The following is a summary of the more common species of vampire believed to have infested Europe in the 18th century. This was taken from a book by a Rumanian author who's main hypothesis was that the prevalence and persistence of the vampire myth in central and southern Europe was due to conflict between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

I have yearned for tonight for so long,
In nights dark cloak I wait.
How can what we want be wrong?
When all we feel is love not hate.

Here within the stable block,
I nestled in the hay.
Whilst listening for the churchyard clock,
To chime the hours away.

I felt not fearful of the night,
Or anything within.
For he had given me clearer sight,
Of nature and her kin.

Though he was only a humble man,
And I a highborn lady.
We loved as no two others can,
For that was our sweet destiny.

December 2, 2002 (Romania) - A 60-year-old Romanian woman who went to the cinema to watch a version of Dracula spent several hours alone in the building after she was accidentally locked inside.

Zinca Margarit, from Bucharest, was on the toilet when the cinema workers checked the building and left.

March 6, 1998 (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 classic vampire story by Bram Stoker revolves around a struggle between good and evil, tradition and modernity, and lust versus chastity. The author didn’t invent vampires, but his novel has so captured the public’s imagination that he is rightly considered their popularizer. Listen and you will meet not only the Count himself, but heroes Jonathan Harker and Abraham Van Helsing, plus an array of madmen, psychiatrists, and fair maidens who cross paths with the fanged menace.

(Summary by Paula)

German translation by Michael Kipping