Where'd HE Come From? Dracula

You know the rules: sleep during the day. Come out at night. You can't see your reflection in a mirror. You're allergic to garlic. And, you're undead death will come from a stake to the heart, unless you're trapped in the sunlight first. But, how did we get here?

Vampire myths disappear and reappear having existed for ages, much like their main proponent Dracula. Since ancient Persia, there have been characters throughout time that drank the blood of men (and babies) and often were members of the undead. They would evolve to be called Witches, Demons, and Vampires. Over the ages vampires became the "mythic reasoning" behind such events as the bubonic plague.

Vampires would soon have an identity in three crucial tyrants, the first of which was Gilles de Rais. Gilles was a Frenchman who searched for "the Philosopher's Stone," and had help from the blood of 200-300 children to do his experiments. Around the same time Vlad Tepes Dracula, Prince of Wallacia, came into power. When you have a name of Tepes ("Impaler") and Dracula (devil or dragon, it was his dad's name) ya gotta live up to expectations; he liberated the land from Ottoman invaders and then ordered thousands impaled for his pleasure.

The last of the three arrived in 1611 as Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Bathory's husband was always at war, so her spare time was spent dabbling in black magic and the thought that the blood of the innocent (young girls) would keep her young and youthful. She was found out and her life spared, but was thrown in the tower.

The vampire mythos came back in the 1800's through poetry, novels, and stage productions. "Vampyre" by John Polidori (1819) was the first vampire story written in English. Supposedly this came about the same night Mary Shelley concocted "Frankenstein."