Vampires - They’re Rooted in Love, Not Evil

Vampires – They’re Rooted in Love, not Evil

Eileen Sheehan

Although the very famous Brahm Stoker novel, Dracula, made the world look at the vampire as an evil monster, the vampire got its start from a Greek mythological love story long before Dracula came into the picture. The story tells of a young Italian, named Ambrogio, and a beautiful woman, named Selena who fell in love.

It was love at first sight while conferring with the Oracle in the temple of Apollo when Ambrogio first set his eyes on Selena. Sadly, when he asked her to marry him, he quickly learned that the sun god, Apollo, also had designs on her. Furious over the young mortals love for each other, Apollo cursed Ambrogio by causing his skin to burn whenever it was exposed to sunlight.

Desperate to free Selena from Apollos grasp, Ambrogio sought help from the god of the underworld, Hades. He made a deal with Hades to steal the goddess of the hunt, Artemiss, silver bow. As a result, Artemis cursed Ambrogio so that silver would burn his skin. Compassion eventually oozed in and she later gave him super strength, immortality, and fangs to kill beasts so that he could write love poems to Selena with the blood.

When Selena finally managed to escape Apollos grasp and unite with Ambrogio, Artemis told him that he could make Selena immortal like he was by drinking her blood. It would kill her body her spirit would live on. After that, their combined blood could then turn anyone who drank it into a vampire.

Thus was the romantic tale of the immortal, blood sucking vampire until Dracula was born of a novel by Brahm Stoker in 1897. Although filled with sexy pheromones that his vampire emitted to captivate its prey, Stokers vampire was anything, but romantic.

Although it is mere speculation on my part, I’m guessing that Stoker was influenced when he fashioned his horror vampire by the superstitions of the middle ages; especially as the plague decimated entire towns. More often than not, the disease left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims. For the uneducated, this was a sure sign of vampirism.

There also existed a blood disorder, called porphyria, that caused severe blisters on the skin when it was exposed to sunlight. Since some of the symptoms could be temporarily relieved by ingesting blood, it made sense that the ignorant would attach it to the vampire myth.

When a suspected vampire died, their bodies were often disinterred to search for signs of vampirism. In some cases, a stake was thrust through the corpse’s heart to make sure they stayed dead. Other accounts describe the decapitation and burning of the corpses of suspected vampires well into the nineteenth century when Stoker wrote his novel.

Today, depending upon the author, the mythical vampire can be found in both love and horror genre. Fans of both vampires and romance have no trouble finding plenty of strong, sexy, romantic, and slightly vulnerable vampires to fall in love with in stories written by their favorite authors while fans of horror and vampires can be entertained by the evilness of the creature. As an author of fiction, I have written thrillers with the evilest of vampires in them (see Tugurlan Chronicles Trilogy), but, admittedly, I tend to lean toward the Greek mythological version of the vampire and create stories with a sexy vampire that you are sure to love and sympathize with.

Which version of vampire do you prefer?

Eileen Sheehan writes hot, steamy romances with a sexy male and strong female. The majority of her novels are paranormal, but some are straightforward love stories. Her screenplay, ‘When East Meets West’, was a finalist in the 2001 Independent International Film and Video Festival.

You can discover more about Eileen here: www.amazon.com/Eileen-Sheehan/e/B016YANRJ0