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Nowadays, when you hear the word vampire, you think of an immortal personification of handsome that thrives off of the lifeblood of other beings, or, depending on whether you’re a Twitard (a shortening of “a Twilight fan-fiction retard) or not, you think of a sparkly emo-goth that has stalker and rejection issues. If you’re old enough, speaking of about early 90s, you might think of Dracula. None of these are correct. Even older images of vampire might give rise to the thought of Nosferatu from the early 20s. Even this is incorrect.
It was used in 1734 to describe the bodies of the deceased being reanimated by the malevolent spirits to wreak havoc upon the living. One belief is that the spirits needed the use of the body to be able to drink blood so that they may return to the world of the living. The spirit controlled body would kill someone and extrude blood via the jugulars. Another belief is that the bodies were controlled by Satan to drag souls to hell through their blood. It, however, was not the first time that it was used.
An original concept of the human vampire came from Count Vladimir III, Prince of Wallachia, more commonly known now as “the real Count Dracula.” He was also known as Vlad the Impaler in his own time. He was called a vampire in his time because he would decapitate the generals of his enemies and drink the blood from their neck before impaling the head on a pike for all his enemies to see. It was a demoralization tactic that really worked. He was also where the term “blood-thirsty” came from, for he truly was.
But the term vampire came from even earlier to describe things that weren’t human. The word vampire was used to describe certain small mammals that would kill prey, chew its head off, and then sustain its self for several days by drinking the blood of its victim. This will immediately conjure the image of the vampire bat, but that is, once again, incorrect. The vampire bat wasn’t named until the 1700s. The mammal this most readily describes is the weasel and other rodents in its species. The animals of the mustelid species are the original little vampires from where the word derived its meaning.
The word vampire derived its meaning from the Servian word, vampir, which simply means blood-sucker, or a supposed ghost that sucked blood. It was never truly meant to indicate some handsome human that had powers of immortality that drank the blood of virgins. That was an idea brought forth by Bram Stoker, in 1897, in his novel Dracula. It most definitely does not apply to the stalkers with skin that has all the properties of diamond. That was a concept introduced by Stephanie Meyer in her fan-fiction series turned novels, called the Twilight series, in 2005 with her original publishing of the book, Twilight.
- by Ragereaper |
- Non Fiction
- | Submitted on 10/25/2010 |
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- Title: Origin of Vampire
- Artist: Ragereaper
- Description: This is an etymological highlight of the word vampire. When it was created, what it was created for, and how it was turned into what it is now. It is also a bash on the Twilight series that is put intelligently, so I won't be surprised if Twitards don't understand it. Flames will be used to burn the rest of my hate mail.
- Date: 10/25/2010
- Tags: origin vampire etymology twilight bash
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