Of all the peoples who fought for supremacy on the vast eastern European plains, the Slavs have proved the most enduring. They spread out from homelands beyond the Carpathian Mountains, settling territory south into the Balkins and as far west as the Elbe River.

Equally impressive is their spiritual journey which began with the worship of ancient pagan gods and matured with the dawn of the Christian age. But despite manifold cultural and religious changes, traces of their spirit have survived: in the great epics of their ancient heroes; in their belief in the earth's healing power; and in the magical stories which fill the forbidding landscape with fantastical characters. These include the vampire whose wretched specter still stalks our world today.