According to some sources, living vampires could
be sorcerers or witches (such as some types of strigoi), or the result of a demonic contract (such as the Penanggalen and Loogaroo).
In modern times, however, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as thechupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folkloric belief in vampires has been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process ofdecomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in the 20th century and received much media exposure, but this link has since been largely discredited.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries. Today we would associate these entities with vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire did not exist; blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the devil was considered synonymous with the vampire. Almost every nation has associated blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, or in some cases a deity. In India, for example, tales ofvetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, have been compiled in the Baital Pachisi; a prominent story in the Kathasaritsagara tells of KingVikramāditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one. Pishacha, the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes. The Ancient Indian goddess Kali, with fangs and a garland of corpses or skulls, was also intimately linked with the drinking of blood. In Egypt, the goddess Sekhmet drank blood.
The Persians were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated pottery shards. Ancient Babylonia had tales of the mythical Lilitu, synonymous with and giving rise to Lilith (Hebrew לילית) and her daughters the Lilu from Hebrew demonology. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies. However, the Jewish counterparts were said to feast on both men and women, as well as newborns.
Ancient Greek and Roman mythology described the Empusae, Lamia, and the striges. Over time the first two terms became general words to describe witches and demons respectively. Empusa was the daughter of the goddess Hecate and was described as a demonic, bronze-footed creature. She feasted on blood by transforming into a young woman and seduced men as they slept before drinking their blood. Lamia preyed on young children in their beds at night, sucking their blood, as did the gelloudes or Gello. Like Lamia, the striges feasted on children, but also preyed on young men. They were described as having the bodies of crows or birds in general, and were later incorporated into Roman mythology asstrix, a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.
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