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~new~ VAMPIRE POSTCARDS ~new~ VAMPIRE POETRY ~new~

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Vampire Lifestyle

Please note that while the articles posted on this page are meant to be viewed, they are the property of the author unless otherwise noted, and if you wish to use them, you must ask permission.

Also, please note the following: Apparently, there is a crusader or two who claim to be "real" vampires who disagree with some of the information we are providing on this site, and so, are running rampant through the vampire community doing their best to discredit the Vampire Legacy Society.  Also apparent is the fact that they neglected to read through the rest of the site where it plainly states in several places that we post ANY and ALL information on the vampire to let the visitor formulate their own opinions, instead of merely taking the word of one person.  According to them, we should seperate out certain articles, and put them on a "bullshit" page, or a fictional vampire page, whether or not they deal with the topic at hand.  Well guess what?  I'm not going to do that. Because who are we, and who are they, to say what is fact or fiction? No one knows the entire truth about vampirism, which is why there are so many sites attempting to find out. So, I am going to warn you, the visitor, to read through all of the articles, formulate your own opinion, and know, that we at the Vampire Legacy Society do not necessarily agree with ALL of the views presented on these pages, we merely collect them, and post them.

As well, as soon as I find out for sure who these people are that insist on trying to destroy the vampire community from within by claiming to be real vampires, and trying to discredit sites where many members have spent many hours researching articles to bring them to you, I will post their name, any contact info I can get, where they hang out, and whatever else I can dig up on them and post that information at the top of each page, along with this notice, so that you, the visitor, can contact them for yourselves, and I encourage you to do so.

As well, I encourage you the visitor to visit our forums, find the General Discussion forum, particularly one started by Broken Ghost, read through the threads, and post your own thoughts.

Also let it be noted, that the above narrative does not come from the entire membership, it comes entirely from the Founder, Tattunigma.  And I have no problem whatsoever defending the honor and hard work of the membership here at the Vampire Legacy Society.

Surviving A Vampyric Relationship

 By: Morrigan Brak 

 Relationships in general are difficult enough to maintain when two mortals are involved. However, these "normal" strains are amplified, and new problems arise, when there is a mortal and a vampyre attempting to maintain, and co-exist, within a married state.   I, myself, know of such things on a personal level, I, being a mortal woman, and married to a Vampyre. It is a long, difficult, and never ending struggle for us to understand and support one another in our combined, and yet separate lives.   For instance...there is little, and at times no room for the "normal" possessiveness or monogamy found in marriage. The mortal in the relationship has to be secure enough in themselves AND the relationship to know that vampyres MUST hunt. This means either joining in the hunt and stalking of prey, and/or being strong enough to accept the hunter in the significant other. This can be even more than taxing to the emotions.   The vampyre in this relationship has to be able to maintain a balance between their own hunger, and the needs and desires of their wife/husband/lover. This is no easy task, and often leads to a vampyre starving themselves out of guilt for the emotional pain it can put on the mortal(s) involved.   The side effects of this denial of feeding, are disastrous to both persons. Emotions of the vampyre will go haywire. The hunger tends to take over everything. It becomes all that one can think of. They may find themselves not even being able to look at, or touch, their mate, because they place them on a food, or bait for food, level. Only reinforcing guilt.   The mortal side of this union is not left unaffected. Wanting to make love can even become something that is backed away from. Erotic stimulation to the vampyre only enforces the need to feed. Leaving, at times, the mortal side of this relationship feeling unwanted, or unloved. It can be a painful experience indeed. It is difficult to understand that you may be all they may need in the emotional aspect of things, but you will NEVER be enough to satiate the hunger. It will ALWAYS be there.   These are but a few of the things that have come up in our existence together. There are so many more, too many to mention.   The key to surviving a vampyric/mortal marriage is to talk as much as possible. Work out solutions to these, and other issues, by finding common ground. If that can not be done (as sometimes it WILL be impossible to compromise a situation) Both must at least be understanding and supportive of one another as they walk together in the shadows of life hand in hand.In darkness and in light.

DRACULA THEME PARK

by William J. Kole (The Associated Press)

SIGHISOARA, Romania- Mist shrouds the Casa Vlad Dracul, where tourists sink their teeth into bloody chops drizzled with Dracula sauce-red and spicy-and wash  it down with Vampire cabernet. 

Over at the medieval main square, pallid actors film a scene for "Dacula Resurrection", a new B movie.  Down  in the dungeon-like Dracula video arcade, teenagers zap virtual vampires while their elders belly up to the bar for a Bloody Mary. 

