吸血鬼英文介绍

Vampires are mythological or folkloric revenants who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. In folkloric tales, the undead vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early Nineteenth Century. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe,[1] although local variants were also known by different names, such as vampir (вампир) in Serbia, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.In modern times, however, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folkloric belief in vampires has been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but this link has since been largely discredited.The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.[2] However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.“常规”的吸血鬼是:牙齿尖长，皮肤苍白（像面粉一样白），眼睛发红。吸血鬼害怕照射到阳光，在太阳下会烟灭或融化。但是也认为高等级的吸血鬼可以维持在太阳下不死，只是能力有所下降，有称这些可在阳光下横行无阻的吸血鬼为“日行者（Daywalker）”，但仍然在“常规”的吸血鬼范围内 。由于吸血鬼的恢复能力极强，所以一般武器无法使吸血鬼致命，只有“银”能够杀死吸血鬼。吸血鬼惧怕十字架和大蒜。(对于吸血鬼惧怕大蒜，有人认为是由于吸血鬼拥有远高于常人的嗅觉造成的，大蒜的刺激性气味令吸血鬼感到强烈不适。也有些人认为大蒜具有杀菌的功效，所以也可以用来驱逐吸血鬼。)有些故事中的吸血鬼没有影子，在镜子中看不到它，而且它在未被邀请的时候决不会进入房子。有可变身为蝙蝠、狼犬、蚊子，或者雾等的说法。一般认为人类可能会变成吸血鬼。一说是被吸血鬼咬了(三次以后)就会变成吸血鬼；另一种说法是喝下吸血鬼的血才能变成吸血鬼。