FANTASTIC SILVER COIN 0.999 WITH COLORED GLASS INLAY
Mythical Creatures: The Vampire
While even folkloric vampires of the Balkans and Eastern Europe had a wide range of appearance ranging from nearly human to bloated rotting corpses, it was interpretation of the vampire by the Christian Church and the success of vampire literature, namely John Polidori's 1819 novella.The Vampyre that established the archetype of charismatic and sophisticated vampire; it is arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century, inspiring such works as Varney the Vampire and eventually Dracula. The Vampyre was itself based on Lord Byron's
unfinished story "Fragment of a Novel", also known as "The Burial: A Fragment", published in 1819. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and which provided the basis of modern vampire fiction. Dracula drew on earlier mythologies of werewolves and similar legendary demons and "was to voice the anxieties of an age", and the "fears of late Victorian patriarchy".The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, video games, and television shows.
The vampire is such a dominant figure in the horror genre that literary historian Susan Sellers places the current vampire myth in the "comparative safety of nightmare fantasy". Tales of supernatural beings consuming the blood or flesh of the living have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries.
Today, we would associate these entities with vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire did not exist; blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, aand Romans had tales of demons and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires.
However, despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity we know today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early-18th century southeastern Europe, when verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published.
In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires
Specifications
Country: FijiIssuing Year: 2012
Face Value: 10 Fijian Dollars
Metal: Silver 0.999
Diameter: 54 x 32 mm
Weight: 20 g
Condition: Satined
Mintage: 1,000 pieces
Speciality: Coin with glass inlay
