RE: How do we define vampires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric creatures, described as undead beings who feed by draining the blood of humans. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire folklore into Western Europe from the Balkans and Eastern Europe.[1] Folkloric vampires were depicted as revenants who visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's fanged vampire.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.[2] However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century with books, films such as the 1931 Dracula, and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Much of folkloric belief has its origins in the process of decomposition of bodies after death, and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to explain this, as well as psychological theories on love and guilt. Porphyria was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and has received much media exposure since, but has been largely discredited.
Cain and Lilith
Enter Lilith: This myth begins at the very creation of man. Lilith, according to Hebrew/ Jewish texts, was the first woman created for Adam.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 1:27-28
Many have made her a model for feminism, because when Adam demanded that she always be on the bottom for... um... sleeping purposes, she grew angry. "Why must I always be on the bottom? I was made of the same stuff as you. I should be on the top equally." When Adam would not relent in his domination of her, she grew so angry that she uttered the holy name of God and vanished. God then had to make Eve for Adam, making her of his rib bone, rather than wholly dust, so that she would be attached to him and not leave as Lilith had done.
Lilith went out to the Red Sea, where she made a bargain with the angels who had been sent to fetch her back to Adam. She was allowed to stay out on her own, as a witch, mother of all demons. She was allowed to kill infants up until their naming day (I believe 7 days for girls and 8 days for boys), unless they had a charm over their sleeping place with the names of the angels on them. Then, she promised, she would not kill them. (This story is usually explained as being an explanation for SIDS-- sudden infant death syndrome.) Lilith killed human children in retaliation for the thousands of her own demon children who were killed in the wars between good and evil.
Enter Cain: Cain was the firstborn son of Adam and Eve. He was banished, with a mark, from the land of his parents because he killed his brother in a jealous rage.
10 What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crith unto me from the ground.
11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold. And the LORD set a mark on Cain, lest any finding him shall kill him."
Genesis 4:10-15
According to vampire legend, Cain wandered until he found Lilith by the Red Sea. She took him in and showed him the power of blood. (My religion teacher put it that the tree of life is represented in blood. Thus why Jewish persons staunchly drain all blood away from their meat before cooking and eating it. And thus why drinking blood/ being a vampire is such a big deal in a religious context.)
From Cain and Lilith came a host of demons and vampires in the vague myths. Cain is mentioned in the Bible as having a number of legitimate children, with an unnamed woman/ wife. Some of his children are even highly regarded, as they are listed with their inventions, such as the harp and metal working. But, past Gen. 4:26 there is no more mention of Cain's children or his line. Cain himself is referred to only twice more, in the New Testament, as "the prototype of the wicked man."
From what there is presented in the Bible, there is little to go on with the myth of Cain and Lilith. Lilith herself appears only in Jewish apocrypha texts-- she is in neither the Torah or the Bible. But what is interesting is Cain-- and it might be inferred Lilith too-- appears in the epic poem Beowulf, and with much more mention than he ever receives in the Bible.
...Till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend,
Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild
Marshes, and made his home in a hell
Not hell but earth. He was spawned in that slime,
Conceived by a pair of those monsters born
Of Cain, murderous creatures banished
By God, punished forever for the crime
Of Abel's death. The Almighty drove
Those demons out, and their exile was bitter,
Shut away from men; they split
Into a thousand forms of evil-- spirits
And fiends, goblins, monsters, giants,
A brood forever opposing the Lord's
Will, and again and again defeated.
(Ll. 101-114)
...Cain had killed his only
Brother, slain his father's son
With an angry sword, God drove him off,
Outlawed him to the dry and barren desert,
And branded him with a murder's mark. And he bore
A race of fiends accursed like their father...
(Ll. 1261-1266)
How intriguing is that? Where does the author's venom for Cain come from? Yes, he's a sinner, but in the Bible it seems that he goes off and does the best he can, building the city of Enoch, and having a lineage of creative descendants. In the other references to him, he is used as an example of a sinner, but without malice. But the author(s) of Beowulf seems to heap undue vileness onto Cain. There is simply no place in the Bible that speaks of Cain in such a hate-filled regard.
What's even more interesting is that Grendel's forefathers are referred to as a pair. "The Almighty drove/ Those demons out" when there is clearly no mention of God driving anyone out of Eden but Cain. The only other time we see sin in (around) Eden is when we look at the legends of Lilith. It was she who said the holy name of God and vanished out from Eden. And Lilith, in the Jewish tradition, has always been seen as the mother of demons. So for there to have been demons, Lilith must have conceived them (Cain's wife was busy having good children). I think the original author of Beowulf must have known of this Lilith legend (it certainly isn't obscure) and implied this in his writing, because the audience otherwise knows that there was no one expelled but Cain, and that, in the Bible, he stays a legitimate person, not a bearer of monsters.
To further drive home the point that the author knew what he was talking about, Beowulf was first written down and preserved by monks-- who were the only literate people in their time. The tale originated somewhere in the 600's in England, and was thought to have been written down at a later time (it was a bard's tale before that, made to be sung). As monks have a notorious reputation for adding God and His works into things as they write, we would certainly expect to find more references to Christianity than would have probably been present in the newly-Christian world that the poem was composed in. So it can only be concluded that the author knew what he was talking about and wrote down something that had meaning to his audience at the time, but which has been lost to us since. At the time of the composing of the poem, and during the later years when it was written down, the Bible of choice was the Vulgate, of Jerome's Latin Bible. I have attempted to look through the Latin text of this Bible, and have searched for Cain references, but it appears to have no more to say about Cain than does the later (and most popular) version, the King James Version (which most all of us know). The origin of the Cain = monstrous evil myth is well obscured and lost, which allows us to speculate even more as to where monsters-- in particular, vampires-- came from.
|
Linear Mode
