I would have to say that more of Bram Stoker's influences came from the many folklores which exist around the idea of vampires; many ancient cultures had tales of demonic entities and blood-drinking spirits.
It was just simple that Bram Stoker was able to put a name and face to a more recent person, who personified the idea of vampire. A man who would sit and eat food while watching his enemies being impaled (hence the name Vlad the Impaler)
- Hebrews would call them "lilith" which rought translate as night creatures/monsters.
- The Mesopotamians believed that a Babylonian goddess Lamashtu, would gnaw on the bones and suck the blood of women in childbirth.
- Ancient Greek mythology contains several precursors to modern vampires, though none were considered undead.
-In India, tales of vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. Describes as undeath creatures who were bat like in that they would hang upside down from trees around the dead
- In Aztec mythology, the Cihuateteo, were the spirits of human women who died in childbirth, who would seduce men into sexual misbehavior
More recently two cases in Serbia were documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires.
- Petar Blagojevich, a peasant died in 1725, was said to have been a vampire after nine people died within 8 days of his death, with one on their death-bed saying Blagojevich had beaten him up.
- Arnold Paole, who died in 1726 was said to have come back from the dead to initiate an epidemic of vampirism that killed at least 16 people in his native village
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The Hungarian Duchess is
Elizabeth Bathory, who is said to have tortured and killed up to 650 young girls, Torturing methods included severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands,
biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death. While the the that she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth were generally recorded years after her death and are considered unreliable.