen. Auch in Schottland und Irland ist unter den gemeinen Leuten ein ähnlicher Aberglaube verbreitet, so sehr er auch allem gesunden Menschenverstande widerstreitet. Byron hat ihn zu einem Gedicht, der deutsche Componist Marschner zu einer Oper benutzt. Bildlich werden zuweilen Wucherer und Andere, welche auf ungerechte Weise von Einzelnen oder auch von den Bewohnern eines ganzen Landes Geld erpressen und ihnen gleichsam Schweiß und Blut aussaugen, Vampyre genannt.

Vampyr, in natural history, is the name of a large bat (which see) that makes its home in tropical lands; a superstition which has ruled in eastern lands since ancient times uses the same name to refer to a ghostly being, which goes around at night sucking the blood of the sleeping and thereby killing them. Those who die by this method are supposed to then become vampires themselves; the old Greek Christians believed that this would also happen to those who died excommunicated from the church and they called the resulting spirits 'brukolakä.' The superstition surrounding vampires is still present in Greece, Serbia, Dalmatia, and Hungary; approximately 100 years ago this was the cause of great concern and judicial investigations in a number of areas in Hungary, which caught the attention of all of Europe. In a village on the Serbian border, supposedly, a Hajduk died due to a vampire bite and tormented his friends and acquaintances himself as a vampire, even killing a number of them. His corpse was dug up again a number of weeks after his death, a stake plunged through his heart and his head chopped off, and this was supposedly also done with those he killed in order to bring an end to these vampires. A similar superstition is spread among the common people of Scotland and Ireland, despite how much it goes against all healthy human understanding. Byron used it in a poem, and the German composer Marschner used it in one of his operas. Metaphorically the term vampire is also applied to usurers and others who oppress individuals or even the entire populace of a country unfairly, and thus suck their blood and sweat.

Johnson's Universal Cyclopædia, 1887, reaches to Greek myth for the origin of the vampire and also elaborates on the panic which swept central and eastern Europe; the digging up of graves is no longer confined to a few areas in Hungary. "Vampire" is found in volume 8, on page 249:

Vam'pire [Fr.], according to a superstition still existing among the lower classes in Hungary, Servia, Romania, and the Christian population of the Balkan peninsula, a kind of ghost which during the night leaves the grave and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women. It is probable that this superstition originated from the ancient myth of the lamiæ, but it was much strengthened by the belief, common in the Middle Ages all through the Greek Church, that the bodies of those who died under the ban of the Church were kept alive by the devil, and by him sent out to ruin their friends and relatives. Early in the eighteenth century a vampire panic fell over Servia and Hungary, and spread thence into Germany. Books were written pro et contra, and thousands of graves were opened, and corpses which looked suspicious were fastened with nails and bolts to the ground, that they should not wander any more. Among the Wallachs it is still customary to drive a nail through the head of the corpse into the bottom of the coffin.

The Students Cyclopædia of 1900 clarified the connection to the ancient Greek lamiæ mentioned above, but otherwise adds no new information: "In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, beings of a similar nature existed, called the Lamias. These were beautiful women who allured youths to their embrace in order to feed on their flesh and blood" (volume 2, page 1356).

The eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1910, combines the mythological vampire and the vampire bat into a single entry; below I have only excerpted the portion that deals with the supernatural being. This entry is notable for attempting to guess at a rational explanation for why such a superstition could have arose (though it makes one wonder just how many people were buried alive back then). This entry can be found in volume 27, on page 876, and includes alternate forms of the vampire not found in my other reference works (that wayward downy feather next to your pillow? total vampire) and expands the sorts of dead who could arise as vampires (suicides, those who met a violent death, etc):

VAMPIRE, a term, apparently of Servian origin (wampir), originally applied in eastern Europe to blood-sucking ghosts, but in modern usage transferred to one or more species of blood-sucking bats inhabiting South America.

