"Slay" bells ring, are you listening?
In the Crypt, walls are glistening,
Splattered in red, while vampires are fed
We're hunting in a bloody wonderland
Well hello, Crypt and Belfry Dwellers, we just rocked the winter solstice. It is always something to look forward: the longest night of the year.
Today, instead of an entry on a particular creature, we'd love to share some vampire trivia that brings together creatures of the night and this most wonderful time of the year. Funny as it might sound, there is quite a lot of superstitions, Christmas in particular and winter in general, that are tied to vampires. Let's revise some of them:
Remember when we told you that little family secret? The gossip about werewolves and vampires being friends and family before Hollywood decided to turn them against one and other?
Well, it all starts in Christmas time. In Romania, Poland and Moldova, it was believed that a child born in Christmas Day was cursed to become a werewolf. If that curse was not enough, such werewolf was doomed to become a vampire upon death. (Be born on Christmas day, and live for ever, there's just a bit of tiny twists and small letters stuff... Don't you worry about a thing).
It seems this whole curse is related to good old mommy and daddy committing "sins of the flesh" during and conceiving children during lent. Tsk, tsk, tsk, buy a TV set, find something to watch and spare yourself a werepire.
Remember, church attendance was a big issue in the Middle Ages and most of these vampire superstitions seem to be cautionary tale meant to set people straight and keep them attending mass when they felt like staying home and drinking cocoa, if you ask me. Consider the next one:
If a vampire can manage to climb to a church's belfry unnoticed while Christmas mass is being performed, he/she can call out the name of any villager, and, if this person is not protected within the church's walls, the vampire can easily kill them, even without touching them, just by sheer will.
And of course, evil pumpkins and melons left unconsumed by Christmas turn into their own kind of blood thirsty night terrors, scary enough to be granted an entry in this book.
And it seems Greece has its share of Christmas vampires. While the ones mentioned above do bad, bad things all through the year, the Callicantzaros are an unusual breed of vampires that rather stay hanging around in the netherworld as spirits, only conjuring a body during Christmas day, staying above ground for twelve days, ringing in the New Year with quite an unquenchable thirst, mayhem, madness and blood left in their wake until they returned to the underworld right on the day of the Epiphany.
What about you, Crypt dwellers, any Christmas born out there? Do you know any other strange, seasonal superstition that you might want to share in comments?
We just want to tell you, on behalf of Crypt and Belfry that we are happy to have you as part of our family. Enjoy your holidays, ring in the New Year with wicked need to come back here! In the meantime, steer away from mistletoe, it is terrible for vampires; you can always sneak a kiss in a dark alley...
Happy holidays!
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Creature Feature
RandomCreature Feature will be your source book for the myth that feeds a great deal of stories here in Wattpad. We will have vampires for you to choose. We hope you might give us some fresh ideas in return. Open up, have a look, find your monster.
