I often look to folklore and legends for inspiration. I listen to several podcasts about the stuff and recently read or reread some books on the history of vampires. I don't have plans to make a film or write a story involving vampires but they are fascinating and their history is mixed up with other folklore and legend.
The First Ghosts: A rich history of ancient ghosts and ghost stories from the British Museum curator by Irving Finkel
Very interesting book talking about the translated cuneiform tablets in the British Museum that detail the earliest ghost stories. Could have a been a dry read but the author has an entertaining style and obviously loves his work.
Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires: The Rules to Determine True and False Cases by Antoine Augustin Calmet
A 1700s discussion of all manner of supernatural phenomenon. How could I resist that title? Well, I wish I had to be honest. The chapters are usually short and have notes at the end of each but the author wraps everything in a Christian/Catholic blanket that smothers any hope of learning much about the legends of the past except the God must have approved of them or they were hallucinations or whatever. It gets very close to the real reasons people might have believed in such things but then vers off in to it's on religious mythology. It does mention some stories mentioned in the first book on this list which means those tales were still circulating 1000s of years later.
The Vampire: A New History by Nick Groom
A new book less focused on individual folklore but on the history of the concept of the vampire and how in before relatively recent times it was common to think of ghosts, werwolves and vampires as the same thing. Very well researched and makes it points with some humour and interesting asides.
And finally.... Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality by Paul Barber
A book I reread or use as reference all the time, it's my favourite source for bloodsucking lore.
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