Where did Vampires come from?

I found this on a site called HellHorror. It's definitely worth a read and the site's certainly worth checking out.

Original Source

Cain

The theory of Cain is a possibility and this is why. Cain is claimed to be the first born son of Adam and Eve. Cain killed his brother Able in a jealous rage and was thus banished and given a mark.



According to vampire legend, Cain wondered until he found Lilith (Adams supposed first wife) by the Red Sea. Lilith showed him the power of blood which may be considered to be the tree of life. It is said that this is why the Jewish drain all blood from their meat before cooking and eating it. From this union between Cain and Lilith came forth a host of demons and vampires in myths across the globe. Cain is said to have had legitimate children with an unnamed woman. Some of his children are regarded for inventing the harp and metal working. However, Cain’s children are almost erased from further mention in the Bible past Genesis 4:26. Cain is referred to only twice more after in the New Testament as the prototype of wicked man. Cain is then what seems to be stricken from the good book. Lilith appears only in Jewish apocrypha texts, not mentioned in the Bible or the Torah. Cain and Lilith’s spawn may be read in the epic poem Beowulf.



Cain is said to be a sinner but in the Bible Cain is said to build the city of Enoch and his descendents become great inventors. For some reason the Author of Beowulf speaks horribly about Cain while the Bible speaks of him as a great sinner and then just doesn’t speak of him anymore. It is also said that Grendel’s ancestors were driven out of Eden and Cain and Lilith were the only two driven out by God. “The Almighty drove those demons out.” The only other mention of sin in Eden is when Lilith is mentioned. Lilith said the holy name of God and was thence forth banished from Eden forever. In Jewish mythology she is said to be the mother of demons. This is one theory to the origin of vampires.

Judas Iscariot

Some theories claim that the original vampire might be Judas Iscariot who is the betrayer of Jesus Christ. Because Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he and his family were cursed for this evil deed. The Bible states that Judas committed suicide because of his guilt. Vampire folklore claims that those who commit suicide are doomed to come back as vampires. Judas is told to have had red hair and this was the identifying trait of his descendents. The Greeks are told to have thought that all who had red hair were vampires. It is also said that vampires may detest silver for this reason also. Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Judas tried to return the silver but couldn’t so he threw it away in disgust.



Lilith

According to Jewish texts, Lilith was the first woman created for Adam.



Many have made her a model for feminists because when Adam demanded her to be on the bottom while they, umm sleep, she refused. After Adam persisted, she became very angry and screamed the holy name of God and then disappeared to be cast out of Eden. God then made Eve for Adam from his rib bone instead of making her like Lilith from wholly dust. By doing this Eve would be attached to Adam. Lilith went to the Red Sea. There she made a deal with the Angels that were sent to retrieve her that she would stay where she was and become the mother to all demons. She is said to be allowed to kill infants up to 7 days after birth unless they had a charm with the names of the angels over the child’s sleeping place. This is also said to be the religious reason for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS. The reason she kills the infants is in retaliation for the thousands of her offspring that were killed in the war of good versus evil.

Vlad the Impaler

Vlad Tepes or also known as Vlad the Impaler is a legendary story. The country where Dracula resided in derived its name from the geographic position beyond the Carpathian Mountains, which are full of dense forestation. Early travelers to the region described the country as "trans-silva" which literally means "over-forest" in Latin. The region's close proximity to the Black Sea means that it is very vulnerable to invasion from the Ottoman Turks' to the southeast and the Tatar's Golden Horde on the northeast. If the infidels gained control of the region, they could have free access to central Europe; making it a region of great political significance. Vlad Tepes was born in either November or December of the year 1431 in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. Vlad Dracul, father to Vlad Tepes, was the military governor of Transylvania. Appointed by the emperor Sigismund who had been initiated into the Order of the Dragon roughly a year before. The Order of the Dragon, a semi-military and religious society, was created by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife Barbara Cilli in 1387. These knights had one main goal and that was to protect the interests of Catholicism and to crusade against the Turks. This is important to Dracula’s history because Vlad Dracul received the name “Dracul” means “Dragon or Devil” in the Romanian Language. “Dracula” means “son of the Dragon or the Devil.” The Order of the Dragon also had official attire consisting of a black cape over a red garment which is said to be worn only on Fridays or during the commemoration of Christ’s Passion.

