Vampire legends are about four thousand years old. They are present in almost all ancient mythologies. Although demonic figures such as Mesopotamian Lamastu or Greek Lamia were not called vampires, various elements taken from these myths and others contributed to the creation of the vampire legend. Nomadic tribes and merchants have spread along the time such legends throughout other world territories.

The most famous vampire in our time is Dracula who, according to the novel of Stoker, lived in Romania. This legend and those derived from it were inspired by the folklore and myths that circulated in East Europe hundred of years ago. History records mention about demons and genii. Demons use corpses to be able to walk among living people while genii are spirits of dead people returned to the world in their dead bodies. 

The name of the well-known vampire Dracula has the following origin: in the 15-th century, the father of a Walachian (actual Romania) future prince named Vlad belonged to the Order of the Dragon. As the Latin for dragon is “draco”, the Romanian nickname “Dracul” imposed for both the father and the son. It is interesting to observe that in Romanian the word “drac” means in English “devil”. The son baptised Vlad was also nicknamed Tepes (spear) because, after he became prince, he used to kill his enemies and traitors by throwing them to be stabbed by big wooden spears placed vertically.  The prince was born in Sighisoara, a town in the region of Transylvania, Romania. 

In the 17-th and 18-th centuries followed a vampire hysteria proved by stories about dead persons haunting living people. This explains why lots of graves were opened to destroy the vampires in there with wooden spears stabbed into the corpses. The panic created by medieval vampires and the cruelty of the prince Vlad Tepes inspired literature and painting, including the novel Dracula by the Irish writer Abraham Bram Stoker, written in 1897. The film inspired by this novel helped a great deal to the spread of the Dracula legend and the vampire myth. Stoker’s story takes place in a castle from Transylvania where the count Dracula lives.

Stoker created the modern vampire: a rich aristocrat, intelligent and endowed with supernatural powers, who becomes weak in sunlight and in front of crucifixes. His negative character does not resemble the real Dracula; the writer took in fact only the name of the prince.