Vampires

Vampires

Vampires are undead beings who feed off the blood and life of the living. They have existed in the folklore of many cultures for thousands of years.

The fear that the dead can return to spread disease or sap the vitality of the living has caused many superstitions and beliefs to spring up concerning how vampires are made, detected, and destroyed. Legends of vampires are most common in Eastern Europe but also occur in China.

Although the vampire in recent fiction is often depicted as lanky, tall, and pale, the most common of the folkloric vampire are bloated and ruddy. In Greece, vampires sometimes are thought to have dark blue or black faces.

Vanishing Hitchhiker

Vanishing Hitchhiker

The tale of the vanishing hitchhiker may be the most widespread and popular folktale of all. It has been collected by folklorists in, among other countries, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Malaysia, China, and the Philippines.

The vanishing hitchhiker is the ghost of a victim, usually female, of an automobile accident. The ghost is trying to get home and is picked up by a Good Samaritan. When the Good Samaritan arrives at the ghost’s house, the ghost vanishes.

The bewildered Good Samaritan then learns from the still-grieving family that yes, this was a ghost that had been trying to get home for days, weeks, or years. Some variants add the detail of the ghost being cold, and the Good Samaritan lending her a sweater. When the ghost vanishes, the sweater is left behind, or, in a neat twist, is found draped over her tombstone.

Vegetable Sheep/Lamb

Vegetable Sheep

Plant-animal hybrids, vegetable sheep and vegetable lambs, were believed to produce cotton as sheep produce wool and are depicted in the bestiaries, the medieval collections of fact and folklore about real and imaginary animals.

Also known as the lambs of Tartary, these creatures were believed to live in the Asian land of Tartary, which is part of present-day Eastern Europe and Russia.

The origins of this odd belief are almost certainly connected to the arrival of cotton bolls from the East into Western Europe. Since no one in Western Europe had ever seen cotton in its unspun, natural form, they assumed that the bolls were a form of wool.

Vietnamese Storytelling

Vietnamese Storytelling

Vietnam is made up of more than fifty ethnic groups, each one with its own oral traditions.

Folktales and storytelling are both still popular throughout Vietnam. But storytelling generally takes place on a smaller scale in the cities than it does in the more isolated mountain areas because large gatherings are still discouraged by the government.

However, the Vietnamese government has worked with the Association of Vietnamese Folklorists to conserve as much as possible of the country’s oral tradition. Many stories have been collected and are compiled in massive volumes of Vietnamese tales and legends.

Vodianoi

Vodianoi

In Slavic myth and folklore, the vodianoi is the unpredictable, dangerous king or spirit of water, particularly of freshwater.

As a water spirit, the vodianoi needed no clothes. He generally was seen by humans as a being that was half fish and half human, or as an old man covered in scales and mud. His hair and beard were green, and his hands were webbed.

When he chose to have a tail, he looked something like a heavyset merman. When he decided to take a two-legged shape, his long toes helped him to propel himself underwater.

Vol’ka

Prince Vol’ka

Prince Vol’ka is portrayed in Slavic epic folk poems, called bylini, as a heroic warrior. He protects the residents of his isolated, forest-bound principality by performing such traditional deeds of heroism as defeating an enemy in single combat. He is also the only hero of a bylina who is a magician and shape-shifter.

Vol’ka’s fictional world is based on regions of Russia and Ukraine in the twelfth century. These regions were divided into principalities, the most important of which was ruled by Prince Vladimir of Kiev.

Much of the land was heavily forested, and traveling between the principalities, or even between villages, was difficult. A local prince in the twelfth century could technically be a vassal of Vladimir yet, because of the forests and lack of decent roads, might never see him.

Völva

Völva

In Norse and Teutonic mythology a völva was a female prophet, a type of priest or shaman. Generally, this figure was an older woman who was not bound to a single family or clan and could wander freely.

The völva might travel alone or have a retinue of apprentices. She performed a craft called seidr, which was either shamanistic ritual or true sorcery. Völvas were held in high regard. Men could be völvas as well but were not revered as the women were. True seidr was considered a woman’s craft.

A völva is described in the Saga of Erik, dressed in a blue-black gem-studded cloak, a necklace of glass beads, and a hat trimmed with white catskin. A pouch containing her magical tools hung from a belt around her waist.