"Real Vampires"- how can this be anything but a contradiction in terms? We all know about vampires. Stock characters of fiction, guaranteed box-office draws, the media vampire has been familiar to us since childhood.

As the vampire flick Twilight tops the U.S. charts and opens in Britain, female viewers are swooning over the impossible romance between mortal and immortal. But many of their male companions will be pondering the age-old question: "Just what kind of hardware do I need to take down that sucker?" 

A 4000-year-old "vampire" grave, believed to be the world's first burial place for one of the presumed "undead", has been discovered in eastern Europe. It bares spookily similar hallmarks to Celtic tombs in the British Isles designed to prevent bloodsucking "revenants". These were recently buried people who were believed to rise from the grave, walk the earth and prey on the living.

	Dracula Myth author: Gabriel Ronay
	The Truth About Dracula. author: Gabriel Ronay Mass Market Paperback: $2.95

First, I think it best to define the essence of the vampire (fictional) before attempting to define the Essence of the Vampyre (magical). In this way, I hope to invite discussion and/or debate on the topic, and to hear from other magicians' experience with this type of magic.