Editing Vampire (section)

===Medieval and European Vampires===
Many of the myths surrounding vampires originated during the medieval period. The 12th century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. These tales are similar to the later folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the 18th century and were the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.

During the 18th century, there was a frenzy of vampire sightings in Eastern Europe, with frequent stakings and grave diggings to identify and kill the potential revenants; even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires. This was due to a combination of hysterical accounts from deathbed-bound plague victims and the simple fact that symptoms of what we now know to be corpse decomposition (e.g. bloating, pallid "bluish" skin and leaking of apparent excess blood) wasn't a fully understood thing yet.

Despite being called the Age of Enlightenment, during which most folkloric legends were quelled, the belief in vampires increased dramatically, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout most of Europe.

The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. Two famous vampire cases, the first to be officially recorded, involved the corpses of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole from Serbia. Plogojowitz was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Plogojowitz supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the second case, Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area and it was widely believed that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours. Another famous Serbian legend involving vampires concentrates around certain Sava Savanović living in a watermill and killing and drinking blood from millers. The folklore character was later used in a story written by Serbian writer Milovan Glišić and in the Serbian 1973 horror film Leptirica inspired by the story.

The two incidents were well-documented: government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe. The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "18th-Century Vampire Controversy", raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-claimed vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.

Although many scholars reported during this period that vampires did not exist, and attributed reports to premature burial or rabies, superstitious belief increased. Dom Augustine Calmet, a well-respected French theologian and scholar, put together a comprehensive treatise in 1746, which was ambiguous concerning the existence of vampires. Calmet amassed reports of vampire incidents; numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and supportive demonologists, interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed. In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote:

"These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer."

The controversy only ceased when Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. He concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies, sounding the end of the vampire epidemics. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local superstition.

Celtic mythology features the Baobhan Sidhe, which resemble the archetypal modern horror vampire, as they are beautiful women who take the blood of men while "dancing" with them (usually in a murderous fashion), but have to return to their burial mounds before the rise of the sun. There is also the Lennan Sidhe, or Barrow Lover, who is the tamer, more good natured, monogamous style of vampire girlfriend, who inspires her pet artist but also drains him, sometimes driving him into an early grave. There's also Abhartach, a dwarf magician and tyrant who, according to legend, rose from the grave after he was killed and demanded the blood of his subjects. He was finally killed using a sword made from a specific type of tree wood.

Romanian mythology also contributes heavily to the modern, sociable, attractive notion of vampires, who seem to usually be gingers, and could sometimes pass unnoticed in human society or even procreate or marry; even female vampires could bear offspring. The children are usually fated to become vampires after death. Romanian vampires come in countless varieties, from evil spirits to owls to vampire babes to actual living witches. Romanian vampires potentially have a shot at becoming alive again -- it involves marrying a foreigner, changing their name and leaving the country, however, which sounds a lot less like "becomes human again" and more "sneaks off to bite people elsewhere." Idk, you tell us.