Creature Feature

Those Upior are Everywhere!

As of late, whenever we run polls among the residents of the graveyard, (yes we like to keep busy with such trivial stuff in the crypt), asking "What is a vampire to you?" Well, we get as many answers as there are voices.

Let them be born or turned, day walkers or night owls, vicious or kind, pale or sparkly, original or crispy recipe... You know what I mean.

What if I told you that there is a vampire that fits every category with ease? I like to call them Schrödinger's vampires cause their patterns fit everywhere and no where.

Today we are going to talk about Poland's Upior (not to be confused with Upir, Upor or Upyr, cousins whose mothers showed that the naming game can only stretch so far).

Why do we have so many words sounding the same around European folklore? and most importantly... what do all these words eventually shifted towards? It is that Upior is the Slavic root from where the word vampire originated.

The Upior is quite a particular vampire. For some of you who fume at the idea of "day walkers" complaining that vamps are solely creatures of the night; the Upior's sleeping patterns have been given a point to the Salvattores and the Cullens since the beginning
of the myth. For seasons at a time, these vampires will change sleeping patterns and go to bed like all of us to wake up in the morning. Any time, from noon to midnight, they will hunt and haunt.

If you are a vamp fan that is into aesthetics and believe that vampires should be bold and beautiful. Sure, upiors fit the bill. They also have a barbed tongue that give those critters from "The Strain" a run for their money.

Where you one of those that rolled your eyes and had a laugh when True Blood Vampires exploded like insane blood bags at the contact of a stake? As much as we would like to believe it was all HBO's over the top antics...Nope. Upiors sleep in blood, bathe in it, drink it even through their pores and when they are staked, it is revealed that their whole body is just a container. They will explode all over the place like it's nobody's business.

Have you ever scoffed at the idea of a one bite turn? After all, Dracula specifies it takes several and.... Upiors to the rescue! Their form of vampirism is so lethal than just sharing space with them exposes you-airborne, if you will. This lead to people taking preventive actions for their loved ones.

In order to keep corpses from turning into Upiors, they would be buried face down with a pice of willow wood under their armpits. Don't ask, I have no more to tell. Now, if you don't want to spend eternity with a block of wood keeping your arms in an eternal flapping position, there is a way to rid yourself of a possible vampire curse while still living.

All you need to do is become a master baker. No biggie. A simple mix of dough and Upior's blood, baked as bread and eaten will rid you of worries... Forever.

Upiors, or at least their characteristic, are spread all over popular culture. As of late, they have been sort of represented in Hemlock Grove (any fans of the series out there?)
Though they use the word upir (it sounds a lot nicer, but those are actually russian vampires with iron teeth... However, that's another story).

So, here we leave you, with a vamp that has a little of everything. Tell us where you want to go next, and we'll keep on digging!