Editing Vampire (section)

{{short description|Undead creature from folklore}}
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[[File:Philip Burne-Jones - The Vampire.jpg|thumb|''The Vampire'', by [[Philip Burne-Jones]], 1897|alt=A black and white painting of a man lying on a table, while a woman is kneeling over him.]]

A '''vampire''' is a [[mythical creature]] that subsists by feeding on the [[Vitalism|vital essence]] (generally in the form of [[blood]]) of the living. In [[European folklore]], vampires are [[undead|undead humanoid creatures]] that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods which they inhabited while they were alive. They wore [[shroud]]s and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Vampiric entities have been [[Vampire folklore by region|recorded in cultures around the world]]; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century [[mass hysteria]] of a pre-existing folk belief in [[Southeast Europe|Southeastern]] and [[Eastern Europe]] that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Karina |title=Decomposing Bodies in the 1720s Gave Birth to the First Vampire Panic |journal=[[The Smithsonian Magazine]] |date=October 23, 2020 |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/decomposing-bodies-1720s-gave-birth-first-vampire-panic-180976097/ |access-date=29 October 2024}}</ref>
Local variants in Southeastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''[[shtriga]]'' in [[Albanian mythology|Albania]], ''[[vrykolakas]]'' in [[Greece]] and ''[[strigoi]]'' in [[Folklore of Romania|Romania]], cognate to Italian ''strega'', meaning '[[witch]]'.

In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures (such as the ''[[chupacabra]]'') still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of [[decomposition]] after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. [[Porphyria]] was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|title=Born to the Purple: the Story of Porphyria |last=Lane |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Lane |date=16 December 2002 |magazine=[[Scientific American]] |publisher=[[Springer Nature]]|location=New York City|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170126142231/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/born-to-the-purple-the-st/|archive-date=26 January 2017|url-status=live|access-date=26 January 2017}}</ref>

The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "[[The Vampyre]]" by the English writer [[John Polidori]]; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. [[Bram Stoker]]'s 1897 novel ''[[Dracula]]'' is remembered as the quintessential [[vampire novel]] and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author [[Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu]]'s 1872 novel ''[[Carmilla]]''. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire [[genre]], still popular in the 21st century, with books, [[vampire films|films]], television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the [[horror fiction|horror]] genre.