Before Dracula, before gothic romance, before the elegant vampire of film and fiction, there were older fears.

Across Europe and beyond, people told stories of the dead who would not stay dead. Corpses accused of feeding on the living. Night spirits that stole breath, blood, milk, life force, fertility, and luck. Families wasting away one by one. Graves reopened in desperation. Stakes, fire, salt, sickles, bricks in the mouth, and rituals meant to hold the dead in place.

In this episode of Noir Frequency, we trace the folklore of the vampire from the famous vampire panics of eighteenth-century Serbia, including Arnold Paole and Peter Plogojowitz, to Mercy Brown and the New England vampire panic of 1892. We also look further back, into older night terrors such as Lilitu, Lamashtu, Lamia, Empusa, and the striges, before following vampire-like beings around the world: the jiangshi, manananggal, soucouyant, loogaroo, vetala, adze, penanggalan, strigoi, lugat, and vrykolakas.

This is not just a story about monsters. It is a story about disease, grief, sleep paralysis, burial customs, folk belief, ritual protection, and the terrifying question that returns whenever life is being taken and no one can explain why:

What is feeding on us?

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The story is the evidence. The conclusion is yours.

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