C. to as recently as the 1800's. It seems hard to believe that the decrepit, ghostly walking dead of ancient Greece and Transylvania could possibly be related to the fang-wielding bloodsuckers wandering the city streets of 21st century entertainment media. According to Paul Barber, "The folklore of the vampire has only a slight connection with the fiction, much the way the folklore of ghosts has little to do with the movie Ghostbusters The baffling part of this is that the modern "vampires" are claiming kinship not with the vampire that our ancestors actually believed in but with the fictional vampire derived from that one. This is like somebody claiming to be related to Rhett Butler in the movie Gone with the Wind. 'You mean Clark Gable,' you say. 'No, no: Rhett Butler. You know, the character in the movie. He's my cousin (1-2).'" .
With all of the different conceptions about vampires drifting in and out of ancient and modern folklore, it is definitely difficult for any folklorist to define the vampire. In order to observe vampire folklore in full, on must sort out and observe all of the different types of vampire lore, from the origin to the modern conception.
Ancient Times: The Origin of the Vampire .
Early accounts of spirits rising from the dead date back thousands of years. In China, it was said that after death, a spirit may return to the realm of the living in the body of a red-eyed monster with green or pink hair. Other blood-drinking demons of old include foxes in Japan and a severed head with entrails hanging down in Malaysia. The vampire of the Maya people, known as Camazotz, was an agriculture god who often appeared as a bat. He was feared for his blood drinking tendencies, as well as his large teeth and claws. Among the Aztec people, the Cihuateteo was a vampire as well. This demi-god and vampiric woman was often depicted like her kin in other parts of the world, killing and surviving on the blood of infants (.