Bleeding the Dracula myth for all it's worth is a way of life here in the Transylvanian birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the cruel 15th century count whose penchant for turning his enemies into human scarecrows was the inspiration for novelist Bram Stoker's legendary vampire. 

But for the town of 38,000, the stakes are about to get much higher. 

Next Spring, construction is set to begin on Dracula Park, a $30million theme park thatpeople here hope will bring cash and celebrity to a corner of Romania that seems frozen in time. 

"This town is numb-it's a city asleep. Dracula will wake it up,"  said Emilia Butnariu, 76, who barely gets byon the $50 a month she earns selling paintings. 

Although details are still being  worked out,  Sighisoara mayor Dorin  Danesan said the park will be open year-round and feature  amusement rides, a golf course, a  Gothic castle wired with spooky effects, a zoo, horseback riding, restaraunts and shops, all encircled by a miniature train line. 

There are even plans for an international center of vampirology. 

"We don't want it to be a kitsch," he said. "But this government wants to do business.  We're not afraid to exploit the Dracula myth to save a town that's a national monument." 

Townspeople see 3,000 new jobs for a region battered by 50% unemployment, and talk excitedly of as many as 1 million visitors a year.  Already, new hotels are going up, and property prices have soared. 

Dracula Park will be built about four miles outside town in the fir forests where bears, wolves and wild dogs still prowl.  Lying among those forests are the fabled killing fields where Vlad executed up to 100,000 people-mostly Turks-by impaling them on stakes. 

His methods were macabre, but the Impaler was less a villain than a man of valor who took a big bite out of crime, insists Nicolae Tescula, a researcher at Sighisoara's museum. 

"He was renowned for stopping highway robbery and murder," Tescula said. "There are accounts of a fountain in the middle of nowhere with a gold cup that no one dared to steal.  ForWesterners, he's a man of darkness.  But for Romanians, he's a model of justice like Washington or Jefferson." 

Not everyone is happy about the park.

Hermann Fabini, a lawmaker, worries that tourism based on horror, the macabre, and brutality will detract from local history.  Environmentalists fret over the noble oaks that will be felled for the park, and evangelical Christians fear Sighisoara could become a meeting place for satanists.

The following was sent in by Dean Devine

VAMPIRES' ARRESTED FOR VANDALISM


DALLAS (AP) - Four teen-agers claiming to be vampires went on a drug-
crazed rampage, vandalizing dozens of cars and homes, spray-painting
racial slurs and burning a church, police say.

The fire early Thursday destroyed the office and fellowship hall at
Bethany Lutheran Church. Its outside walls were scrawled with satanic
graffiti in hot pink and white paint.

``My sadness is not for us. It is for those people who don't know the
joy of life,'' said pastor Carol Spencer, whose church is in the mostly
white, middle-class suburb of Lake Highlands.

Evidence from the fire quickly led authorities to the nearby home of a
16-year-old boy, who was not identified because he is a juvenile.

He and the others - Lucas Charles Simms, 17, Brandon Lee Ramsey, 18,
and Charles Randal Kinnard, 19 - were arrested on arson charges.

The Dallas Morning News reported that one of them told detectives the
teens believe they are vampires and that the teen-agers had marks on
their arms from sucking each other's blood. The newspaper said the
teens smoked marijuana laced with some kind of a substance before
the rampage.

They slashed car tires, broke windows and spray-painted vulgarities
on cars, homes and fences, police said. An acid used to treat swimming
pools was spread on cars.

``I expected it to be messed-up kids. But this was really bad,'' said
Elwin Setliff, one of the dozens of vandalism victims.

Investigators would not disclose the evidence that led them to the
teen-agers.
Before their arrest, some of the teens sat in lawn chairs on top of a
carport and watched as investigators went through the ruins of the
church Thursday, said Deputy Fire Chief Tom Oney.

``It appeared to me that they were savoring the fruits of the damage,''
he said. ``They were enjoying watching us look at it.''


Courtesy
of The Associated Press, September 1997.

VAMPIRE SLEUTH STAKES OUT RHODE ISLAND BLOODSUCKERS


NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) -- Rhode Islanders have been guarding themselves
for months against mosquitoes infected with a potentially deadly virus,
but Christopher Rondina (Vamptopher@aol.com) says the state's past is
filled with stories of a far scarier bloodsucker: vampires.

