Vampires and werewolves are the creatures that dwell in the dark murky shadows of night, waiting for some victim to provide them there meal of blood. Just the thought of such marauding beasts is enough to raise the hair on the back of ones’ neck, and to cause us to double check that our doors and windows are securely latched at night. These are the ravenous demons that haunt our thoughts on the night of the full moon, but why, and where do these stories come from?

Some have proposed, that the images of werewolves and vampires are but a leftover remnant of terror, memorialized in the human psyche, and dating back to far more ancient times when humans were regularly on the menu for more robust blood thirsty creatures than we. Well this is in part true, in the sense that the sources of such mythological creatures is ancient but not quite that ancient as it turns out, the legends of vampires and werewolves emanate from a clearly identifiable source. In reality these myths stem from the time of the ancient Greeks and their systematic analysis of heavenly events.

As you may know, the ancient Greeks were intrigued with the stars and heavenly orbs, perhaps no more so than other ancient cultures, but they bothered to write down their thoughts and perceptions, and since their written text has survived, we can analyze them today. The Greeks didn’t invent astrology, but they certainly embellished on its theme, making it the centerpiece of the philosophies they are famous for, their religious belief, and their cultural paradigms. To the Greeks, the heavens were the home and playground of the Gods, and the deities they worshiped were all associated with the celestial display. One such deity is the Goddess “Luna,” who’s orb was the moon.

The Greeks were certainly cognizant of the fact that the Moon completes the phases of its display on a twenty-eight day cycle. It is a phenomena so regular that you can set your watch by it, and in fact it was used heavily as a method of telling time in those days. But some astute Greek fellows noticed that the episode of the female menstrual cycle also occurs with the same frequency and duration. The blood discharged at the end of a woman’s period, thereby became associated with the appearance of a full moon and the goddess Luna at the ebb of her influence. The hormonal perturbations taking place in a woman’s body at this time, was observed to cause moody behavior which the Greeks referred to as “Lunacy.” A final association that provides the image of the vampire, is by no mistake the blood sucking “vampire bat.” During the dark nights when the moon was not shining, these blood thirsty winged rodents are virtually invisible in the sky. But when the moon is shining, they are clearly illuminated and seem to be in greater number, offering further credence to the association of blood and the full moon.

It would be nice to believe that stories of werewolves and vampires are the stuff of enchanting legendary mystique but most of the veneer that is associated with them today has come about through the elaborate creative offerings of talented wordsmith’s in the past couple of centuries. Just like the superstitions and rituals grounded in ancient Teutonic festivals of Yule and Eoster, have become embodied in the contemporary celebrations of Christmas an Easter over the past 200 years, so the legends of vampires and werewolves find their own relevance in ancient Greek observation.