Blood is the Life part 1

"The blood is the life" is both a biblical tenet, and a fact. Without blood rushing through our veins pumping oxygen into every cell of our body, our bodies stop. Full stop. Die. Bite the big one. We need pretty much every drop of blood we have safe inside our veins. Our blood is our life. So it behooves us to keep our blood firmly inside our own veins, right?

Then donors go out and share it, donating it willy-nilly to blood-banks and vampires. Why do they do it? Well, in the case of donating to blood-banks it is quite normal and everyday. A kind effort at sharing from one human to another, and honestly, we can share some without ill effect. But donating life-blood to vampires, now that is the proverbial horse of a different color. Technicolor even. Why do it?

All the usual reasons, one suspects. A search for love and glory? A hope that quid pro quo will be in effect and one will eventually go from donor to donor-ee? The hope that sharing a bit of the good-stuff will satisfy the vampire and the donor gets to stay alive? The purely Samaritan impulse to be of help to someone in need -- even if they are no longer quite, well, living? But this is a kind impulse nonetheless. A combination of the reasons? The reasons will be different for each donor, as will the requests whispered by the vampire. The vampire will say, "save me."

It is human to attempt to save someone, anyone, who needs saving. Loosing that urge, arguably, means that one is becoming a bit less human. I believe strongly in free will, in personal choice, and the reasons to become a walking McMeal are personal. But remember, the blood is the life.

Blood Brotherhood

Blood brotherhood, or blood sisterhood, or even blood acquaintance, is an idea that is older than I am, and definitely predates AIDs or other blood born disease worries. At rock-bottom, its promise is that of two person's blood-lines merging one to another brought about by physically mixing two person's blood. You become my true-born brother when your blood enters me, and I become your true-born brother when my blood enters you. As our bloods mix, our lives merge.

In olden-times blood brotherhood was a staple of pirates and boy scouts (and girl scouts I might add.)

So "what is the relationship of blood-bothers to vampires," you might ask; and rightly so.

It seems to SweetGoth that this idea of blood merging two lives together is metaphorically similar to the idea of a vampire drinking my blood, and my life energy entering him/her/it and allowing him/her/it to "live." The relationship becomes stronger if one considers the methods most vampires use to propagate their species -- a blood exchange through which the vampire takes the life energy of the "victim" and in exchange joins the "victim" to the vampire's undead family, an eternal joining.

With his long talon-like nails he gnashed his wrist vein and then pressed it to my own which he had opened and fed from. As his blood merged with my own, I felt heat running up my arm though the large vein. I felt light-headed, and then the world went away. When I woke three days later, he was there waiting for me; his brother.

Favorite Vampire Stories -- Vintage Style

Who has time to read these days, what with victims to find or vampires to slay. Well, this wonderful audio will allow you to take care of business while educating yourself about earlier vampires and their victims.

It contains:

• "The Vampire of Croglin Grange" by Augustus Hare
• "The Vampyre" by John Polodari
• "For the Blood is the Life" by F. Marion Crawford
• "Blood Lust" by Dion Foutune
• "Alymer Vance and the Vampire" by Alice and Claude Askew
• "Wake Not the Dead" by Johann Ludwig Tieck (my own up-dated and modernized version)
  
• "The Vampire" by Jan Naruda
• "The Vampire Nemesis" by J. Dolly
• "Good Lady Ducayne" by Mary E. Braddon
• "Mrs. Amworth" by E. F. Benson
• "The Vampire Maid" by Hume Nisbit
• "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker
• "The True Story of a Vampire" By Eric Count Stenbock
• "Luella Miller" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
• "The House of the Vampire" by George Sylvester Vierec
• "The Tomb of Sara" by F. G. Loring

At just over 12 hours, this selection would give you lots of time for hands-free entertainment. It is being sold by Jimcin Recordings over on Audible.com. (Click here if you want to go there direct.)

I have to say, it is a very different experience to listen to the stories than it is to read them. They are much more frightening and goose-bumpy.