As a general rule, however, when man meets vampire, one of them will die. While the means whereby vampires kill men are fairly limited, the means whereby men kill vampires are diverse.
—Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial,
and Death: Folklore and Reality
4
Let’s Get Ready
to Rumble
Clad in dark sunglasses and a long leather overcoat, the man stood amid the circle of snarling vampires with a sneer of contempt upon his face. Neither side moved for what seemed an eternity until suddenly the lone vampire hunter shrugged off his long overcoat to reveal an arsenal of bristling weaponry. Covered in dark body armor, he sported a Benelli M3 shotgun with a pistol grip, a MAC-10 machine pistol, a bandoleer of silver stakes, and a deadly silver-bladed boomerang, but the killing instrument for which he was best known and feared was the razor-sharp sword of Damascus steel strapped to his back. A vampire snarled, baring her pointed canines, and charged in a blur of speed just as the vampire hunter drew his shotgun and fired. In the chaos that ensued, all hell broke loose as the vampire hunter battled his way through the crowd of vampires in a personal quest for revenge against the beasts that killed his mother.
The 1998 blockbuster movie Blade introduced audiences to the fictional vampire hunter of the same name and helped to usher in a new archetype of vampire hunter that reached superhero proportions. Before the dawn of the new vampire hunter, the heroes of most vampire tales and movies usually consisted of more human characters, such as Bram Stoker’s Professor Van Helsing, who struggled against the creature with the more traditional weapons of cross and stake. In both cases, the avenging figures were mere protagonists in a fictional work, but the question remains as to how the common villager armed and defended himself against such a deadly foe. If so, then do the vampire hunters that fill our modern movies, comic books, and novels have a basis of reality resting somewhere in history’s dark past?
Deadly Defenses
To discover the answers to these and other questions we can turn back to the eyewitness accounts that surfaced during the great vampire scares of the eighteenth century. Although it’s easy to lose sight of in the horrific details that fill the reports, it’s important to note that they do in fact present two very fascinating sides of the same coin. On one we are given the bloody scenes of death and destruction that best characterize the habits and nature of the undead revenant, while the other offers a glimpse as to just how far a frightened mob will go to stamp out the evil menace.
Cases such as those of Arnod Paole and Peter Plogojowitz, described in chapter 2, clearly demonstrate how a group of common villagers, armed with only rudimentary shovels, torches, and a handful of wooden stakes, can indeed force the hunter to become the hunted. Turning the tables on one of history’s most infamous creatures was by no means an exact science, however, and it was achieved through a variety of methods that varied from culture to culture and depended to a large degree on the religious beliefs of the population and the resources at hand. Make no mistake about it though, in the centuries-old battle against the undead, man was by no means defenseless.
Protective Talismans and Wards
Perhaps one of the oldest weapons at man’s disposal was the widespread use of talismans and other wards, ranging anywhere from magical amulets and sacred symbols to some of the most ordinary objects the peasants could get their hands on. Objects such as crucifixes, mirrors, horseshoes, scissors, fishing nets, holy water, precious metals, and common herbs were just some of the items topping the list. As different as they may seem, what they all held in common was a supernatural ability to repel evil or bring good fortune.
Two of the most potent wards in the folklore of the vampire are items that can still be found in most household kitchens today and were not only employed against bloodsucking revenants but also witches, demons, and other evil spirits. The first is a simple species of onion known by the Latin name Allium sativum or, for the rest of us, garlic. Marked by a distinctively pungent smell, it was first used as a charm among the Egyptians, who hung wreaths of it next to the beds of their children to chase off a type of vampiric night spirit known for stealing the breath of infants as they slept. In China and other parts of Asia, garlic was smeared on the foreheads of children to keep them from falling prey to similar creatures, and in the West Indies it was an important ingredient in magical spells to protect from evil. Amid the lands of Eastern Europe, garlic was eaten as everyday protection against vampires and was rubbed on the doors and windowsills of houses, the gateposts of farms, and the horns of cattle.
If garlic reached a bit of an obsession for some, then at times it could even be taken too far, such as on January 9, 1973, when an article appeared in the London Times titled “Immigrant’s Fears of Vampires Led to Death.” The article described a sixty-eight-year-old Polish man in Stoke-on-Trent named Demitrious Myiciura, who died in his sleep after accidentally choking on a piece of garlic. It appears that he placed a sliver of it in his mouth before going to bed and also smeared it on the bedroom’s windowsills and stuffed it in the keyhole of his door. As an added precaution, he placed bags of salt near his head and between his legs. His landlady later told investigators that the man believed vampires were trying to get him.
