Vampire myths and vampire bats.

[Mangetout]

Do the myths about vampires being able to transform into bats predate the (local) knowledge of the existence of vampire bats?

[Desmostylus]

http://www.batconservation.org/content/meetourbats/vampire.htm

The legends of vampires were developed well before the discovery of vampire bats in the New World. Vampire bats got their name from these legends from Europe. Bram Stoker himself was so fascinated by the discovery of bats that drank blood in the New World that he incorporated them into his book Dracula.

[Desmostylus]

Sorry, misread the question a bit.

[Ice_Wolf]

So the blood-sucking vampires gave their name to the bats, which in turn lead to the vamps being given the ability (in literature, then other media) to turn into bats. Talk about your circular origins, there …

[Mangetout]

Is that right though? Vampire myths predate Stoker… don’t any of them have vampires that are able to change into bats?

[Desmostylus]

Apparently not: [url=]http://science.howstuffworks.com/vampire1.htmHow Vampires Work

Vampiric shape-shifters go back thousands of years, but the particular connection to vampire bats is fairly recent. Vampire bats are only found in Central America and South America, so the Europeans and Asians who originally conceived of these monsters didn’t know about them. When European explorers discovered the strange animals, they were soon incorporated into the vampire myth.

[Desmostylus]

How Vampires Work

[Mangetout]

That cite mentions vampires>vampire bats. What I’m looking for is a vampires>[possibly various animals, but explicitly including ordinary bats] myth that predates the discovery of vampire bats, or confirmation that no such myth existed.

I’m probably nitpicking here, but I don’t feel we’re quite there yet.

[Desmostylus]

BATS, VAMPIRES, AND DRACULA by Elizabeth Miller

Ever wonder which came first – the bat or the vampire? How did bats become so associated with Count Dracula that the poor maligned creatures are forced to lurk in the recesses of twentieth-century popular culture? Is it all the fault of that Irish writer Bram Stoker and his novel DRACULA (1897)? Hopefully, the following paragraphs will answer these (and other) questions.
<snip>
Bats were associated with the mysterious and the supernatural long before Stoker’s novel appeared in print. As creatures of the night, bats fit in well with the motifs of Gothic fiction. A bat-like vampire appears, for example, as an illustration in the novel VARNEY THE VAMPIRE, which appeared fifty years before DRACULA.
<snip>
Elizabeth Miller is Professor of English at Memorial University of Newfoundland and an internationally recognized authority on Dracula. Her book, REFLECTIONS ON DRACULA, was published in 1997. She can be reached by e-mail at emiller@plato.ucs.mun.ca

I guess if you want more, you could always e-mail her.

[Desmostylus]

Left out the important bit:

But Stoker’s major contribution to the association of vampires with bats was his introduction of the idea that a vampire could shapeshift into the form of a bat (as well as a wolf and mist).