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Alan F. Beck, Draculmouse

“The image of the old classic black-and-white horror movie characters being portrayed is charming and hilarious. Imagine little mice dressed up in little suits acting out the scenes of grand horror films. I can hear Draculmouse saying in a squeaky voice: ‘I do not drink…wine.’ And…vampire bats are essentially flying mice, so it’s not even that much of a stretch.”

—Alan F. Beck is an award-winning artist and illustrator whose work is exhibited at science fiction and fantasy conventions coast to coast.

FANGS A LOT

Along with ghosts and demons, vampires are incredibly common in the beliefs and legends of cultures worldwide. Even today there are people who believe that vampires exist, and people who believe that they are vampires. However, here in the modern twenty-first-century Western world we tend to have a somewhat distorted image of what exactly a vampire is.

In world myth and legend, vampires come in all shapes and sizes, from the stereotypical pale-skinned risen corpse to fiery balls of light. Even the label “vampire” is only used here for convenience because vampirism isn’t limited to the bloodsucking living dead. In fact barely a third of folkloric vampires are hematophagous (bloodsuckers).

With each cultural twist on the vampire model the vampire hunter is also tweaked. Rarely are the hunters sophisticated and learned scholars like Abraham Van Helsing. More often they’re clerics of one kind or another, or family members who are driven to heroic extremes in order to put their risen relative to final rest and thereby protect the rest of the family. There are also professional monster hunters and even monsters who hunt other monsters. It takes all kinds to spin this weird world.

NATURE OF THE BEAST

So what is a vampire?

About the only overarching similarity between the disparate vampire types is that they are, by their nature, takers of something precious that we do not want to share. The blood drinkers are the most famous of this group, but many vampires attack humans in order to feed off life essence, breath, or sexual essence. A few feed on emotions, others on faith, fidelity, and even knowledge. And quite a few vampires are necrophagous (flesh eaters).

Many vampires spread disease and pestilence. In fact the word “nosferatu” means “plague carrier”—not “undead” as Bram Stoker mistakenly insists in Dracula. It’s very common for plagues and diseases to be blamed on some evil spiritual force.

Some vampires can affect the weather, causing mists and storms. The Romanian Varcolaci was reported to be able to cause eclipses, though this would involve forceful rearranging of the solar system and would probably result in the destruction of Earth…so we can discount that as one of the taller tall tales.

Not all vampires are dead. Some are risen corpses, sure, but there are living vampires, vampire gods, and otherwise ordinary humans who transform into vampire-like creatures at certain times.

About half of the world’s vampires are theriomorphs, or shape-shifters. Funnily enough, it’s exceedingly rare for any vampire to turn into a bat. More often they turn into fireballs, birds of various kinds, insects, dogs, dragons, cats, and a host of other critters. But bats? Not really. Shape-shifting in wolves is also rare, and is probably an overlap with werewolf legends.

It’s impossible to create a definitive list of vampiric powers or vulnerabilities because they vary from culture to culture. Most vampires from folklore do not fear sunlight or the cross. Stakes won’t kill them, they can cross running water, mirrors are irrelevant, and they don’t have to obtain permission before entering a house.¹ Those qualities were added to the lore of the vampire by writers in order to make the vampire more mysterious, more directly tied to universal good and evil, and in some ways more vulnerable.

The connection between vampires and religion varies, too. When fiction writers began telling tales of vampirism, they took the position that supernatural beings were in direct opposition to the church and established new “traditions” to retell the stories of vampires in relation to purely Catholic concepts. For example, the idea of a vampire trading blood with its victim to create a new vampire was a twisted variation on the ritual of communion, where Christians drink wine that symbolizes the blood of Christ and as a result are “reborn.” The transformation from human victim to newborn vampire taking three days is clearly modeled after the three days it took Jesus to rise from the dead after his crucifixion.²

Such concepts have since been adopted as established legend largely because most people learn about vampires through books and movies rather than from a study of folklore. As a result, the classic elements of the “Hollywood” vampire have become the new folklore, and since folklore itself is mostly a collection of stories told and handed down, an argument can be made that these changes are as valid as anything told around a campfire or spoken of in folk songs. No argument. Writers have long been called the new mythmakers.

