10 Facts About Amleth

2. In life, Amleth was involved in some domestic and national dramas which are fairly accurately documented in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, who Amleth met in a tavern in the late 1500s and became friends with. However, Amleth maintains that the Bard greatly exaggerated his oratory skill and intelligence. In death, Amleth was also involved in some rather grisly activities sensationally documented in Dracula by Bram Stoker, who was linked to Amleth through Henry Irving's performance of Hamlet. Amleth maintains that Stoker greatly exaggerated his powers and dangerousness. 

3. Amleth was "turned" after his death by the nephew of the King of the country now called Norway, who was seeking recruitments for his army of vampires, the Vikings. He heard that Amleth was an excellent soldier and thought he would be a perfect General. However Amleth is a pacifist, more interested in intellectual skirmishes, and therefore a mostly useless combatant. In life Amleth was suicidal, so when he learned he was now an immortal vampire he felt intensely claustrophobic.

4. Amleth always considered himself a very pathetic sort of vampire who only survived for so long due to cowardice and an aptitude for running away.

5. Amleth requires blood in order to maintain a stable mental and emotional state - lack of blood makes him physically stronger but causes him to devolve into a psychopathic monster. 

6. Amleth is able to fly due to leathery bat wings that he keeps tightly folded under his skin. When strong he can fly several hundred miles without landing.

7. Amleth cannot eat solid foods but is able to drink liquids. His favourite drink is Horlicks. He tried mixing the powder with hot blood but it "wasn't the same".

8. Amleth has a limp in his right leg which sometimes necessitates the use of a walking stick. He says he got it falling off a stepladder while trying to put up some bookshelves. In fact it was sustained during the last battle with Mina Harker and Wolfe van Hesselius. He is also partially blind in his right eye and attributes this to poking himself with a stick of chalk. Actually he was wounded during the vampire wars of the French Revolution.

9. Amleth has worked as a librarian both publicly and in prisons, where he has a ready supply of victims. He has also lectured on literature and the Gothic at the university at Tromsø during the winter, where it stays dark for months at a time. He preys on failing students.