The Nachzehrer
One of the possibile precursors of the vampire race may be the German Nachzehrer - literally translated night waster. A Nachzehrer was a dead body alive in its grave, but not able to escape out of it. It had a very nasty habit of eating its burial shrouds, and its own flesh, in its coffin so noisily that it could be heard above the ground, which made it, of course, easy to locate and dispose of a Nachzehrer. The Nachzehrers were not very successfull species in the evolution of vampires, and it is no wonder that they seem to be extinct nowadays.
It is not clear whether vampires evolved directly of Nachzehrers or not. The Nachzehrer may be just a distant cousin of the vampire. This question remains unanswered until we find proof of the very first Nachzehrer who found its menu boring and managed to crawl out of the grave to find something more tasty to chew on.
Nachzehrers were greatly disliked for their disgusting eating habits, and it was believed that their eating of their garments in their graves somehow caused the deaths of their closest relatives and even larger epidemics. It was not clear hoe they becaue about to be, but one explanation offered was that unusal deaths resulted to the birth of a Nachzehrer. The only way of stopping a Nachzehrer was to dig it up and chop off its head. View source"; ?>
The Revenant
The revenant is a foul being, something between a real vampire and a nachzehrer. It is a recently deceased person returning from the grave to attack the living. It is as unintelligent and unsophisticated as a nachzehrer, but contrary to the nachzehrer it is able to rise from its grave. A revenant is not a ghost, because it is a real corpse, but it isn't a real vampire either. It needs blood to survive and attacks humans and cattle alike, but it cannot prevent its body from decomposing as a real vampire can, and therefore, with time, it ceases to exist.
The revenants are unable to control their bloodlust. They attack humans and convert them to revenants which causes a local vampire epidemic. This leads to vampire hunts and the destruction of all revenants found. That is why they are so scarce. One of the reasons might also be that they are repulsive to the human eye and lack all the grace attributed to the vampires. Most East European vampires of the 18th century are revenants. View source"; ?>
The Incubus/Succubus
The incubus and succubus may be related to vampires. An incubus attacks females, and it's female counterpart is called a succubus. They settle with heavy weight on their victims' chest when they sleep. Even though the victim feels the weight, and some incubi force their victims to sex, an incubus does not have a corporeal and visible body, which makes it more a relation to the the Nightmare than the Vampire.
The common traits with vampires is that it attacks humans at night, and it induces the same feelings in a victim as a vampire attack: erotic pleasure, fear and nightmares, exhaustion and weakening. The incubus returns to the same victim night after night as vampires do till the victim is exhausted. The Serbian vampires used the same method as incubi and some even drank blood from the chest, not from the throat.
The most important differences are that an incubus or succubus is not a dead person returning from the grave and that it doesn't crave blood. But they may share a common ancestry and they both thrive on repressed sexuality. Incubi were known to visit and cause havoc in nunneries often for some reason.
A different kind of an incubus/succubus appears in Dr. Franz Hartmann's book 'Borderland'. His story tells about a miller's servant boy who was wasting away though he had a ravenous appetite. He confessed on interrogation that an invisible being which he could feel came to him nightly, sat on his stomach and drew all his life force out of him. View source"; ?>
The Nosferat
It is with some reluctance that we include the Nosferat among the precursors of modern vampires. A nosferat is the still-born illegitimate child of parents who both were illegitimate themselves, he/she is born dead, but after burial assumes the shape of an animal and does leaves the grave for good.
A nosferat appears as a bloodsucker to older people, but poses a quite different kind of threat to the younger. He/she is especially known to trick newlywed couples, and destroy their marriage by embracing either the groom or the bride on bridal night: women become barren and men impotent. Nosferats can also make women pregnant. Probably this resulted to more illegitimate nosferats to be born.
Nosferat seems not to be a Roumanian word as one would suppose. Neither is it Hungarian. Nosferat is referred to in the writings of Heinrich von Wlislocki, who was a Roumanian folklorist, but it is unknown where he got it from. Maybe he encountered the famous German vampire count Orlok who seemed to call himself Nosferatu, even though he probably was a vampire. View source"; ?>