A second ward, briefly mentioned in the case of the Polish man above, is salt. While generally utilized as a food preservative and seasoning, it’s not only the oldest mineral used by man but also essential in sustaining human life as one of the primary electrolytes in the body. In some traditions its powers went even beyond these, and it was placed in the cribs of infants to protect them from evil until they could be baptized or upon coffins before burial to keep evil spirits from entering the corpse. Even in today’s world of scientific reasoning and rationalism, glimpses of its former use still remain in the superstition of throwing a pinch of it over the shoulder if a salt shaker is accidentally knocked over.
As with garlic, there were a number of plants and herbs employed as wards against the vampire, including mustard seeds, which were sprinkled on the rooftops of many European homes to keep the creature out. The same effect was achieved in certain South American countries by hanging an aloe plant behind a door. In Bosnia, one interesting ritual, practiced by women when visiting a neighbor’s house in which a death had recently occurred, acted not so much as a repellent to vampires but rather as a distraction. Before setting out, a woman placed a small twig of hawthorn in her apron pocket. After her respects were paid to the grieving family, she set out once again for home, and along the way dropped the twig on the road behind her. If the recently deceased neighbor had suffered the misfortune of becoming a vampire and was trying to follow the woman home, it would come across the hawthorn twig lying in the road and spring on it without hesitation, allowing its would-be victim time to escape unharmed.
Another type of ward that found its way into the folklore of the vampire included the use of certain metals such as copper, iron, steel, and silver, which were most often fashioned into amulets or other objects. The more precious the metal, the more power it held over evil—with silver topping the list against both werewolves and vampires, who found its very touch toxic to their system. Silver was particularly favored from ancient times because of its associations with purity and the mysterious powers of the moon, and it was used as an antidote against maladies brought on by evil spirits, including diseases, sicknesses of the mind, and the effects of the evil eye. In some countries, silver nails were used to seal coffins and therefore any vampires or evil spirits trying to escape from within. Because of silver’s highly reflective surface, it was also worked in much the same way as a mirror. Since tradition held that revenants had no souls and could not cast reflections or shadows, it was only logical then that a creature of such kind who came across a mirror or similar surface and did not see itself reflected back would immediately become terrified and flee.
Even certain colors played a role in the traditions surrounding the vampire. For instance, though the color red was often linked to the condition of corpses suffering from vampirism, it was also a hue guaranteed to drive them away. In the Slavic countries, peasants frequently tied red ribbons to the horns of their cattle to protect the livestock from vampiric infection, as such an infection could in turn be passed to any humans consuming the meat. Red ribbons were also woven into the hair of women and children to protect them not only from vampires but from the power of the evil eye as well. In Greece the primary color was blue, which was painted on windowsills and door frames to keep the undead from entering the house uninvited. Necklaces of blue beads with the image of an eye were worn in a like manner for a more personal defense.
In some localities the practices that developed to ward off vampires demonstrate more clearly the true desperation that many felt in the face of the vampire threat. For instance, some remedies against vampire attacks included digging up the body of the suspected vampire and covering oneself in its blood or at the very least the dirt from its grave. In the famous cases of Arnod Paole and Peter Plogojowitz, the grisly custom was observed, but unfortunately for the victims in both cases it seemed to have little effect. In parallel traditions the blood or ashes of a cremated vampire could be mixed with wine or baked into bread in the hopes that it would serve as an antidote against the threat. In other areas it was the smoke that resulted from burning the body of the creature that promised a measure of protection, and villagers lined up to pass through the burning cloud of the pyre on such occasions. Vestiges of these practices continued at least into the late nineteenth century in rural areas of Rhode Island and Connecticut, where accounts emerged of families exhuming tuberculosis victims, burning their hearts, and consuming the ashes to protect themselves from a disease they thought very similar to vampirism.
Perhaps the most commonly associated ward in the long struggle against the vampire, thanks in part to its frequent appearance in modern vampire films, is the crucifix of the Christian church. Considered one of the most powerful talismans against evil, its origins actually predate the founding of Christianity by many centuries and has been linked to the worship of sun gods among the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and others. In the first century BCE, it began appearing on the facades of tombs in Italy as a protective ward and on Roman coins bearing the stamp of Jupiter, the ruler of the gods. In the Christian church the crucifix came to symbolize the sacrifice of Christ and the authority of the church over the world. To the European peasant it was a potent device representing all that was good and divine, and therefore could be used against witches, demons, and vampires, all of whom were forced to flee at the very sight of it.
