Hallowe'en seems to grow in popularity each year. Of course it all goes back to pagan times, though they didn't have the modern convenience of a calendar and precise dates and used the Sun and Moon to mark events - a bit like Christian Easter, which moves around.
The most popular costumes people wear on this night are demons, witches, ghosts and vampires. Whilst the first three have been around for centuries, vampires are relatively new in the west.
Surprisingly, it was the 19th century Romantic poets who established the vampire we recognise today. Based on eastern European legends, poets like Coleridge, Shelley, and Nottingham's own Byron gave the blood-sucking demon its more human and sexual overtones which still appeal today. The word vampire first appeared in 1734, taken from a French word which was adapted from the Slavonic for "witch".
Dracula, the most famous vampire, was created by Bram Stoker, a close friend of Oscar Wilde's family, and a man who struggled with his own sexuality. Dracula was influenced by "The Vampyre" by John Polidori, which in turn was influenced by one of the greatest literary "brain-storming" sessions in history.
One stormy night in 1816, in a villa near Geneva, a group of literary friends gathered and challenged each other to tell the scariest tale. Present were Percy Shelley and his wife Mary, John Polidori, and Byron. Mary won the contest with her story of Frankenstein. Byron wrote down a vampire tale, which inspired Polidori to write "The Vampyre".
The vampire possessed corpses and could change into animals, usually a wolf. Then, in South America a relative of my father, Charles Darwin, saw blood-sucking bats. Vampires were popular in literature and Darwin immediately gave the bats the name Vampire Bat. From then on vampires turned into bats rather than wolves. Perhaps that's why people are so scared of bats - thank you, Uncle Darwin! Just think - if Darwin had seen blood-sucking gerbils, we'd see gerbils instead of bats everywhere at Hallowe'en!
In a couple of days I'll write about the other side of Hallowe'en - the "good" side. Until then, let's remember Byron's place in the birth of gothic horror literature.
To return to Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage, click on www.nottsrainbowheritage.org.uk
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