As far back as one can remember, the most horrifying movies or books were regarding tall, slick looking people wearing long black overcoat, having an evil grin on their faces and luring their victims to isolated places. They would feed on the blood of their willing or unwilling victims, furthering their breed or causing death in most cases. But how much truth is there in these stories?

For centuries, these menacing creatures have captured our imaginations and scared even the strong-hearted. The question is whether vampires really exist or did they in the past? According to ancient texts, the most interesting piece of literature regarding such creatures is in Latin, translated as History of the Masticating Dead which was published in 1679. It gave instructions on how to bury the corpse of a creature who lived off the living.

However, these creatures were not depicted as tall, dark and handsome aristocratic vampires as portrayed in today’s fiction, but were supposed to be strange species who lived off eating people and depicted in ancient paintings and literature as ‘revenants’.

As vampires were considered to be living dead, they were believed to be evildoers in their lives and so could not ‘stay dead’; in order to make sure that they stayed in their graves, certain measures were taken to make them stay inside when buried. For instance, sometimes stakes were put on their feet, some put bricks or coins in their mouth, while there are stories of pouring holy water or even burning the corpse.

But what did take place was a mass hysteria in the 16th century when many people died due to rabies or the plague. People, at that time easily relied on superstitions and they blamed the deaths on any suspicious looking people living in the area and thus many people were killed on being thought of as vampires. What counted as suspicion to them was when women lived longer than the age of 40-45, people had strange scars or birth defects, etc. Such people were targeted and killed.

Furthermore, the method of killing a witch or a vampire was the same; both were considered as being in the same category. This resulted in many individuals being killed merely on suspicion.

The legend of Dracula stemmed from the story of Bram Stoker, who created the character in 1857 after a ruler known as Vlad the Impaler, who was a cruel man who put hundreds of people to death by impaling their bodies on sharp wooden stakes. Stoker embellished and fashioned this fictional character by adding flavour to the character by connecting him to the ancient royals of Romania.

On a more realistic note, a series, titled Vampire Forensics, carried out the examination of a corpse unearthed in a mass grave outside Venice, Italy. The strange thing about the said corpse was that it had a brick shoved into its mouth!

Trying to get to the bottom of a body buried 500 years ago was a real challenge as most of the DNA evidence was lost. But what the scientists did discover was that it was a woman who was probably 65 years of age, much older than the women of the time. And it had a wound or an injury to its skull but that was not the cause of death. So who was this woman? The woman must have been considered either a witch or a vampire as she had been buried according to the ritual.

Now we come to bats. Vampires and bats are considered in the same league; perhaps due to the glorification of the creature as it sucks blood and stays awake in the night when their victims were unaware of their evil designs.

As far as the cloak is concerned, it is nothing but a stage prop or another addition to the fantasy. But vampire legends are old, not those relating to the conventional or popular fiction ones but those about cannibalistic humans who were evil and have been depicted in ancient texts and paintings, including pottery. But they could very well have been about people practicing magic or witchcraft, or sinners who were feared and hated by the people of that time.

The modern vampire of movies and literature has evolved into a much more modernistic and realistic creature, even someone looked up to and fantasised as ‘having a heart’ by doing good deeds and taking care of their loved ones.

Well, anything for a couple of hours of fun and mystery.