Even making the sign of the cross, either on the body or in the air with one’s hand, carried the power to thwart all manner of evil. During the infamous witch burnings of the Middle Ages, inquisitors repeatedly made the sign of the cross in the presence of suspected witches to counteract any spells they might cast. The use of religious objects wasn’t limited to the crucifix, however, and the particular device depended on the beliefs of the culture using them. For example, Shinto seals from holy shrines in Asian folklore were most effective in dealing with vampires from those countries.
Magic Spells and Sacred Sites
Closely related to talismans and other protective wards was the application of magic when fighting vampires. Also known as sorcery, the ancient art relies on a series of prescribed actions and words imbued with mystical power to bring about a desired result. In Malaysia, for example, primitive sorcerers developed potent spells against the feared langsuir, a demoness similar to Lilith, as in the following fragment:
O ye mosquito—fry at the river’s mouth,
When yet a great way off ye are sharp of eye;
When near, ye are hard of heart.
When the rock in the ground opens of itself,
Then (and then only) be emboldened the hearts
Of my foes and opponents!
When the corpse in the ground opens of itself,
Then (and then only) be emboldened the hearts
Of my foes and opponents!
May your heart be softened when you behold me,
By grace of this prayer that I use, called Silam Bayu.
(Summers 2005, 255)
In the more Christianized countries of Europe, acts that suggested any form of magic were often disdained as witchcraft and could therefore be punished by imprisonment, torture, and even death. While many Christians believed magic to be derived from the dark powers of the devil, in truth many of their own practices mirrored that of the supernatural craft or in some cases evolved from it. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer, church litanies, or reading aloud from the Bible were methods used to exorcise demons, deflect curses, and drive off vampires. In some customs, spitting on the ground in the presence of a vampire would deter it from attacking—the act being a remnant of pre-Christian times when people believed the soul was in some ways linked to a person’s saliva and the action of spitting an offering to the gods for good luck.
In Bulgaria there was one unusual method designed to trap a vampire that incorporated a unique blend of both pagan and Christian elements. A sorcerer, or djadadjii, armed with the picture of a saint, would lay in wait for the undead creature to pass by on one of its nocturnal outings and would spring out in ambush with the holy icon before him. The vampire in turn would flee the djadadjii and race about looking for a safe place to hide, but whether it chose the dark corners of a barn or the hollowed-out trunks of trees, the wily sorcerer rooted it out. Eventually the vampire had no other option but to take refuge in a bottle that the djadadjii specially prepared with a fragment of the saint’s picture within. Once the vampire was inside the bottle, the sorcerer corked the bottle tight, and after saying the proper prayer cast it into a fire and the vampire would be no more.
In addition to these various forms of magic was a belief that certain physical barriers or sacred sites could not be crossed or trespassed on by vampires. The best example of this is the theory that they could not step foot on consecrated ground. The word consecrated means “to associate with the sacred,” and was applied to churches, graveyards, and homes blessed by a priest. Remember: corpses suspected of becoming a revenant were not buried in consecrated ground but in isolated areas or crossroads away from the public. Almost as if to counter this belief, however, in most of the reports of vampire infestations handed down over the centuries, the first place frightened villagers looked for the source of the vampire infestation was in their local graveyard.
Another area traditionally off limits to the vampire was a person’s home, which the vampire could not enter without first being invited, under the pretext that evil could not enter a person’s home unless it was brought in by the owners. Running water was another barrier they could not cross because of the vampire’s association with causing droughts. Bloated bodies suspected of vampirism would also float if cast into water, giving the impression that the water was rejecting them. Because of its life-giving properties and numerous biblical references, water was also an element representing purity and could therefore not be touched by the vampire. The only exception in some traditions was that the fiends could cross water at the ebb and flow of the tide. Finally, other magical barriers existed that harkened back to more ancient times, such as the practice of taking twin brothers and having them plow a furrow around a house or village with a team of oxen. As long as the furrow remained intact, no vampire could cross it.
The Rites of Burial
When crucifixes and magic spells failed to do the trick, many Eastern European communities developed complex burial rituals meant to address the continuous threat of the vampire. Since evil spirits relied on decaying corpses as their vehicle to wreak evil upon the world, it only made sense that bodies be prepared in a manner that ensured they did not rise again. Such a process began shortly after a person’s death with the ritual cleaning of the body by the family of the deceased. The corpse was normally washed in either water or wine, but in some cases, such as among the Wallachians, it was also rubbed with the lard of a pig killed on St. Ignatius Day. The clothing the person died in was usually exchanged for new garments, with the old set taken out and burned immediately. If the death occurred in the house, it too was cleaned from top to bottom. This ritual cleansing was a means to purify the body and the home and protect the soul, which still lingered about, from the evil influences that might lead to it becoming a vampire.
