vampires real or not

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 06:56 PM

This week I attended a lecture on the subject of the
literary, social, and political evidence of the vampire.

Much was made of the embattled Serbians in the 18th century
who were caught trying to exterminate "vampires" with rituals,
and who refused to desist even when it was forbidden.
I almost typed forbitten. Anyway.

The Serbians were stuck between the
Austro-Hungarian empire on one side and
the Ottoman empire on the other.
The lecturer remarked that vampire extermination rituals by the Serbians
expressed their hostility toward the foreigner, the other,
and acted out their hostility towards either empire.

The lecture then proceeded towards Bram Stoker, Polidori,
Anne Rice, and Stephenie Meyers,
authors of fiction about vampires,
complete with slides with stills from the film versions.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 07:09 PM

Might as well ask if dragons are -or ever were- real.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Oct 23 - 12:12 PM

I had to have 4 extra canine teeth removed to make room for other teeth. They weren't any longer than other teeth.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 07:09 PM

Might as well ask if dragons are -or ever were- real.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Oct 23 - 06:56 PM

This week I attended a lecture on the subject of the
literary, social, and political evidence of the vampire.

Much was made of the embattled Serbians in the 18th century
who were caught trying to exterminate "vampires" with rituals,
and who refused to desist even when it was forbidden.
I almost typed forbitten. Anyway.

The Serbians were stuck between the
Austro-Hungarian empire on one side and
the Ottoman empire on the other.
The lecturer remarked that vampire extermination rituals by the Serbians
expressed their hostility toward the foreigner, the other,
and acted out their hostility towards either empire.

The lecture then proceeded towards Bram Stoker, Polidori,
Anne Rice, and Stephenie Meyers,
authors of fiction about vampires,
complete with slides with stills from the film versions.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 12:13 PM

I heard a theory that stories of cannibalism in South American tribes were linked to the introduction of maize to their areas- eating maize apparently creates a protein deficiency and protein cravings- and whereas before the introduction they were able to live on mostly fruit and nuts and the odd chicken, they found themselves unable to meet their own needs and turned to other sources of meat. It was also mentioned that the introduction of maize to Eastern Europe occurred around the same time as the beginnings of the Vampire myths.
(cue spooky music again!)
Love at First Bite- "Children of the Night! Shut up!"
x ec

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 11:29 AM

WHOOO-EEEE! It's Halloween Night tonight! AWRight! Me and Don are too old for trick or treat but we are gonna tip over outhouses, paint cars with spray bombs, egg peoples windows, throw toilet paper rolls over roofs, run around on snowmboiels, act like idiots, and raise hell! AND then we are gonna get so blasted that we wont quit till the sun rises on Blind River th next day. Vampires be warned! We aint takin no prisoners eh?

BDiBR

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 10:12 AM

Mummy - what's a vampire ?
Shut up and drink your soup before it clots.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: *daylia*
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 08:33 AM

Ah Rapaire, your father must have had more than just great taste to choose such a ring! From ancient times, people have worn tiger's eye for protection from all kinds of dangers. IT's usually set in gold for this purpose. Roman soldiers wore tiger's eye engraved with symbols for protection during battle. They thought it also promoted courage and strength of conviction.

Traditionally, Tiger's eye has been thought to promote wealth and money, bestowing a fine "business sense" on the wearer. It's also said to help the flow of energy through the body and it's energy field, especially beneficial for the weak and sick.

So, it seems that Tiger's Eye has been helping your "family aura" for generations! COOL!!! :-)

Happy Hallowe'en everyone, daylia

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Fearless Vampire Slayer
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 08:03 PM

Did you ever hear of a concept called "sarcasm"? Well, guess what? Other people can use it too. ;-)

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:07 PM

Yes, but if you punch your mother or girlfriend or whomever in the mouth because she has been emotionally and psychically draining you, F.V.S., it will only get you in a whole heap of trouble, and no one will believe your explanation for why you had to do it... :-)

Did you ever hear of a concept called "subtlety"? No? Don't feel bad, Hollywood hasn't heard of it either.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: sloop
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 06:53 PM

Course they do,if you dont believe me,go to belfast they've been sucking each others blood for generations.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Fearless Vampire Slayer
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:46 PM

I've always found a good punch in the mouth to be an effective all-around deterrent. Works with vampires, bogeymen and grandparents too.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:11 PM

So then, Daylia, the carved tiger-eye ring I wear helps my aura! And I thought I wore it because it was my father's wedding ring.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: okthen
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 02:49 PM

For those able to receive ITV2 in the UK and are interested in this thread.Real Vampires.........Exposed
10pm tonight, enjoy (?)

