The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

There hasn't been a topic on something like this in ages.

The following list was taken from a book called 'The Vampire Encyclopedia'.

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Also even though it SHOULD be obvious, any posts not related to the topic will end up being deleted, so please try to keep clear of posting such ones. =]

The same thing has been said of Dracula, that he was cursed.

That would be awesome if you could become a vamp just be having sex, like a STD of sort...

hm or how about alien blood being mixed with humans that gives them certain abilities, even vampiric? so when the blood is shared with another, they too can become vampire?

I think you covered it admirably. Are you just meaning humans that turned into vampires? There is gypsy folklore where various melons and some non organic things could turn into vampires. The melons if they were over ripe and various things like that. People who were executed because they were buried in unconsecrated ground in Europe. That's where a lot of the staking stories come from. They did this in Ireland as well.

Count Dracula was cursed but not the other one. Just the fictional character and that isn't folklore. There are a lot of stories where the werewolf and vampire interconnected. You mentioned it but it was if one killed a werewolf they came back as a vampire. Certain other beings were vampiric fairies but I have never run across the why of that, just that they were and what they tended to do and they are usually female, except in rare cases and that generally went back to suicide or a curse as you have already mentioned.

heard of this actually own the book, folktales of their existance have had common posts in all books with little or no change in them. thanks for the post. but I think the seventh son was a folk tale of werewolf lore, must recheck this tho.

Sex would at least be a nice way to become a vampire at least..

Well if those things listed were true, then there would be a whole load of vampires, wouldn't there? A huge percentage of people would be vampires if any number of those things were the case. It also means that I myself will become one after death since I've never been baptised and never will be. So pish to that!

I personally don't believe there would be a LOT of vampires. If we were to look at our history, anyone who was defined as such were probably hunted and their corpses stabbed and whatnot. If we were to believe that vampires are not undead corpses but yet considered undead, and were more as a human carrying a certain type of blood that prolonged their lifespans, or curse as some may call it, then i would assume they would be very particular in whom they shared the gift with. Some may even be under certain rule so that the world is not overran by vampires. If we are "the cattle", then wouldn't they be more careful in how feeding is arranged? There are many definitions of what a vampire is to people here and around the globe. It is very difficult to say what ways there are how to become a vampire, for it looks to be, as if there are many ways.

Hrm...I've heard of the book, but I never got a chance to read it, and now I think I shall try to find it again. I've also heard that being bitten by a vampire will turn you into one. However, I do not believe it. It's moot to try and believe that vampire's fangs are poisonous, and that that poison can completely transform a person rather than kill it. I've also heard that if you drank the blood of a vampire it would change you. *shrug* Who knows. I don't really believe the vampires of folk tales are real.

Very interesting thread I haven't heard of the book or any of these yet I do know a few people whom have a 3rd nipple LOL and they are blood thirsty people and very into the Vampiric lifestyle and scene. Yet I am going to look for the Book and read it ... very interesting stuff here. Thanks...

The one requirement to becoming a vampire that is common to all of these beliefs yet has not been mentioned is that regardless the folkore concerned, they all require that to become a vampire, you must first be ... dead.

Kinda dispels rather quickly those here claiming to actually be fang-wielding, blood-drinking, daylight-hating, crucifix-fearing "vampires."

I've heard of some of these....born the seventh son of a seventh son, a ray of moonlight falling on the open casket, an animal jumping over the casket, being born with excess hair....but the rest are completely new to me.

The ones in predisposition I have heard of before were the top three. Being born with excess hair was always a bad sign in folklore.

For the actions leading in life, I have heard of the suicide one, witchcraft, and living an immoral life (murderers were commonly believed to come back as vampires or ghouls)

As for the causes of death or death itself, I have only heard of the death caused by a vampire, improper burial rites (this usually went with being a murderer who was executed) and occasionally about being the victim of a murder.

The only one not on the list is making a deal with dark forces but that could just be lumped in with sorcery or witchcraft.

THANK YOU UpirLikhyj! That's what I'm constantly telling people. You have to be dead to be a vampire, and it's as I say in my profile; "I hardly think that an animate corpse is going to log onto the internet and talk about how they are a vampire".
So pish again to all the "I'm a true vampire" prattle!

