Are Vampires Real?

16 Interesting Facts about Vampires

1. ‘Vampires’, the word itself reminds us of movies like Dracula and Twilight. There are thousands of vampire myths and legends seen throughout history.
2. Like legendary monsters, it is difficult to prove whether vampires are real or not. For example, in the past scientists thought the legendary sea monster Kraken was a fantasy, until they found the giant squid that resembled these creatures.
3. If you see a vampire you may not live to tell others about it and so they are difficult to detect. They operate secretly and might be around but we may not know. Sounds spooky?
4. The origin of vampires is still a mystery.
5. Vampires are the ‘Undead’ blood sucking night creatures like the ones we see in movies or read about in books.
6. They are immortal and are said to mostly survive on human blood. They have fangs and usually bite the neck of humans and suck blood from it.
7. They can also drink from the vein in the thigh. It is said that vampires are able to control the animal kingdom and can easily turn into bats, owls, wolves and rats.
8. Vampires are very fast, they usually sleep during the day as they cannot tolerate sunlight and so are not seen during the day.
9. The first vampire is believed to have been a human named ‘Ambrogio’ who was an adventurer born in Italy. Fate brought Ambrogio to Delphi, in Greece. It is said that curses and blessings changed this man into the first vampire.
10. They say Ambrogio was cursed by the sun god causing his skin to burn if sunlight touched it. The moon goddess too cursed him for his skin to burn every time he touched silver.
11. The only blessing he got was of being immortal, and was also blessed with tremendous strength and speed.
12. Vampires are considered immortal due to their super human strengths, but tales show that they can be destroyed if a wooden stake is struck through their heart.
13. A person can turn into a vampire by just being bitten by one. It is said that to become a vampire a person who has been bitten also needs to drink the vampire’s blood to rise as vampire.
14. Just being bitten and drained of blood leads to death. Besides the wooden stakes, garlic, holy water, silver and crosses or other religious objects are also used to kill vampires.
15. It is believed that a vampire cannot cross a threshold of a house unless he has been invited in and thus the thresholds have a significant symbolic value in history.
16. Vampire sleep in coffins and a group of vampire is called a clutch, clan, pack or brood.

2 Categories of Vampires

1. The Hollywood and literary vampires
2. The folklore vampires

The Hollywood vampires look pale and beautiful. They are old but not aged, and are turned when bitten by another vampire.
Folklore vampires are recently dead peasants. They turn into vampires not only with a bite but also if they have been a werewolf, committed suicide or practiced sorcery. These vampires initially emerge as a soft mass without bones. Only after surviving for forty days do they develop bones and a body morphing into the dangerous and difficult creature we fear.

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