Once this was accomplished, the arms of the corpse were folded across its chest in the form of a rudimentary cross and the eyes were weighted shut with coins. Not only did the coins prohibit an infected corpse from casting the evil eye, but they were also part of an earlier tradition that believed the soul needed money in the afterlife to pay Charon “the Ferryman of Hades” to transport it across the river Styx and into the land of souls. The mouth of the corpse was stuffed with cloth or wool before being shut, or in some cultures with items such as garlic, gold coins, or religious icons as well. In areas such as Saxony, lemons were used, while in China jade served the same purpose.
The act of stuffing and binding the mouth fulfilled two very important purposes: the first was to prohibit demons and evil spirits from entering the body, while the second ensured the corpse could not begin to feed upon its burial shroud and spread disease. Recently, Italian archeologists unearthed the body of a woman from a mass grave on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island, near the city of Venice, where she had been buried with a small brick deliberately placed between her upper and lower teeth. The 1576 plague victim was suspected of having been a vampire, and gravediggers routinely stuffed bricks in the mouths of such corpses to prevent the spread of the plague.
Other items of significance that were left on dead bodies included shards of pottery or wax crosses bearing the inscription “Jesus Christ Conquers.” Among the Greeks a candle known as the isou was crafted at the time of the person’s death and placed on the chest of the corpse until burial. Once lighted, it was thought to provide enough illumination for the soul so that it would not become lost in the forty days it was required to roam the earth after death.
While the body awaited burial, family and friends kept a constant vigil over it in order to guarantee that the proper respect was being shown and that all the necessary funeral rites were observed. After all, they were the ones who had the most to lose if the person came back as a vampire since traditionally it chose its first victims from among those closest to them in life. Any mirrors in the home were also covered to make sure the wayward soul did not become trapped within them, and clocks were stopped in order to place the soul in a type of suspended state that protected it from the ever-present demonic forces at work. Finally, crosses were painted on the exterior of the house in tar or other substances in a last-ditch effort to seal it from contaminating influences.
When the appointed time for the burial did finally arrive, the utmost care was taken when removing the body from the safety of the home. Often the body was removed through the back door feet first, or a hole was cut in the wall or roof for its removal in the hopes that if the body did rise again it would be unable to find its way back home. Even the route of the procession followed a prescribed pattern, usually traveling from east to west along the path of the sun—and failure to observe the ritual meant the corpse would become cursed along with those accompanying the body. Finally, if the person had lived an upright and moral life, following the precepts of the church, they were eligible for burial in sacred ground consecrated by the church among the family and friends who went before them.
Once the body was in the grave, the local parish priest performed the church rites according to the faith of the deceased, which sometimes included a mass. After the last shovelful of dirt was cast atop the body, food was sometimes left at the grave under the pretense that a well-fed corpse had no need to rise from the dead and sup upon the blood of the living. In some regions, such as Germany, the act was merely symbolic and constituted little more than sprinkling rice or grain over the grave in a token offering. Among those of the Greek Orthodox faith, a supplemental burial was performed after a specified period of time in which the body was disinterred and examined for signs of vampirism. If none existed and the body’s process of decomposition seemed natural, the bones were cleaned with boiled water or wine and reburied in a new funeral shroud with all the previous burial customs.
If a person, however, had led an immoral life, was excommunicated by the church, committed suicide, or suffered some breach in burial protocols and there was even the slightest chance they might return as a vampire, means were devised to confuse or deceive the creature with something akin to early psychological warfare. This could in some cases mean simply burying the corpse facing downwards, so that if it attempted to dig its way out (thinking it was right side up) it would instead dig its way deeper into the earth. Often enough this was also a precaution for those later digging up the corpse to examine it for signs of vampirism, as the gaze of the revenant could kill a man or drive him crazy.
In many of the legends surrounding the creatures, they were not only known for their bloodthirsty habits but also for suffering from a touch of obsessive compulsive behavior, which crafty villagers were often quick to capitalize on. Sand and seeds were frequently left within the grave or coffin of the vampire, who in turn could not help but to stop and count each grain at the agonizingly slow pace of one a year. In a similar approach, some bodies were wrapped in fishing net; the vampire felt compelled to untie each and every knot before it could arise, in much the same fashion as with the grain-counting procedure.
