This one’s for the vampire hunters out there. Let’s say you have a massive vampire pandemic on your hands, those leeches have taken over your territory and they wont be leaving anytime soon. To make matters worse every time you slay one they just make two more to replace it. Eventually the humans you swore to protect will be uber-fucked and there will be more vamps than humans. So to keep the vampire numbers down we’ll take a look into some old school vampire prevention techniques from tradition and lore that are sure to stop a corpse from returning from the grave.
Pre-burial or Corpse Preparation
- Stick to proper religious burials.
- Destroy the vampire that caused the person’s death (duh).
- Keep animals from jumping over the corpse.
- Keep moonlight from shining on the corpse.
- Keep shadows from falling onto the corpse.
- Cover all mirrors.
- Put coins into the mouth.
- Put garlic or other herbs in the mouth.
- Close the corpse’s eyes.
- Don’t remove the corpse through the door, bust a hole in the wall and go through that.
- Disfigure the corpse by hamstringing, removing the heart, piercing with thorns, putting thorns in their mouth, pounding a stake in the chest, pounding nails into certain body parts (fingers, palms), sticking a sickle into the heart. These gruesome methods are only for the Hunters that can stomach it.
- Pour incense into the eyes, nose, mouth.
- Place a book of hymns, a cross or a brick under the chin.
- Bind the corpse by tying the mouth shut, tying legs and feet together, wielding the toes together, wrapping in carpet, or wrapping in nets.
- Chop of the poor sap’s head. Put the head under the arm, between the legs or in a totally different grave.
- Cremation. This one is easy and effective.
- Stretch a dead cat or dog across the threshold. Not a method for animal lovers obviously.
Burial
- Place body face down.
- Put certain things into the grave. The list of acceptable items are: towels, fishnets, sickles, knives, thorns, daggers, nails, millet, oats, garlic, incense, food, crosses and/or wild roses.
- Place seeds on or near the grave.
- Bury at a crossroads.
- Place long poles or stakes in the dirt of the grave.
There you have it hunters. Those are actual recorded methods used to prevent vampires. Be prepared.
- Moonlight
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[...] If you are a long time reader of ours and have read the vampire folklore posts then you know that a common belief back in the day was that not only did some vampires feed on blood, but that they also spread the plague. At the time villagers took all sorts of precautions to keep vampires from terrorizing them; some involved putting a brick in a corpse’s mouth, hammering nails into various body parts, placing stakes in the grave and many many more. [...]