# The Dark History of Vampires: Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, Mercy Brown & The Origins of Vampire Myths

An episode of [Pursuit of the Paranormal](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1541466512), 20 Aug 2026, 23 min.

Audio: https://content.rss.com/episodes/397292/3084442/pursuit-of-the-paranormal/2026_08_20_22_19_23_bd9c0279-065f-45d3-9651-368d950621b2.mp3

Where did vampires really come from? And why have humans been afraid of them for thousands of years? From ancient Mesopotamia and Eastern European folklore to Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, Mercy Brown and modern vampire culture, this episode explores the dark and fascinating history behind one of the world's most enduring monsters. Long before vampires became seductive, mysterious characters in films and television, they were feared as undead creatures blamed for disease, death and unexplained tragedies. In this episode, we uncover: 🧛 The ancient origins of vampire legends — from Mesopotamia and ancient Greece to the vampire folklore of Eastern Europe. 🩸 The diseases that may have inspired vampire myths, including porphyria, rabies and tuberculosis — and why symptoms such as sensitivity to sunlight, aggressive behaviour and changes to the body may have helped create the vampire legend. ⚰️ The horrifying case of Mercy Brown, the young woman from Rhode Island who became known as the "last American vampire" after her family and community believed she was responsible for spreading tuberculosis. 🗡️ The real story of Vlad the Impaler — the brutal Wallachian ruler whose terrifying reputation helped inspire Bram Stoker's Dracula. 📖 How Dracula changed everything, from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel to Bela Lugosi's iconic portrayal and the creation of the modern vampire. 🎬 Vampires in popular culture, from Dracula and Interview with the Vampire to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. 🩸 Modern vampire communities and real-life vampires, including sanguinarians, energy vampires and some of the darker stories surrounding the modern vampire subculture. But perhaps the biggest question is this: Were vampire legends really about monsters… or were they humanity's attempt to explain death, disease and the things we didn't understand? This is the dark history of vampires — a journey through folklore, disease, death, superstition and the real people behind some of the world's most terrifying legends. If you enjoy true history, dark history, horror, folklore, unexplained mysteries and the origins of legendary creatures, this episode is for you. Got a strange story to tell us? Drop us a voicemail and it may appear on an up coming episode

## Transcript

[0:00] There are few creatures in history that have
[0:03] managed to remain quite as fascinating, terrifying,
[0:06] and let's be honest, weirdly attractive as the
[0:09] vampire. Today, vampires are everywhere. They're
[0:13] in films, they're in television, they're in books,
[0:16] they're in Halloween decorations. We've gone
[0:18] for being terrified that a vampire might call
[0:20] out of a grave, so wondering whether we'd actually
[0:23] quite like one to bite us. But here's the interesting
[0:26] thing. The vampire didn't start out as the handsome
[0:29] mysterious cape wearing heartthrob that we know
[0:32] today, far from it. The original vampire was
[0:36] something much darker, something diseased, something
[0:39] monstrous and in some cases something that people
[0:43] genuinely believed was responsible for entire
[0:46] communities becoming sick and dying. So where
[0:49] did the vampire actually come from and how do
[0:51] we go from terrifying undead creatures to Dracula
[0:55] to Twilight? Well, let's go right back to the
[0:59] beginning. Hello everybody, Ash Ellis here on
[1:27] Pursuit The Paranormal Podcast. If you follow
[1:30] our social media, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram,
[1:35] I recently did a six part series all about the
[1:37] vampires and the true history of this strange
[1:41] creature that's rooted in folklore. So this episode
[1:46] is going to be going in a bit deeper, into a
[1:49] bit more depth, into a bit more into the real
[1:51] history of the legend of vampire. So, grab a
[1:57] drink, get settled in, and let's find out together.
[2:02] So starting with the origins of the vampire,
[2:05] the history goes back thousands of years. We're
[2:09] talking about the cradle of civilization itself,
[2:12] ancient Mesopotamia, sometime between 2000 and
[2:16] 3000 BC. And this is where we start seeing legends
[2:21] about supernatural beings that preyed upon humans.