Grave Restraints and Corpse Killing
If a few parlor tricks couldn’t do the job, then oftentimes cultures found ways to physically restrain or imprison the corpse so that it could not claw its way from the grave. One manner of achieving this was to pin the burial shroud of the corpse to the inside of the coffin and thus restrict its movements. Another, more popular version was simply to bind the arms and legs with leather thongs or ropes. In many areas heavy stones were also laid across the top of the grave, not only to keep scavengers from getting to the body but also to keep the body from getting out of the ground.
One ancient tale of such methods originated in County Derry, in Ireland, after a chieftain named Abhartach, who was renowned for his cruelty, was killed in a battle against a rival clan. Following his burial, Abhartach began reappearing to his kinsmen in search of blood to drink. Time and again the clansmen struck him down with swords and other weapons and reburied the body, but each night he rose again to wreak havoc among the people. At their wit’s end, the clan elders finally consulted a local Druid, who advised that they carve a wooden sword from a yew tree, and after striking him down with the sword, bury the corpse upside down with a heavy stone atop the grave. The next night when the vampire appeared again, the people did as the Druid instructed and the bloody chieftain arose no more.
An alternative method included restraining the corpse with the branches of particular trees thought to have extraordinary powers. The aspen, for example, protected people from numerous types of evil because it was thought by some to be the same wood used to make the cross Christ was crucified upon, and so when laid over a grave it bound the vampire within. The Wallachians laid the thorny branches of the wild rose over the body during burial so that if it tried to rise it would become entangled. The Russians, however, preferred to place corpses suspected of vampirism in strong coffins bound with heavy iron bands, which they placed in a special chamber of the church and set a guard upon for a period of time.
Some cultural conventions even espoused ritualistically killing the corpse for a second time. Sharp needles, spikes, or swords were thrust into the ground above the grave in order to impale the body of the vampire should it attempt to dig its way out again. Similarly, in Serbia, after a person died and was taken from the house for burial, the women of the village would gather that night and stick five hawthorn pegs or old kitchen knives in the ground above the body corresponding to the chest, arms, and legs. Another example of the practice can be found among the Morlacks (of modern Croatia), among whom a body suspected of vampirism would be dug up and pricked all over with needles, after which the hamstrings were cut to prevent the corpse from walking again. Other forms of corpse mutilation appeared in places like Transylvania, where exhumed bodies had iron forks thrust into their eyes and heart before reburial upside down.
Even up to the nineteenth century, grisly customs such as these popped up from time to time in places like Romania, where at the conclusion of the funeral rites the coffin was shot with a gun. In fact, to this very day acts such as these continue to surface in the more remote districts of Eastern Europe. On November 24, 1998, for example, a curious article appeared in the Romanian newspaper Ziua under a headline translated as “A Gorjean Stuck a Nail through the Heart of Her Dead Lover.” The piece went on to explain that Romanian police in the region of Gorj were currently looking for a thirty-five-year-old woman named Vasilica Popescu, who was suspected of desecrating the corpse of her former lover by driving a six-inch nail through his heart. She told reporters that it was an ancient custom in her village and ensured that the heart of the deceased did not start beating again. She continued by stating that while he was alive, her lover routinely performed the same service for many others buried in the village cemetery.
Weapons of War
Yet even if all the necessary precautions were taken, an isolated community could still find itself in the deadly grip of a vampire infestation, towards which they had no choice but to take a more direct approach. In circumstances such as these, it was first necessary to identify the source of the vampirism. In most cases this was a simple affair, as the creature could through a little deduction be traced back through the family and friends it chose to make a meal of. All that remained was to follow the body trail back to the grave of the monster and in the full light of day dispatch it with ease. Unfortunately, in the real world, where things are not as easy as they sound, it wasn’t always clear who the vampire might be. If it was an invisible spirit or an unrecognized stranger in the community, or if family members were afraid to come forward and admit its identity, other means of identification had to be relied upon.
One method popular in Eastern Europe was as elaborate as it was dramatic. It involved placing a young, virginal boy atop a stallion that had never mated or stumbled and was without blemish. In some versions, the stallion had to be pure white while in others it needed to be completely black. Either way, the horse was set to wander the graveyard of the probable vampire until it reached a grave it refused to cross over even after repeated blows across its flanks. This, then, according to the logic of the times, marked the daylight resting place of the revenant. Other signs included graves that were disturbed by wolves or dogs, who were the natural enemy of the creature, as well as holes the size of a person’s finger from which the vampire came and went from the grave. Disturbed coffins, vandalized tombstones, strange mist, and hovering blue flames also pointed to the presence of the vampire.
