At the mention of the word "vampire," images of bloody fangs, dark capes, and a man with a hideous, spooky laugh immediately come to mind. These conventional images, born from countless vampire films over the years, are most commonly associated with Irish writer Bram Stoker and his iconic 1897 novel Dracula. However, despite the popularity and influence of this celebrated nineteenth-century tome, the vampire myth dates back more than 1,000 years, long before Stoker ever put pen to paper. In this
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