The vampire is one of the oldest and most global myths of all. There are variations of creatures who rises from the dead to drink the blood of the living in almost every culture around the world. However, the vampire lore of the Slavic people are the most prominent.

The word ‘vampire’ comes from the Slavi word ‘obyri’ and ‘obiri’ which evolved into the Bulgarian word ‘vampir”. It is also believed to have to be derived from the Servian word, ‘wampira’. Another name for vampires is ‘Nosferatu’, which might have originated from the Greek word ‘nosophoros’ meaning “plague-carrier”, or that it evolved from the Old Slavonic word ‘nosufur-atu’. Russians, Morlacchians, inhabitants of Montenegro, Behemians, Servians, and Arnauts know the vampire as wukodalak, vurkulaka, or vrykolaka, which means ‘wolf-fairy’.

The origin in the vampire has been credited to Greek Christianity, but references of this myth can be found in earlier times, in Chaldean and Assyrian tablets. It is believed that the early vampire legends were developed to explain things that nature could not, like mysterious deaths and wasting diseases. For instance, the Greek vampire lamiani attacked babies and pregnant women so that miscarriage and still-born can be explained.

The Romans believed that the dead bodies of certain people could be raised from their graves by magic, as long as the body was not decomposed. The only way to prevent this was to cremate the remains.

From Greece and Rome, vampire lore spread throughout Austria, Hungary, Lorraine, Poland, Romania, Iceland, and the British Isles. It reached its height in the period from 1723 to 1735, when a vampire-related epidemic broke out in Hungary and Servia. The belief continued to gradually spread to the rest of the world, including the Asian countries and Africa.

In countries that believe suicide victims become vampires when they die, the myth is used to help the love ones cope with their deaths. By performing the vampire rituals to destroy the corpse through staking and cementation, for instance, it destroys the dead person’s psychological attachment to the living, allowing his family and friends to cope with their grief and move on.