Wooden Stakes
Once the location of the revenant was rooted out, the average villager had a number of means by which to end the creature’s reign of terror. The first included driving a wooden stake through the heart or body of the vampire. While commonly used among the Slavic countries, the origins of the practice may have its roots in Egyptian theology, in which the heart was seen as the seat of the soul, emotions, and intelligence.
The type of wood from which the stake was carved was very important and normally depended on the region where it was being employed. In Russia and the Baltic lands, ash was the popular choice, in Serbia it was hawthorn, while in Poland it was oak. Blackthorn was another wood frequently used in other Christian countries because of its close ties to the crown of thorns Jesus wore at his crucifixion. In some cases the stake could even be made of metal, as was common among the Bulgarians of the medieval period, who heated iron spikes until they were red hot, or the Albanians, who used daggers blessed by a priest.
Commonly, the prescribed approach was to drive the stake through the heart or chest cavity of the corpse, but in some customs it was thrust into the mouth or stomach instead. According to Russian beliefs, it was necessary that the act be committed with a single blow—otherwise a second might reawaken the vampire. This one-blow theory was a constant motif throughout the heroic sagas of Slavic lore, where the hero of the tale could only strike the monster but once.
The act itself served several purposes, including deflating the bloated corpse and releasing the blood trapped within as well as stopping the heart of the vampire from continuing to beat. Underlying this was the even older belief that a stake could pin the corpse to the earth, both so that it could not physically rise and also to create a supernatural link with the earth that would allow the body to finally decompose. Burials during these periods were often conducted without the luxury of a coffin and in a shallow grave scraped out of the hard earth with the simplest of tools. The stake therefore was perhaps the only thing holding the vampire down.
By 1823 the morbid practice of staking suicides became so rampant that the government of Britain was forced to enact laws protecting the bodies of those who died by their own hand, or felo de se. Under one such law, the coroner was to “give directions for the private internment of the remains of such a person felo de se without a stake being driven through the body of such a person” (Blackstone 1836, 190).
Decapitation
Decapitation, the act of separating the head from the body, was another effective, if gruesome, means of bringing an end to the vampire and was used to a large extent in Germany and the western Slavic countries. Unlike stakes, which were required to be carved from the wood of particular trees, anything could be used to cut the head off of a vampire, from rusty kitchen knives and hatchets to farming sickles and shovel blades. In some traditions, the shovel of a gravedigger or sexton had supernatural powers against vampires—the former because it was used in laying bodies to rest, and the latter because it was a tool used by a man of the church.
Although anyone could perform the deed, local executioners were often called upon to do the job, not only for their proficiency and experience in removing the head from the body but also because in the minds of common people the act was a sort of second execution for the crimes committed by the vampire. Once the head was removed, the mouth was frequently stuffed with garlic and either placed at the feet of the corpse, behind the buttocks, or reburied some distance from the body. The idea was that if a vampire could not see, smell, or chew on its victims, then it posed little threat. Beyond this, decapitation opened the corpse in a way that allowed any evil spirits residing within to quickly find their way out.
Fire
A third tactic involved the complete and utter destruction of the corpse or at least certain key parts, such as the heart and other vital organs, by fire. This usually meant dragging the corpse from its grave and onto a pyre of wood sometimes soaked with pitch or other flammables. Although the type of wood was unimportant, whenever possible the lumber was collected from trees and shrubs bearing thorns, which as seen earlier carried certain biblical connotations. Once the match was struck, it then became necessary to capture and burn any creatures escaping the flames regardless of their size or shape, because they might just be the vampire in disguise. In many areas it was also crucial that no scrap or fragment of the body survive the flames, as the vampire could rejuvenate itself from the smallest portion. Once the cremation was complete, the ashes were collected and tossed into a swiftly flowing river so that they could not be used by sorcerers in the creation of evil magic.
Burning the vampire’s remains not only destroyed the vehicle by which it walked the earth but also purified the essence of the corpse. The flame, as history proved again and again, was one of the favorite tools of the church when it came to defeating evil and was how it often “rehabilitated” those accused of witchcraft or sorcery. Yet even before the church adopted the practice, fire was a magical element used during pagan times as a central theme in rituals of cleansing, warmth, and protection. However, early man learned quickly that cremation was a difficult process, given the density of muscle and bone and the high water content of the body. Today’s crematories use ovens that reach temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and they still require up to a half-hour, depending on the weight and mass of the corpse, to reduce a corpse to ashes. Even then, a quantity of bone remains, which must be ground into dust until all that is left of the human body consists of between four to eight pounds of nondescript material.
