what is vampire

A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living, generally in the form of blood. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhoods which they inhabited. The concept of the vampire as an undead creature inflicting harm originated in Eastern Europe, specifically in Bulgaria, a thousand years ago. The term "vampire" is the earliest recorded in English, Latin, and French, and they refer to vampirism in Russia, Poland, and North Macedonia. The folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe, when verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. Most depictions of vampires include the consumption of human blood or other essence, followed closely by the possession of sharp teeth or fangs with which to facilitate this task. In most depictions, vampires are "undead" and many are said to rise nightly from their graves or coffins, often necessarily containing their native soil. A person may become a vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to be bitten by a vampire.