[2:24] One example is Lamastu, a female demon said to
[2:28] prey upon children and drink their blood. There's
[2:32] also Lilitu, another supernatural figure associated
[2:35] with attacks on humans. But the idea wasn't limited
[2:39] to Mesopotamia. The ancient Greeks had their
[2:42] own terrifying creatures. One of them was the
[2:45] Empouser, a shape -shifting demon that was said
[2:48] to feed on humans. So even thousands of years
[2:51] ago, Humans were already telling stories about
[2:54] creatures that looked like us but weren't quite
[2:57] human, and eventually these stories developed
[3:00] into something much closer to what we would recognise
[3:03] as a vampire. When we move forward through history,
[3:08] Eastern Europe becomes particularly important.
[3:11] Countries such as Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria,
[3:15] Romania, and parts of Eastern Russia developed
[3:18] some of the oldest and most detailed vampire
[3:21] traditions. And of course, there's one place
[3:24] that immediately springs to mind. Transylvania.
[3:29] I'm just a sweet transvestite, transsexual transylvania.
[3:39] Sorry, can't help myself. The word vampire itself
[3:43] has a fascinating history. One of the earliest
[3:46] written references associated with the vampire
[3:48] goes back to 147 CE when the word upye appeared
[3:55] in a Russian text and apparently it may have
[3:59] actually been used as an insult. There are theories
[4:02] that it referred to a prince who wasn't particularly
[4:04] popular. Basically calling someone a vampire
[4:07] may have been the medieval equivalent of saying
[4:10] you're an absolute nightmare mate. The exact
[4:13] details are murky though. And that's one of the
[4:15] problems with vampire history. We're dealing
[4:18] with centuries of folklore, rumours, superstition
[4:21] and stories that were passed from one person
[4:24] to another, generation to generation. And somewhere
[4:28] along the way, the vampire became increasingly
[4:31] associated with the dead returning from the grave.
[4:34] In Romania, for example, there was the belief
[4:37] in the Strigoi, an undead spirit that could rise
[4:40] from the grave, spread disease, cause chaos.
[4:44] and drink the blood of the living? Sound familiar?
[4:48] It should. Because when you picture something
[4:51] like Nosferatu, you're looking at an image that
[4:54] is heavily connected to these older traditions.
[4:57] And here's where things get particularly interesting.
[5:00] A lot of vampire folklore may actually have been
[5:03] people's attempt to explain something that they
[5:05] didn't understand. And we're talking about disease.
[5:10] For centuries, people didn't have the medical
[5:13] knowledge that we have today they didn't understand
[5:16] bacteria they didn't understand how many diseases
[5:20] actually spread they didn't have modern diagnostic
[5:23] tools so when something happened that nobody
[5:26] could explain they needed an explanation and
[5:30] sometimes the explanation was supernatural and
[5:34] this is where vampires become particularly fascinating
[5:37] because several diseases have been suggested
[5:39] as possible influence on vampire folklore. One
[5:43] of the most common disgust is a blood disorder
[5:46] called porphyria. So many words in this story
[5:57] that I struggle to pronounce but I will try my
[6:00] best. One of the reasons it gets linked to vampire
[6:03] legends is because some forms of the condition
[6:05] can cause extreme sensitivity to sunlight and
[6:10] if you're extremely sensitive to sunlight you're
[6:12] probably not going to be spending much time outside
[6:14] in the middle of the day there's also another
[6:17] possible connection porphyria can also cause
[6:21] changes around the gums which can make the teeth
[6:24] appear more prominent almost like fangs and then
[6:28] there's garlic certain forms of this disease
[6:31] can be aggravated by compounds that are found
[6:34] in garlic So imagine living hundreds of years
[6:37] ago, watching someone become extremely unwell
[6:39] in the sunlight, noticing changes to their appearance,
[6:43] and seeing that garlic seems to make things worse.