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Vampire Overcomer
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:42 PM

Oh...thanks to LadyJean, too !

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Vampire Overcomer
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:40 PM

Little Hawk, Rapaire, Daylia - many thanks ! I'll keep you posted.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 11:56 AM

Guest VO, there's lots of physical things you can do to help strengthen your energy field against psychic attacks or drains, from your mother or anyone else.

First, make sure you are looking after yourself physically - proper diet, sleep, exercise, breathing/fresh air, using effective ways of dealing with stress. Your electrical field (aura) is produced by your
physical body, thoughts and emotions -- so the healthier they are, the stronger your aura.

Second, have you ever worked with crystals as "medicine"? I have found great relief from symptoms just like the ones you described by carrying small pieces of iolite, moldavite, tiger's eye, amethyst, carnelian, amber, hematite etc in a pouch or pocket. Iolite and moldavite are especially strengthening. Necklaces, rings, bracelets etc made of same are very pretty and effective too. These stones add their own electrical charge to your energy field, reinforcing it. Kirlean photographs have shown that carrying crystals can quadruple the energy surrounding your body.

Third, there are some very effective meditations to help with this. The only problem I've found with using the "mirror" technique you've described is that it can lead to game of "ping-pong" with the sender -- you send the energy back to them, and they return it to you multiplied.
This can go on and on forever.

Exercises I've found to be very effective, and where to find them on the net are:

1)The Middle Pillar of Light
http://www.davedavies.com/splanet/magic3.htm

2)The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (MANY versions of this traditional magickal exercises are on the net)


3) Actualism (very easy, and quickly effective too!) http://www.actualism.org/

4) HUNA (ancient Hawaiian) techniques of "praying with energy" to reinforce your aura and maintain your boundaries with others. Information at http://www.geocities.com/huna101

I hope you find something valuable in all that! Best wishes,

daylia

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 11:42 AM

"She'll look elsewhere," not "she's look elsewhere."

Jeez, I gotta start going to sleep earlier.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 07:40 AM

VO -- LH is right, she's look elsewhere.

Teach your children well.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 01:20 AM

Yes, V.O., you're onto something very real there, and the mirror visualization is an excellent defence, specially if you are a good visualizer and can concentrate clearly, and it sounds like you are. Well done.

This whole physical/energetic reality of ours was and is built (all the time) by focused thought and intention, so this kind of thing is very powerful.

What will she do if she can't draw energy from you? She'll instinctively look elsewhere for it. Whether she finds it elsewhere remains to be seen.

There is some useful insight into this kind of thing in a well known book by a psychiatrist named Scott Peck, called "People of the Lie". See if you can find a copy, and continue defending your own boundaries. There are also great spiritual protectors whose aid you can enlist, if you so choose, such as: God, Jesus, your personal guardian angel(s), Saint Michael, Manitou, White Buffalo Woman or whatever other figures of a positive nature that you can relate to or conceive of...if you feel amenable to that sort of thing. We are not alone in our positive efforts, but have mighty friends. Still, you may feel more comfortable just working from your own personal sovereignty, and if so, that's fine. Again I say, well done, and thanks for reminding me of this technique, which I could well afford to use myself here and there when I need to.

- LH

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: LadyJean
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 11:30 PM

Get a copy of "Stop Walking On Eggshells" about dealing with people with borderline personality disorder. Your mother sounds like a borderline, and they do suck the energy right out of you.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,Vampire Overcomer
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 11:03 PM

I'm a regular Catter, but because of what I am adding to this discussion, I'd rather not give my name. I've been most interested in what Little Hawk, Peg and others have said about "psychic vampires": my mother is one. It's not all that difficult to avoid these people in social or even work settings, once you recognize what they are doing - but when it is someone in your close family, that can be very, very difficult to overcome.

From my earliest childhood memories onwards, I never liked my mother. I never wanted to be around her. She always seemed to have some kind of invisible way of making me do what she wanted - and I never could work out how. She was - and is - a very determined woman who wants her own way and will fight in every which way to achieve her aim. Living with her was a constant, wearying battle of wills, in which she always won: not by argument, but by some kind of invisible force or strength. Needless to say, I left home as soon as I could, but always kept in contact and did all the dutiful offspring things.

For a long time, as far as I was concerned, this situation was workable. My father must have provided the main focus for her controlling needs and she draw whatever she had to from him. I only discovered just how much she had been using my father after he died a few years ago, and wham ! suddenly everything she had been doing to him, she was now doing to me (her only child) and my kid (her only grandchild). It was like being sucked into a vortex and we were both wrung dry. All those forgotten battles of wills of my childhood with her came back.