To alleviate the problems inherent in such a process, including the vast quantities of wood and manpower necessary to feed the flames for what could amount to days on end, some cultures turned to forms of symbolic cremation instead. In Bulgaria, for instance, a corpse thought to possess the spirit of a vampire was surrounded by a ring of flammable material. Villagers then lined up to take a hot coal, which they cast behind them in a gesture meant to drive the evil spirit away. In Serbia a similar practice existed whereby only the hair of the corpse was singed with a candle.
Sunlight
According to modern moviemakers, sunlight was a powerful weapon used to reduce vampires to a pile of ash, but as we learn so very often, Hollywood rarely gets it right. The truth of the matter is that nowhere in the folklore or the historical texts does this theory actually appear. Instead, the prevailing belief among the Serbians and others was that vampires became helpless when exposed to the rays of the sun, falling into a type of catatonic slumber or quasi-death trance. This helped explain why vampires appeared as simple inanimate corpses when villagers dug them up and ripped them from their coffins.
To help account for the condition, it was surmised that since vampires were primarily night stalkers that derived their infernal powers from the darkness, it only made sense that daylight would prove their weakness. There is no precedent that they turned to dust or exploded into flames, however, and perhaps the first suggestion of this belief didn’t appear until F. W. Murnau’s 1922 German film Nosferatu. On the contrary, in some traditions, like those found among the Russians, vampires could move about on sunny afternoons just like the rest of us.
The Vampire of Breslaw
There were, of course, many other ways in which to slay a vampire, including excision of the heart, dismemberment of the body, burial under a gallows, piercing by sword, and immersion in water—and often more than one method was used in conjunction with others. The exact methodology again depended on the region, religious practices, and resources of the people, and each province or ethnic group seemed to enjoy putting their own little spin on the act. A classic example of just how these methods were used “in the field” can be found in English philosopher Henry More’s 1653 edition of An Antidote against Atheism—or—An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man. In this work appears the tale of a wealthy shoemaker in the town of Breslaw (today known as Wroclaw, a major city, in what is now southwestern Poland), who on September 20, 1591, committed suicide by slitting his own throat with a knife in the garden behind his house.
Given the religious prohibitions against such an act, his family conspired to hide the suicide by covering up his wounds with the burial shroud in order to fool the examining priest into thinking that he had suffered a stroke instead. Perhaps the family’s wealth played a part in making a few heads turn the other way also, but regardless of how the deception was carried off the shoemaker was buried in the graveyard with all the solemn rites of the church. If the family thought the matter was laid to rest, however, they quickly found they were mistaken, and rumors began spreading that his death was not the work of natural causes after all.
Talk of the shoemaker’s death continued to circulate in Breslaw until the local authorities stepped in and began questioning family members, who eventually broke down and confessed their duplicity. While the town’s council gathered to discuss the matter, the shoemaker’s widow began complaining to any who might listen that the recent confessors were no more than malicious liars bent on staining her late husband’s reputation. Even worse, she promised to take her case all the way to the Kaiser if necessary to protect her family’s honor. Initially the council was reluctant to have their town overrun with the government officials such a complaint would bring and voted to dismiss any charges of wrongdoing against the shoemaker’s family. Before the smoke cleared, however, new rumors arose that the apparition of the shoemaker was roaming the cobbled streets of Breslaw at night, terrorizing the inhabitants.
Witnesses to the attacks claimed that “those that were asleep it terrified with horrible visions; those that were waking it would strike, pull or press, lying heavy upon them like an Ephialtes: so that there were perpetual complaints every morning of their last night’s rest through the whole town … For this terrible Apparition would sometimes stand by their bed-sides, sometimes cast itself upon the midst of their beds, would lie close to them and pinch them, that not only blue marks, but plain impression of the fingers would be upon sundry parts of their bodies in the morning” (Summers 2003, 134).
At the outset of these bizarre new rumors, friends and family of the shoemaker rallied to stifle the murmurings, but as time went on the claims only became worse—until a thick blanket of fear lay over the town of Breslaw. Each night the people locked and bolted their doors, and it was said that even when groups gathered for protection the vampire appeared, and after assaulting its intended victim vanished back into the night from whence it came.
Eventually, town officials became so distressed by these events that they felt they had no recourse but to exhume the body of the shoemaker and dispatch the vampire that it had become. On April 18, 1592, the grave was uncovered under the supervision of the town magistrate and examined for signs of vampirism. As the growing mob of local curiosity seekers gathered at the scene, many claimed that they noticed a magic mark on the big toe of the corpse and that the “body was found entire, not at all putrid, no ill smell about him saving the mustiness of the Grave-cloaths, his joints limber and flexible, as in those who are alive, his skin only flaccid, but a more fresh grown in the room of it, the wound of his throat gaping, but no gear nor corruption in it …” (Summers 2003, 135).
