A vampire is a being from folklore that subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally
in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires were undead beings
that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they
inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds 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 recorded in most cultures; the term vampire was popularised
in the West in the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western
Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern
Europe; local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania,
vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition
in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and
people being accused of vampirism.
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 rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death.
Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure,
but has since been largely discredited.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the
publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably
the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.[3] Bram Stoker's 1897 novel
Dracula is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the
modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still
popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since
become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire