Reading the House of Night series is very much akin to reading Zoey’s favorite book, Dracula (1897), for like Bram Stoker’s novel, one will find also in the House of Night’s pages the subtle mingling of folklore and reality with popular fiction. It will probably come as little surprise to readers out there to learn that, when it comes to its vampyres, the House of Night is steeped in all three. However, which parts are “fiction” and which are “reality” may come as a shock and, in some cases, may even seem implausible.

Folklore has almost as many variations on the vampire as there are vampire films (at least 700 of which, or more, belong to Dracula or his semblance alone), and more often than not the two are confused for one another.

The House of Night series, and the various associations it conjures up, is no exception to this. However, the series’ treatment of the vampire mythology is surprisingly faithful to the folklore, a rarity among vampire fiction, which often relies too heavily on screen vampires. This is not to say that the series does not also draw from popular film and TV presentations; it does. And together we shall unearth the House of Night’s mythological foundation, in an attempt to separate fact and fiction from myth and folklore.

Before continuing any further, however, I would like first to discern, for the sake of clarity, what is meant by the four variations of the word “vampire” readers will come across in this chapter. When speaking of the undead in the House of Night, I shall use the term (1) vampyre, in keeping with the  …