It probably varies by culture and it’s so old that there probably isn’t one true vampire origin. Most cultures seem to have some kind of story about a dead person who eats people.
A ‘fun’ one that I heard was that back in the day sometimes people weren’t as dead as they thought when they buried them - catatonic, epileptic, or some other kind of comatose. If they were in a shallow grave, they might wake up and escape before wandering around town. Likely with some kind of trauma or brain damage that might make them erratic, or just simply that people were afraid that someone they had buried got up for a stroll.
The solution then is to find some means of keeping them in the ground. Burying them deep, coffins chained shut, staking or decapitating the deceased. This is not much comfort to you if you weren’t as dead as you were declared, but at least your neighbours will sleep better.
It probably varies by culture and it’s so old that there probably isn’t one true vampire origin. Most cultures seem to have some kind of story about a dead person who eats people.
A ‘fun’ one that I heard was that back in the day sometimes people weren’t as dead as they thought when they buried them - catatonic, epileptic, or some other kind of comatose. If they were in a shallow grave, they might wake up and escape before wandering around town. Likely with some kind of trauma or brain damage that might make them erratic, or just simply that people were afraid that someone they had buried got up for a stroll.
The solution then is to find some means of keeping them in the ground. Burying them deep, coffins chained shut, staking or decapitating the deceased. This is not much comfort to you if you weren’t as dead as you were declared, but at least your neighbours will sleep better.