How do you take yours?
Sparkly, depressed about immortality? Doesn’t like drinking from humans? Or mad with the power, relishing taking evil doers? I’m thinking Edward, Louis verses David from the Lost Boys.
I get a bit shocked when writers in the genre haven’t read Dracula. Writers, surely, it’s a rite of passage. I first read it 20 years ago and as I read in bed, every night I was plagued with nightmares. It is a sinister, creepy book which delivers a powerful punch of horror in a most unexpected way. Reading it last year, the dreams were vivid and unsettling and I’d thought I would’ve been better off not read it before sleeping! But if vampires are your thing, then Dracula’s a must.
Along with Frankenstein, which I haven’t read for 20 years. Amazing books, the Penny Dreadfuls in their day now classics.
So the vampire predates everything, it was first recorded in the original Rig Vedas- the ancient Sanskrit’s of India thousands of years ago and was described as more of an evil spirit. Like most supernatural creatures, lycanthropy for example goes back to ancient Greece, there is a long history documented.
Henbane a common herb was used in the medieval times, a drug that was said to induce the feeling of lycanthropy and or flying. Witches on broomstick anyone? They, like us now enjoyed a bit of mental freedom but didn’t have the wines the Roman’s had!
In book 1, Children of Dionysus, Anthony is attacked by vagrant type vampires and my inspiration for this was the Nosferatu- the eastern European vampires. Strange, almost ghoul like figures not wholly vampire as they could often turn to cannibalism, the Eastern Vampire is a far cry from Lestat and Edward of today. And vampirism is alive and well in Eastern Europe, the belief of anyway.
Ancient vampires, lesser vampires, the array of the supernatural is as diverse as any species.
With my main character I wanted to throw him into this bloody existence and see what he does. Would he wake up all shiny and happy that he looks fine and he can eat his friends? I think not.
For me, the vampire will always be a deadly creature, dangerous but alluring. A bit evil, a lot evil. Sure he’ll wine and dine you on the finest food and drink, just as a farmer does with his animals.
It’s interesting that depending on the place vampires differ, scary and creepy in the east, romantic and wild in the west! Maybe I just wanted to mix that up a little too. Not all vampires are created equal.
But enough ramblings for today.
A Vampires Prayer.
Darkening Sky
Feel my heart beating
Wrap me in your velvet cloak of shadows
Embrace me with your seductive allure
Let me hunt with accuracy
In night’s familiar arms.
Touch my face of death
Such perverse beauty of the damned
My flesh of silver pallor
My presence of dominion
As I drink your life away
Dark fear embracing your souls
Lost, now forgotten.
JN Moon.
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