I've been battling for the past few years, managing to lengthen the gap between seeing her, so that it is now once/twice a week, but with her phoning at least twice every day and talking for half and hour or more at a time. Nothing is ever enough for her. She will always want more. I avoid her coming to my house as much as possible - I'd much rather go to her or better still drive her out somewhere.

I don't like my mother - but that doesn't stop me caring about her, if that makes any sense. She's an elderly woman, alone after a long marriage. I don't want to abandon her. I wonder if she has any idea at all of what she does and why she craves so much.

I still don't know what it is exactly that she does, but whatever it is, it's the reason I don't want to spend time with her - and it's the reason why she is so desperate for me to do just that. After over two years of this, I'm fed up of fighting her (and losing). So far, all I've managed to do is not see her so often - but that doesn't solve the underlying reason, or the effect she has when I do see her.

All this has been a long background to the extraordinary thing which happened yesterday. Reading your comments here about "psychic vampires" over the past few days set me looking around the internet for ways to counteract them. It's amazing what you find on Google ! I am so angry at what my mother has been doing to people all her life, that the suggestion I found for overcoming her has worked.

Basically, it was a statement to say, "returning to sender" whatever it is they are doing and a visualization, which I know I can use again at any time. The visualization is to picture yourself holding a mirror, with the mirror pointing towards the predator, like a kind of shield. The strange thing is that yesterday (the day after I did the visualization) she called and asked me to take her to the doctor: she was suddenly extremely short of breath and totally weak and drained. He sent her for heart and blood tests (!) While she was sitting next to me in the waiting room, she did something she never usually does -whilst talking to me, she kept wanting to reach out to touch my arm. It's as if something in her knows that the "invisible energy" thing that she does isn't working, so she had to try something else to draw from. I really don't know how much or how little of this she does on a conscious level. Now I have the mirror to visualize, I felt totally different in her presence (and I think she must have felt totally different in mine).

I wanted to write all this to let people know that there really are ways to counteract this kind of phenomenon. The effect of my mirror visualization on my mother is uncanny. I really don't think her sudden breathlessness and weakness was a coincidence. What happens from now on will be interesting. If she can't draw energy from me, presumably she will have to start trying to draw it from someone else. The best solution, of course, would be to get to the root cause of why she has done this all her life.

I'd be interested to hear of any more suggestions of how to deal with this kind of situation.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 01:48 PM

Yeh, you stick to that story, son.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 12:45 PM

What the fuck are you on today, Spaw?

I remember that teacher well. Her name was Miss Delavan, and she was pretty neat. She taught art. However, the part about my teeth is slanderous, and I did NOT get arrested.

- LH

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 08:17 AM

Little Hawk fails to mention that he was once arrested while in high school for actually being a vampire! It seems he had a crush on a young female teacher and also a bad set of teeth with very prominent canines. This resulted in his being completely misunderstood when he said to the female teacher, "I'll see you next period."

After a visit to the dentist, charges were dropped.

Spaw

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 07:12 AM

Nosferatu - your comment "You know us, you have had communication with us. You know us by such names as Inland Revenue and the Internal Revenue Service."

I won't be at work for few days. Can you pass the message to my manger please?

Oh, and your tax return was late again. By about 800 years.

LTS

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 06:58 AM

Linda and I reckon that many of today's teenagers are vampires. Have you tried to get one to tear themselves away from the telly and go outside in the daytime ?

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Nerd
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 12:47 AM

Cluin,

There is such a disease but it isn't Lupus. In fact, there exists a complex of diseases known as congenital hypertrichosis, several of which cause a person to be entirely covered in dark hair. One of these is typically associated with tooth deformities that can pretty well resemble werewolfism.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:58 PM

Ah... to boak or not to boak, that is the *GLUUURKKK*!

Eeeeeeewwwwwww!

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:53 PM

I had heard that victims of Lupus were possibly mistaken for suffering from lycanthropy, due to excessive hair growth.

I've known a few women with Lupus, but never saw excessive hair growth on them. Just aches, pains, rashes, a sensitivity to sunlight and general lack of energy sometimes.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: LadyJean
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 11:52 PM

A thread drift, I know, but "worshipping the porcelain god" is American slang for vomiting.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Nerd
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 08:57 PM

Uh, sorry Mary. You might not have known about how weak it was until 1999, but it still was weak, and its weakness did not go unrecognized in the scholarly community. In 1988 Paul Barber wrote "I must insist that before he [Dolphin] relates blood-drinking vampires to the disease, he must first show us his evidence that drinking blood alleviates the symptoms of porphyria or was even believed to." Given that Dolphin's paper was presented orally in 1985, a 1988 book declaring it weak is remarkably speedy by Academic standards; Barber must have recognized its weakness immediately. Indeed, when he wrote, Dolphin's paper was not even published yet; he had read the abstract and discussed it with Dolphin. I myself heard about Dolphin's theory in about 1990, and already it was considered weak by people who study experiential accounts of the supernatural.