Good thing this isn't about whether vampires are real or not. ;]

Good thing indeed :p but it is about how to become one, and to do so you have to die first :)

the only way I know of to be come a vampire is to be turned by another I did not know that there could be other ways of turning into one very interesting

i have actually heard of a lot of those, surprisingly enough.
I had no idea there was a book on the myths of it though. very interesting, i just might have to look into getting a book like that. hhmmm i practice witchcraft, wonder if i will turn into one. lol

I'm very happy that this isn't about whether or not vampires are real. But like a couple people have said...you'd have to be dead...and similarly to them...I doubt that some reanimated Frankenstein's monster without the doctor type being will hop online and be like..."HEY! I SUCK BLOOD FOR REAL AND HAVE THE DEATH CERTIFICATE TO PROVE IT! SEE?" Yeah...no!

Being buried at a crossroads, and/or without proper burial rites being performed...

Hm you must be dead....ok so what if you WERE a vampire in a past life, and died, become reborn.....wouldn't you still carry the vampiric soul into your living body? Then if that's the case, not all vampires are dead. They would be eternal through rebirth.

From what i know its not likely that maney of those ways are even probable. As for the other methods its quite possible it could happen and i dunno of maney methods besides the bite of a vampire that can make u turn into a vampire let alone if its really true that any method can work or not.

Interesting article. I knew about being bit by another vampire and being born on a certain day but didnt know about the third nipple or the other things talked about here.

I don't think Distortion is saying that these were ways that people became vampires or how vampires were created. I think he is merely pointing out (pre)Conditions, Scenarios and Superstitions that many (in the days of lore) believed marked those who were destined to or "could" possibly become Vampires.

Perhaps many of these ideas were initiated from a religious perspective to instill fear. If you think about it, these "conditions" are somewhat similar to the "checklists" (i.e. Malleus Maleficarum) used during the Inquisition and Salem Witch trials to detect, condemn and punish those suspected of practicing witchcraft.

I think this paragraph sums it up:

"The "creation" of a vampire, also differs with culture and beliefs. A human might become a vampire if they: practiced Black Magic, were of absolute evil, committed suicide, were a victim of a horrendous and violent death, were buried without proper rites, died excommunicated from their religion, were bitten by a vampire and lived or were bitten by a vampire and died. These origins of vampires instilled fear in many; fear enough to produce loyalty to the church and abstinence from anything deemed evil. Theories from religious experts suggest that vampires and other creatures of death were creations meant to put fear into the hearts of the people and bring them to religion. The fact that vampires exist with similar traits across the seas and from the earliest of recorded history, suggest other theories to other experts."

Reference and further reading:

Vampire Lore

Don't forget hammering a nail in the head of ones shadow.( from the Book of Vampire, the complete guide to the world of the undead) thought this was humorous. all methods of folklore.

well as Upir... stated they (you) have to be dead, so death to be a Vampire...

You have to drink there blood. But what made them Vampires. Some say crues from Angels or god. If they are real.

Not covering all the mirrors in the house during a wake while the deseased is still in the house.

I haven't heard that this specifically can turn you into a vampire but it is said that if you do not cover the mirrors at a wake, the deceased person's spirit can be trapped in the mirrors. Also I have heard some myths that say this causes the person's spirit to be full of hate when trapped. So according to the way people believed back in the day, I imagine this could be a cause.

Now I've got to ask, has anyone ever heard of any of these before?

~Can't say I've head of all of 'em, but a lot of them certainly ring a bell.

Also, does anyone know any other ways [in folklore] in which people could be turned into a vampire?

~I don't know that much about folklore, simply what I hear and my own theories combined.
Always keeping up is had work but well worth it as new things and theories are cropping up all the time.

What do you think about what people believed way back then?

~I think it was probably very reasonable back then.
After all, now that science and logic have prevailed over certain myths, their fascination is somewhat drained..

i have heard of all of this all if the father of the baby was a vampire, or the mother had relations with a vampire or is in love with a vampire... other than that only fokllore... i wish you could just kill urself or have sex and become a vampire ^^

What ever this folklore is, there are only 3 ways to "become" a vampyre.

Dhampyri Born is when you are born with the full knowledge of what you are, a vampyre....

Klavasi latent, which is when you hit puberty and start to realize that your body is changing and that you are become one of the blood.

Ardetha embraced, which is when you become vampyre through a ceremony performed by an experienced and knowledgable vampyre, also known as a sire.

Certain european countries believed that if you died as a werewolf you would come back to life as a vampire

In my country, the children who drink rain water from the marks of the animal feet can become vampires too.
There is a legend about two kids, brother and sister who drunk water from the mark of a deer.