[6:47] But you don't know what a blood disorder is,
[6:49] you don't understand the science. So what explanation
[6:52] do you come up with? Maybe they're a vampire.
[6:56] And then there's another disease which you will
[6:58] have heard of, with some remarkably vampire -like
[7:01] characteristics. Rabies. Think about it. Rabies
[7:07] spread through biting. Vampires bite people.
[7:10] Rabies can cause sensitivity to light. Vampires
[7:14] avoid sunlight. It can cause aggressive and erratic
[7:17] behaviour. Again, very vampire -like. So that
[7:22] doesn't mean vampires were simply people with
[7:25] rabies or porphyria. I'm not saying that. But
[7:29] when you look at the symptoms of illnesses that
[7:30] people didn't understand, You can start to see
[7:33] how certain elements of vampire folklore may
[7:36] have developed, and it gets even darker. Because
[7:40] diseases didn't just influence the stories, they
[7:43] may have also influenced what people did with
[7:46] the dead. So, come with me now, let's imagine
[7:50] a small community. Someone dies, their body is
[7:53] buried, then a few days or weeks later somebody
[7:57] else becomes seriously ill. Then another person.
[8:01] Then another. Maybe livestock start dying, cows
[8:04] and sheep start dying, maybe crops fail, maybe
[8:08] something else goes wrong, and suddenly someone
[8:11] says, maybe the dead person is responsible. So
[8:16] the grave is opened, the body is examined, and
[8:19] people might discover things that, with modern
[8:21] eyes, look horrifying. The body may appear swollen,
[8:25] there may be blood around the mouth, the hair
[8:28] and nails may appear to have grown. None of these
[8:31] things necessarily mean the person has returned
[8:34] from the grave, their natural parts of decomposition,
[8:38] but people didn't know that, not everybody. So
[8:43] the conclusion became, the vampire has returned,
[8:46] and sometimes the response was brutal. Bodies
[8:49] could be exhumed, organs could be removed, and
[8:52] in some cases those organs were burned, all because
[8:56] people believed they were stopping the dead from
[8:58] harming the living. And you think that's horrifying.
[9:02] Wait until you hear about Mercy Brown. In the
[9:06] late 1800s in Royal Exeter, Rhode Island in the
[9:10] USA, a young woman named Mercy Brown became part,
[9:14] which is now one of America's most famous vampire
[9:16] stories. And the reality behind it is incredibly
[9:20] tragic. Mercy came from a family that had been
[9:23] devastated by tuberculosis. Her mother died in
[9:26] 1883. her sister died in 1888 then in 1891 both
[9:33] mercy and her brother edwin became ill mercy
[9:37] died in 1892 she was just 19 years old and here's
[9:43] the thing at this point scientists actually knew
[9:46] that tuberculosis was caused by bacteria but
[9:50] scientific knowledge doesn't travel instantly
[9:52] not in them days not in rural communities the
[9:54] 19th century So the people around Mercy didn't
[9:58] necessarily have access to the medical understanding
[10:01] that we take for granted today, and tubal closes
[10:04] kept spreading through the family. People were
[10:07] frightened, they were desperate, and they started
[10:09] looking for an explanation. Eventually they became
[10:13] convinced that Mercy herself was somehow responsible.
[10:16] They believed that she was a vampire. The idea
[10:20] was that she was rising from her grave and draining
[10:22] the life from the remaining members of her family.
[10:25] Even the local doctor advised against what happened
[10:28] next. But the community was desperate. Mercy's
[10:32] body was exhumed. Her heart and liver were removed
[10:35] from her body and burned in the cemetery. And
[10:38] then, in an attempt to save Edwin, the ashes
[10:41] were mixed with water and given to him to drink.
[10:45] Let's just think about that. So a 19 year old
[10:47] girl has died from TB. Her family is devastated.
