From Fleas To Tigers
Animals most often connected with the vampire are the wolf and the bat, but mostly as alternative shapes a vampire can take. Vampire animals seem to be rare. One example is the Bengal vampire cat mentioned in Summer's 'The Vampire'. Its meowing sounds different from the ordinary cat, but that is all he tells about the vampire animal. The vampire Jules Duchon"; ?> unknowingly sires a pair of half-vampire dogs when he mates with a bitch while being in a dog's shape to stay low and hide from his enemies.
Shapeshifting seems to be rather common for vampires. Many of them are ableable to take animal forms, most commonly bat, wolf, rat, and flea. Animals can both cause and reveal vampires and vampirism. The flea and rat are associated with spreading contagious diseases - just like vampires were often accused of.
A dead person can be transformed into a vampire if a cat or a dog jumps over the grave or over the corpse. Horses instead were known to avoid vampires' graves. In fact, horses were used to locate vampires: a horse was led to the cemetery, and if it refused to go over some grave, a vampire had been found. But all horses, apparently, did not fear vampires: Dracula"; ?> drives horses when he picks up Jonathan Harker at Borgo Pass and even soothes them when they encounter a wolf pack. And Count Saint-German rides horses without any problems.
Animals can alos serve as a blood source for vampires. Balkan rural vampires frequently attacked cattle and sucked their blood. Louis in the "Interview of the Vampire" had also to resort to animal blood in the beginning of his career as a vampire. Jules Duchon in his dog-shape preferred dog food... View source"; ?>
Suzy McKee Charnas has noted the similarities between vampires and predators. She had a tiger in her mind when she invented Dr. Weyland of 'The Vampire Tapestry'. She saw a vampire like a ruthless predator without any supernatural abilities nor romanticisation. One reason for the vampire being so frightening is that it hunts humans - we are the prey. Suzy McKee Charnas even called 'The Vampire Tapestry' an animal story. 'Weyland merely pads along in the shadows among us, shifting as best as he can to fit the paradigms we have come up with so that he can pass for one of us and so obtain his supper.' But the vampire outsmarted his creator once more and became a sensual and intriguing lone feline predator than a tiger on the hunt. View source"; ?>
Wolf
The wolf has an ambiguous relation to the vampire. Sometimes wolves are under the command of vampires and sometimes they are the foes of vampires. Both vampires and wolves inhabit the dark forests, they are both night creatures, shadowy silent predators feared by mankind. In some regions villagers saw wolves as hostile souls of foreigners, outcasts and enemies come to attack their herds. It was also the custom of rural vampires to draw blood from cattle.
Dracula is on good term with them: he refers to them as the children of the night, and their howling is sweet music to his ears. In England, he uses Bersicker, a wolf escaped from the zoo, to break in the house of the Westenras through a window. Keeper Thomas Bilder met him when he was visiting the wolves at the Zoo:
"Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin' they lay down, and when I went over to
Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That man came over, and blessed but if he didn't put in
his hand and stroke the wolf's ears too!
'Tyke care', says I. 'Bersicker is quick.'
'Never mind', he says. 'I'm used to 'em!
'Are you in the business yourself?' I says.
'No', says he, 'not exactly in the business, but I 'ave made pets of several.'
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Serbian gypsies believed that only wolves could destroy vampires. Wolves have protected villages from vampires, a least so say the Gypsies of Kosovo. Especially white wolves are seen as guardians against vampires. A tribe in Montenegro held the belief that every vampire has to spend some time as a wolf. The vampire probably inherited the fangs from wolves in order to stress out its similarity to predators. After all, there are many better ways of drawing blood than biting - like stinging. View source"; ?>
Vampire Bat
The Vampire bat is famous and very much maligned. In reality, the vampire bats are small bats living in Central and South America. They feed on blood from cattle making tiny cuts with their sharp teeth and lapping up the blood. In about twenty minutes it can lap up an amount equalling to a wine glass.
The Spaniards brought with them tales of the vampire bat from the New World. Dudley Wright in his 'Vampires and Vampirism' claims that they have destroyed entire cattle herds in South America, and even attacked humans. He relates a story about a captain in Surinam who awoke one morning to find his hammock steeped in blood, and it was concluded that he was bitten by a vampire bat while sleeping. This is undoubtedly just a tale. Human blood is not a substitute for cattle food or vice versa, as Catherine Ramsland tells us in her book 'The Science of Vampires'. Their sinister reputation is based solely on their name. Vampire bats have never actually been the companions of vampires. On the contrary, the bats were named by European explorers after vampires because of their feeding habits.
What is common with the vampire and the bat? Bats are also creatures of the night and silent hunters, and they inhabit places liked by vampires: old castles and cemeteries. The black bat with its leathery wings and vampire-like claws even reminds of some vampires' spread black cloak. View source"; ?>
Rat
Rats are intelligent animals able to adapt to different environments. Rats are to be found everywhere where humans live. They feed on anything they find, breed rapidly and are able to attack living animals, and even humans especially when cornered. Rats are, as vampires, blamed for spreading diseases and starting epidemics. Allegedly, The Black Death that killed millions of people in the Middle Ages, was spread by the black rat.
Graf Orlock, the monster Nosferatu of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's classic film "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens"(Murnau on imdb), moves to Bremen and brings with him plague-infested rats to the town. View source"; ?>