Lamia, Empusa and the Strix: The Classical Ancestors of the Vampire
People often tell me the vampire is a Slavic invention that Bram Stoker dressed up in evening wear. The Slavic part is where the word comes from, and Stoker certainly did the dressing. But the creature — a night-flying, blood-drinking, child-threatening female figure — was already fully formed in Greek and Roman sources more than … Read more