Recientemente se ha estrenado en cines la tercera parte de la saga Underworld: ‘La Rebelión de los Licántropos’ (‘Rise of the Lycans’ en V.O), la temática de los vampiros ha sido largamente explotada por el cine y la televisión desde que el irlandés Bram Stoker publicara en 1897 “Drácula”. Pero ¿cuál es el verdadero origen de la leyenda? ¿Qué parte le pertenece a la realidad y qué parte a Hollywood?¿Existen los vampiros?
The historical figure on which the novel is based is Vlad Tepel Dracul, son of Vlad Dracul, who lived between 1456 and 1474, in Wallachia, not in Transylvania, famous for his cruelty and for the campaigns he initiated, first against the Saxes and then against the Turks, where he impaled 5,000 enemy soldiers as a psychological maneuver to terrorize the enemy. This is the first pillar of the legend, when Bram Stoker traveled to Slavic lands, very close to where Vlad Tepel came from, it seems that he did so near Walpurgis Night, the Walpurgis Nacht, which would be something like Halloween of the 15th century and was celebrated in April, around that time in the taverns the groups of legends increased and that is where Bram Stoker would surely hear of the Count’s cruelties Dracul, which would be the germ of his novel.
But the true origin of vampirism and lycanthropy are porphyrias, porphyrias is a pathology or disease that consists of an excessive increase in proteins called porphyrins in the blood, its main cause is a malfunction of the enzymatic sequence of the heme group of Hemoglobin, a blood pigment that makes it red. The heme group is what transports oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body’s cells. Its symptoms are mainly two:
- Photosensitivity: It occurs in all, except the so-called Acute Intermittent Form. This photosensitivity is the result of the accumulation of metal-free porphyrins in the skin, producing serious lesions.
- Hirsutism: The body, to protect itself from light, makes hair grow even in unusual places such as the back of the fingers and hands, on the cheeks, on the nose, that is, in the most exposed places… because of this, the patient flees from intense light, especially the sun, and if he goes out, he does so only at night; The skin may also present areas of pigmentation or depigmentation and the teeth are usually red, making the patient’s appearance move further and further away from the stereotype of a human being to get closer to the monster.
Everything is coming together, right? Now imagine an excess of these proteins, the porphyrins, throughout the body and they also have the ability to absorb light of any wavelength and transfer its energy to oxygen, but it is not released as O2, which is normal, what we breathe, but as O, which is simply tremendously toxic and reactive, literally causing the skin to start burning upon contact with sunlight, resulting in a spectacle as grotesque as it is conducive to the appearance of a legend.
¿Y los hombres lobo? No dejan de ser una variante más, son porfirias que acentúan ese hirsutismo del que hablábamos, imaginaos en pleno siglo XIV un ser tremendamente peludo y feo vagando por la noche porque no puede darle la luz del sol.
The stake in the heart to eliminate them comes from no other place than the Holy Inquisition practices that used this method to get rid of anyone they didn’t like too much, whether they were vampires or not, as well as crosses and generous amounts of holy water. The fact that they are not reflected in mirrors is an invention of Bram Stoker himself and it is not very well known where it comes from, and as for garlic, it can be explained by a series of chemical reactions as complex as they are boring, believe me, but it is a tremendous aggravator of the porphyric reaction so it is not known how, but it seems that they did find an effective “anti-vampire”.
The habit of drinking blood is a pica, a pica is an inexplicable reaction of the human body to the lack of some nutrient. In countries at war, children with a lack of calcium have been seen instinctively sucking lime off the walls.
And this is the story, every legend, every myth, has its part of fiction and its part of truth, it is always interesting to see where the thin line that separates them lies.