Do Vampires Glitter?

by Yalini Geeth
(Erode, Tamilnadu, India)

Question:
I heard that vampires body glitters in the sunlight like diamonds, and they don't show their body in the sunlight so they wont glitter. What is the main reason for not showing their body in day time?

Answer:
Let me be very clear about this. Vampires do not glitter. They don't sparkle, shine, glisten, glimmer, shimmer, twinkle, or anything of the sort.

The idea that vampire skin glitters like diamonds comes directly from the imagination of Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight vampire book series (and subsequent movie series based on the books). The glittering vampire skin comes from a dream that Meyer had where a girl was lying on the ground in a forest meadow with a vampire male whose skin was glittering like diamonds in the sunlight. After awakening, Meyer wrote down the dream, and intrigued by the possible relationship of these characters, continued writing about the couple. This story became the book "Twilight", and the rest is history.

In no other vampire mythology does vampire skin sparkle in the sunlight. In fact, most mythologies agree that sunlight is deadly to a vampire, causing their undead skin to burn at a rapid pace. This is primarily the reason that vampires don't want to be seen in daylight. The sparkling vampire is strictly a "Twilight" invention.

I would imagine that such a brazen violation of vampire mythology was only undertaken because the entire story of Twilight began with the dream in which the vampire sparkled. The rest of the story uses the fact that a sparkling vampire would reveal itself to the public in order to give a reason why vampires don't like sunlight. While this may serve the story of the Twilight series, it in no way represents actual vampire mythology.

-Mike