"Dig a bit into the history of this place," as librarian Rupert Giles explains to Buffy, "You'll find there've been a steady stream of fairly odd occurrences." The area is a center of mystical energy. And all the signs point to a crucial mystical upheaval. Some sixty years ago a very old, very powerful vampire came to this southern California town, and not just to feed. The Spanish who first settled the area called it Boca Del Infierno -- roughly translated, "Hellmouth" -- a sort of portal from this reality to the next. This Master Vampire hoped to open the portal and bring the demons back. And destroy the world of Man.

"But," as Buffy's new friend Willow Rosenberg adds, based on her own computer research into old city and county records, "he blew it. There was an earthquake that swallowed half the town. And him too -- or at least there were no more vampire-type killings afterward."

"Opening dimensional portals," Giles adds, "is tricky business. Odds are he got himself stuck. Like a cork in a bottle."

However, once in a century comes The Harvest: a night when a Master Vampire can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. Enough power to break free, and to open the portal. The minion is called the Vessel, and he bears a three-pointed star symbol.

Werewolf
Folklore tells of unfortunate individuals who become possessed by the spirits of animals, doomed to change uncontrollably into the beast that inhabits them. The wolfman or werewolf is the most common, but other variations exist. In India and China, for instance, Rakhasa, or weretigers are thought to prey on unsuspecting victims. Animal possession is a common theme in many cultures, including some Native American and African tribes. The traditional lore regarding werewolves holds that they change on or about the full moon, and that a silver bullet is the only weapon capable of killing them. Other werebeasts are rumored to have the ability to change form at will, and some can be exorcised using rituals and magic. It is thought that legends involving werebeasts were partially based on a rare disease called Lycanthropy, a syndrome causing the victim to grow hair over the entire body and making the eyes hypersensitive to light. Sufferers of this disease rarely went outside in the daylight, due to their startling appearance and the fact that sunlight was painful to their eyes.

Frankenstein
The idea of re-animating the dead has existed for centuries. The most famous legend regarding this concept was that of Baron von Frankenstein's Monster, from a story by Mary Shelley. As the story goes, Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant young doctor, solved the eternal riddle of life and creating a being from body parts he scavenged from corpses. His creation was to be a superhuman, with great physical prowess and extreme intelligence, but something went very wrong. Faced with the reality that he was unlike anyone else in the world, Frankenstein's monster demanded a partner be created for him. When Frankenstein failed, the monster vowed to haunt his creator as revenge for the hell that was his own life.

Witchcraft
Believed to be in league with Satan and practitioners of the black arts, witches were often tortured and killed for their alleged crimes. It was widely held that witches could hex their enemies using a variety of spells and amulets, causing sickness and injury. Often what seemed to be a run of bad luck or a persistent illness was thought to be the work of witchcraft.

Demon
Demons are said to come in many shapes and sizes. They fly, change shape, shoot fire from their mouths, and generally plague humanity for their own amusement. Certain mythology traces the origin of demons back to a time before history, when the world was not controlled by mankind. The "Ancient Ones" as they are sometimes called, ruled the Earth and all its beings for eons, superpowerful and bloodthirsty. Banished into the lower realms, they do everything within their power to corrupt the world, sometimes managing to walk the Earth inside human bodies, "possessing" them. It is said that by knowing a demons true name and calling it out in ritual, you can summon it. Protected inside the magical barrier of a pentagram or five-pointed star, a strong sorcerer could force a demon to do his bidding. Overestimating one's own magical ability was, however, a fatal mistake. If one lost control of a demon after summoning, one would usually die and lose one's soul for all eternity. Demon's are notorious liars and masters of trickery. Lured into a dialogue with the demon, an unwary individual could be fooled into acting as the demon's servant, only to be sacrificed when the demon grew bored or found a better follower.

astral projection - the theory that while one sleeps one has another body -- an astral body -- that can travel through time and space.

feeding - Drinking blood; a vampire's only means for survival.

harvest - a night once in a century when a Master Vampire can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds.

host - The person off whom the vampire feeds.

master - The most powerful of vampires, capable of destroying the earth.

minion - a follower of the Master Vampire.

slayer - a girl born once every generation with the strength and skill to hunt vampires, find them where they gather and stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.

vampire - Demonic creatures who live off the blood of humans; a vampire appears to be a normal person until the feed is upon them -- only then do they reveal their true demonic visage.

vessel - a minion, bearing a three-pointed symbol, which can give the Master Vampire power by feeding.

watcher - person who finds the Slayer and leads her on her path; it is his destiny to guide the Slayer.

Down through the ages, the image of the vampire has haunted the dreams of man. Around the world, many differing legends of the vampire can be found.

In ancient egypt, it was believed that the dead would sometimes return from the afterworld, walking the night and where they would occasionally steal the lives of unlucky villagers. In this world that viewed the pharoahs as gods, the "undead" were just a fact of life.

The vampire was viewed very differently in Southeast Asia. The vampire was a demon who would visit victims as they slept, draining their life essence. It was widely believed that these monsters favored men as their prey, leading to a bizarre custom in which men would paint their nails and wear false eyelashes when they slept. By changing their appearance they believed they could trick the demons, saving their lives in the process.

The more traditional version of the vampire legend originates in the mountain villages of Eastern Europe. Early recorded reports of vampire activity, sometimes referred to as plagues, date back to the 17th century Serbia. It seems the dead sometimes didn't stay dead. Individuals recently deceased were seen wandering the countryside. Like their Asian counterparts, these undead beings would often visit others while they slept, sometimes killing them. The local lore referred to them as "nosferatu".

Unlike the cultured, cosmopolitan vampire that we see in the movies, these vampires were ragged and decomposed, and could turn their victims into vampires themselves. Eventually the "vampire epidemics" led to a practice in which bodies were dug up and "killed" by a wooden stake driven through the heart.

The vampire legend really begins to take its modern shape in 1819, when The Vampyre was published. Attributed to Lord Byron, the story was later credited to Dr. Polidori, a sometime companion of Byron's. The main character, Lord Ruthven, is an aristocrat whose enchantment and manipulation of women sets a tone that carries through to today: The vampire as a sexual creature.

Probably the most famous story of the undead can be found within the pages of Dracula, by Bram Stoker. It is Stoker's concept of the vampire - debonair, regal, predatory - that we have seen in the movies. It is this vampire that we have come to know.

Anne Rice wrote of a slightly different vampire. A vampire capable of emotion, longing, even of pity. Her vampires remembered their mortal lives, lived by a code, and even fell in love.

Even though there are many views of the vampire and its nature, one thing is certain: Mankind has been obsessed with the undead for centuries. The legend of the vampire lurks in the shadows of our imaginations, filling our hearts with fear.