Between 1436 and 1437 Dracul became the prince of Wallachia which was one of the three Romanion provinces. Count Dracula resided in the palace of Tirgoviste. Vlad Tepes lived for six years at this location until he and his younger brother Radu were taken hostages by Sultan Murad II. Dracula stayed here in Turkey until 1448 while Radu stayed until 1462. The Turks set Dracula free after Dracul, Vlad Dracul, was assassinated in 1447. The assassination was organized by Vladislav II. Mircea, Dracul’s eldest son and older brother to Dracula had also been tortured to death by the boyars of Tirgoviste. Mircea was buried alive after being blinded by red-hot irons.It is said that it is during this time that Dracula started to feel little remorse for the loss of life by torture or any other means of death and studied the Turks art of torture. It was also written that it was much better for a prince to be feared than to be loved.

At the not so tender age of 17, Mustafa Hassan lent a small armey of Turkish cavalry and troops to Dracula which he then used to seize the throne of Wallachia. However, Vladislav II reclaimed the throne from Dracula two months after. Dracula, barely 25 at this time, finally claimed victory over his father’s assassin and his mortal enemy in July of 1456. Dracula had his longest reign of terror at this time, 6 years, in which he molded his terrible and cruel reputation. He assumed the throne under the passing of an ominous comet which marked a bad future for his reign.

Dracula set his rage on the boyars who were responsible for his father and brothers’ deaths. On Easter Sunday of what is said to be 1459, Dracula commanded a great feast where he impaled all of the older members of the boyar families and forced the survivors to march with no rest to Poenari which was 50 miles long. Those who survived this test were then forced to build a fortress later referred to as Castle Dracula.

Dracula used some of the most grotesque torture techniques known. He often had people skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed plus many others. He also liked to dismember people by cutting off noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. His favorite method of torture was impalement. “Tepes” actually means “The Impaler” in the Romanian language. He used any crime such as lying, stealing and killing as excuses to impale someone. To prove his methods would create a better society, Dracula placed a golden cup in his town square which would be used to quench the thirst of travelers but may never be stolen. The cup remained here always refilled but never stolen in all of Dracula’s reign. Dracula considered the poor and sick as bad as thieves/killers. It is said that Dracula invited all of the people that fit this unfortunate category to a great feast. Shortly after the great feast was over, Dracula ordered the entire hall to be boarded up and set on fire immediately. No one survived.

In the early months of 1462 Vlad led a quite risky campaign against the Turks, led by Sultan Mehmed II whose forces out numbered Vlad’s troops tremendously. Vlad managed by impossible odds to secure many victories by the winter of 1462. Outraged by this, the Sultan decided to send out all of his troops, an army approximately three times the size of Dracula’s, to finally gain control of Walachia and claim it as a Turkish province. Vlad by this time had no alliances so he simply retreated to Tirgoviste. However this was not before he burned his own villages and poisoned the wells in hopes of starving his enemy and maybe even poisoning some with the wells’ water. When Sultan Mehmed II finally reached Dracula’s stronghold, he found that the 20,000 Turkish troops that Dracula had captured were now impaled on stakes, which was later given the name “The Forest of the Impaled.” This horrific feat was the turning point of this battle. The Sultan and his army then proclaimed defeat and dropped the battle. This is when Dracula’s own brother Radu took upon him a Turkish army which he then allied himself with Dracula’s rivals and pursued Vlad Tepes to Poenari Castle along the Arges River.

In legend, this is when it is said that Dracula’s wife committed suicide by throwing herself into the river. Vlad used a secret passage located in the fortress which deposited him into the mountain region in order to escape and exact his revenge at a later time.

Helped by some peasants, Vlad fled to Transylvania to meet the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus. To Dracula’s amazement and horrible shock, he was imprisoned by the new king. Dracula escaped sometime in 1475 and gained control of Walachia for a third and final time.

Supposedly in December of 1476, Dracula was assassinated and his head was cut off and sent to the Sultan of Constantinople. However due to various other accounts of the precise time of Dracula’s death and the fact that his body was never found gave way to myths of his existence. I was told that he was buried at Snagov. During Dracula’s reign, he is said to have impaled between 40,000 to 100,000 victims. He is also still revered as a hero in Romania today mainly for his resistance to the Turks.