Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet
dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. — Rev. Montague SummersIf there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?— Rousseau The rest of the site was an alphabetized listing of all the different myths of vampires held throughout the world. The first I clicked on, the Danag, was a Filipino vampire supposedly responsible for planting taro on the islands long ago. The myth continued that the Danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a woman cut her finger and a Danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her body completely of blood.
I read carefully through the descriptions, looking for anything that sounded familiar, let alone plausible. It seemed that most vampire myths centered around beautiful women as demons and children as victims; they also seemed like constructs created to explain away the high mortality rates for young children, and to give men an excuse for infidelity. Many of the stories involved bodiless spirits and warnings against improper burials. There wasn't much that sounded like the movies I'd seen, and only a very few, like the Hebrew Estrie and the Polish Upier, who were even preoccupied with drinking blood.
Abhor 痛恨
Dight 著裝的
Partake 參與
Affidavit 宣誓書
Taro 芋頭
“自始至終，那個屬於幽靈與惡魔的浩瀚的黑暗世界根本沒有那麼可怕，根本沒有那麼令人畏懼和憎惡，只是經過了太多充滿恐懼的幻想的修飾。正如吸血鬼，他既不屬於幽靈，也不屬於惡魔，但還是帶著幾份著黑暗的本質，兼有著那兩者的神秘與恐怖的特質。——蒙塔古薩默斯”（《吸血鬼傳奇》的作者，公認的吸血鬼研究專家）
“如果這個世界上有一份屢經證實的報告，那一定是關於吸血鬼的。沒有任何東西能被遺漏掉：官方報道，知情者的口供，外科醫生的證明，牧師的證詞，法官的證言。所有司法上的證據都完備了。但是，即使知道這一切，有人會相信吸血鬼的存在嗎？——盧梭”
餘下部分是一張依字母表排列的清單，囊括了全世界所有關於吸血鬼的各種各樣的傳說。我首先點開了“丹拿”，這是一種菲律賓的吸血鬼，很多年以前是負責在島上種植芋頭的。這個傳說裡講到，丹拿為人類工作了很多年，直到有一天，這樣的合作關係卻破裂了。一個女人不小心切到了手指，而一個丹拿為她吮吸傷口，因為覺得滋味太好了，最後它把她體內所有的血都喝乾了。
我仔細地閱讀這些描述，尋找任何聽著覺得熟悉的內容，把那些說得天花亂墜的部分丟到一邊。似乎大多數的吸血鬼傳說都圍繞著漂亮女人和小孩子展開，前者通常是惡魔，後者通常是受害者。它們似乎都是被捏造出來用來解釋年幼的孩子居高不下的夭折率，或是給男人一個放縱的藉口。許多故事包括了無形體的靈魂以及對不合乎禮法的葬禮的警告。沒有多少聽起來像是我看過的電影的內容，只有一小部分，像是希伯來的艾斯提瑞和波蘭的烏皮爾，是一心吸血的吸血鬼。
