#i took a slavic folklore class last year but i had to refresh my memory with wikipedia

[faery-berry-blast]

Fun fact: in some folklore, there is little distinction between werewolves and vampires, both fulfilling the same role (seducer of women and malicious force disguised as loved one) and in fact later combining into our modern view of ‘vampire.’

This is the case of the slavic upyr (vampire) and volkodlak (werewolf or wolf skin wearer). They were very similar creatures, both disguising themselves posing as people’s loved ones, both needing to devour blood, both having glowing ‘wolf-like’ eyes, both being dark evil unnatural unholy undeadbcreatures. Today, the word wurdulac/wurdalak/verdilak/vurdulak (referring to slavic vampire) can be attributed to both upyrs and volkodlak, regardless of the minor but existent differences between the two (a werewolf being a creature that wears a wolf’s hide or turns into a wolf) This speaks to their similarities and overlapping roles and characteristics.

Upyr’s can be created in several ways, a couple being: a soul that returns to the body sometime during the 40 days after death when soul’s wander around (if the proper burial rites arent followed), women who die in childbirth (notably childbirth is unclean), unchristened babies, a particularly evil witch or sorcerer, or a particularly evil werewolf. These all similarly make the soul unclean, and therefore potentially apt to take revenge on the living.

But anyway, vampires and werewolves are basically the same thing sometimes and you should join a union

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"