Day 21: Bloodthirsty

What a strange word, bloodthirsty. What is a thirst for blood? We usually use this word figuratively, meaning that a bloodthirsty person has a strong urge to kill. But a literal use of the word is a little more scary. Are there people that drink blood, that are actually thirsty for blood? They have no interest in water, or milk or beer, they will not rest until they drink blood?

I found the word bloodthirsty a few times in the Psalms, here's two places: Psalm 5 and 59. (I have to say here that it has been wonderful to use the website biblegateway.com for this writing project, because I have been able to do a word search on blood and find all the places that it is found, at least in the English version I am using. It has brought me to some very unfamiliar chapters in the Bible. I don't think I have ever read or studied Exekiel, for example. Exekiel has nearly 50 mentions of the word blood, so I am finally getting acquainted with this book a bit.)

Back to bloodthirsty. Is it coincidence or not: A book group I am in has selected the first book in the hugely popular Twilight series to read next month. So at the airport yesterday on my way home from vacation I was looking for a book to read on the flight. I saw Twilight and thought, good I can get a head start on reading it. I knew vaguely that was a teenage romance and included something about vampires. I sat up and paid more attention when I got to the part where Bella's friend Jacob explained the legend of the cold ones, also called blood-drinkers, also called vampires.

Talk about bloodthirsty. A vampire is literally bloodthirsty. What a perfect book to read while I am thinking about blood. I have not read or seen the classic Dracula lore, unless you could count the spoof movie which was part of my personal Mel Brooks film festival last fall. The blood-spurting scene from Dracula: Dead and Loving It is probably funnier for those who have already been thrilled and chilled by an old school black and white vampire movie. I have never had an interest in vampire lore, and the extent of my knowledge of vampires is a visual image of a slick-haired man with a high collar cape, two fang teeth and a strange accent saying: "I vont to sahck your blaaahd!" But even Sesame Street has its own vampire, The Count, so I have to admit that the average person probably knows more about vampires than I do.

Well to me Twilight is much more of a vampire book than a romance. I found the romance part of it to be boring, but the thriller part of it to keep me reading till I finished it. And I dog-eared about 20 pages that had enough to say about blood to give me more to think about on the topic. So expect more references to Twilight in coming posts.