Dragonrouge, in my country it is beleived that drinking water from the pawprint of a wolf, could turn you into a werewolf. As for the above, something clicks. I have a red birthmark. It appears that I was destined for this. I am lucky indeed.

I am sure we all heard the vampire bat biting you turns you into a vampire folklore right..

Vampires are not the undead. The first vampires were the offspring of humans and "Watchers" sent by God to watch humans. These offspring drank the blood of humans and were the first creation of vampires.

See Enoch CHAP. VII. [SECT. II. 2]

. 3 It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful.

2. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.

3. Then their leader Samyaza said to them; I fear that you may perhaps be indisposed to the performance of this enterprise;

4. And that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime.

5. But they answered him and said; We all swear;

6. And bind ourselves by mutual execrations, that we will not change our intention, but execute our projected undertaking.

7. Then they swore all together, and all bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is the top of mount Armon.

8. That mountain therefore was called 1 Armon, because they had sworn upon it, and bound themselves by mutual execrations.

9. These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader, Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Saraknyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertael, Turel, Yomyael, Arazyal. These were the prefects of the two hundred angels, and the remainder were all with them.

10. Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees.

11. 1 And the women 2 conceiving brought forth giants,

12. Whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labour of men produced; until it became impossible to feed them;

13. When they turned themselves against men, in order to devour them;

14. And began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood.

15. Then the earth reproved the unrighteous.

From the following link:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/bep/bep02.htm

Doru: as usual, these ancient passages are subject to interpretations. We have "elegant and beautiful" females. And the blood and flesh and giants are fanciful. The Olympians were similarly attracted to humans, and disguised themselves as bulls and swans to seduce humans. The Buddhists have their version:

After the floods receded, and the earth came back into being, there was upon the face of the earth a film more sweet-smelling than ambrosia.

Do you want to know what was the taste of that film? . . . The gods of the Central Heaven said, "Let us go and see what it looks like . . . now that there is earth again."

So the young gods of that Heaven came down into the world . . . they put their fingers into the earth and sucked them. Some put their fingers into the earth many times and ate a great deal of the film, and these at once lost all their majesty and brightness. Their bodies grew heavy and their substance became flesh and bone. They lost their magic . . . so they stayed an fed upon the film that covered the earth, and gazd at one another's beauty. . .these gods and goddesses fulfilled their desires and pleasure in one another.

The old gods chastised these fallen ones, and the gods on earth thought, "We must find some way to be together without being seen by others." and so on and so on.

Ekottara-agama, xxxiv,

But I found it in The World's Great Religions (Life) when I was around five.

Bloodmother:

Every story has an interpretation and we each follow our own path and lean towards our own agenda's. I would expect nothing otherwise, nonetheless, I regard the book of Enoch as a credible source as compared to other sources.

Undervampsgaze - I'm sure we all have. How exactly do you think that works, though?

Pierced -

How would having sex with a vampire cause someone to turn to one? I mean, it doesn't seem there would be any passing of a viral bacteria or blood swapping from the act, especially if protection was used, no?

I've heard of these many times in the neck of the woods I live in, highly populated by French ancestry that settled here in the 1700s bringing their legends with them :) I think it's really interesting and amazing that in some places, many of these folk tales are still being passed on.

Being born as the seventh child of the seventh child

I do believe ever way to be turned has been listed above... The opening post listing most of the ways right off the bat...

Omg you will not believe this one.. i heard if you kiss a vampire then you get turned to one..

Nowadays some of them if not all sound pretty ridiculous , but if we think about it , people didnt had access to the information we have nowadays , so i think its cool to know the explanations they used to come up with!

Looking over the post … with the way we live today I guess more and more will become vampires with suicides and none christened people to start with… I didn’t see witches up there I don’t think… we are apparently going to be undead vamps too ….
I do know of a spell

from the info ive been getting you have to be born
a vampire and its not possible to be turned by anopther vampire

Well there seems to be alot of ways to become a vampire .They seem far fetched and even silly .For I allways believed what XtCraver said earlier in the ways you become .

I believe that the only way one is a true vampire is that if they were born into the bloodline. genetics would determine their true self, and they would ultimely take on those characterisitcs if they were awakened.

I've heard of the curse, the suicide being causes... the third nipple I've always heard connected to identifying witches not vampires.

I really don't think that there is any set way to become a vampire. There's so many myths and folk lore about becoming one that I really don't think there's a right answer to how it's done.

