In The Blood - Part Four

Exitus

Now that we have established a possible reason for the evolution of vampire mythology from simple monster/cannibal legend-that is, the legend of the vampire as a blood-sucking, parasitic undead person-it is now necessary to explore why such myths became so widespread throughout eastern and, later, the entire continent of Europe. The myth could not have developed to the extent that it did without the help of Church theology and practice. Of course, it was not purposely fabricated by the Church itself; in fact, the medieval Church often worked hard to eliminate belief in the latter blood legend.

The core theme in both traditions, of course, is parasitism-parasitism of several different types. There is hardly anything more parasitic than the vampire, a literal leech of a being. Vampires were traditionally depicted as preying upon members of the opposite sex or on children, and in extracting a quantity of fluid from an unwilling victim. All one needs to do is invert the symbolic fluid extraction (thereby transforming it into fluid deposition), and you have the image of a rape.

Sexual imagery permeates through the entire legend of the vampire; a re-examination of the quoted fables will uncover numerous sexual undertones (i.e., the sucking of the little girl's finger, the taming and subsequent riding of the farmer's daughter, the Shtriga of Albania being forced to ride on the shoulders of a man) that speak volumes. The bite of the vampire–the so-called "vampire's kiss"–itself is sexually suggestive, as it takes place in a region which is especially tactile-sensitive and an erogenous zone. In this sense, the vampire is so symbolic of a human passion that it makes it literally impossible for the creature to exist in reality; it is far too one-dimensional a monster to have any realistic qualities.

Of even greater importance to the symbolic nature of the vampire is the fact that vampires are reported to regain their vitality after feeding upon a host; tales of vampires excavated from their graves tell of corpses, long dead, that look as alive and healthy as that of any mortal being. Thus, the vital essence of blood transfers from the host to the predator, taking the very life energy from the victim and siphoning it into the parasite.

Post-conversion vampire folklore only serves to further the transubstantiate claims of the Church, it seems; the power of blood that allows the vampire to remain eternally youthful, even though it resides in a dead body that should be rotting, seems to parallel the power of faith in transforming simple wine and bread to flesh and blood. Is it yet another unrelated phenomenon, then, that the bodies of saints were said to be immune to decomposition even while they lay in the earth?

The sheer power of blood in the human consciousness cannot be underestimated. The fear that blood of innocent victims was being used by the undead to extend their unnatural lives drove eastern Europeans throughout the Middle Ages to unearth bodies and drive nails into their heads, pound stakes into their chests, decapitate them, shove garlic into their dead mouths, or place the Host over their eyes, all to keep them in their tombs.

In this case, it is very important to note that in Romania, the moroi, simple revenants, are carefully distinguished from the strigoi, the vampires. Both are undead, and yet the moroi are often viewed as friendly spirits and guardians of their mortal families. It is the strigoi which attract the utter revulsion and fear of the populace. Even though a moroi may be destroyed by similar means, it is the strigoi–the blood drinkers–that peasants throughout the Balkans have made a career out of hunting.

It can be concluded, then, that Western civilization has maintained a rather schizophrenic position on blood imbibement. While the medieval Church maintained a position that the drinking of Christ's blood was not only beneficial but even necessary for Salvation, the other two 'minority groups' who allegedly consumed blood; namely, the Jews and the vampires, were widely reviled and looked upon as in league with the Devil.

There is yet another possible parallel in that by the latter Middle Ages the clergy was forbidden from sexual activity; was the symbolic blood imbibement of the priestly class able to serve as a form of compensation from lack of sexual stimulation? This is, of course, a very far-fetched conclusion, but one which should be kept in mind when studying blood folklore and the place it has in popular culture. It is one more possibility to consider when examining the relationships between blood accusations, the magical qualities of blood, and life. For just as "the blood is the life", so is sex a vital component of the continuation of the human species.

In both vampire folklore and the blood libel (in the case of the latter circumcision slander stands out as the shining example of sexual connotation), there are very potent and blatant suggestive sexual symbols. Now, one needn't necessarily conclude that both myths arise solely from deep-seated sexual origins, but it does appear that sexual motifs come closest to linking the blood mythologies of pre-Industrial Europe together into a rational set of thematic, related concepts.

 

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