These new myths are nicely thought out, too. Dracula has more or less become the Bullfinch’s Mythology of vampirism for the modern age. This is not to say that were no connections between early vampire beliefs and religion. There certainly were and they took very many forms. Using religion as a weapon against evil is not confined to Christian countries or even to the Christian era. Vampires are tied to various religions around the world, from widespread religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam to the less common religions of the druids and Native Americans. In every country, vampire stories have been influenced by religious beliefs and popular fiction so that the original folkloric beliefs are often muddied, and in some cases, entirely lost. This makes it very difficult for the vampire slayer to know the nature and specifics of his unnatural enemy because he cannot trust most of what is “popularly” believed.

And, before we get hate mail…the vampires discussed in this chapter are subtypes of the monster paradigm. Our remarks here do not refer to those persons who embrace vampirism as a real and valued part of their lifestyle. Our focus is strictly on the supernatural monsters that prey with malicious intent upon humans.

On Mythology

“Humanity created mythology to answer unanswerable questions, to give voice to our innate human vulnerabilities. Film, TV and Literature are just a continuation of that very basic human need to express ourselves and our fears.”

—Amber Benson played “Tara” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is the author of Death’s Daughter (Ace, 2009) and Cat’s Claw (Ace, 2010).

WHAT MAKES JOHNNY BITE?

The process by which a recently dead body becomes a vampire is up for debate. Every culture has its own take. Here are some examples from around our dark planet:

Animal interference

  In Chinese and some Slavic folktales a vampire is created when a cat or dog jumps over a fresh grave.

  Elsewhere in the world corpse-jumping is tied to humans strolling across a new grave, or birds, stray animals of all kinds, and even insects.

  In China, tigers are believed to possess what was known as a “soul-recalling hair” that hooks part of the spirit when it crosses over a grave.

  The corpse-jumping phenomenon stems from the belief that the spirit of the dead can snatch a portion of the life of any living creature and use it to rekindle its own unnatural life.

  In Western Europe if a black cat or a white dog watches a funeral, then the corpse will rise.

  Conversely, in Russia, if a white dog wanders through the graveyard, then the dead will not rise.

Marked for damnation

  Being born with a caul—an amniotic membrane covering the face—in some cases indicates the presence of evil within the newborn. Vampire species created through this means³ include the Wume of Togo, the Nachtzehrer of Germany, the Strigoi of Romania, the Upier and Ohyn of Poland; while in other cultures it’s a sign of great positive spiritual power.

  On the peninsula of Istria, both the Croats and Slavs believe that a caul is a sure sign that the child will either become a good-natured and heroic kresnik, or a foul and vampiric kudlak.⁴

  Some cultures believed that a child born with teeth was destined to become a bloodsucker. This includes the Neuntoter of Germany, Viesczy in Russia, the Upier and Ohyn of Poland.

  Red hair was seldom viewed as anything but a sign of trouble in days gone by. This idea got kick-started when some genius decided that Judas was red haired. As a result, a cult of red-haired vampires called the Children of Judas was purported to terrorize parts of Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria.

  You’d think that being born with a physical deformity was enough of a burden, but in many cultures such people were reviled as having been marked by evil. This is one of the most common prejudices associated with the belief in vampires, and it occurs all throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The Caul of David Copperfield

“I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether seagoing people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don’t know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss…and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket…. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two.”

—from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Good days, bad days

  The day on which a child is born impacts everything from astrology to damnation. In a number of countries being born on a holy day was seen as an insult to God. (As if the child or the mother had a choice!)

  Being born on a Saturday—the biblically dictated day of rest—was also viewed as an insult. The Ustrel of Bulgaria, for example, is a person damned to an unlife of vampirism for daring to be born on the Sabbath. Conversely, in Greece, a person born on that day is destined to fight evil. (See the entry on the Sabbatarian in chapter 4.)

Oh, baby

  This one is really disturbing. In India, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and a few other places, a stillborn child is believed to linger on Earth as a vampire—either a bloodsucker or some kind of essential vampire. The Pontianak of Java and Malaysia is one such tragic monster; others include the Bajang and Langsuir of Malaysia, the Ekimmu of Assyrian and Mesopotamian belief, the Ohyn of Poland, and the Pret of India.

