Blood Myths: Part 2

I’m back again for the second edition of Blood Myths! Woot! I’m bringing you guys even more old superstitions about vampire’s favorite food source – blood. If you missed the first part of Blood Myths then go read it now, or I’ll bite you (and not in the fun way)!

On to the superstitions!

  • Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory believed that bathing in blood would preserve her youth and beauty.
  • Ancient hunters would smear themselves with the blood of their prey in order to protect themselves from an animal’s avenging soul.
  • Due to the horror of innocents being murdered and the difficulty removing bloodstains, many historical sites boast magical bloodstains. Like a patch of moss in Maine marking the scene the scene of a Native American massacre, which is said to turn blood-red once a year.
  • It was also once believed that the body of a murdered man will bleed if touched or approached by the murderer.
  • If injured and bleeding, it was believed that the blood flow could be stopped by reciting verses from the bible. The most popular was the Lord’s Prayer and the sixth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, which had to be recited by a member of the opposite sex to the patient.
  • Other cures to stop bleeding was tying a key around the sufferer’s neck, dressing the wound with snakeskins, ash or cobwebs, or applying a snail and a stone to the wound and sprinkling it with holy water.
  • Ancient Anglo-Saxons believed that bleeding on Halloween is an omen that the person will die in the near future.
  • Here’s a crazy (yet kind of funny) old superstition – ancient cultures were especially fearful of menstrual blood, for they believed that coming in contact with it would prove fatal, hence the restrictions so many cultures put on women during this time.
  • Blood has also been said to have healing powers too. In Medieval Britain it was said that lepers could be cured by bathing in the blood of children or virgins. Or they could be cured by being placed under the gallows and allowing the blood of a hanged man to drip on them.
  • If you have poor circulation, it was once believed that eating walnut leaves picked before June 24 could improve it.
  • An ancient German superstition claims that a drop of blood from the little finger of a man’s left hand slipped into a woman’s drink will cause her to fall in love with him. Another version of this myth says that if a woman adds a drop of her menstrual blood into a man’s drink it will make him fall in love with her. Ew.

People sure believed the most ridiculous and insane things, huh?

– Moonlight

By Moonlight

Moonlight (aka Amanda) loves to write about, read about and learn about everything pertaining to vampires. You will most likely find her huddled over a book of vampire folklore with coffee in hand. Touch her coffee and she may bite you (and not in the fun way).

6 comments

  1. Pingback: vampires
  2. Elizabeth Bathory sounds as if she was Vampire wana-be like…….well all of you
    but I dont blame you about it. We are pretty cool if you get to know us for who we are and not what we are.

  3. Pingback: Rosalind Hill

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