Full Moons and Vampires

Most of us are familiar with the effect that full moons have on werewolves, but what about the effect on vampires? Unlike their furry friends, vampires don't turn into a deadly creature only at the full of the moon. A vampire is active any night. Why, then, do we associate the full moon with vampires?

One association has to do with the way a vampire is made. It was believed that even without another vampire's involvement, a human could be turned into a vampire through a witch's curse or through improper burial. If a cat jumped over the corpse or the full moon shone upon it through a window before it was buried, the person would return from the grave as a vampire.

The full moon could also restore a wounded vampire to undead health. The vampire's body would be spread out where it could be bathed in the light of the full moon and left to revive. In Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Lord Ruthven is shot by bandits and asks that his body be laid out where the first rays of moonlight will strike it. The body disappears. Lord Ruthven has been restored.

Inanna Arthen, author of the New England Vampire series (Mortal Touch, The Longer the Fall, All the Shadows of the Rainbow) and owner of the small press By Light Unseen Media, reminds us of another example in vampire literature. "In the penny-dreadful Varney the Vampyre, Lord Varney is unkillable because moonlight will revive him every time he’s killed. He finally flings himself into an erupting volcano to end it all."

There's even an example of a vampire needing moonlight to survive, in “When It was Moonlight,” by Manly Wade Wellman. Arthen tells me that in this 1940 short story, "Edgar Allen Poe meets a vampire who is animated entirely by the moonlight; he defeats her by locking her into a dark windowless cellar where she’s cut off from the light."

Two examples where, in literature -- not folklore, but literature -- vampires appear in full moonlight are Dracula and the legend of the Vampire of Croglin Grange. Again, Arthen, a veritable font of vampire knowledge, tells me, "In Dracula, Jonathan Harker first sees the three vampire women standing in moonlight, and they appear able to almost dissolve into the moonlight and travel along with it. In the allegedly true 'Vampire of Croglin Grange' story reported by August Derleth, the vampire first appears on a brilliant moonlit night."

Probably the strongest reason that we associate the full moon with vampires, though, has nothing to do with these legends. It has everything to do with visual arts. F.W. Murnau, who gave us Nosferatu, the first film adaptation of Dracula, also gave us the idea that vampires are destroyed by sunlight. Vampires in European folklore had no such vulnerability.

But after Nosferatu, the idea of vampires being destroyed by sunlight caught on and became canon. This presented a problem. If your movie scenes can't be set in daylight (because your vampires can't survive in daylight), you need some light to film in, and that light must therefore be moonlight.

In my two vampire novels, Darksome Thirst and The Old Power Returns, the full moon makes an appearance for a different reason. It's the late 1970s and a new coven of trainees has formed. They're taught that psychic power is stronger at the full moon and use that time to practice divination and other magical techniques. Soon they begin to sense something, an evil something.

Using each full moon to strengthen their powers to battle against the evil presence, the coven eventually finds the source.

Yes, the source of the evil is a vampire. Or two.

Special thanks go to Inanna Arthen for her generous sharing of knowledge for this post. If you love vampires, please visit her site at www.bylightunseenmedia.com.
 

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Inanna Arthen's Talk on Vampires - Complete set of podcast episodes

In a lively talk recorded at Books and Boos in Colchester, Connecticut, on April 20, 2013, Inanna Arthen traced the history of vampires in fiction and debunked some of the common mistakes and misinformation about the genre.

I broke the talk up into three parts to fit the format of my "Vampires, Witches, and Geeks" podcast. All three parts are now posted here:


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Inanna Arthen's "Beyond Twilight" Presentation

I had the good fortune to listen to Inanna Arthen's talk "Beyond Twilight" this past April at Books and Boos in Colchester, CT.  In this lively talk, Inanna Arthen traces the history of vampires in fiction and debunks some of the common mistakes and misinformation about the genre.

Starting with folklore and literature that pre-dates Bram Stoker's Dracula, Arthen fascinates us with the story of vampires in folklore, literature, movies, and television series. She graciously allowed me to share her presentation. I've cut her 90-plus minute talk into three sections. You can listen to the first part here: Part 1 of “Beyond Twilight: The Infinite Variety of Vampire Fiction,” with Inanna Arthen.

Inanna Arthen is an author, designer, and vampire expert who has been studying vampire folklore, media, and culture for 45 years. She runs By Light Unseen Media, a small press dedicated to fiction and non-fiction with a vampire theme. She is also the author of the Vampires of New England Series of novels, which includes Mortal Touch, The Longer the Fall, and, coming soon, All the Shadows of the Rainbow.

Thanks go to Books and Boos for hosting the event. They have started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to help them move to a larger store. If you appreciate independent bookstores and how they serve the reader, check out their Indiegogo campaign here. The campaign will run until 11:59 pm Pacific Time on October 13, 2013.