  In many of the same countries the mother of the dead child is likewise doomed, particularly if she dies during childbirth.

Repent, sinners!

  One of the most reliable ways for a person to become a vampire is to die unrepentant. Many cultures hold this to be the case, and it’s particularly true if the sinner dies while engaged in a violent act, or dies as a result of violence.

  Suicides are also damned souls, according to Western beliefs. A suicide is doomed to return as a ghost or a vampire, or some unpleasant combination of the two.

  Murder victims are also in trouble. Dying by any kind of violence apparently tethers the soul to this world as a pernicious spirit of one kind or another.

Christa Campbell, Vampire and Hunter

“As an actress I love exploring both dark and light characters because it’s part of our human nature. Though…at the end of the day I prefer to see good win over evil.”

—Christa Campbell has appeared in 2001 Maniacs, The Wicker Man, and Blood: A Butcher’s Tale.

  A person who dies craving revenge sometimes gets the chance by rising from the grave.

If you have to do it over, you have time to do it right the first time

  Improper burial rites are tied to the creation of many species of vampires, such as the Callicantzaro of Greece, the Mrart of Australia, the Chindi of the Navajo, the Doppelsauger of Germany, the Langsuir of Malaysia, the Nelapsi of Czechoslovakia, the Tenatz of Bosnia, the Kathakano of Crete, and the Pret, Churel, and Gayal of India.

  Burial customs take two forms: those that honor the dead and those that protect the living against the dead. Most folks are familiar with the former, but the latter procedures are even more crucial, especially in areas where vampirism has been known to flourish. Preventative steps include:

• binding the limbs of a corpse so that it cannot move.

• burying a corpse upside-down so that it faced hell rather than heaven. (Very likely this came about when it was generally viewed that the world was flat and that heaven and hell were physical places. Otherwise we’d have vampires tunneling through the earth to the other side. Jules Verne could have had fun with that.)

• chopping the body into pieces and wrapping each piece in a separate shroud. (Granted this seems excessive, but there are no reports of pieces rising from the grave, so take that for what it’s worth.)

• cremating the body. Fire not only purifies, it simplifies.

• driving long nails through the limbs of the dead to further immobilize it.

• filling the coffin with splinters of hawthorn or other rosewood.

• laying a sprig of holly on the throat of the corpse.

• placing sickles or scythes near the grave to frighten off the evil spirits that sought to possess the corpse. Though…how an edged farm tool was supposed to harm a noncorporeal spirit is anyone’s guess.

• placing a block of wood between the teeth to prevent the newly awakened vampire from chewing his way out…or chewing on his own flesh in order to gain enough strength to burst free from the coffin.

• placing a coin in the mouth to pay the toll across the River Styx. A very Greek practice.

• placing a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription “Jesus Christ conquers” in the coffin.

• placing garlic in the coffin.

• placing pictures of family members in the coffin to remind the dead of love and family honor.

• placing pictures of saints in the coffin to remind the corpse of its obligation to faith.

• putting the deceased’s shoes on the wrong feet so that they will become confused when they try to walk.

• using a metal coffin and sealing it with melted lead.

BATS OF A FEATHER…

Even though most vampires are not identical there are certain themes that pop up in different cultures—and not always in cultures where one can easily trace the flow of information through the expansion of population or the exchange of information. The sheer coincidence of these similarities makes for wonderfully creepy speculation. If vampires from the ancient culture of China and the pre–Marco Polo Europe share similarities it makes us go “Hmmmmm—how is that possible?”

For example, there are a lot of connections between vampire subtypes and counting. Vampires around the world seem to possess an obsessive compulsive need to count items found on the ground. In Europe they love to count seeds, in South America it’s straw, in China it’s rice. Go figure.

Some of these similarities are a little easier to understand, such as pallor and a foul stench, both of which are typical of dead bodies and decaying flesh.

