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On October 26, 2024, Kasie and Rex took on the folklore vampires, and contrasted them with modern versions. Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

Vampires

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• What we already know about vampires
• Deviations and variations
• How to write a good vampire

Segment 1

We’re back to October which means back to Spooky Season. It’s been three years since we focused on vampires in Episode 162. We’ll use some of that today. But a lot of our stuff is coming from a book I got years ago called “Vampires of Lore: Traits and Modern Misconceptions” which claimed, on Amazon, to be the foremost authority on vampires. Like a lot of indie-published titles, this one looks beautiful but lacks depth in some areas. There are full chapters that seem to just be what the author knows, without any citations or resources at all. Which is fine. If the author were a vampire.

In any case, Rex wanted to go all the way back to the roots of the vampire and this book does a good job with that.

Definition of a vampire:

• Undead corpses of once-living humans
• Are harming the living in some way and
• Are killed via taking action against the corpse itself.

It’s broad – it could include the succubus which feeds off sexual energy rather than blood, for example, but it’s the working definition the author uses.

Blood drinking – dating back to 1725 with the story of Peter Plogojowitz of Kisiliova, Serbia. After dying and being buried, Peter appeared to villagers in individual incidents and those people were infected with a disease and died within 24 hours. They claimed he lay atop them and when his body was exhumed, his mouth had fresh blood in it. Thereby the claim he’d sucked their blood and perhaps the origin story that suggests vampirism was rabies mistaken as supernatural.

In the number of cases the book lists of villagers being terrorized and winding up dead, the common elements are 1) a corpse of some kind – i.e. recently dead, a loved one, etc. – and 2) sickness that caused death. Blood was both the goal for the vampire and a deterrent as some cultures report eating bread soaked in the vampire’s blood to ward the creature off.

Begging the question – where did they get the vampire blood?

Blood around the mouth is a common occurrence in the decomposition process so villagers investigating recently-buried corpses might witness that and mistake it for someone else’s blood when it’s really the corpse’s own blood.

Why blood? There’s the scientific evidence, as stated above, related to death, but there’s the mythical element as well. What is blood for alive humans except the essential elixir to keep our own bodies working? It’s precious to us, valuable, and yet we regenerate it. So it’s a weakness but not a fatal one.

Segment 2

The powers of a vampire are varied and typically the place where writers and authors take the most license. Let’s start with their weaknesses:

• Sunlight – it seems that because most of the creatures are reported in history to have attacked at night, the myth that sunlight will vanquish a vampire persists; however, in folklore, sunlight does not kill vampires. Greek stories make it clear the vykolakas could move about during the day, but Russian stories have some corpse monsters sleeping during the day only to reanimate at night, but it’s the crowing rooster, not the sun, that sends them to sleep. The same stories use burning as a way to kill the monster. The 1922 film Nosferatu, in an effort to differentiate itself from Dracula, the rights to which the filmmakers did not have, used sunlight as the means of death.
• Garlic – it seems early Romanian folklore has a tradition of burying a corpse with garlic in its mouth to prevents its becoming a vampire, and then once a suspected vampire is beheaded, stuffing its mouth with garlic to ensure it does not regenerate. This latter practice is used in Dracula by Van Helsing against Lucy’s poor decapitated corpse. Garlic was also used to ward a house against vampires by hanging it on the door, rubbing it into keyholes, and chimneys. Garlic was useful as far back as Egyptian culture for healing toothaches, curing coughs, and healing wounds, its use against vampires is just an evolution of its spectrum of valuable applications. But it’s not just vampires, garlic also guarded homes from wolves and evil spirits.
• Mirrors – though not as frequently used in modern lore, mirrors have a connection to the soul (like photographs) and are thought to turn a dead body into a vampire. Mirrors are shrouded when a corpse is present in the home. Except in Burma, where the opposite is true and mirror is used beside the corpse to prevent living souls from following the deceased.
• Religious objects – holy water, crucifix, etc. It’s natural for a culture to turn to the blessed and sacred to ward against the malevolent spirits of undead corpses.

Segment 3

So much more in the book that I don’t have time to transcribe here so I’ll bring the book into the studio and we can look stuff up. 

Here are some other topics:

Bats and other animals

By invitation only

Coffins and graves

Aristocratic / wealthy

I also want to talk about becoming a vampire which this book lists as some kind of infection, spreading from person to person, usually the victim having consumed something infected by the vampire – meat, grave dirt, blood. But it also befalls specific people:

• Those who were evil in life
• Women who practiced dark magic
• Those who died to get money
• Children who died before baptism
• Those who committed suicide
• Mothers who didn’t eat salt during pregnancy
• Corpses that a cat jumped over
• Corpses that a man stepped over
• Corpses that a man’s shadow has fallen upon
• The seventh son or daughter
• Those who are simply fated to become vampires.