[10:51] Her brother is dying. And the people around them
[10:54] generally believe that consuming the ashes of
[10:56] her organs might save his life. It didn't. Just
[11:01] two months later, Edwin died too. It's easiest
[11:04] for us looking back from the modern world to
[11:06] think, how could anyone possibly believe that?
[11:09] But that's the important thing. These people
[11:11] weren't acting out of cruelty. They were frightened.
[11:14] They were desperate. They didn't understand what
[11:17] was happening. And when you don't have the correct
[11:20] scientific explanation for something you make
[11:23] one, and sometimes the explanation becomes a
[11:27] monster. Now of course we can't talk about vampires
[11:31] without talking about the man who became one
[11:33] of the biggest inspirations for Dracula. Vlad
[11:37] D. Impala. Even his name sounds like it belongs
[11:40] in a horror film. Vlad ruled Belatia, a region
[11:44] of what is now Romania, three separate times
[11:47] between 1448 and his death in 1477. And his reputation
[11:52] was, well, absolutely horrific. Stories about
[11:56] Vlad's cruelty spread throughout Europe. He was
[12:00] associated with torture, mutilation and execution.
[12:04] And his preferred method of punishment was, as
[12:07] the nickname suggests, impalement. Victims could
[12:11] be placed onto wooden stakes and left to die.
[12:14] And in some accounts, the process was deliberately
[12:16] prolonged, sometimes for hours. sometimes even
[12:20] days. Vlad was also said to demand confessions
[12:23] from his victims before their punishment, and
[12:26] their fate could depend on things such as their
[12:28] age, rank, sex, and even their final words. So
[12:33] where does the name Dracula come from? Well,
[12:36] Vlad's father was known as Vlad Dracul. Dracul
[12:40] was connected to the word for dragon, and Dracula
[12:43] essentially referred to being the son of Dracul.
[12:47] And although there is another fascinating twist,
[12:49] in modern Romania, Dracula is associated with
[12:53] the devil, which definitely didn't do Vlad's
[12:56] reputation any favours. There are also stories
[12:59] that Vlad drank the blood of his enemies, and
[13:01] some accounts even claim that he dipped bread
[13:03] into their blood. Whether every one of these
[13:06] stories is true is another question entirely,
[13:09] but Vlad's reputation grew dramatically after
[13:11] his death. with stories about him being written
[13:14] and repeated for generations, and eventually
[13:17] those stories travelled far beyond Eastern Europe.
[13:21] Vlad moved to Transylvania in 1475, and stories
[13:27] about Dracula would eventually spread across
[13:29] the world. But here's the important distinction,
[13:32] Vlad the Impaler wasn't a supernatural vampire,
[13:35] he was a real historical figure. The vampire
[13:39] was the legend that grew around people like him.
[13:42] And then in 1897, one writer would bring all
[13:46] these ideas together. Enter Dracula. Graham Stoker
[13:52] published Dracula in 1897, and suddenly the vampire
[13:55] had a new identity. Gone was simply the bloated,
[13:59] diseased corpse rising from the grave, now he
[14:02] had something much more sophisticated. A mysterious
[14:05] aristocrat. Powerful, charming, seductive, and
[14:10] absolutely terrifying. Stoker drew inspiration
[14:13] from stories surrounding Flanty and Paler, as
[14:16] well as wider European vampire folklore, and
[14:19] the result became one of the most vampire stories
[14:21] ever written. But it didn't stop with the book,
[14:25] which is a great book by the way, definitely
[14:27] get it, it's not like a normal book, it's so
[14:29] good. In 1931 Universal Studios released Dracula
[14:33] starring Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, and this
[14:37] is where the modern image of the vampire really
[14:39] began to take shape. The cape, the aristocratic
[14:43] manner, the accent, the charm, the hypnotic stare.
[14:47] Suddenly, the vampire wasn't just something you
[14:49] were terrified of, it was something you could
[14:52] become fascinated by, and that completely changed
[14:55] the genre, because vampires became sexy. At some
[15:00] point in history, humanity looked at the undead
[15:02] creatures we'd spent centuries being terrified
[15:04] of, and collectively decided, actually, hear
[15:08] me out. Then came another major shift. In 1976,
[15:14] Anne Rice published Interview of the Vampire.