Eighteenth-and nineteenth-century folklore influenced and was influenced by emerging pop culture. Writers of the era began tossing bloodsuckers into poems, plays, short stories, art, and novels, starting with Heinrich August Ossenfelder’s poems “The Vampire”(1748) and “Lenore” (1773); and then spreading like a literary plague with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Die Braut von Corinth” (“The Bride of Corinth,” 1797), and works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, John Polidori, Sheridan le Fenau, Bram Stoker, and many others.⁵

Most of these writers added new elements to the story—as writers will—to build mystery and suspense, to elevate the level of threat, and to set the stage for new dimensions of heroism on the part of the protagonists. As a result some of the more romantic elements of the vampire story have been either amped up or introduced to an audience who more or less viewed fiction as being directly based on reality. This genuinely confused the issue of what is and is not a vampire, particularly from the European view, and as the film industry blossomed, that view became the most common take globally.

Those vampire qualities that best suited the needs of dramatic storytelling got more play. For example, a large percentage of vampire movies and books uses a vampire’s inability to cast a reflection as a nice trick for establishing that a person is actually a vampire. Notable moments include the ballroom scene in The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) and the disco scene in Fright Night (1985). However, the lack of reflection is fairly rare in folklore and is usually tied to those species of vampire who are actually ghosts rather than reanimated corpses.

The connection between vampires and mirrors, though mostly fictional, is grounded in older beliefs, however. In many cultures it was believed that the soul is somehow projected out of the physical body and can be glimpsed in reflective surfaces. The superstition of bad luck resulting from a broken mirror came from the belief that breaking one’s reflection damaged one’s own soul. In some cases the soul became outraged that its physical counterpart would allow the mirror image to be broken and would punish that person with bad luck.

The ancient Romans, who were the first people to develop glass mirrors, believed that the entire human body was completely renewed every seven years; hence their attachment to the belief in seven years of bad luck for breaking the image of the current body. In other cultures the length of time varied from seven hours all the way to seven generations of the family line.

According to some of the movies, vampires cannot cross running water. The myths suggest that running water is symbolic of self-renewing purity and therefore an impure thing cannot cross it. In the Christopher Lee flick Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966), the titular count falls through a break in a patch of ice and the rushing water beneath kills him. Sounds great until you think of all the streams, rivers, and oceans that have been crossed by bandits, murderers, and whole armies of pillaging brigands. And, let’s face it, Dracula came to England by ship. Lots and lots o’ running water.

There are several vampires who actually live in water. The Kappa of Japan and the Animalitos of Spain are water-dwelling demon-vampires, as are the Green Ogresses of France.

Sunlight is one of the elements of vampirology that has almost completely emerged from pop culture. In folklore, and indeed in most vampire fiction prior to the early twentieth century, vampires were night hunters but could walk around in daylight without harm. The Upierczi of Poland, for example, rises at noon and hunts until midnight. The Bruja of Spain lives a normal life by day and only becomes a vampire at night, as do the Soucouyan of Dominica and the Loogaroo of Haiti. It wasn’t until F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, that sunlight became fatal to vampires. Thereafter it became a staple of vampire fiction to the point that people generally believe that all vampires always fear sunlight—despite the fact that Dracula strolls around in daylight in Stoker’s novel, Dracula. It’s a clear sign that more people have seen the movies than read the book.

Oddly enough, the Chiang-shih vampire of Chinese myth does fear sunlight. It’s also one of the few vampires that take the form of a wolf and cannot cross running water. In these ways this Asian monster more closely fits the pop fiction model than do the many vampires of Europe. Go figure.

On the subject of vampire strength, nearly all of the sources—from folklore to the most current direct-to-video fang flick—seem to agree: they are stronger than humans. Nearly all of them are at least twice as strong as a human, and some are a great deal stronger. The Draugr of Scandinavia, for example, is a vampiric ghost that inhabits and reanimates the bodies of dead Viking warriors, creating a monster so strong that no weapon can harm it. The Chiang-Shih of China actually entertain themselves by ripping their victims limb from limb with their bare hands, as do the Callicantzaros of Greece and the Czechoslovakian Nelapsi. That strength gives vampire hunters serious pause, and significantly increases the difficulty of confronting one. Fair fights aren’t a major theme in supernatural folklore.

