Top 10 Dracula and vampire myths

Posted on Mar 11, 2010 Posted by Diana Varbanescu

1. Dracula was a real person.

Count Dracula is a fictional character in Bram Stocker's Dracula. Inspired by one of the best-known figures of Romanian history, VladTepes (Vlad the Impaler), but still a fictional character.

2. Vlad the Impaler is a made up character

Vlad III Price of Wallachia, probably best known for his resistance against the Ottoman Empire and for the cruel punishments he imposed on his enemies, was a voivode of Wallachia in the fifteen century. It inspired the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, but it’s not a fictional character.

3. Vampires have no reflection in mirrors

The concept of the vampire not being able to see his reflection does not appear in earlier (before the novel Dracula) vampire lore, but in folklore mirrors are seen as revealing the soul.

In Bram Stoker’s novel, a guest noticed that Dracula’s castle was devoid of mirrors. He was spooked when Dracula came up behind him and he noticed that his host’s reflection did not appear in the mirror. Count Dracula, complaining that mirrors were objects of human vanity, shattered the mirror.

4. Vampires can’t stand garlic

Garlic has its own, special place in Romanian superstitions. Long before Dracula, garlic was known to keep illness and therefore evil away. One of my favorite Romanian superstitions is found in the ears of its inhabitants. A surprising number of people can be found with small balls of cotton or chunks of garlic shoved into their ears. The theory is that shoving your ear canals full of cotton or garlic will keep illness away, as well as other miscellaneous ailments.

The vampire’s aversion to garlic is also found in Stoker’s Dracula, but it’s not really a vampire thing.

5. Wooden stake and decapitation

The method of killing a vampire by impaling them on a stake was part of European folklore long before Dracula. It originates from an ancient practice that predates the use of coffins when corpses of suspected vampires were staked to the ground to keep them from wandering. Wooden stakes and decapitation were methods used to kill vampires, but they’re not innovations introduced by Dracula.

It also depends on different variations:some stories state that driving a stake through the heart won’t even injure, let alone kill, a vampire.

6. Vampires Only Come Out at Night; Sunlight is Harmful

Vampires have an aversion to sunlight. In Dracula, JHarker noted in his diary, “I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake that he may be awake whilst they sleep!” It might be that vampires were stronger at night, but they were not destroyed or burned by sunlight.

7. Vampires can turn into bats

Dracula rules bats. He often assumes bat-like characteristics and his presence at night is often signified by a hovering bat. Vampires were often associated with bats, but it’s only in fiction that vampires actually turn into bats.

8. Vampires Cannot Bear Contact With the Crucifix

The crucifix also entered vampire lore through Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a powerful tool against vampires. It was not specifically mentioned in historic vampire tales as being harmful to vampires, though it was long used as a sacred object for warding off evil. Following Dracula, the crucifix became a standard of vampire fiction. In Dracula, the crucifix did not burn the flesh of the vampire, but being near one did cause him to lose his supernatural strength and so it became a standard

9. Vampires prey on virgin women

Vampires want blood – they don’t care if it comes from a man or woman. Even less so if it comes from a virgin or not.