In the first-mentioned meaning a vampire is usually supposed to be the soul of a dead man which quits the buried body by night to suck the blood of living persons. Hence, when the vampire's grave is opened, his corpse is found to be fresh and rosy from the blood which he has thus absorbed. To put a stop to his ravages, a stake is driven through the corpse, or the head cut off, or the heart torn out and the body burned, or boiling water and vinegar are poured on the grave. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides and those who have come to a violent end or have been cursed by their parents or by the church. But any one may become a vampire if an animal (especially a cat) leaps over his corpse or a bird flies over it. Sometimes the vampire is thought to be the soul of a living man which leaves his body in sleep, to go in the form of a straw or fluff of down and suck the blood of other sleepers. The belief in vampires chiefly prevails in Slavonic lands, as in Russia (especially White Russia and the Ukraine), Poland, and Servia, and among the Czechs of Bohemia and the other Slavonic races of Austria. It became specially prevalent in Hungary between the years 1730 and 1735, whence all Europe was filled with reports of the exploits of vampires. Several treatises were written on the subject, among which may be mentioned Ranft's De masticatione mortuorum in lumulis (1734) and Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary, translated into English in 1750. It is probable that this superstition gained much ground from the reports of those who had examined the bodies of persons buried alive though believed to be dead, and was based on the twisted position of the corpse, the marks of blood on the shroud and on the face and hands — results of the frenzied struggle in the coffin before life became extinct. The belief in vampires has also taken root among the Albanians and modern Greeks, but here it may be due to Slavonic influence.

The World Book encyclopedia of 1919 mentions that the victims of vampires are often unaware of what is killing them: "According to the absurd belief, so quietly does it work that the victim is not aware of what is happening, but gradually wastes away and dies" (volume 10, page 6025). The Encyclopedia Americana of 1924 notes that this is why corpses were carefully inspected after death, in case they need special anti-vampire treatment: In some places where the belief in vampires prevails, when a person dies a careful examination is made by a skilled person lest he should have been killed by a vampire and so be liable to become one; if this is suspected, the body may be pierced with a stake cut from a green tree, the head cut off and the heart burned. This is also the process for destroying the vampire spirit in a corpse believed to be already a vampire. The belief has been treated by Philostratus and Phlegon of Tralles; has served a literary purpose in Goethe's 'Braut von Korinth' and the operas of Palma, Hart and von Lindpainter. While seemingly a primitive and savage superstition, it has survived in many forms. Consult Ralton, 'Russian Folk-tales'; Hert, 'Der Werwolf' (1862); Stoker, B., 'Dracula' (1899)" (volume 27, page 662).

Taking a peek inside modern American and European encyclopedias, we find that the Brockhaus of 1984 (volume 22, page 379) states that vampires are a variant of the traditional German blood-sucker mentioned in Martin Luther's Table Talks. It also mentions the lamia found in Johnson's Universal and the Student Cyclopædia entries, but attributes the term to Latin literature. This entry also mentions the 1913 film Dracula, and directs the reader to a separate entry on Dracula. The 1992 edition of the World Book is the first of my reference works to mention Vlad the Impaler, in its description of Stoker's Dracula: "The character of Dracula is based on Vlad Tepes, a cruel prince from Walachia (now part of Romania). Vlad was nicknamed Dracula, which in Romanian means son of the devil or son of a dragon" (volume 20, page 284). The New Standard Encyclopedia from 1993 mentions the related word "vamp," a "scheming, heartless woman who lures a man to moral destruction" and its origin in the 1914 film A Fool There Was (volume 18, page V-11). The 1997 Encyclopædia Britannica (volume 12, page 253) is the only encyclopedia I own which includes a picture (a movie still featuring Bela Lugosi in the role of Dracula). The influence of Stoker's novel and its many film adaptations surely led to the signs "known to every schoolchild" for recognizing a vampire (they have sharp fangs and "they cast no shadow and are not reflected in mirrors") and warding one off ("displaying a crucifix or sleeping with a wreath of garlic around one's neck"); this information did not appear in the older encyclopedias.

Japanese Reference Works

The entire impetus for writing this post came about because I ordered some books from Jirō Akagawa's comedic mystery series Vampire All Year Round (吸血鬼はお年ごろ), about the daughter of a legitimate vampire from Transylvania who, along with her dad, solves supernatural mysteries in Japan. The Japanese word for vampire used in the book title is 吸血鬼, kyūketsuki, which breaks down kanji-wise into "blood sucking ghost/demon;" bloodsucking (吸血) already existed as a concept, so this word attaches the primary function of a vampire to the generic Japanese term for demon or ghost, 鬼. The directly imported word ヴァンパイア (vanpaia) is also used. The Encyclopædia Heibonsha features a wonderful table showing all of the major mentions of vampires in literature and film from 1751 (Dom Augustin Calmet's Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie) through 1979, including the 1922 German film Nosferatu (volume 4, pages 179-180).