[15:16] And suddenly, vampires weren't simply monsters.
[15:19] They had emotions, identity, trauma, relationships,
[15:24] conflict. They could be sympathetic. They could
[15:26] be tragic. They could even be the hero. And from
[15:30] there, vampire stories exploded. Blackula brought
[15:35] a black vampire to mainstream film. Buffy the
[15:37] Vampire Slayer arrived in 1997, then came Twilight,
[15:41] True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and countless
[15:45] other books, films and television shows. My favourite
[15:48] of all time is like the right one in, Swedish
[15:51] based on the book, then remade and with Hollywood
[15:54] didn't let me in. Absolutely incredible film.
[15:56] Swedish one, miles better than the American one.
[15:59] Definitely watch that if you're not. But The
[16:02] Vampire kept changing. Sometimes terrifying,
[16:05] sometimes romantic. sometimes tragic, sometimes
[16:08] funny, sometimes completely ridiculous. But the
[16:11] basic idea remained, something that looks human,
[16:14] but isn't, something that lives among us, something
[16:18] that feeds from us, and something that somehow
[16:21] never seems to die. But here's where the story
[16:24] takes a turn, because vampires didn't disappear
[16:27] when we stopped believing that dead bodies were
[16:29] climbing out of graves, they evolved, and some
[16:32] people today actually identify as vampires. There
[16:37] is a modern underground vampire community, and
[16:40] within that world there are different beliefs
[16:42] and practices. Some people simply have an intense
[16:45] fascination with vampires, while others generally
[16:48] identify as vampires. Some are known as Sangrenarians.
[16:54] These are people who believe that they have a
[16:57] physical or psychological need to consume blood.
[17:00] For some, this is connected to beliefs about
[17:03] health, energy or chronic fatigue. then there
[17:05] are people who describe themselves as psychic
[17:07] or energy vampires. Rather than drinking blood,
[17:10] they believe they absorb energy from other people.
[17:14] And of course, outside of vampire communities,
[17:16] you've all met someone who seems to drain the
[17:18] life out of us. You know the type. Spend 20 minutes
[17:21] with them and suddenly need a free hour nap.
[17:23] That's most people with me to be honest. I'm
[17:25] not gonna lie. But there are also much darker
[17:29] stories connected to the modern vampire subculture.
[17:32] One of the most notorious is Aaron Todd Hoy,
[17:35] better known as Father Sebastian, he became associated
[17:38] with an underground vampire community and hosted
[17:41] vampire fiend balls. And according to accounts
[17:45] these events could involve people gathering around
[17:47] him while he sat in this kind of regal chair
[17:50] and supposedly absorbed their energy. It sounds
[17:53] bizarre but then there's a genuinely disturbing
[17:56] mystery connected to one of these events. A journalist
[17:59] named Susan Walsh attended one of Father Sebastian's
[18:02] vampire balls whilst investigating New York's
[18:05] underground vampire and sex worker scenes. The
[18:08] following day, July 16th in 1996, Susan Walsh
[18:13] disappeared. She left her belongings behind,
[18:17] and she was never seen again. Her disappearance
[18:19] remains officially unsolved. There has been speculation
[18:23] about whether Father Sebastian had anything to
[18:25] do with it, but there has never been proof establishing
[18:28] that connection. But it's important to make that
[18:32] distinction. The timing is disturbing. The circumstances
[18:36] are strange, but that's not evidence. Father
[18:40] Sebastian could, for all we know, simply be someone
[18:42] who embraced the vampire persona. But there are
[18:45] other cases where the vampire identity became
[18:48] far more sinister. The Vampire Clan One of the
[18:53] darkest examples is Rod Ferrell. Ferrell claimed
[18:56] to be a 500 year old vampire named Osago. He
[19:00] was associated with a group known as the Vampire
[19:03] Clan. Members reportedly met at an abandoned
[19:06] cement structure they called the Vampire Hotel,
[19:09] and their activities could include drinking each
[19:11] other's blood and participating in death related
[19:13] rituals. Then, in 1998, everything became much
[19:17] darker. Ferrell pleaded guilty to the double
[19:20] murder of a couple from Florida. At the time,
[19:23] he became the youngest person on death row in
[19:26] Florida. And this is where the story of vampires
[19:28] takes us into a very different place. Because
[19:32] there's a huge difference between being fascinated
[19:34] by vampire mythology, dressed up as a vampire,
[19:37] reading vampire novels, and believing that you
[19:39] genuinely are a supernatural being. The vampire
[19:43] has existed in our culture for thousands of years.