Some vampires do not need physical strength to kill their victims. The Jigarkhwar of India and the Russian Eretica both possess lethal stares. Conversely, the Aswang vampire of the Philippines is best defeated by engaging it in a staring contest and waiting until it backs down and slinks away.

The method by which a person becomes a vampire is also in some dispute. The idea of trading blood—a vampire must bite its victim and then offer its own blood—was started in Dracula and is now popularly believed to be the case. Not so, however. For the most part, all that is required for a person to become one of the undead is to die in a horrible fashion—violent deaths, suicides, hangings, battlefield deaths, murders, stillbirths, death during delivery, death by plague, and so on. Being born under a curse can also lead to a vampiric life, including being born with teeth, born with a caul, born between Christmas and the New Year, being born out of wedlock, being a seventh son or daughter, or even being born on Christmas day. In some rare cases a person returns from the dead if they were bitten by a vampire, without having had to drink the vampire’s blood. In more than a few cases, if a werewolf dies it comes back as a vampire. That’s not something seen in movies, which is a shame because it makes for a nice and very frightening twist.

Another power that vampires possess that is never addressed in movies or books, but is extremely common to vampires around the world, is the spread of disease. Vampires are frequently plague carriers, and either infect with their bite or carry with them a pervasive air of pestilence that can wither humans, livestock, and crops. After all, the dreaded word “nosferatu” means “plague carrier.”

Vampire Tunnel

Built in 1918 by British soldiers, Vampire Tunnel lies deep below the ground near Ypres, Belgium. According to Andrew Curry in his article “Under the Western Front” (Archaeology Magazine, July/August 2009), “no one is sure why World War I mapmakers named the dugout after the bloodsucking creature of the night, but it may have had something to do with the pale, silent soldiers who crept out of the tunnels under the cover of darkness.” Intended to house troops, the dugout was never completed; the Germans attacked and captured Vampire Tunnel before the British could make use of it.

FIEND FINDING

Identifying the resting place of a vampire is a crucial skill for vampire hunters. Not all of the world’s vampire species are undead Einsteins. Most are mindless or near mindless monsters that rest in their graves because they lack the imagination to book a room in Motel 6, or because they are compelled to do so for some reason tied to their supernatural nature. In either case, they are fairly easy to find. Or are they? Most cemeteries have a number of fresh graves. Hopefully not all of them contain vampires. Digging up every dead body in order to drive stakes or lop off heads is likely to result in some violent resistance on the part of disgruntled relatives. Can’t blame them. Furthermore, not all vampiric attacks are perpetrated by vampires who have risen from the dead. Folklore is filled with stories of vampires who are not actually dead or were never human beings.

On the other hand, in regions where revenants are common, the graveyard is a good place to start. In such cases there are several useful ways to locate the correct grave. Here are some examples:

Grave concerns

  Leading a white horse through a cemetery will result in the horse reacting violently to a grave where evil lies. In Europe this method required a white stallion, and sometimes a stallion that is still a virgin.

  Another variation requires that a virgin human (generally a teenage girl, and occasionally nude⁶) rides a white horse through a graveyard.

  An Eastern European version has the vampire hunter leading a virgin boy through the graveyard. And there are lots of variations of the whole virgin/graveyard thing.

  In some Western European countries the horse doesn’t need to be a virgin (or bearing one) but it does need to be black. In Albania, however, it definitely has to be white.

  Discovering open ditches, holes, or other disturbances of the ground are viewed as suspicious. They might be the routes by which monsters travel from the grave to the surface world.

  In parts of the Appalachians, dead birds found around a grave will indicate evil, especially if they are carrion birds.

  Conversely, in Asia, the presence of live birds around a grave indicate that a monster is in residence.

He looks so natural

  The appearance of a corpse is often a tip-off. For example, disinterred bodies that are flushed and healthy looking are considered to be well-fed vampires.

  Ditto for corpses with blood on their mouths.

  A body that shows no signs of normal decomposition is another red flag.

Necrolysis

There is a likely medical basis for corpses having a ruddy or healthy appearance. It’s a phase of decomposition called “necrolysis,” which is the separation or exfoliation of necrotic tissue, often leading to a temporarily ruddy appearance to dead flesh.