For an entire week the body was left exposed in the grave, with many coming to see the “Breslaw Vampire.” Finally the body was taken and reburied under the town’s hanging gallows, but the vampire’s attacks only became more frequent and violent. This time it was the widow herself who came to the magistrate and begged that something be done to end the vampire’s attacks upon the town and finally put her poor husband’s soul to rest.
The body was again unearthed, only this time to be found even more bloated with fresh blood. The local hangman was ordered to decapitate the corpse and dismember the remainder of the body, after which the heart was removed through its back and shown to be full of blood. The various pieces were then burned to ash and collected in a sack to be disposed of in a nearby river. Following these measures the vampire ceased to trouble the town, but other accusations continued to plague the shoemaker’s family, including claims that one of their deceased servants began rising from the dead as well. In the story she appeared to some as a woman and to others as a dog, cat, hen, or goat. In the end she too was treated in much the same manner as her former master, and as the story goes, was never seen again.
The First Vampire Hunters
While frenzied mobs of villagers tore bodies from their graves and hacked them to bits, another colorful character entered the mythology of the vampire, one who bears a resemblance, however slight, to the archetype of the modern vampire hunter many are familiar with in today’s books and movies. Although the professional vampire hunters that surfaced in Europe during this period did not have access to fancy Hollywood props such as steel samurai swords and guns that shoot ultraviolet bullets, they were nonetheless just as flashy and dramatic as anything on the silver screen.
Take, for instance, the dhampir of the Balkans, who were the result of a union between a male vampire and a living woman. Even as children they possessed extraordinary powers against the undead and were noted for their large heads, untamed black hair, and the uncanny fact that they had no shadows. Many dhampir were considered powerful sorcerers and were called upon if villagers suspected a vampire in their midst. Once they arrived in the infested township, they frequently made a great show of hunting the vampire, which they claimed only they could see because it was invisible to all others. First a dhampir took off his shirt, which was of course a magical shirt, and scoured the town looking through one sleeve as if it were a telescope. Many times they punctuated the performance with a description of the invisible bloodsucker, and although the crowd was allowed to ooh and ah and even clap when appropriate, no one was permitted to speak but the dhampir.
Once the vampire was securely in his sights, the dhampir pulled a magic gun from his belt and fired it into the air, announcing with great fanfare that the vampire was now dead. Sometimes the dhampir followed this by pouring water, just for good measure, on the spot where the vampire met its end. Once the hunt was over, the dhampir was paid for his services and traveling expenses, and then quickly skedaddled before anyone was the wiser. Business was so good in fact that many dhampir claimed to have the ability to pass their powers on to their sons, making it a family business. One town was even famous for the large number of families descended from vrykolakas, or vampires, that lived there. These families were said to have the ability to slay those vampires they were related to, and although they were shunned in public they were often sought after in private.
Similar to the dhampir were the Sabbatarians, who were called that because they were born on the Sabbath, which in the Orthodox faith falls on Saturday. Gifted from birth, these individuals not only had power over vampires but ghosts and other evil creatures as well, which, like the dhampir, only they could see. Stories claim that their powers were so great that vampires fled at the mere sight of them and that twin Sabbatarians were accompanied by a familiar in the form of a spectral dog, which they used to hunt their undead prey. Other odd traditions state that Gypsy Sabbatarians, for instance, wore their underwear inside out, which they swore acted as a potent vampire repellent.
Another type of vampire hunter was found among the Croats in the form of a powerful shaman known as a kresnik, whose spirit left his body at night in the shape of a white animal and prowled the village hunting vampire spirits, or kudlaks, who appeared as black animals. When the two met, they battled until daybreak, at which time the vampire was forced to retreat back to its grave in defeat. In many villages the kresnik’s protective presence was essential for good harvests, long life, and general happiness.
As we have seen in this chapter, the common villager was not at all defenseless against the vampire and armed himself with a deadly array of weaponry. This in turn gave rise to a number of strange and gruesome practices affecting many aspects of the average peasant’s life, from protective talismans and magic to how the body was prepared at death. In the midst of this turmoil, a professional class of undead exterminators stepped into the fray to fight the scourge of the vampire (and in the process lighten a few pockets as well) and helped color the image of the vampire hunter we have today.