Unfortunately folk law, myth n fictional vampire writers have been pored into a cauldron and then feed back in rather matter of fact way….. by misguided or those with a desire to misinform for there gain of power and control.
Understand what you think you know and what is real are two worlds.
Understand vampire like beings have been with us in our minds as a warning DNA.

In the stories Dracula was cursed because of his blood thirsty ways of killing his enemies. The only other way I ever read was being bitten by a vampire.

TheTimeImperfect -


If there is no right way [we're talking folklore, mind you] how do you think all those who are vampires [in folklore] came to be?

I can't imagine suicide as a means to become a vampire. Why would it only strike some but not others? Would it depend on how one committed suicide?

I think it would have to do with suicide being a sin in the Christian religion. Suseptable to eternal damnation lol.

Yeah but wouldn't that happen to all who commit suicide then? Or do you suppose there would be different punishments for different reasons?


I figure the only way to become a vampire is to be born a vampire or made one by the standard "suck my blood and morph" thing.

I'd think so.


Depending on the person and what they did in life would have an effect on what happened when they die.


Kind of like what happens to a soul.

I can't wrap my mind around eating a sheep killed by a wolf making you a vampire either.


Why? Wouldn't it be more likely that you'd ingest wolf DNA or something and go the werewolf route?

More than likely. But this is folklore we're talking about. People didn't know any better before scientific knowledge.

True enough..

I wonder how that came about. Maybe because methods of cooking weren't as safe as they are now? Perhaps someone contracted an illness from the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf and craved blood?

I think it may have been an outbreak of rabies or something to the like.

Ok...explain the idea of being born with a third nipple as a way to become a vampire.

I honestly couldn't. Apparently it's also the sign someone might be a witch or something.

Or inbred:P


I don't know about most of those. They seem like just simple things that cause disease that people just did not know about back when the idea was happened upon.

Seems like many of these "ways" are myths, and just gives more credence to the "fantasy" aspect of Vampirism.

I actually have that book and have found it to be very interesting, not only from a folklore stand point on how to become a vampire but also what in folklore entails the life of after becoming one.

I have heard of most of the folklore points presented but I did not notice where it stated that one can transend through that of another already there.

In Romanian tradition the ones who risked to became vampires(strigoi) after death were:
- the ones born from incest or from relative until the fourth grade
- the baby who sucked milk from the mother after he begun the normal feeding
- the baby born from assasins or witches
- the baby from a pregnant mother who drunk water
spoiled with the saliva of the devil
- the seventh son of the seventh son.

Source:
"Haquet`s neueste physicalisch-politische Reisen in den Jaren 1788 und 1789 durch die Dacischen und Sarmatischen oder nordlichen Karpathen", Nurnberg, 1790, pag 20

i think way bak then,people where more fearful and vampires where less known in ways that thy are known now so i think thats why so many myths came about.

Well according to a noted scholar from Romania there are no vampire legends that stem from that country since it has only existed since the late 1800s. She spoke to the Dracula society in 2000 about this.

There are numerous legends that came with the gypsies and they live all over the area including Romania. The Stregoi could be any type of spirit, ghost, zombie, etc...it doesn't directly mean vampire. Romanians borrow certain words from the Slavic to describe that directly.

I have a friend who is from Romania and has a degree in History. He also told me Stregoi Vii does not mean vampire specifically. He uses Vampir when he speaks of vampires which isn't really Romanian but its like Americans use the word Foyer and mispronounce it being a French word.

Quote from an article I wrote for Haunted Times:

Professor Sabina Ispas, director of the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in Bucharest. When she addressed the World Dracula Congress in May of 2000 in Transylvania she stated unequivocally, “there is no tradition of vampires here in Romania.” She went on to say, “Bram Stoker presented his fiction with a special identity of his own making. Until 10 years ago, we Romanians hadn't even heard of the Dublin writer or his character, Dracula. Dracula did not live in Romania; there are no vampires in our mythology and no vampiric castle.”

I have heard some of them. Some say that if you are born at a certain time you are one.

I think that people back then were just afraid. They didn't want a child that was "evil". The wanted a "holy" child.

I was reading your post and in the Predispositions I saw born with an extra nipple, I thought they called that a witches nipple? Maybe I was wrong I don't know.

Every culture has many beliefs on vampirism.. For everyone on this site, our oppions & beliefs will differ from culture to culture from being to being dark and light alike. As the saying goes.. "I go to my church and you go t yours" "grins"