"Even a Bit Mad. It Helps to be Mad."

Peter Cushing

There are very, very few actors I like in all situations. So far, Cushing is almost the only one. Or the only one - I can't recall.

That being said, he's also quite amusing.

And I'm a writer.

And have I mentioned that I quite enjoy mythology?

Well, I certainly do. Usually, I just adapt them to High Fantasy. It negates any complications that may arise from using characters, and creatures, and even plots from mythology. If one takes antiquated folk faery stories and removes them to an original setting and situation, then it is yours free and clear.



Thus what I usually do with mythology. This method also has the added bonus of making it completely possible to write the best mythological creatures sans the....rather horrid bits.

Let us take, for example, vampyres.

Yes, I'm rather stuck on this subject. Well, it was Shakespeare and now it's vampyre's and I'm sure it will change to history or something in the near future. If it's any consolation, but fixations tend to cycle through in semi-regular order, so.....

Vampyres - vampires? I've no idea why I spell it with a 'y' rather than an 'i'. I suspect the same reason I use the archaic spelling of 'faery', but that's beside the point. Suffice to say that by 'vampyre' I do indeed refer to the undead, blood-sucking, soulless creatures of mythology and society.

Vampyres are rather interesting creature. As a monster, they have such elegant, dangerous properties. As a protagonist, they have such potential for redemption - albeit not as much for a happy ending. As a mythology, they lend an aura to the night and to the old places of habitation. As a people, they have a rich wealth of culture and traditions to pull from.

As I said before, modern vampyres just seem...different. Separate. More vicious. More human. Sparkling. Things like that.

This sort of all started out when the vampyre in Brides of Dracula attacked Van Helsing. In Underworld and other vampyre culture, their methods seem more akin to....an animal mauling a victim.

Certainly, this would have helped disguise their presence did they exist - but in the first two Hammer vampyre films, it is no where near so....animalistic.

Vampyres have in my mind always held a place of...elegance. It is a fatal elegance, certainly; and deadly, dearly bought beauty - but it is beauty nonetheless. There's a definitely fatal attraction in it - indeed, as there is meant to be.

The world 'vampyre' originates for a word that meant 'seductress'.

 

For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a towedged sword.

Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell.

Lest though shouest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

Hear me know therefore, O ye children, depart not from the words of my mouth.

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:



2004 Van Helsing Vampyre Brides

Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

Lest strangers be filles with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.

 



--Proverbs 5:3-11

Looked at the right way, the excerpt from Proverbs can easily apply to vampyres. And why not? The legend had to come from somewhere.....  Stories and warnings about a 'strange woman', whose house led down to hell and which held the dead? Not exactly something most people would be thrilled to meet in the night. Time passes, parents are misunderstood by young, bored children; and there's a new monster in the night.

Let's explore this for a little bit - what this could mean for the origins of defeating such creatures.

I'll take much of my biology or mythology or what have you from Hammer's First two films as I quite preferred their version over many others.

Brides of Dracula - windmill cross

The primary weapon against the vampyres is actually the Cross. They're probably blessed crosses or something, given that Holy Water is incredibly corrosive to them - but still. The Cross. In fact, it's so harmful to the creatures that putting two normal candlesticks across one another in the form of a cross repulses Dracula, and turning the wings (hands? bars? spinning things?) of a windmill actually kills a vampyre.

And that just negates the necessity for the items to be blessed given I doubt anyone and handily done so that that specific windmill. And if so, then Van Helsing is by far the most fortunate person in all Christendom.

So, we've established that crosses are harmful to even a fatal degree to vampyres. On a side note, why couldn't I use this topic for a school essay? Instead, I have to write about dull things such as authors....

However, still working on the basis - premise? - that vampyres stand for seductresses especilly, and temptation in general; what does this weakness represent?

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. -- Romans 3:14

 

What then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? -- Romans 8: 31

 

Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. -- Psalm 119:11

God is the shield and strength against and from temptation. Depending on him will defeat all monsters in the dark. The Cross is a symbol basically synonymous with God and Christ - little wonder it would be so powerful against vampyres.

It's rather like the times Jesus met demons  - or vice versa. They recognised and feared him. They knew their time was limited, but they also knew that God (and Jesus) held power over them. The vampyres in Horror of Dracula and Brides of Dracula (why is it even called that? I understand the 'brides' part - there were definitely more female victims; but 'Dracula'? He wasn't even in the film!) certainly fit this part, as they are also the damned. They are soulless - unable to be with God or be at peace.

Lee's Count Dracula

 Interestingly enough, I found that vampyres - at least this version. Obviously, there are later versions that sparkle when exposed to full sunlight, and others that at least have no reaction whatsoever - must have contact with their native ground while they are sleeping the day away.

 

Obbviously, the reason for sleeping underground or in coffins is obvious, as they do burn away into ash when exposed to the sunlight. However, when Dracula finds it necessary to leave his native country and go to England, he fills the bottom of his coffin with dirt and brings it with him across the Channel.

 

As long as I'm drawing correlations where none likely exist, this reminds me again of temptation and the circumstances wherein it is moste potente.

