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A vampire's actions and characteristics are very much like those of a living person. A vampire is "born," he feeds, procreates and "dies." Once there is a reason for vampires to be, they appear. But vampires do not simply crop up like weeds, then disappear when there is no longer a threat. The vampire has a highly structured set of guidelines that they must follow. While these rules governing a vampire's characteristics are open to interpretation, many of them can be seen as a direct correlation between vampires and a perversity of man or nature.

Birth

When the need arises, a vampire is "born." As discussed before, vampires usually appear simultaneously with a plague, drought fierce storms, famines, or livestock illness.37 Their "birth" is an ordered one. Vampires do not appear out of nowhere, but come out of their graves. Death is a reversal of the birth act leading to a return to the pre-natal existence within the maternal womb.38 The maternal womb, in this case, is the earth itself, considered the mother of all and life giver. This both allows the dead body to come back to life, to be "born" again, and ties it to nature. The first act of a newly "born" vampire was to return to his family, and almost always proceed to attack them. "The Slavic vampire's hostility was directed almost entirely at his next of kin."39 There are many possible reasons behind this act. The vampire may have cause to see revenge against his family. It was much feared that a member of one's house would become a vampire. In spite of this, the Greek habit of cursing the dead seems to almost invite this.40 Trouble between family members and the vampire would, in all likelihood, cause the vampire to come back to attack those who had wounded him. It also must not be forgotten that a vampire's kin are his "blood" relatives; the vampire may be attracted to his family for this very reason. If the vampire's blood (life) is deficient, then he might wish to take blood (life) from those who have blood that is the same as his. The vampire is also a mockery of human life- he seems to be alive, but he isn't; he "lives" a life opposite that of a living person. By the vampire being a creature of opposites, it would seem logical that he should kill his family rather than love them. And last, the vampire followed a very logical pattern; the vampire, carrier of- and symbolic of- the plague, killed his family first simply because they had been closest to the diseased deceased. Anyone who has had a cold can witness how it is spread among family members, then travels out to friends and colleagues. As was shown before, medieval people understood that disease was communicable. It is reasonable that they should accuse the vampire of attacking its family simply because the death of whole families was witnessed and needed explaining.

Feeding

Vampires commonly had three options available to them for a meal: food, blood or milk. Food was most usually procured directly from family members, usually in the form of offerings, which might include the funerary feast. [The wife of a clergyman] had been in the habit of visiting the grave [of her late husband].... There she spent many hours. At every visit she brought provisions- chickens, pigeonpies [sic], fruit, bread, wine and various other dainties- which she left behind on the grave.41 The act of sacrificing to the dead was continued with vampires. In the case of vampires, the meal was done less out of devotion and more in the hopes that the vampire would occupy himself with food, rather than living people.42 ...Millet must be scattered over the vampire's body, as the vampire delays his exit from the tomb until each grain of millet has been eaten or counted.43 Although food was sometimes left at the grave or buried with a corpse, this was not a great deterrent of vampire attacks, nor did it seem to be the vampire's meal of choice. Perhaps the single most notorious characteristic of the vampire is his penchant for drinking blood. As was mentioned in chapter one, "...all the dead in the Indo-European and Semitic world are considered thirsty, not just vampires."44 One reason behind this is through the logical observation that the elderly and the dead wrinkle and appear to dry out like fruit. Therefore, the dead would be thirsty, as plants withered from drought are thirsty. A less apparent answer is that liquids are life. The dead's craving for liquids is not merely to regain the appearance of youth, but to give them life again. While some dead were content with any liquid offered, vampires almost always choose blood.

Some believed that the soul lived within the blood; others, more simply, that it was source of life.45 Again, the reasoning is clear: blood is a person's life, therefore life should be (or could be) gained by taking blood. The blood of the living was so vital to survival that vampires would never attack a body already dead. It also bears mentioning that the vampire's blood-drinking habits are not only a perversity of human morality, but also of Christianity. At Communion, the priest recites the following before giving wine- symbolic of blood- to the congregation: The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee and be thankful.46 In drinking blood, the vampire took communion. But rather than drinking Christ's immortal blood, the vampire drinks the blood of the mortal. Rather enjoying his eternal life in the hereafter, he spends it on earth. To point back to the grave as a form of "birth," one curious characteristic of the vampire should be noted- The vampire may choose to drink milk rather than blood. "Blood and milk are inextricably linked as both are donors of the life-stuff,"47 so it may be for this reason that vampires can just as easily live off milk as blood. Also, drinking milk seems logical for a vampire who was just "born." In the case of blood drinking, the vampire's sucking points to this infantile practice- it is important to note that the vampire sucks rather than laps up blood.

Procreation

Second only to his appetite for blood is the vampire's desire for sex. Sometimes feeding and sex appear linked, as the vampire causes his partner to waste away while he presumably grows stronger. The vampire of folklore is a sexual creature, and his sexuality is obsessive- indeed, in Yugoslavia, when he is not sucking blood, he is apt to wear out his widow with his intentions, so that she too pines away, much like his other victims.48 In this one case alone there is both the vampire's tendency to attack his family, and his ravenous hunger, here expressed through his sex drive. Interestingly enough, however, here the vampire has a second, opposite reaction. The vampire is just as likely to return to his widow or lover to pursue relations, with her consent, that are not harmful. In fact, these trysts can go on so long that the woman can conceive and bear a child by the vampire. ...Gypsies believe that a vampire can come to his wife at night and procreate a "child...." In Kosovo-Methoija the Orthodox Gypsies call such a child, supposed to be born of a Gypsy mother and vampire father through their intercourse after the husband's death, "Vampirić."49 The vampire can even appear to be a loving and doting mate, contrary to his otherwise ruthless nature.

There is also a belief that the vampire helps his wife in her housework, winds the thread while she is weaving, threads the cotton through the eye of a needle as she sews, talks with her, and eats the sweets she has prepared for him. There are some vampires who, where they come into their relatives' homes, bring with them little wax candles nearly burned out. Such a one brings washing-soap and leaves it in the cupboard where the flour is kept, knocks on the chimney and tidies up things. The vampire does no harm to its relations.50 Rather than his usual style of living his life in reverse of a living man's, here the vampire seems very normal, very alive. Indeed, why would any family member expose this loving husband. It may have been believed that the vampire, in this way, could pass himself off as human to avoid detection and prolong his own "life." This undercover life could then allow him easy access to normal devilry that he likes to accomplish. Thirty years since a stranger arrived in this village, established himself, and married a wife with whom he lived on very good terms, she making but one complaint, that her husband absented himself from the conjugal roof [sic] every night and all night.51 Here the vampire passes himself off as a man, but cannot escape his vampire nature, and so he leaves his wife at night to do, presumably, harm to either livestock or man. The only thing that might possibly account for this unusual behavior, both by the living and the dead, is ancestor worship. Spirits of the dead who were given their due reverence were often seen as benign. On such holidays as All Souls' Day, food was prepared for the dead and chairs were set out for them, and they were generally welcomed into the house.52 The vampire may have been viewed as other (unanimated) dead were, and given a proper welcome and treated like he was still part of the family.