The classic vampire legends have victims bitten or killed by a blood-drinker rising from the grave, but folklore across the world features other ways to join the ranks of the living dead - such as...
- Eating a Predator's Prey
- Excommunication or Unconsecrated Burial
- Physical or Mental Abnormalities
- Immoral Lives and Untimely Deaths
- Having Your Corpse Jumped Over by an Animal
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| Eating an animal that had been attacked by a wolf could be enough... (Jacob Mishler) |
Eating a Predator's Prey
Did you know that some legends claim simply eating the meat of an animal attacked by a wolf could condemn you to undeath?
The Greek vrykolakas is a vampire-like creature, though it tends to kill people via crushing them and then feasting on their internal organs rather than drinking blood. Folklore suggests that there were a great many ways an unfortunate Greek could become one, but perhaps the easiest trap to fall into would be consuming contaminated meat - specifically, the meat of a sheep that had been attacked by a wolf or werewolf.
Excommunication or Unconsecrated Burial
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| An unusual burial could lead to a vengeful corpse... (Scott Rodgerson) |
Physical or Mental Abnormalities
In times past, people with physical (or sometimes mental) abnormalities could find themselves under suspicion of being supernatural. Folklore abounds with tales of changelings and otherworldly hybrid offspring... but sometimes these folk were considered potential vampires as well.
Perhaps the clearest example of this comes from the unfortunate Polish girl dubbed "Zosia" who died around four centuries ago. She was found in a secluded cemetery, buried with a sickle blade positioned above her neck and an iron padlock fixed to her toe - both anti-vampire measures.
Why did she get these special measures? Well, modern forensic techniques revealed that Zosia had an abnormality in her breast bone (which may have left her in significant pain.) Analysis of her skull also suggested that she may have suffered from fainting spells or other mental issues. These conditions may have marked her out as one touched by the supernatural - the anti-vampire measures.
On a lighter note, people born with red hair and light eyes were considered at risk of becoming the Greek vrykolakas - possibly due to these being unusual in the Mediterranean!
Immoral Lives and Untimely Deaths
Another way to end up as a walking corpse was to have lived a life of sin - or to die in an untimely fashion. Such was said to be the case with Petre Toma, a farm laborer in rural Romania. Described as having lived a life of sporadic illness and immoderate drinking, he passed away in December 2003 after a farming accident.
In 2004, a woman fell ill in the village and claimed to have seen Petre Toma. The locals concluded that he had returned as a strigoi - and one dark night, a group of men decided to remove this threat for good. The crept to the cemetery in the night, exhumed Toma's body, split it open with a pitchfork and removed his heart. The orphaned organ was burned and the ashes mixed with water to as a medicinal tonic for his alleged victim, while garlic was sprinkled into his chest cavity.
The authorities didn't take kindly to this bit of ad-hoc vampire hunting and the men found themselves charged with disturbing the dead. The locals took a more pragmatic view - they reasoned that since the afflicted woman recovered after drinking the tonic, Toma clearly had been a strigoi after all!
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| Allowing a cat to jump a corpse could have consequences... (Jose Luis Sanchez Pereyra) |
Having Your Corpse Jumped Over by an Animal