As a matter of fact, almost every monster ever counted and named by a human is merely an angel or a demon in disguise. The others are merely misunderstood living, biological creatures that have been maligned over the years.
Since I’ve assumed the shape and station of a human teenage girl, I just couldn’t help but notice that the most popular monster of all these days—quite a shift from what it used to be—is the vampire.
The history of the vampire is rather varied. There’s no singular event that brought about the origin of the creature as it’s recognized now. All the intelligence on them was, for the most part, consolidated within a single narrative when Mr. Stoker created the character of Dracula (which drew from the seminal work by Mr. Polidori), and even then, most of what he had put together was largely based on myth.
However, I can report on the origin of the term vampire.
It was in the year 988, in the city of Kiev, when Vladimir the Great realized that the Slavic gods could no longer provide him with the spiritual comfort and refuge he had sought for so long. And so it was that the Grand Prince of Rus was won over by the promise of heavenly salvation (and earthly power) that was offered by the Cross, and with a show of great love for his new (Christian) wife Anna of Macedonia, and with even greater intentions for his kingdom, he embraced Christianity.
Vladimir couldn’t think of a more sincere profession of faith than to save the souls of his pagan people, and on the 12th of July (on the old Byzantine calendar) of the year of his conversion, he ordered bid all Kievans down to the banks of the Dnieper River and made invited them to step into the water in an act of mass baptism. All the true believers there testified that the Dnieper carried the sins of the city downstream and far, far away into the belly of a giant sea dragon lurking in the depths of the Black Sea.
But not all the Kievans fell in line immediately. Some of them held onto the old ways. One Kievan who refused to accept Christ as her Lord and Savior was a young woman named Aleksandra.
Aleksandra had been left upon the doorstep of the servants’ quarters at the palace of Kiev in the spring of 970, and she was taken in and raised by Mariya, the matriarch of the servants. Mariya was typically perceived as a stern woman, but she loved Aleksandra as a daughter and reserved all her tenderness for her ward. She taught the child the arts of healing, which was an invaluable skill to have as a servant of the court. She instilled within her surrogate child a strict loyalty to the court of Kiev and an unwavering obedience to the gods of the sky, forest, mountain, river and sea.
Neither Mariya nor Aleksandra had been allowed much in terms of possessions in their shared quarters, but they did have one small wooden statue of the supreme deity Perun that they held dear. They took it down from their makeshift altar only once, and that was during the festivities following the coronation of Vladimir in 980. The Grand Prince had unveiled a new monument to the lightning god, and when they compared the two likenesses, the ladies were pleased to discover that their representation of Perun was just as omnipotent-looking as the rich sculpture fit for a monarch.
Mariya had already lived far beyond her own expectations when she reached her sixtieth winter by her own reckoning at the beginning of the year 985, and it was no surprise to anyone when she became gravely ill on the last full moon before the spring equinox. Mariya sensed that death was near, and in her final breaths, she made Aleksandra swear to her that she would always maintain her fealty to the gods and to the court that had looked after them.
Life went on for Aleksandra in the years that followed. She kept the promises she had made to Mariya: she served the court of the Grand Prince Vladimir until her feet ached and her back complained, and she honored the gods with every spare moment she was afforded.
Thus July 12, 988, was a day of unimaginable horror, for Aleksandra awoke to the insufferable blasphemy that Vladimir was forsaking the gods and embracing a new god—a single god—who demanded that they all bathe in the river to rid themselves of evil.
Aleksandra was painfully offended. She had lived an honest life. She knew that she had no evil within her. She hid her tears when they cast the great statue of Perun into the Dnieper and hacked the effigies of all the other gods to pieces. That night, after she prayed to her little wooden statue of Perun, she hid it inside her mattress, and when she slept, she dreamt that he sent a violent storm to crush the god that had usurped him.
(And would you believe it but Sage’s father Dennis is demanding that I help him prepare yet another meal. I’m afraid I’ll have to finish this history later. Dominus tecum.)
So when do I tune in for the next blog? And by the way, why is the Black Sea black?
Nadiel has assured me that the next post will be up on Tuesday 8/10.
Re: Black Sea. The Turks were apparently fond of assigning colors to directions. They associated Black with the direction of North, and thus it became the Black Sea. (And that’s why the Red Sea was named such – it was to the South, and they used to call the Mediterranean the White – or West – Sea.)
Or so I learned from Wikipedia. Whether that’s fact or not, I’ll leave up to you. Nadiel might have a better answer for that later.
Love, EAB
Why is the sky Blue? Some things just shouldn’t be asked. 🙂