Bonehoard Taffer
First Post
Angelsboi said:
Can someone please elaborate on this one, and also with vampires not being able to cross running water. Thanks.
Vampire folklore
- Thread starter War Golem
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Can someone please elaborate on this one, and also with vampires not being able to cross running water. Thanks.
Hmm. Well, where do we see similar stories?
Let us go back a long, long way. Back to Genesis, and to Moses...
Through Moses, God had visited a number of plagues on Egypt, which was keeping the Hebrews in slavery. Eventually, God pulls out the big guns, and decides to kill every first born son of Egypt. God tells Moses to have all the Hebrews mark the lintel of their door with the blood of a lamb, and death would "pass over" that house, to find another...
Later, we see similar barring of entry by marking the lintel. Depending where you were, marking your door with certain plants, or with iron, would keep out the various forms of "fey folk", disease, nasty spirits, what have you. The idea is still the same - the homes of the faithful, good folk are marked, and undesirable things cannot enter.
In more modern versions, perhaps the "marking" is simply assumed or understood, rather than done explicitly...
As to water - well, I expect that this stems back to the whole idea of baptism, which I've been told is not strictly a Christian thing. Simple symathetic magic, really. Water makes things clean physically, so it must also do so spiritually. Vampires, being very, very unclean spiritually, are thus particularly vulnerable to cleansing. Poor, unwashed vampires
Let us go back a long, long way. Back to Genesis, and to Moses...
Through Moses, God had visited a number of plagues on Egypt, which was keeping the Hebrews in slavery. Eventually, God pulls out the big guns, and decides to kill every first born son of Egypt. God tells Moses to have all the Hebrews mark the lintel of their door with the blood of a lamb, and death would "pass over" that house, to find another...
Later, we see similar barring of entry by marking the lintel. Depending where you were, marking your door with certain plants, or with iron, would keep out the various forms of "fey folk", disease, nasty spirits, what have you. The idea is still the same - the homes of the faithful, good folk are marked, and undesirable things cannot enter.
In more modern versions, perhaps the "marking" is simply assumed or understood, rather than done explicitly...
As to water - well, I expect that this stems back to the whole idea of baptism, which I've been told is not strictly a Christian thing. Simple symathetic magic, really. Water makes things clean physically, so it must also do so spiritually. Vampires, being very, very unclean spiritually, are thus particularly vulnerable to cleansing. Poor, unwashed vampires
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MerakSpielman
First Post
Which is why holy water is so bad - water and holy is just not friendly to vampires.
I wonder about a running river of holy water?
running water is considered more pure than still water. This is because still water might or might not be stagnant or contaminated - unsafe to drink. Running water is usually pure - the bad stuff gets washed away (these concepts evolved before industrial pollution). I remember something about Hindus being forbidden religiously from drinking from bodies of still water, but any running water is considered religiously ok, even if it's running through refuse in the gutter (Though of course modern Hindus know better than to drink gutter water).
I wonder about a running river of holy water?
running water is considered more pure than still water. This is because still water might or might not be stagnant or contaminated - unsafe to drink. Running water is usually pure - the bad stuff gets washed away (these concepts evolved before industrial pollution). I remember something about Hindus being forbidden religiously from drinking from bodies of still water, but any running water is considered religiously ok, even if it's running through refuse in the gutter (Though of course modern Hindus know better than to drink gutter water).
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
My culture has different 'grades' of water
Waiora - Living (Pure/Holy) Water (usually from artesian springs) - used in 'baptism' rituals
Waimaori - Normal Water (rivers, streams etc used for drinking)
Waikino - Polluted water (stagnant, dirty)
Waimate - Dead Water (Poisonous to life (spiritually and physically))
Waitai- Sea Water (which is beyond human control and has a whole different 'magic')
Perhaps Waimaori (running water) is still to close to the Holy Water source (Waiora) and thus dangerous to vampires...
Waiora - Living (Pure/Holy) Water (usually from artesian springs) - used in 'baptism' rituals
Waimaori - Normal Water (rivers, streams etc used for drinking)
Waikino - Polluted water (stagnant, dirty)
Waimate - Dead Water (Poisonous to life (spiritually and physically))
Waitai- Sea Water (which is beyond human control and has a whole different 'magic')
Perhaps Waimaori (running water) is still to close to the Holy Water source (Waiora) and thus dangerous to vampires...
DM_Matt
First Post
AB: The Kabbalistic lilith and the Roman lamis are the inspiration for the DnD Lamia. They are different from vampires. The origin of Lilith is that because Genesis includes the story of creation twice, saying when G-D created humans "man and woman, he created them" before telling the story of how Eve was created from Adam's rib. Some who sought to reconcile these discrepancies came up with Lilith, Adam's first wife and mother of all demons.