Vampire CSI

  The presence of a vampire in the neighborhood can be deduced by the signs of its predation. Typical evidence would be bite marks that are too large to have been made by bats or other animal predators.

  The unexpected death of livestock is regarded worldwide as being unnatural. Though, to be fair to vampires, there are a lot of monsters in world folklore that prey on animals.

  Crop failures have long been attached to vampire beliefs, particularly if the poor harvest is the result of plant blight.

  Disease outbreaks in humans have also been associated with vampires for many centuries. Remember, the frequently used label for vampire—nosferatu—means “plague carrier.”

MAKING THE DEAD DEADER

So, how do you kill a vampire?

In most legends and popular tales, vampires are hunted by Joe Ordinary rather than a professional. It’s the family of a risen vampire who usually has the burden of disposal. Or villagers (with or without pitchforks and torches).

However there were—and are—people who claim to be professional vampire hunters. These pros vary from clerics, for whom fighting all manner of evil is an expected part of the job; to people whose destiny aims them at the undead; to half-vampire offspring with a real case of parental resentment.

If the nature of the vampire is frequently misunderstood and the qualities of a vampire vary from region to region and culture to culture, the problem of knowing how to kill them becomes extraordinarily tricky.

THE UNKINDEST CUT

Beheading is a fan favorite, and it doesn’t require a sanctified sword or sacred axe. Anything with a heavy blade and a sharp edge will git ’er done. When in doubt, decapitate.

The trick, of course, is getting close enough to a vampire to swing a sword or an axe. Many vampires are enormously strong and unnaturally fast. Most vampire hunters are content to wait until the vampire is asleep and helpless in its grave before playing slice and dice.

A few vampires are not vulnerable to the blade, however. Notable among them is the Draugr, a demonic spirit that enters the grave of a fallen Viking, inhabits its flesh, and then rises as a virtually indestructible monster. The creature is immune to any weapon. Only a hero whose heart is pure and is in good standing with the gods of Valhalla can stand up to the Draugr with any hope of victory, let alone survival. But the hero needs to defeat and destroy the monster in empty-handed combat.

WELL—THAT STINKS!

Many cultures ascribe spiritual qualities to garlic (allium sativum). Most often garlic is held to be something good and wholesome, and true to its use in herbology, it’s used as a blood purifier. It has antibacterial and antiparasitic qualities, and there is solid thought that these attributes could prevent the kinds of infections that lead to delusions and other psychosis related to disease.

In variations on the vampire-destroying ritual of Exorcism, garlic is usually placed in the mouth of the monster in order to purify the connection between the flesh and the spirit, which thereby eliminates tainted spiritual energy.

However there’s an early Christian belief that when Satan left Eden, garlic plants grew from his left footprints and onion from the right. In Islamic beliefs, the Koran says: “Whoever eats onions, garlic or leeks should not go to the mosque because his breath may disturb the angels and the people.”

Jason Beam, Eternal Empress

“This piece is Eternal Empress, and features supermodel Christy Hemme. Christy is a very power person who exemplifies the qualities of beauty, strength, and intensity. I can think of no better qualities for a vampire queen. And, perhaps no more frightening qualities as well.”—Jason Beam is a photographer, artist, and illustrator.

Garlic’s protective qualities, however, far outweigh any occasional connection to evil. In fact, garlic is used as a protection against many kinds of evil throughout Europe and Asia, and is hung on doorways and windows to ward off vampires, werewolves, evil witches, ghosts, and demons. In Bavaria, for example, the Blautsauger is kept from entering a house by smearing the windows and doors with mashed garlic. In some countries, including Bavaria, garlic paste is lathered onto livestock to keep them safe from vampiric attack.

WHAT ABOUT A POINTED STICK?