Wolfgang, Barber has been quoted in many articles in newspapers and magazines and on TV, so you may have read or seen something in that manner.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 06:42 PM

So they don't talk abouit "the bog" in the USA? You learn stuff here. Actually it's not the bathroom as such - lots of houses have bogs next door to the bathroom. It's what I believe Americans refewre to as "the john".

Bog is also Russian for God. It's always struck me as a strange coincidence. It must make for misunderstandings sometimes. "I am searching for God!" "Up the stairs and first door on the right."

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 06:29 PM

Nerd, I think we're saying the same thing...

In 1985, David Dolphin presented a paper to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and suggested the Porphyria might explain the reports of vampires.

Only later (sic 1999 or so) was it dismissed.

I was only responding to your statement that the porphyria theory has always been weak. Until Dolphin's theory was examined and debated and more evidence discovered, we really didn't know how weak it was.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 04:28 PM

Nerd,

I have read your explanation recently some place else I can't recollect and found it pretty convincing. But I'm sure I have not read Barber's book. Do you happen to know where I might have read a shortened version recently (at my age, recently can be as far as two years back).

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Nerd
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 04:17 PM

Mary in KY,

you only need to read the site you posted:

"Many critiqued Dolphin's theory and noted that there was no evidence that drinking blood would help the symptoms of Porphyria."

That's one of the things that makes it weak. The only thing that people suffering from the disease REALLY have in common with vampires is light sensitivity--and in some cases, funny looking teeth.

One of things that's always a red flag is when something like Porphyria is first put forward as an explanation for reports of werewolves, then for vampires. This is an indication that it does not closely fit the traditional features of either. When looking for explanations of supernatural phenomena, too many so-called "skeptics" rely on bad descriptions of the phenomena themselves, thus allowing their explanations to look like the phenomena. This is another instance: werewolves and vampires traditionally do not look anything alike, but the same disease is advanced as a method for explaining both!

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 07:27 AM

Garg - yakking in the bog = talking to God on the big white telephone

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 06:54 AM

One of the theories about the ballad Long Lankin is that he was a leper - it would explain why he lived in isolation in the moss/hay, and was feared. One of the folk remedies for this condition was to drink untainted blood, ie that of the baby or the lady. In fuller versions of the ballad, the false nurse actually holds a vessel to catch the blood in.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:28 AM

Garg, bog = bathroom.

Yakking, I think you can guess what that is...

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:18 PM

Well, we're getting some very interesting testimonials, here. It seems to be leaning toward the conclusion that, yes, there are real physical vampires, although they may not fit the movie definition (whatever that is).

I've met individuals who kind of vaguely aspired in that general direction, but I don't believe I've met any who crossed over. Such people are best avoided, to say the least.

- LH

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: LadyJean
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:17 PM

When I was 10, I brought up the subject of vampires with the family cleaning lady. She was from Lithuania, and had a morbid streak. (I can remember the many conversations she had with mother about our dead relatives.) She gave me the skinny on bloodsuckers. "The full moon, they come out." "You die, so they live, that's how the world is."
Realizing that she had scared me half out of my wits, she added that that was in the old days, in the old country.
Now, I hadn't been scared of vampires before we had our little chat. But I have been ever since.
This having been said, I went to Transylvania College for two years. There is a crypt in the main building, but all the occupants are believed to stay put. One of them, the great naturalist, Constantine Rafinesque, is supposed to have put a curse on the college, but he stayed deceased.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 10:11 PM

Nerd, I always thought that the porphyria explanation emphasized drinking blood to alleviate heme synthesis deficiencies. This link gives a little info and history. I haven't investigated the 1999 references which debunk the porphria theory.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 09:12 PM

GRAND THREAD...

once again...confirming they ARE in the MC...and they have sucked off more than Max.

CLUIN...I KNOW a "blog" but what the blazes do you mean by he spent the next half-hour yakking in the bog

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: smallpiper
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:38 PM

They exist alright I have been a victim of the bastards. They suck your life (life = blood) right out of you and leave you in a perpetual hell! Those sceptics among the population of mudcat be warned some of them even visit here. Don't you, you bastard! But I will get you in the end be sure of that!

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Cluin
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:33 PM

I saved my buddy from vampires in Timmins once a few years ago. We'd finished playing in a bar there and struck up a conversation with a dark couple (who we didn't know were a couple at first) and, when we found out they had beer at home, agreed to come over for a visit after closing time.

