So...

[silverthorne]

Doing researchy type stuff for folkloric vampires.

It's interesting to note that Hawthorn, which is considered the correct wood for making pegs to hold a vampire into its grave is also good, medically speaking, for heart and blood/vein conditions. (That's the shorthand version of the notes I took).

The idea of using silver popped up around the time guns did, and people started shooting coffins to kill vampires (and it's actually usually a silver coin cut into quarters--not bullets made from a silver cross). Iron is actually used in older folklore for things like staking.

Wild rose thorns strewn over the grave are apparently good for snagging vampire clothing, thus keeping them contained in their coffins.

Any grain, including millet and poppy seeds, cna be strewn on the grave to keep the vampire busy counting instead of hunting.

Garlic features in a good portion of the eastern Europe legends.

...the Cucaburra (sp?) is actually the closest thing to a vampire the south americans have (not counting the gods).

Comments

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

I also recall specifically from America during the colonial days, that people who died of tuberculosis were thought to become vampires, and to come back and steal the breath of their loved ones until the entire family was dead. (Thus explaining the phenomena of airborn disease vectors to people who didn't understand germs)

They dealt with this by cutting off the corpse's legs, taking the thigh bones, and laying them in the sign of the cross underneath the chin. Thus, the corpse would not be able to walk around anymore.

Several skeletons were found thus in a Massachusetts graveyard which had flooded during a river's spring thaw, and all of them showed tubercles, which the disease leaves on the bones in its advanced state.

Cool, huh?

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is. I seem to remember reading that, too. ^^

I'm kinda looking for common denominator stuff, model the vampires a lot closer to folklore and the Steakley/Carpenter ones than the Stoker/Rice/Whatever Is Having Sex This Week ones...go back to the old folklore before they were romanticized and go from there. There's plenty of people these days making a case for the romantic ones. :D

[(Anonymous)]

Then I think you'll want to look at the running water thing closer, as it's very old. And also, as I recall there was an ancient Greek thing about salt being able to turn back or destroy a vampire.

(Unfortunately, I've lost the book I found that reference in, or I'd quote you the specifics on it.)

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Whoops. That was me. We had a power drop half an hour ago, and I forgot to sign back in.

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

hee, it's all right.

Hmn...I might or might not use that; I'm also trying to find things that I can at least tie into 'fuzzy' science (like hawthorn wood and it's properties both magically as well as medically sort of corresponding).

Silver I might be able to make a case for if I look into it far enough, although garlic might be harder (except perhaps based not so much on medical/magical properies as in the SMELL, OH GOD MY NOSE!). And yeah, except in some real rare cases (or pure ritual, which has its own ingrained strengths from lifetimes of use), avoid most of the religiously toned solutions.

...yeah, you can tell this'll be a mess already, can't you? *g*