 

Yes, I used incredibly archaic spelling - I can't help it. For some reason, it looks better in certain situations..... At least I'm still speaking English.

 

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, but doeth it not, to him it is sin. --James 4:17

 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. -- James 4:7

 

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. -- James 1:4

 

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. -- 2 Timothy 2:22

 

The verses don't fit quite - but they do to me.....

 

Sin and temptation tends to be rather...limited. If one has a great weakness for robbing banks; don't walk into one with a ski mask, gun, and duffle bag. If one is greatly tempted to shoplift, don't go shopping alone with a wide-brimmed hat and spacious pockets. If one has a tendency to be drawn away into impure thoughts, don't go into a club with scantily dressed performers.

 

"Flee also youthful lusts." 'Lust' is almost synonymously associated with 'seduction' - thus, with 'vampyres'. Just as the weakness for impure thoughts or robbing banks (with probably isn't so likely - but it was an obvious example) is going to be strongest in a Red Light District (or around Ladies of the Night. I rather refuse to be more explicit....) or in a poorly guarded and heavily stocked bank vault, so are vampyres going to be strongest in their native land.

 

On native soil, they have the ability to sleep in daylight anywhere; while if they leave, they must return to their crypt before dawn. If day is breaking, on has only to run out into it - to flee the vampyre - and they will not (cannot) follow.



I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Yes, it's a weak connection - I don't care.

Another interesting thing that I'd borrow from the films and lore is that Vampyres are soulless. That their soul 'dies' but their body and consciousness lives on. To a Christian this is.....Hell, in a way. To be eternally damned - ever separated from God and any peace he might offer.

Oh, look....  Another correlation or analogy....

The victim is trapped. At first, it is enticing, alluring. It appears beautiful and safe. But then, once the victim is ensnared, then it sheds its beautiful coating and becomes the monster it truly is. Likewise is sin. Temptation is beautiful, lovely - something to be had.

Immortality is something that has always been thought longingly of - hardly anyone has not at one point in their life mused on living forever rather than dying. The entire basis of vampyres is surviving death - to then live forever, unaging. Granted, that isn't so pleasant a prospect for the aged that are converted - but rarely are vampyres seen as such anyway. Probably some sort of deficiency in the blood or whatnot....

And so, vampyres lure their victims in. They promise them love, strength, immortality, protection, whatever.....  They enthrall and mesmerise their victims so their victim continues to return to them each night or each time until it is too late! And they die and rise again soulless. Rise again forever separated from God.

That would be a hopeless prospect. I mean, on one hand, right now, it would be a relief - to not have to think of what would come should I become too weak and fall. But on the other hand..... To be unable to communicate with God or anything? that would be a nightmare, especially as time passed. Goodness, the years so far have seemed both too fast and too slow - were I immortal? Simply horrid...

And yet.... "But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above all that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." --1 Corinthians 10:13

And, of course, what is the way by which all vampyres may be killed? A wooden stake through the heart. sunlight too - but a stake is usually more...utilised, and still persists to this day while the burning to ash from sunlight has been replaced by....sparkling.

Just.....whyyyyy???? This will never cease to irk me.... Perhaps I would have considered reading them at some point out of boredom perhaps - but SPARKLING? I. Think. Not. So apparently it was written by a Morman and so probably safe and appropriate to read - do I care? Nope. Make a proper appropriate vampire, thank you.

Sorry - digression. Again.

Nope. You shan't ever be free of them.

But! Vampyres! And the obvious way to kill them!

In neither of the films - Brides of Dracula or Horror of Dracula - did Van Helsing nor any other character stake a living vampyre. The only living vampyres killed (or awake vampyres, giving they're all undead) were either burnt to ash by the sun, or killed by the massive sign of the cross.

Of course, the speed and strength  necessary to drive a wooden stake through the intercostal muscles, serous membrane, possibly a lung, the sack around the heart, and finally the heart itself is an awful lot, especially if the victim of such an injury is strong and fast and undead. Assuming, of course, that one doesn't hit bone, or stab up through the diaphragm. In any case, unless one is a Slayer, or highly trained in martial arts or fighting, or is a superhero, it would be a bit difficult and likely to fail.

So Van Helsing simply carried a mallet and drove the wooden stake through the front of the chest. Usually with more than one required strike as well. Dying, the vampyres would scream - but once the deed was done, every single face was at peace.

Dracula's wasn't - but he was burnt to ash by the sun; so his circumstances are different.

So while the vampyres are undead, they are not eternally damned. They can still be released. It isn't completely hopeless and bleak.

On a side note, originally, there were qualifications for the wood used for stakes - as long as we're drawing parallels between the undead and Christianity. Ash, Hawthorn, Oak, Holly, and I heard of Dogwood once - all woods that have been said (somewhere.....) to be used for the first Cross of christ, or are associated in some other way with his birth or death. Thus? Again through Jesus' birth or death we are freed from sin.

Please, bear in mind that I am no expert. I merely appreciate the past and enjoy extrapolating....

My apologies to all who think this subject is sacreligious or something....