As usual, after declaring an all-nighter, my buddy passed out in a chair and I was left trying to make conversation with these two Necrons. No fun, I can tell you. So I was trying to kick my pal awake when the female turned on me, saying he was staying right there and I could leave if I wanted.

I said I'd be damned if I was going home without him and had to explain to his wife and kids how I'd left him with two refugees from a Bruce MacDonald film up north. And, besides, the friends we were staying with there were actually friends of his, primarily.

Then followed a psychic battle consisting of stubborn glares and strange throaty noises from her. The guy was just trying to look tough. I wasn't worried about him. One kick in his fat pussgut would've taken him out of the fight for the weekend. But I thought I might have to knock the bitch out.

She was all: "He's staying here!"

And I was, like: "Bullshit! I'm taking him outta here! We gotta play Kingston next weekend."

Finally he came to, and I dragged his groggy ass out of there and poured him into the car. An inhuman screetch followed us out of the driveway and a dark shadow passed over the moon (it was actually my buddy's hat he'd forgotten and they threw it after us).

When we got back to our friends' apartment, and I apologized for getting them out of bed at that hour (they were used to it, actually), he spent the next half-hour yakking in the bog. Good on him, I thought and went to bed.

He thanks me all the time for the rescue from whatever weird menage those 2 were planning for him that night. He still owes me and I hope I never have to collect.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:13 PM

Puff adder, maybe. Or Eninen.

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 05:52 PM

Okay, but why not have it be about a vampire? It certainly makes for an interesting interpretation. Buffy, like Dylan, generally puts a different twist on traditionals and I find that refreshing. My suspicion is that she went for that version precisely because she liked the idea of a song about a vampire. The fact that she later wrote another song about a vampire and recorded it adds strength to that possibility.

Nosferatu - Actually, I am not making any "puny attempts to stop" you...although some people may be doing so for all I know. I've got my mind on other problems these days.

I have decided to slightly revamp (if you'll excuse the expression) my little rap lyric about vampires...

Vampires rule!
Dey'll always be cool
If people don' dig it
Dey's just po' fools!

If I had a vampire in my neighborhood
I'd say, "Hey, bro! You lookin' REAL good!"
You de man of the hour
An' you don't grow no flowers

You the brothah that bites
In the middle of the night
You the dude with the fangs
Of which I just sang

You don't drive no fast car
Or keep your teeth in a jar
You just turn into a bat
And land on my hat

You got a solid connection
That eludes all detection
You got a breath that paralyzes
And a wardrobe that surprises

That's why Vampires rule!
And dey'll always be cool
If people don' like it
Dey's just po' fools!

(Whaddya think? Can I get Eminem or Puff Daddy interested in this one?)

- LH

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: Nerd
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:22 PM

L.H., I don't think what you say about Buffy is true. I think she heard Lloyd's version of the song, thought it was about a vampire, and therefore said it was about a vampire. Certainly the vast majority of people who heard Buffy's version did not know the song in any other substantially different version; it was collected from Oral Tradition in North America, but those versions never went anywhere in the revival; meanwhile, all the British versions that have been recorded are based on Lloyd's, as is Buffy's. So I do think that most people who first heard Buffy claim it was a vampire simply believed her because she said so. They did not select from among other interpretations, because she said "this is about a vampire," and they took her at face value. Perhaps it's a bit strong to say they "fell for it," but it's equally strong to say that they chose to believe that interpretation because they liked it. The fact is, that's what they were told by someone who, probably erroneously, believed it to be so.   

Reggie, thanks for posting the lyrics. You're right, of course, that my musings above may have been irrelevant. Your friend may have based the song on some pre-existing tradition connecting vampirism and what were traditionally called "night riders," or he may not have. Either way, it's a good and spooky song!

Subject: RE: vampires real or not
From: GUEST, Nosferatu
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:36 AM

We are cool, Little Hawwk, because we are dead!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

We walk the Night, we are the Brothers and Sisters of the Night and of all that are abroad during the Night. Your puny attempts to stop us always fail and are laughable in their idiocy.

Your garlic only adds a bit of spice to the taste of your blood!
Crucifixes are something upon which we hang our cloaks! Your sharpened stakes but tickle and our "screams" are our laughter! We do not fear sunlight, but rarely see it as we are of the Night.

We are the Undead, we who walk the Night, licking and sucking in your Life Force and then, when you are dry, we discard you like the husk you are and seek out new Sources.

You know us, you have had communication with us. You know us by such names as Inland Revenue and the Internal Revenue Service.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!