Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Vampires, Werewolfs, Zombies, Ghosts, Ghoulies and God

All of these things have two common factors, which firstly is their interest.  Vampires are fictional creatures who live by sucking the blood out of the victims.  It helps when their meal is alive because they have a thing about leaving behind the tell tale puncture wounds which usually are found on the neck by the jugular vein.  Fresh blood also has a better taste. Vamps are possibly afraid of holy things, like crosses, bibles - although I am not sure whether this goes for all domination's or even other holy books like the Koran. They certainly do not like to be staked through the heart and being they keep themselves under the radar they can live forever.  They provide great entertainment value and I believe they go back to Dram Stoker who in the 1800s wrote the original book called Dracula.  Dracula originated from the UK, Whitby.  Yep, no where fancy just some place near the sea in Yorkshire.  I'm told it is nice there as well.

Werewolves are completely different creatures to vampires.  They are humans who turn into wolves when there is a full moon.  They like to eat meat, again preferably their prey is fresh and running about.  I've not seen any at the supermarket lately so they must be quite shy or just possibly like vamps keep themselves to themselves.  It is believed their legend came from the ancient Greeks however, the name werewolf derives from Olde English, possibly.  Unlike dogs these creatures generally are not portrayed as obedient easy to pet dogs.  They are savage and incredibly strong, so are vamps by the way but vamps are intelligent, where as wolves are not in the same league and like to be in packs.  Humans who are werewolves are said to have good hearing and sense of smell.  Another name for a werewolf is a lycan (short form of lycanthrope).  If you are bitten by a werewolf you become one yourself, providing you are not shredded to pieces because they are an all or nothing and don't tend to play with their food.

Zombies are the lowest of creatures.  In they are not credited with any intelligence at all and are dead.  They like the werewolves eat flesh, again best if it is warm.  Anyone who is killed by a zombie is infected by their disease and will turn into one themselves.  Zombies because of their lack of intelligence are not afraid of anything at all even if their action leads to their second death.  This usually only comes about when they suffer brain damage.  Zombies are in a continuous state of decay and it is only by feeding on fresh living things they stay in their zombie state.  They move slowly, don't care much for their appearances and are attracted to noises.  There is a suggestion Zombies may have derived from voodoo, however there seems to be a blurring of the definition as voodoo (which could equally have been entered into the title) magic (again something else which could of been added) can transfer a spirit of a deceased person into a live person.  A lot of people believe this to be scaremongering, yet, I can't help thinking there have been some mornings when I have felt a little zombie like myself and it wouldn't surprise me if some spirit had jumped inside of my body.  I usually find a couple of slices of toast and a coffee is the antidote.  The origins of the zombie are difficult to pin down, there has been some pretty good films of them but they are probably less than 100 years old.  In western literature anyway, as for the voodoo, lets not even consider their literature because there is none which I know of, surprise, surprise and if there was it would probably be written in chicken blood then washed away by the next rainy day.

Ghosts are said to be the memories of living people.  Unlike the vamps, werewolves and zombies ghosts and ghoulies included do not have any physical existence.  They are like a mist.  They do like to influence literature but can only do so by popping up now and again as shadows in photographs.  There is no difference between ghosts and ghoulies, it's just the name ghoulie rhymes with scary and makes young people quiver.  Ghosts may have been about since the event of humanity, but it's hard to tell because there are no written documents from cavemen, or photographs come to think of it.  Nor in any cave paintings.  There was an upsurge in the ghostly ghoulie belief systems in the 19th century when spiritualism was invented by the Fox sisters.  They would do seances and ask the ghosties or spirits to knock if they happened to be around.  Then there would be a knocking sound.  The fox sisters confessed at a later date they had actually been cracking their joints and enjoyed the company on lonely nights in.  

God is something which people have a belief in.  God is a supernatural creature just like all of the above, but is also omnipotent and when humans die they hope there is a life after death and they go to heaven, said to be quite a nice place.  There is also a hell, where the Central heating is always full on and the spirits of bad people are suffer an eternity of damnation.  Yes, an eternity.  It's a long time.  It is odd there are many different religions and each religion alledgies their god is the only true god and no others exist.  Their god is bigger and better.  Many humans need the belief of a god as a way to help them live their life.  Whereas the belief of vamps or zombies is absolutely absurd the belief there is a God is not.  There are no captured photographic images of God because he, or she does not like to stand on parade and likes to leave humans to do their own thing.  This is called free will.  God expects everyone to obey him/her but doesn't actually speak to the public, only to elected special people.  These special people include the pope, George W. Bush and Ayohtolla Khamoenei, not forgetting Homer Simpson.  

The second common theme of all these fascinating creatures or concepts is, they do not exist but they do come to tea every Sunday, eat cucumber sandwiches and put their feet up.  After all it is pretty hard work inspiring imaginations.

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