Dracula And Lore In Dracula By Bram Stoker

Dracula, originally published in Great Britain by Abraham Stoker in 1897, set the defining characteristics of a vampire. Through the folk lore of undead beings that caused mischief to the areas where they once lived, the ruddy, pale, dark, blood sucking vampire of the gothic period, and vampires that sparkle in the sunlight, the vampire has made it through many renditions in history. Though vampire lore and folk tales existed prior to Stoker's novel, it was never expressed or gained much popularity though other works. Bram Stoker establishes the classic characteristics of a vampire in his novel Dracula that has formed a new genre and shaped the idea of a vampire throughout history. In the late 19th Century, gothic horror and fiction novels

Though many lesser known folk tales and lore throughout the middle ages and modern era are a given to the background of the vampire, Count Dracula is discussed to be loosely based on a Romanian tyrant Vlad III, better known as Vlad the Impaler. Dracula himself states he is a descendant of Attila the Hun, captured onto Jonathan Harker's Journal entry:

“Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud?” (Stoker 32).

This is very interesting knowing that Dracula claims to be a Székely, directly relating to Attila the Hun, one of the most feared enemies of the Roman Empire during his reign. This gives an insight to who Dracula is, showing a sense of his strength, power, and might from his