The monster bite

Here I answered a question that was asked in Quora: "In monster mythology, if you are bitten you turn into the monster that bit you. Where did this concept originate?" and I posted my answer. I feel like wtf and post my answer to my blog as it's monster related. Since we're coming near to Halloween, I felt like writing and posting about monsters. My answer in italics:

The concept is frightening, being turned once some creature has bitten you. This is probably all from times when people lived in absolute mortal fear of the following things: 
Rabies and Plagues.

Those things caused a vast number of incidents that sparked off nightmares and death. Rabies itself has been the cause of wild animal attacks against humans, werewolf stories and even bizarre horrors of turned people. The Black Death or Bubonic Plague was rife in Europe during the Middle Ages. This devastating plague stole millions of lives, and its destruction put an end to the Age of chivalry and Feudalism. While politically there was more to it than that, it wasn’t a coincidence that the plague and infestation and disease sweeping through the lands filled everyone with fear.

So the tales of vampires, werewolves, ect (those types of legendary monsters are far older and go back thousands of years) evolved into the breed of biters and blood drinkers, who make their victims become one of them. So basically, the vampire and werewolf (as well as a zombie even) are symbols of the Great Plague and other infectious diseases like rabies.

Vamps and werewolves have been in folklore, myth and creepy tales for thousands of years, but they were previously heralded as almost divine with strength, immortality, shape shifting, the moon, night and their supposed connection to gods and warrior heroes. The Viking berserkers and ulfhednar were the order of warriors and many could be considered true werewolves and other beasts. Viking raiders who stormed villages along coasts, bringing their ferocious bears and wolves in armour, so there is the ancient fear and stress embedded in the genes of being “attacked” by monsters. I can imagine ordinary people scared of the dark, because they were scared of any berserker hiding there.  

To read my answer and see more to my post and view other posts on that thread, click here: "In monster mythology, if you are bitten you turn into the monster that bit you. Where did this concept originate?"