The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

In a bad mood again! the god Zeus decided to pay a surprise visit to some human royalty in 1200-800 BCE. Unfortunately King Lycaon, of Arcadia, was in no mood to host an angry god so he made a plan to kill Zeus in his sleep.

That’s where the story gets muddy. The only agreed facts that follow are:

a) Somebody died, possibly a child, who definitely wasn’t Zeus and possibly got cooked into a human stew.

b) Zeus didn’t like his supper that night and got really mad.

So Zeus turned the King and his 50 sons all into wolves and then hunted them down with lightening bolts for sport, one by one.

It’s unclear exactly how many of the 50 Lycaon sons died before Zeus grew bored of the hunt, but the youngest son, named Oenotrus was taken in by Ge, the Earth Goddess. Ge was unable to completely reverse the Lycaon curse but she was able to cure him for 25 days of every month, during which Oenotrus could travel in human form.

Oenotrus left Greece for Italy and had many children who also inherited his lycanthropy.

Around 3100 BCE, a pack of wolves helped Osiris defend a city in Upper Egypt against an invading army. It was a bloody battle and many of the wolves died but the invaders were successfully defeated.

In honor of these brave wolves and their sacrifice, Osiris re-named this city “Lycopolis” or Wolf City and ordered the bodies of the fallen wolves to be mummified beneath the city for resurrection in the underworld.

For the heroic wolves who fought so valiantly and lived, Osiris went one step further, granting them human form in addition to their wolf form – the very first lycanthropes.

Legend has it now that every full moon, the descendants of these first Lycopolitan Lycanthropes can call on their underworld ancestors to rejoin them on earth and the pack will run together again as long as the moon is full, the living and the undead shadow werewolves of Osiris.

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JohnKnox666
15:35 Aug 18 2021

Cool ;).

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These enormous, fire-breathing serpents have scaly green bodies and huge red wings. Greedy creatures, they hoard gold treasure in dens under the earth. Fierce and always hungry, a Western dragon will eat anything but especially likes weak, young, human flesh. Dragons live in caves, mountains, or lakes. They were particularly active in the Middle Ages, when brave knights challenged them to battle.

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ThunderMoon
23:52 Aug 05 2021

Good read

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blood disorder called porphyria, which has has been with us for millennia, became prevalent among the nobility and royalty of Eastern Europe. Porphyria is an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to produce less heme — a critical component of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body tissues. It seems likely that this disorder is the origin of the vampire myth. In fact, porphyria is sometimes referred to as the “vampyre disease.”

Consider the symptoms of patients with porphyria:

Sensitivity to sunlight: Extreme sensitivity to sunlight, leading to facial disfigurement, blackened skin and hair growth.

Fangs: In addition to facial disfigurement, repeated attacks of the disease causes the gums to recede, exposing the teeth, which then look like fangs.

Blood drinking: Because the urine of persons with porphyria is dark red, folklore surmised that they were drinking blood. In fact, some physicians had recommended that these patients drink blood to compensate for the defect in their red blood cells — but this recommendation was for animal blood. It is more likely that these patients, who only went out after dark, were judged to be looking for blood, and their fangs led to folk tales about vampires.

Aversion to garlic: The sulfur content of garlic could lead to an attack of porphyria, leading to very acute pain. Thus, the aversion to garlic.

Reflections not seen in mirrors: In the mythology, a vampire is not able to look in a mirror, or cannot see its reflection. The facial disfigurement caused by porphyria becomes worse with time. Poor oxygenation leads to destruction of facial tissues, and collapse of the facial structure. Patients understandably avoided mirrors.

Fear of the crucifix: During the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), 600 “vampires” were reportedly burned at the stake. Some of these accused vampires were innocent sufferers of porphyria. Porphyria patients had good reason to fear the Christian faith and Christian symbols.

Outline of Nosferatu in black against white
Elements of vampire folklore correspond to symptoms of porphyria. (Pixabay)
Acute attacks of the disease are associated with considerable pain, and both mental and physical disturbance. This condition has been ascribed to the English King George III, although subsequent analysis has shed some doubt on porphyria as the cause of his “madness.”

Porphyria
Nowadays, with our scientific knowledge of porphyria, instead of fearing these folks, we can love and care for them. Porphyria remains incurable, and treatment is mainly supportive: pain control, fluids and avoidance of drugs and chemicals that provoke acute attacks. Some success has been achieved with stem cell transplants.

Could Stoker have known of the existence of porphyria, and/or its link to vampire folklore? It was only in 1911, eight years before Stoker’s book appeared, that the diseases of porphyria (there are several types) were classified by H. Gunther. However, physician, researcher and author George Harley had described a patient with porphyria a few years earlier.

Through his gothic novel, Stoker surely wins the prize for the best example of myth entangled with medicine!

Bau was a healing and protection goddess who lived around 2,500 BCE. She was said to be the daughter of the sky god An and the god of the south wind, named Ninurta. Her temples contained an area known as “The Kennel” where sick and injured people were brought for healing. Murals in these temples show how Bau healed a sick person: by transforming them into either a dog or a wolf.

Wolf-shaped protection statues devoted to Bau bear the motto, “Don’t stop to think, bite!”

And thats just what she did. Bite. If a Sumerian patient could not be healed any other way, Bau or one of her devotees, might transform into a wolf and do just that: bite. Then she would send the patient home with one of her statues and a foggy memory of the event. The healed person would find the statue and hide it in the walls of their house, not knowing for sure what it meant. Until the next full moon it all became clear – Bau had saved his life by turning him into a werewolf.

Bau herself went on to have seven daughters named after the days of the week and also two sons. They all inherited her lycanthropy gene. Werewolves descended from Bau still find healing and protection from her figurines and talismans.

When Dragon Werewolves return to human form, they do it in a ball of fire. Understandably, this can be tricky.

Have you ever asked yourself how dos a Dragon Wolf spit fire at its enemies in battle?

Well I am going to answer just that question. Certain rocks and plants that have the right chemical concentration its chewed in the mouth of the Dragon wolf and the resulting chemical reaction ingnites they then spit this at the enemy.

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ThunderMoon
17:36 Aug 02 2021

Interesting

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