The Vampire Cheerleaders that will Haunt All Our Nightmares

Although most cite Bram Stoker’s Dracula as the advent of the vampire, with some true vampire hipsters even going as far back as Vlad the Impaler and his bloodthirsty ways as inspiration, but if one truly cranks back, one can see that there is a variety of vampire (and one that is exceedingly relevant to our studies) in the ancient Greek mythos.

One of the more chaste depictions of the creature I have found

The entity in question is known as the empousa (plural empousai) and is a demigoddess/monster (depending on which definition you are using). Empusa, as she was also known, was the child of Hecate, goddess of magic, the night, and crossroads, and Mormo, an entity known for biting children that misbehaved. Now, Empusa was known for one thing: seducing young men and then in their sleep draining them of blood and devouring their flesh. She also had a very particular fashion sense. Empusa was known for wearing bronze slippers and having flaming hair. Now due to the etymology of her name (being derived from one-legged) empousai are typically depicted as monstrous beings with one donkey leg, one bronze prosthesis and hair made out of fire.

              

One fan's interpretation of Kelli the senior empousa (credit to tumblr user chiefbender)

  Now to bring this back to a more modern time, in the Percy Jackson book series, the empousai are referenced as being one of the great ills that sprang forth from Pandora’s pithos. And the elder empousai (read as: the only empousai with plot significant deaths) tend to only die by either the hands of a female or by the hands of a titan and not to mention the first time the male hero encountered them he was spellbound by their charms (and did I mention they were trying to kiss him?) while his female companion was rather, erm, not (read as: she threw an entire percussion section at their heads).

                Now although this might seem like an odd and off the wall sort of collection of facts to bring up, as we noticed in dead until dark in a few instances Charlaine Harris seems to relish in making certain that we know that vampires are not human (read as: a certain graveyard scene where Sookie says he had never seemed more vampire than he did at that point) and in Dracula the actual canon for vampires where literally the vampiresses are pretty much the empousai described above, sans the mismatched legs and the phoenix/ jean grey hair (I’m so sorry I had to get one X-men joke in there). Not to mention the fact that at times the vampires are literally not human so there’s that too.