The Vampire is an immortal creature that was once human but now it must suck the blood of the living in order to survive. They are found in many cultures across the globe and take various forms. They are usually said to have supernatural powers such as transforming themselves to a bat, cat or fox to mesmerize and kill their victims. In Europe these beings rose from the grave to feed on the living during the night. They were said to be invincible and could only be killed with holy water, a silver cross, sunlight touching their skin or impaling them through the heart with a wooden stake. Garlic and hawthorn could be used to prevent these creatures from attacking. The signs that someone could be a Vampire were that they had no reflection in the mirror or that they threw no shadow. When people were randomly murdered in a village, whole graveyards were dug up to find the Vampire.
Vampires feature in Eastern Europe such as in Russia, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic such as the Upir and the Vulkodlac. It were these stories of the creature that inspired writers such as Bram Stoker in his book Dracula (1897), and Goethe and Baudelaire. Such horror stories quickly became popular in the late part of the 19th century. Although the concept of the Vampire has been commonplace in folklore for a very long time and quite wide spread, the first use of the word ‘Vampire’ or Vampire came from Serbia. The first person to be called a Vampire was Sava Savanovic.
In Japan the Vampire is told of in the story about the Cat of Nabeshima that transformed into the princess to kill her and then tries to kill the Prince but fails. In China Vampires inhabit abandoned temples and attack travelers at night. The Prey are the Vampires of Tamil myth in India while the Pontianak is the Vampire of the Malay people. In Spain the El Broosha causes terror and is derived from Lilith the wife of Adam in the Book of Genesis. In Scotland it the Lamminkin and in ancient Rome it is the Strigae and the Lamia derived from the Stringes of Greek myth. In Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean the Vampire is the Sukuyan. Of the Choctaw Native Americans it is the Skatene and of the Seminole Native Americans in Oklahoma it is the Stikini. There are various Vampires in South America which include Colo-Colo, Invunche and the Pihuechenyi. In Suriname the Vampire is the Azeman.
These are celestial ladies of Norse mythology who come to the battlefields to select the best warriors who have been slain and to bring them to Valhalla, the great hall of the upper world. They are also known as Odins Meyar meaning ‘Odin’s Maiden’, Oskmeyer ‘Odin’s Wishful fillers’ and as ‘Waive Maidens’. Odin was the god of war, poetry and wisdom and is one of the main gods of Norse mythology. Great warriors who had died in battle were chosen by the Valkyrie to fight in the heavens as a form of training. After each fight their wounds would be regenerated by the Valkyrie and thus they fought endlessly to prepare for the final battle Ragnarok. The Valkyrie were great warriors themselves and had the ability to regenerate. Some say that there were 36 Valkyrie while other myths state that there were 13. The 13 are; Goll ‘Battle Cry’, Geirolul ‘Spear Charger’, Hrist ‘Shaker’, Hildr ‘Battle’, Hlokk ‘Battle Noise’, Herfjotur ‘Army-Fetter’, Mist ‘Cloud’, Radgridr ‘Bossy’, Randgridr ‘Shield-Destroyer’, Reginlefir ‘God’s Daughter’ Skeggjold ‘Axe-Age’, Sigrdrifa ‘Inciter to Battle’ and Thrudr ‘Power-Woman’.
The Morrigan's major form is of an old woman, wrapped in a cape of black raven feathers. Sometimes she takes the form of the death raven announcing death, or the banshee predicting it with shrieks. She is the thunderhead that descends at death, and the soul which is torn from the body rises through it like lightning. Her body becomes the conduit of death, the stormy pathway of the soul.
This is not for all people but it is the way she appears to the Fair Folk. Because she is the pathway, the vast network of reincarnation compressed into a cloudy mirror, she can guide the soul as she chooses. She needs only to change the pathways. Usually she is a subtle mist, but on the battlefield, she is storm clouds and thunder, the hag screaming for the dead, and the black death-horse which gallops through the sky carrying its newly deceased rider.
She is also, in secret, the goddess of incarnation. People do not like to believe that incarnations are guided. They prefer to believe that souls are generated at birth, or that some great god has chosen their fate. That the dark death goddess carries the soul in her black wings to rebirth is a frightening idea. Perhaps if the soul were brought by the stork, it would be more acceptable to the modern imagination
Another role of the Morrigan is associated with the hunting falcon, which is a rare and special role for her. Instead of a raven who guides the soul at birth or death, she becomes that falcon that guides the healer or mage in initiation.
Almost by necessity, given the lack of records left by the Celts, some of information here about the Morrigan is based on intuition. The reaction of most people to the presence of the Morrigan is fear because her presence is said to bring with it the aura of death. When she is near, the doorway of death is visible. The portal is composed of silver branches creating a doorway against the darkness. Beyond the door lay the worlds of incarnation.
There are many images that she uses. Long ago, she came as an animal - a wolf, a vulture, or jackal. Then she took on the forms of transportation - the death-coach and the death train. She is still the Nightmare who rides away with the soul, the dark angel of death that wrestles the soul out of the body.
The death-coach comes from a time when coaches were owned by wealthy aristocrats. A coach meant nobility, royalty, or superior status. A death-coach sent by a god would be luxurious black velvet and leather, with gold and silver trim. But it also meant that a deity, a superior was sending a messenger. It was how invitations were sent before the postal service and the telephone.
The death summons in whatever symbolic form brings awareness of the temporary nature of life.
The Morrigan's mythic body is a woman or a bird, but her cosmic form is a cloud with pathways leading from it. People are pulled down these pathways by the force of their desires and sins, and by their striving and seeking after goals. It is as if they are magnetized, and the soul is pulled from one magnet to the next. The death-coach brings the soul to the mountaintop or the cave, and she is the dark cloud it must pierce to arrive at its destination. She also opens the most powerful of the magnetized pathways - the birthing child pulling down a soul into a body and a new incarnation. As a helper to and teacher of mages, she is the falcon who guides the hunter to his goal. Falcons too have been used as a way to send messages. In all cases, the message that she sends is that another world awaits.
As a teacher, she sometimes presides over initiations. Initiation is the simulation of death, and new life. In the initiatory process, it is the death of the soul rather than the death of the body, but they echo each other. One must experience disintegration before reintegration.
Initiations transform people and are sometimes painful but they bring them to the awareness of deeper layers of vision and intuition.
As Black Goddess of initiation, some choose to enter her cauldron, to gain the wisdom that is there. It is a dangerous path, for there is a chance of destruction, and also a chance of losing the wisdom that is sought. Such was the case in the tales of Talieson and Kerridwen. Though she made the wisdom for one who was dull and needed it, nevertheless one who was clever gained it. Wisdom will not always go where we wish it.
Finding wisdom is hard. Sometimes one must suffer unjustly, and sometimes one must deal with ugliness. But the Black Goddess has wisdom of the pathways of life and death, and from the dark cauldron of human need and desire, and from the process of incarnation itself, comes the bright drop of wisdom.