The stake through the heart business is a tricky one because it does appear in folktales of vampires from all over the world, but it is not used to kill the undead. Despite the quick, clean “dustings” shown on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or the bloody stakings in so many vampire films, the stake was not generally a weapon used to actually destroy a vampire⁷ but a tool in a more elaborate exorcism. In cases of ritual destruction of a vampire, a stake (of wood or metal) was driven through the body (chest, stomach, wherever) of a resting vampire. This did not end the vampire’s life (or un-life) but rather pinned the vampire either to its coffin or to the ground, preventing it from rising. Once restrained in this fashion, the vampire slayers would decapitate the creature, often filling the mouth with garlic. The corpse was then either re-interred or burned. It is the decapitation and burning, not the staking, that does the job.

BURN, BABY, BURN

There are few constants in vampire disposal, though by far the great majority of the world’s many vampiric creatures fear fire, and that puts a new topspin on the adage that “fire cleanses.” Fire destroys the physical remains to such a degree that there is nothing substantial left to reanimate. And it’s widely believed that even hellish evil is destroyed so long as it is burned while inside a reanimated human body.

Like most aspects of monster hunting, incineration has been frequently ritualized. In the Czech Republic, for example, when the vampiric Nelapsi is burned, the ashes are spread over fields and along roads as a final charm against evil. In Romania, the ashes of a destroyed Strigoi are mixed with water and fed to the members of the Strigoi’s surviving human family to cure them of any sickness or evil taint. Here are some other variations on fire as a weapon against evil.

Need fire: This custom, also known as “wildfire,” appears throughout Europe. To begin the process all of the other fires in a village are extinguished and a new fire is ignited by the ages-old tradition of rubbing two sticks together or using the rope-and-stake method. The new spark is blessed according to local traditions, some of which are not exactly textbook Christian, and many of which significantly predate the Christian era. Once the fire is burning, all other candles, torches, and cookfires are lit from it, either directly or in a kindle-down-the-lane method. In this way all of the fire in the village starts from the same source. The need fire is used to ignite a bonfire in the center of a field on which green branches and leaves have been thrown to produce a thick and visible smoke. If there is a blight on the livestock that is believed to be of supernatural origin, then all of the livestock are walked through the smoke. In most cases the villagers walk through the smoke as well, thereby receiving a purifying blessing. If it is discovered that a single fire burned in the village that was not started by this fire, then the magic fails, and in some cases invites more and terrible evil into the village. This is a serious offense. A need fire created in the small village of Quedlinburg, Leipzig, in 1855 was spoiled by a small night candle left burning in the local parsonage. Even smoke from a cigar or a pipe lit by a match is enough to spoil the effect.

Bone fire: A variation of this ritual involves cremating any livestock believed to be infected by a vampire, or even the bones of a vampire itself. Or, lacking the actual monster, then effigies of evil things such as vampires, witches, and werewolves are thrown into the fire. The body is completely burned, with the blaze stoked until even the toughest bones are reduced to ash. This type of sacrifice actually gave the blaze its name: bone fire (though over the years the name has been bastardized to the more common “bonfire”). In a ritual similar to the need fire, once this fire has burned down and cooled, the villagers will quickly walk through the smoky ashes, purifying themselves of any taint of evil. Livestock and even family pets are likewise driven through the ashes to remove any taint of evil from each living thing in the village. A small part of the fire is kept aside and allowed to burn, and when everyone has passed through the ashes, embers or tapers from this special fire are carried to each person’s home and used to reignite the hearth fires. Then the ember is extinguished and kept as a talisman against evil. The remaining ashes from the bonfire are scattered along the roads as a final defense against supernatural forces. In some cases, the ashes of a torched vampire are mixed with pure water and given to members of the vampire’s living family as protection against a similar fate.

  Variations on need fires and bone fires abound, though often the direct connection between the blaze and the spiritual protection afforded to the people is not consciously considered. For many, a bonfire is a place to party; and yet the shared experience takes us back to some tribal bonding ritual that is itself a defense against the unknown.

  Common fire rituals include:

• January 6. Bonfires are lit to celebrate the Epiphany day. Straw witches dressed in old clothes are thrown into the fire to ward off evil and remove it from the community.

• January 6. The last day of the Icelandic Christmas season sees bonfires lit for good luck and prosperity.

