14 What are dhampirs?
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This article is from the Vampires FAQ, by BJ Kuehl bj@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu with numerous contributions by others.
14 What are dhampirs?
In Eastern European and gypsy vampire lore, some vampires are believed
to be invisible to all but a dhampir, the offspring of a vampire and a
mortal. In spite of the fact that the gypsy mulo [q.v. 2:03] was said
to be a spirit of the dead person separate from the physical corpse, it
was also believed that the male mulo was capable of impregnating living
women, often their grieving widows. The resulting child was variously
called a "vampijorivic", a "vampiric", or a "lampijerovic", all of which
mean "little vampire". Another name for such an offspring is "dhampir".
Depending on the legend, dhampirs may be able to automatically see
vampires, or they may have to enact some sort of ritual, such as putting
on their clothes backwards or looking through a sleeve.
The typical dhampir story has a vampire bothering a town. A wandering
dhampir comes through, hears of the town's vampire problem, and offers
to kill the vampire--for a fee, of course. The dhampir goes to the town
square and calls out a challenge to the vampire, asking him to meet the
dhampir there on the morrow. (Vampires in these legends aren't limited
to nighttime.) The next day, the dhampir returns to the town square and
waits for the vampire to arrive. When the vampire "appears", the dhampir
wrestles the invisible creature, shoots him with a gun, or somehow bests
him and chases the vampire out of town. End of the town's vampire problem.
There are also cases where a dhampir is able to detect the grave of a
vampire and destroy it by shooting a bullet into the corpse or by more
traditional means such as staking, beheading or cremation. The natural
male offspring of a dhampir were also believed to be dhampirs, and so
the profession of vampire hunting was often an inherited career. At
least as late as 1959 in Kosova, there were dhampirs still in the
business of hunting down and destroying vampires.
Dhampirs in legend don't have special abilities other than being able to
see invisible vampires. As with legends, however, writers have liked the
idea of a dhampir and have added to the legend, often completely redoing
it and just taking the name, as with Vampire Hunter D, for example.
(written in part by Cathy Krusberg)
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