After 10 years of research, the 29-year-old Newport man has written
and illustrated a book, "Vampire Legends of Rhode Island"
(ISBN 0-924771-91-7 Covered Bridge Press, 1997). Last Halloween,
Rondina and two friends camped amid the cold ruins and dark shadows of
Castle Dracula in Romania. They're traveling for 18 days in the
Transylvania countryside tracking both the Dracula of history and sites
associated with the bloodsucking legend made famous by the 1897 novel
by Bram Stoker.

"I personally believe that Stoker based a lot of the domestic events
>of his story on the Rhode Island legends,'' said Rondina, noting
Stoker
read newspaper clippings on New England vampire tales while researching
the book.

"One article focused on Rhode Island and reported dozens of cases over
a number of years,'' Rondina said. "It mentions Newport frequently, and
vaguely refers to a legend not far from Newport. "Unfortunately no one
has been able to pin down a vampire story in Newport -- excuse the
un.''

Tuberculosis caused the mysterious deaths once attributed to Rhode
Island vampires, including the case of Mercy Brown. Brown died in 1892
at
age 19. Her death followed those of her mother and older sister. At the
ime,
her brother, Edwin, was seriously ill and the family was desperate to
save
him. Family members attributed the deaths to a curse on the family and
decided to dig up the bodies of the women, including Mercy, who had
been
buried for about a month. When Mercy's body was exhumed, observers
noted it
appeared to have moved inside the coffin and blood was present in her
heart
and veins. Fearing she was a vampire, townspeople removed her heart and
burned it on a rock before reburying her. The family dissolved the
ashes in
medicine and gave it to Edwin, who died two months later.

Modern science may have driven the stake through the heart of local
vampire
tales but Dracula still grips Rondina's fascination. "I still enjoy the
romance of the story, the snappy wardrobe and the bats -- I love bats,"
Rondina said.
 

Courtesy of The New York Times, October 31 1993.

NEW ENGLANDERS "KILLED" CORPSES, EXPERTS SAY


Washington, Oct. 30 (AP) - Desperate to end what they thought were
attacks from beyond the grave, New Englanders once unearthed corpses
and performed vampire killing rituals, scientists say.

The centuries-old tale of supersticious ritual was unveiled by
scientists this week in time for Halloween.

Paul S. Sledzik, curator of the national museum of Health and
Medicine in Washington, said on friday that bodies from 18th- and
19th- century New England graves appear to have been dug up within a
few months or years of death and then mutilated or disrupted.

Journalists' accounts published as recently as 1893, he said, support
the belief that this tampering with corpses was prompted by the idea
of "killing" the dead to stop them from sucking the life
force from the living.

Dr Sledzik helped analyze corpses from a cemetery near Griswold, CT
and found one that clearly bore the signs of ritual mutilation.

The corpse, found in a coffin bearing the initials "J.B.,"
was found in the Walton family cemetary of Griswold, which had
accidently
been disturbed in a construction project.
Dr. Sledzik said when he examined J.B., it was clear the remains had
been tampered with sometime after the body had decomposed.  The
skeleton, he said, had been arranged into the familiar symbol of
death: the long bones of the upper leg had been placed on the chest
as an "X" and were topped by the skull.

In the laboratory, Dr. Sledzik determined that the bones bore lesions
from tuberculosis.  J.B. also had a hunched and crooked shoulder, a
crippled leg and probably a festering wound on his foot.  The man
also had some missing front teeth.

"In life, J.B. could have been a frightening figure, " said Dr
Sledzik.  Memories of this scary appearence could have prompted
survivors to make sure he was dead by removing the skull.

Dr Sledzik said his research shows such beliefs were common in New
England as late as 1892, particularly among families that were often
struck with tuberculosis, a disease then called consumption.

"Published vampire accounts place the folklore within the same time
frame and location as J.B.," said Dr Sledzik, who added that other
researchers have also reported finding mutilated bodies from the era.

"When someone died of consumption, it was believed they could come
back from the dead and drain the life of their living relative," Dr
Sledzik said. "In order to stop this, family members would go into
the grave and somehow attempt to kill the person again.  If there was
still flesh, they would remove it and burn it.  Or they would remove
the head.  In the American tradition, just causing some disruption to
the body was the way to kill a vampire."

The stake-through-the-heart approach, he said, was a European
tradition not practiced by Americans.

The effects of tuberculosis on the bodies of its victims, when viewed
with imagination, supported the folklore beliefs in vampires, he
said.

"Consumption is a very physical disease," he said. "People
can actually see the person wasting away."