[19:46] But what makes it so fascinating isn't necessarily
[19:49] the question of whether vampires are real, it's
[19:51] the question of why we keep creating them. Think
[19:55] about the journey we've just taken in the past
[19:57] 15 minutes. We started in ancient Mesopotamia.
[20:01] We travelled through Greek mythology into Eastern
[20:04] Europe folklore. We saw the vampire become associated
[20:07] with disease. We looked at people who generally
[20:10] believed the dead were responsible for illnesses.
[20:12] We met Mercy Brown. We met Vlandrin Baylor. Then
[20:16] Bram Stoker transformed these stories into Dracula.
[20:19] Hollywood turned Dracula into an icon. Anne Rice
[20:23] gave vampires emotions and complexity, and eventually
[20:27] vampires became part of mainstream pop culture,
[20:30] but beneath all of it is a common thread. Fear
[20:33] of death. Fear of disease. Fear of the unknown.
[20:37] Fear that someone we love could die and somehow
[20:40] come back. For centuries the vampire gave people
[20:43] a way to explain things they couldn't understand.
[20:46] A mystery illness? Maybe the dead are feeding
[20:48] on us. A strange corpse? Maybe it's a vampire.
[20:52] A family repeatedly dying from tuberculosis?
[20:55] Maybe someone's rising from the grave? But today
[20:58] we have science. We understand disease. We understand
[21:01] decomposition. We understand much more about
[21:04] what happens to the human body after death. But
[21:06] yet, the vampire hasn't disappeared. If anything,
[21:10] we've made it bigger. We've made vampires beautiful.
[21:13] We've made them romantic. We've made them heroes.
[21:15] We've made them villains. We've made them teenagers.
[21:18] We've made them billionaires. We've even made
[21:20] them sparkle. But perhaps the real reason vampires
[21:24] have survived for thousands of years is because
[21:27] the vampire isn't really just a creature. It's
[21:30] a reflection of us. Every generation takes the
[21:33] vampire and changes it into whatever scares or
[21:36] fascinates or obsesses us at that moment. Maybe
[21:40] that's why after thousands of years we're still
[21:42] telling stories about the dead coming back to
[21:44] life. Something that has been through all cultures,
[21:48] through all religions, through all countries
[21:49] for thousands of years. because, deep down, you'd
[21:53] never really stopped wondering what might be
[21:55] waiting for us on the other side. So, on that
[21:59] rather cheerful note, we leave the graveyard
[22:01] for tonight. But before you go, I want to know,
[22:05] what's your favourite vampire story, your favourite
[22:07] book, film, tv show? Give us a comment, comment
[22:11] on the show, comment on our social media, let
[22:13] us know. I love talking about vampires as you
[22:15] might be able to tell. Some of my favourite movies
[22:17] are vampire movies and books. Thanks for listening
[22:36] to Pursuit of the Paranormal, title music created
[22:39] by Steve Yarwood and Ambienfinity. If you like
[22:42] the show, please follow us on Facebook, YouTube,
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[22:48] the show, please rate and review the show wherever
[22:51] you are listening. It really does help. See you
[22:54] next time, and until then, stay weird.

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