The Vampire Myth

A cold wind blew in from the sea and swept across the rugged carpathian mountains...somewhere across the distant horizon a lone wolf howled...deep inside the woods a little far away stood a tall brooding castle...the iron nail studded wooden door creaked...and opened...
No, this is not a story on count dracula or a sequel to it...my post is about the myth relating to vampires and how it started...actually a few days back after a very tired day, late at night, I was switching channels on the telly when I came across this rather exciting episode on vampires on History...I'll bet you are not interested but I will go on anyway...so here it is...Since time immemorial man has been fascinated by the stories of witches and vampires...this fascination is probably born of a fear (and hence a belief in the existence) of evil...everytime there would be a death and the cause of it not properly understood the primitive man would attribute it to supernatural causes. Soon this fascination with the unknown evil reached such tremendous heights in ancient society that some people, eminent historians and archaeologists set out to find the truth behind such theories. These people came to be known as the vampire seekers. The vampire seekers travelled long and hard, to remote villages - places of mysterious deaths and queried the village folks in great detail...different people came up with different stories...but in all those stories invariably, there was mention of an odd queer looking man seen with the victim who was also invariably never seen before and never found after the death(s).
The vampire hunters did not give up...they continued to study circumstances, travelling places after places, talking to people, digging up facts relevant to their research...all the findings pointed to the odd man (who was allegedly not human). In the end based on circumstantial evidence the vampire theory in a way came to be sanctified by the vampire seekers.
Thereafter, many centuries passed and medical science advanced - and the so called 'mysterious' diseases and deaths came to be explained by the doctors as properly diagnosed diseases. For example tuberculosis. Before it came to be discovered as a disease, many thousands of people had already died not knowing what they were dying of.
The vampire theory fell apart but the myth was long set in the minds of the people. And further enlivened by Actor Christopher Lee as the majestic Count Dracula in the many movie adaptations of the Bram Stoker novel, the myth lives on...