Vampires: Fact, Fiction and Folklore

Vampires are a perennial favorite around Halloween, but they can be found year-round in movies and on television, in books and on blogs. The public's thirst for vampires seems as endless as vampires' thirst for blood. Modern writers of vampire fiction, including Stephenie Meyer, Anne Rice Stephen King and countless others have a rich vein of vampire lore to draw from.The most famous vampire is of course, Bram Stoker's Dracula, though those looking for a historical real Dracula often cite Romanian prince Vlad Tepes 1431-1476, after whom Stoker is said to have modeled some aspects of his Dracula character.The characterization of Tepes as a vampire, however is a distinctly Western one; in Romania, he is viewed not as a blood-drinking sadist but as a national hero who defended his empire from the Ottoman Turks.