But consumptives would also have great burst of energy and were known
for a powerful sex drive, he said, "so it made sense to people then
that after death this desire for life would continue and the dead
would be able to drain the life force from their relatives."

Dr Sledzik said it was felt that this provided an explanation for new
cases of tuberculosis and drove the living to "kill" the dead to
guard against more disease.

When people opened the coffins of recently dead consumptives, they
found bloated bodies with pale flesh, fingernails that seemed to have
grown and, often, blood at the mouth.  Dr. Sledzic said there were
accounts of bodies jerking and gurgling as the remains were
mutilated.

Forensic pathologists now know that all of these effects can be
explained by normal decomposition.  But in previous centuries, he
said, the superstitious who saw their loved ones wasting away from
consumption "felt they had to go into the graves and do something to
stop the process."

-- Warrwykk (estult51@maine.maine.edu)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Courtesy of Newsday, July 20 1995.
© 1995 Tom Collins

THE RUSSIAN VAMPIRE

Army service develops many character traits, but vampirism
seems to be another new one.

A 20 year old former Russian army man was arrested in Tula
outside Moscow after dragging a local drunk into the bushes,
biting through his carotid artery and drinking his blood,
Itar-Tass news agency reported yesterday.

Vampire "S" told police he developed a taste for blood in the
army and has drunk the blood of many victims.

-- Dark Angel (d.zeman@SMTPHOST.ELSEVIER.COM)


-------------------------------------------------------------------

Courtesy of Yankee Magazine, January 1994.
© Charles T Robinson

THE WORDS ON NELLY'S TOMBSTONE

The villagers of Exeter, Rhode Island, knew that farmer George Brown
had a problem.  First, in 1883 his wife, Mary, succumbed to a
mysterious illness.  Six months later, his 20-year-old daughter, Mary
Olive, also fell ill and died.  Within the next several years, his
19-year-old daughter, Mercy, was also dead, and George's teenage son,
Edwin, a healthy lad who worked as a store clerk, became suddenly
frail and sick.  The village doctor informed George that
"consumption" was taking his family.  But the country folk
of Exeter had another explanation.

On a chilly March afternoon in 1892, a group of men entered Exeter's
Chesnuthill Cemetery.  There they began to exhume the bodies of
George Brown's wife and two daughters.  They had concluded that one
of the deceased was leaving the grave at night to suck the life out
of its relatives.  Only by killing the vampire could young Edwin be
saved.

First, the men examined the bodies of Mrs. Brown and daughter Mary.
Finding them to be properly decomposed, they began to exhume Mercy
Brown.  Slowly they shoveled into Mercy's grave.  When they reached
the corpse, the men suddenly steped back in terror.

Mercy, who had been buried for more than two months, appeared oddly
well preserved.  It seemed that her hair and nails had grown.  And
when the men curiously prodded the corpse with their shovel, they
found that it was filled with fresh blood.  The suspected vampire's
heart was removed and burned on a nearby rock.  The ashes were added
to young Edwin's medicine.  Still, the boy died less than two months
later.

To the less supersticious, there was perhaps nothing so unusual about
the well-preserved condition of Mercy's body.  She had been in the
ground during the two coldest months of the year.  The mysterious
wave of illness that swept George Brown's family was probably
tuberculosis.

But that did not keep Rhode Island from becoming known as the
"Vampire Capital of America".  South County, whose isolated
villages resembled the lonely hamlets of Transylvania, was a hotbed of
vampire rumors between 1870 and 1900.  When Bram Stoker, who wrote
Dracula in 1897, died, newspaper accounts of Mercy Brown were found in
his files.

The legend persists to this day.  In Rhode Island Historical Cemetery
No.2 stands the gravestone of alleged vampire Nelly L. Vaughn of West
Greenwich, who died in 1889 at the age of 19.  The grave is
supposedly cursed.  One local university professor who studies
vampirism claims that "no vegetation or lichen will grow on Nelly's
grave," despite numerous attempts to plant there.  And people are
still taken aback by the inscription along the bottom of Nelly's
tombstone.  The curious words read, "I am waiting and watching for
you."

-- Warrwykk (estult51@maine.maine.edu)


>-------------------------------------------

Courtesy of The Fortean Times, June 1996.


FATAL VAMPIRE ATTACK IN GERMANY

A man of 75, walking Jockel, his Dachshund, in Berlin on 4 April 1995,
was attacked by a 43-year-old man who bit him on the neck, shouting "
I am Dracula!"  Passersby overpowered the attacker and handed him
over to police. He said he had been drinking. The victim went home and
died an hour later from a heart attack.