The actual reason for that discrepancy probably was that the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible) was written by five different individuals plus an editor, probably Ezra, a high priest appointed by the Persian emperor Cyrus in 458BC. Genesis seems to have been compiled from two different writers, called J and E because J called G-D by the name Yahweh (A proper name, as far as anyone can tell), and E called G-D Elohim (literally, gods or G-D in the royal we). Both probably lived around 1000BC, E in Northern Israel, J near Jerusalem, and many believe J to be a woman.
Back to vampires....
Spiritual purification rituals described in the Bible usually require RUNNING water.
Some of these are practiced still by Orthodox Jews, who maintain Mikvahs (ritual bathhouses) for these purposes. Other denominations use the Mikvah, too, but only in conversion rituals and for a particular ritual called Taschlicht. Taschlicht is performed soon before the yearly Day of Atonement, and entails symbolically transferring one's sins to bread crumbs which are then thrown into a body of water. I've participated in that particular ritual a couple times. Its quite a spiritually rewarding experience. Taschlicht is a more modern adaptation of a Biblical ritual involving an animal sacrifice instead of bread.
Most of the Biblical rituals and traditions later based thereon involve the idea of running water washing away sins just as it does dirt.
While we are on the subject of Judaism and vampires, the ignorant peasantry of the middle ages often created connections between the two. Vampires were sometimes connected to in Christian myth to Judas Iscariot (Thus the aversion to silver -- he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver), who in turn is connected to Christian myths and accusations claiming that the Jews killed Jesus. The belief that the Jews killed Jesus combined with the Catholic tradition of symbolically consuming the blood and body of Jesus in the form of wafers and wine to produce what is known as the "blood libel." This blood libel claims that at the Jewish ritual feast of Passover (The Last Supper, btw, was Jesus partaking of said ritual meal, which is why Passover and Easter are at about the same time), where waferlike food (matzoh) is consumed along with wine, that the blood of christian children is used in the making of matzohs and passover wine as a sort of "counterritual" to balance the godly act of Communion with a similar act to Satan. For an example of a blood libel, read "The Nun's Tale" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
To this day, the Arab media and left-wing political propagandists in the Western world not only repeat the blood libel but refer to and even draw Jews as vampires.
(BTW, disclaimer if anyone thinks I am Christian-bashing: Popes, Kings, Bishops etc. almost unanimously condemned the blood libel. It was the product of ignorant peasants and their preachers, people so superstitious that they might have to be classified as pagans (No offense to actual pagans, particularly you, AB)rather than Christians.
If, on the other hand, you think I am bashing the Arab media and Western radicals as bigots, well, I am)
The actual reason for that discrepancy probably was that the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible) was written by five different individuals plus an editor, probably Ezra, a high priest appointed by the Persian emperor Cyrus in 458BC. Genesis seems to have been compiled from two different writers, called J and E because J called G-D by the name Yahweh (A proper name, as far as anyone can tell), and E called G-D Elohim (literally, gods or G-D in the royal we). Both probably lived around 1000BC, E in Northern Israel, J near Jerusalem, and many believe J to be a woman.
Back to vampires....
Spiritual purification rituals described in the Bible usually require RUNNING water.
Some of these are practiced still by Orthodox Jews, who maintain Mikvahs (ritual bathhouses) for these purposes. Other denominations use the Mikvah, too, but only in conversion rituals and for a particular ritual called Taschlicht. Taschlicht is performed soon before the yearly Day of Atonement, and entails symbolically transferring one's sins to bread crumbs which are then thrown into a body of water. I've participated in that particular ritual a couple times. Its quite a spiritually rewarding experience. Taschlicht is a more modern adaptation of a Biblical ritual involving an animal sacrifice instead of bread.
Most of the Biblical rituals and traditions later based thereon involve the idea of running water washing away sins just as it does dirt.
While we are on the subject of Judaism and vampires, the ignorant peasantry of the middle ages often created connections between the two. Vampires were sometimes connected to in Christian myth to Judas Iscariot (Thus the aversion to silver -- he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver), who in turn is connected to Christian myths and accusations claiming that the Jews killed Jesus. The belief that the Jews killed Jesus combined with the Catholic tradition of symbolically consuming the blood and body of Jesus in the form of wafers and wine to produce what is known as the "blood libel." This blood libel claims that at the Jewish ritual feast of Passover (The Last Supper, btw, was Jesus partaking of said ritual meal, which is why Passover and Easter are at about the same time), where waferlike food (matzoh) is consumed along with wine, that the blood of christian children is used in the making of matzohs and passover wine as a sort of "counterritual" to balance the godly act of Communion with a similar act to Satan. For an example of a blood libel, read "The Nun's Tale" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
To this day, the Arab media and left-wing political propagandists in the Western world not only repeat the blood libel but refer to and even draw Jews as vampires.
(BTW, disclaimer if anyone thinks I am Christian-bashing: Popes, Kings, Bishops etc. almost unanimously condemned the blood libel. It was the product of ignorant peasants and their preachers, people so superstitious that they might have to be classified as pagans (No offense to actual pagans, particularly you, AB)rather than Christians.
If, on the other hand, you think I am bashing the Arab media and Western radicals as bigots, well, I am)
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