• April 30. The residents of Limerick, Ireland, build bonfires to celebrate Beltane, the day that marks the midpoint in the sun’s progress between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Since the Celtic year was based on both lunar and solar cycles, it is possible that the holiday was celebrated on the full moon nearest the midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.⁸ Though this celebration is primarily held in Limerick, it was originally widespread throughout the Celtic lands and there is some movement to restore it to common practice.

• May 1. On a more mundane level, Slovenians build bonfires on this date to celebrate Labor Day.

• June 21. On midsummer’s night eve, a pagan event is celebrated with a bonfire in honor of the summer solstice.

• June 23. In Denmark, the bonfires are held on the night of June 23, combined with the burning of a witch made from straw and clothes.

• June 24. On the celebration of the solemnity of John the Baptist (holy day in the liturgical calendar that begins with the vigil on the evening before the actual date of a feast in celebration of Jesus or a saint), and on Saturday night before Easter, bonfires are lit throughout continental Europe. A similar festival, known as “Bonfire Night,” is held on June 23 in Ireland and other Celtic countries.

• October 31. In Ireland bonfires blaze in celebration of Halloween.

• November 5. England lights up on Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night, Cracker Night, Fireworks Night, Bonny Night), the annual celebration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 that nearly resulted in the blowing up of the Houses of Parliament, in London, England. It’s celebrated by blowing a lot of (smaller) things up…and by setting lots of fires. Funny Old World.

• December 31. Iceland celebrates the coming of the New Year with a good luck bonfire.

• Bon-bi. Bonfires lit throughout Japan to welcome the return of the spirits of the ancestors, to encourage them to linger in order to offer protection and guidance.

• The eve of Lag Ba’Omer. Bonfires are lit throughout Israel to celebrate Sefirat Ha’Omer (or, the Counting of the Omer), which is a verbal counting of each of the forty-nine days between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot.

  Lohri: In the Indian state of Punjab, the festival of Lohri is held to celebrate the victory of good over evil. Men and women perform Giddha and Bhangra, popular Punjabi folk dances, around a bonfire. Children go from house to house singing songs, and people reward them with gifts of money and food. The revelers build bonfires, then go three times around the blaze, giving offerings of popcorn, peanuts, rayveri, and sweets. Then, to the beat of dhol (the traditional Indian drum), people dance around the fire.

  Bhogali Bihu: In Assam, a state in northern India, the Bhogali Bihu harvest festival is celebrated to mark the end of the winter paddy harvest. On the night before the festival, people fast and pray, and thatched pavilions are put up around the countryside. As a sign of the festival having begun, the pavilions are set on fire at dawn.

GOING FORMAL

Throughout Europe (and indeed much of the world) there is a formal method of disposing of vampires called the Ritual of Exorcism. There are scores of variations on this ritual; but the basic plan works like this:

  The vampire hunter is accompanied by at least one able-bodied assistant (and ideally by a bunch of tough guys with sharpened staves, torches, axes, and other useful weapons).

  Once the resting place of a vampire is located, the tomb or grave is opened.

  As soon as the monster is exposed, one or more of the assistants use long stakes or sharpened staves, preferably of hawthorn, to pierce the body and pin it to the ground or against the bottom of the coffin. The stakes do not kill the vampire, though the hawthorn—which is believed to have positive spiritual qualities—renders the monster temporarily helpless. A long stake is driven through the vampire’s body, pinning it to the coffin or to the ground. This stake does not need to pierce the heart; and most species of rosewood are believed to have a similar effect.

  The lead vampire hunter usually steps in at this time and cuts off the vampire’s head with a sword, axe, bone saw, or anything else that will get the job done.

  Fresh garlic is stuffed into the vampire’s mouth and sprinkled liberally throughout the coffin. The purifying qualities of the garlic break the bonds between the demonic possessing spirit and flesh.

  The arms and legs of the corpse are bound to prevent movement.

  A corncob, block of wood, or other object is used to prop open the vampire’s mouth so that it cannot bite.

  Long needles are driven through the extremities of the vampire to further immobilize the creature.

  The coffin is resealed and buried again.

  If, somehow, the vampire rises again, then the vampire hunters dig up the corpse and burn it to ash. That usually does it, but it’s a last result because not all cultures or religions permit cremation.