Three
Things Vampires Don't Want You To Know
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Post by Helen Keeble
Vampires aren't real. If they
were, they couldn't stay hidden for long, right? Thanks to the endless books,
films, and TV shows filled with vampiric lore, we all know how to recognise a
bloodsucker. And we all know their weaknesses - sunlight, beheading, fire,
stakes, athletic teenage girls, holy water, garlic…
Or maybe that's just what the
vampires want you to think are their weaknesses.
Delve a little deeper into
traditional vampiric folklore, and there are a lot of weird things that don't
appear in our modern vampire fiction. Things that maybe the vampires want to
keep quiet…
1) They're
just like unicorns
No, not because vampires are also
beautiful and sparkly. Because, like unicorns, vampires are terrified of
virgins. In fact, while unicorns are irresistibly drawn to virgins, according
to Romanian folklore virgins are irresistibly drawn to vampires.
Actually, this is true in a lot of
paranormal romances too, now that I come to think of it.
Anyway, all you have to do is
stick a virgin on a white (or possibly black - sources vary) horse, and they'll
be able to lead you straight to the grave of the nearest vampire. And if you
use a woman older than 25, she’ll even be able to kill the vampire for you as
well. Just get her to whip the vampire's grave with a hazel twig, and the
bloodsucker will never be able to rise again.
Basically, older female virgins
are homing missiles of mass vampire destruction. No wonder literature is full of
vampires desperately trying to romance young girls. They have to neutralize
them!
2) They
float
"Big deal," I hear you
say, rolling your eyes. "Ducks float. Boats float. What's so special about
vampires floating?"
Because, according to our friend
Romanian folklore again, vampires always float. They literally can't
sink.
Folklore boringly suggests using
this trait to determine if someone is a vampire by tossing them in a river, but
just think of the many other uses for this peculiar property...
"This is the captain
speaking. Unfortunately we have hit an iceberg and water is now pouring through
the hull, but there is no need to be alarmed! The vampires strapped under the
Titanic's hull make this ship literally unsinkable. While we repair the hole, please
enjoy complimentary cocktails on the aft deck, and ignore the muffled screams
of the tormented undead underneath your feet."
Vampires would definitely want to
keep this one quiet. No bloodsucker wants to spend eternity stuffed under an
airplane chair as an emergency flotation device.
3) You're
probably always carrying the means to defeat one
Check your pockets or purse. Got
some spare change? Maybe a half-eaten packet of breath mints? A tissue?
Congratulations! You can stop a
charging vampire in his tracks.
All you have to do is fling a
handful of small objects at him, and he'll be compelled to stop in order to
count them all. No, really. The technical term for this behaviour is
arithmomania, and it crops up everywhere in vampire folklore, all around
the globe. Poland, Romania, China,
India, pretty much everywhere has legends about obsessive-compulsive vampires.
Though curiously, it seems to have fallen out of favour in modern vampire
fiction.
Apart, of course, from one famous
case:
There you go. Incontrovertible
proof that Sesame Street is written by vampire hunters, who are determined to
make sure children everywhere know vampires' real weakness.
And now you do too.
P.S. Yes, I really do use one of
these pieces of vampire folklore in my novel FANG GIRL. And no, I'm not going
to tell you which one…
Things That Are Destroying Jane Greene’s Undead Social Life Before It Can Even Begin:
1) A twelve-year-old brother who’s convinced she’s a zombie.
2) Parents who are begging her to turn them into vampires.
3) The pet goldfish she accidentally turns instead.
4) Weird superpowers that let her rip the heads off of every other vampire she meets.(Sounds cool, but it doesn’t win you many friends.)
5) A psychotic vampire creator who’s using her to carry out a plan for world domination.
And finally:
6) A seriously ripped vampire hunter who either wants to stake her or make out with her. Not sure which.
Being an undead, eternally pasty fifteen-year-old isn’t quite the sexy, brooding, angst-fest Jane always imagined....
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Keeble is not, and never has been, a vampire. She has however been a teenager. She grew up partly in America and partly in England, which has left her with an unidentifiable accent and a fondness for peanut butter crackers washed down with a nice cup of tea. She now lives in West Sussex, England, with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a variable number of fish. To the best of her knowledge, none of the fish are undead.
Her first novel, a YA vampire comedy called FANG GIRL, is out 11th Sept 2012, from HarperTeen. She also has another YA paranormal comedy novel (provisionally titled NO ANGEL) scheduled for Sept 2013.
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