Dark Carnival of Authors, Saturday, April 13, 2013

This Saturday, April 13, 2013, stop by at Annie's Book Stop of Worcester, Massachusetts, from 11:00 AM until 9:00 PM to listen to readings, get autographs from, and chat with several authors of dark fantasy and horror.

The event will also include memories of and readings from the works of award winning horror author Rick Hautala, who passed away just last month.

Refreshments will be provided all day. The event is free. Located at 65 James Street, Worcester, Massachusetts, Annie's has plenty of free parking.

Here’s the schedule from Annie's:

11:00 – Snacks, socializing

11:30 – Eric Dimbleby has been published in dozens of anthologies in the US, Canada, and Australia. In 2012, he won the “Best Speculative Fiction” award from the Maine Writer’s and Publishers Alliance, for his debut novel Please Don’t Go.  Eric’s most recent novel is entitled The Klinik.

12:00 – Jennifer Pelland has garnered two Nebula nominations, and many of her short stories were collected in Unwelcome Bodies, put out by Apex in 2008. Apex also released her debut novel, Machine, in 2012.

12:30 – Signing, socializing

01:00 – K. A. Laity is the author of the novels Lush Situation, Owl Stretching, Pelzmantel, The Mangrove Legacy, Chastity Flame and the collections Unquiet Dreams and Unikirja, as well as editor of Weird Noir and writer of other stories, plays and essays. Her stories tend to slip across genres and categories, but all display intelligence and humour.

01:30 – Jessie Olson is the author of An Ever Fixéd Mark and one of the founders of Worcester Writers Collaborative. She grew up in a small Central Massachusetts town with lots of trees and a complete lack of restraint on her imagination.

02:00 – Signing, socializing

02:30 – Errick Nunnally‘s successes include: the upcoming publication of his book, Blood For The Sun; a comic strip collection, Lost in Transition; first prize in one hamburger contest; the short story “Who Bears The Lathe?” in eFiction’s inaugural SciFi issue; the sci-fi short, “Legion,” in the anthology Doorways to Extra Time; two lovely children; and one beautiful wife.

03:00 – Rose Mambert is the editor-in-chief of Pink Narcissus Press and has published a number of short stories and poems, and co-edited various anthologies such as Elf Love, Queer Fish, and WTF?!. She is author of a rock and roll vampire novel, The Muses: The Blood Tour (2012, Damnation Books.)

03:30 – Signing, Socializing, Refresh Food

04:30 – Frank Raymond Michaels has short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Haunts, the former earning an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Finest Fantasy and Horror, Sixth Edition and the latter being made into a Sundance short film. He’s currently working on a sword and sorcery novel and more short horror fiction.

05:00 – Morven Westfield is the author of Darksome Thirst and The Old Power Returns, two vampire novels set in New England, often writes for The Witches’ Almanac, and produces the podcast “Vampires, Witches, and Geeks.”

05:30 – Signing, socializing

06:00 – Inanna Arthen began studying vampire literature and folklore in the 1960s, and since then, has become a scholar on the subject. She is also the author of the Vampires of New England series and owner of By Light Unseen Media, a small press dedicated to all that is Vampire.

06:30 – John McIlveen has written numerous stories, poems, and articles.  He is the author of Jerks and Other Tales from a Perfect Man, and his fiction has been published in Twisted Magazine, Deathrealm Magazine, Metromoms Magazine, Horror on The Installment Plan, Borderlands 5 (a.k.a. From the Borderlands), The Monster’s Corner (2011 St. Martin’s), Epitaphs (2011 Shroud), Under the Bed (2012 Sirens Call) , 21st Century Dead (2012 St. Martin’s), Suffer the Little Children (2013 Cruentus Libri), and Eulogies II (2013 Horrorworld)

07:00 – Signing, socializing

07:30 – TJ May wrote the graphic novel Catching Lucifer’s Lunch, and his short stories can be found in Shroud Magazine, Best New Werewolf Tales and his short story, “Vitamins,” was featured on Scary Scribes.

08:00 – Kristi Petersen Schoonover‘s short fiction has been featured in The Adirondack Review, Barbaric Yawp, The Illuminata, Chick Flicks, Afternoon, The Circle, Citizen Culture,  I Like Monkeys, New Witch Magazine, MudRock: Stories & Tales, Waxing & Waning, Wrong World’s multi-media anthology, I’m Going to Tell You One More Time, and many, many others. Her first novel, Bad Apple, came out in 2012, and she has published a collection of Disney-based ghost stories in Skeletons in the Swimmin’ Hole.

8:30 – Socialize, sign