The ancient Greek word aithôn means "burning", "blazing" or "shining." Less strictly, it can denote the colour red-brown, or "tawny." It is an epithet...
The ancient Greek word aithôn means "burning", "blazing" or "shining." Less strictly, it can denote the colour red-brown, or "tawny." It is an epithet sometimes applied to animals such as horses at Hom. Il. 2.839 ; oxen at Od.18.372; and an eagle at Il. 15.690 (cf. Hyginus' calling the eagle that tormented Prometheus an aethonem aquilam at Fabulae 31.5.). The eagle who tormented Prometheus, Aethon, was the child of the monsters Typhon and Echidna. In English, aithôn may be written Aethon, Aithon or Ethon. In Greek and Roman mythology there are a number of characters known as Aethon. Most are horses, variously belonging to: Helios Ares Hector Pallas Hades (Claudian)The name is twice applied to humans. In Odyssey 19.183, it is the pseudonym a disguised Odysseus assumes during his interview with Penelope upon his return to Ithaca. According to fr. 43a.5 of Hesiod's Catalogue of Women, Erysichthon of Thessaly was also known as Aethon due to the "burning" hunger (aithôn limos) he was made to endure by Demeter.
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Vampire
A vampire is a creature from folklore that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklo...
A vampire is a creature from folklore that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.
Vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania.
In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalize this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of "The Vampyre" by the English writer John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend, even though it was published after fellow Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel Carmilla. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, television shows, and video games. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
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