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Daggers - Sharp weapons that served in some regions in Europe as devices against the undead. They were blessed and used to impale a suspected corpse or to hamstring it and thereby prevent its rising from the grave.
Danag - A Fillipino vampire held to be very ancient as a species, responsible for having planted taro in the islands long ago. The danag worked with humans for many years, but the partnership ended one day when a human cut her finger and a danag sucked her wound, enjoying the taste so much that it drained her completely.
Darkness - It is in darkness that a vampire of contemporary imagination must function, residing in a dank subterranean place, a coffin, or a darkened house or castle. The legendary undead were not always rendered helpless or destroyed by light or sunshine. Russian and Polish vampires operated from noon until midnight, for example. Darkness, associated with the nightmare and the traditional time of evil, was usually the preferred time of vampiric attack. This concept, developed by writers, and especiallyby Bram Stoker in Dracula (1897), was transferred to the screen and became one of the main characteristics of the cinematic vampire.
Dawn - With the exception of vampires in Poland and Russia and certain other unique cases, dawn has always been the time at wich the undead retire, the signal for their retreat being the crow of a cock. Any direct attack launched against a vampire, therefore, should be made after dawn, a rule frequently forgotten or broken by the vampire killers. In the cinema, daybreak has been used to great effect, with numerous films adopting the natural phenomenon to create a fiercy climax.
Dearg-due - A dreaded creature of Ireland, whose name means "Red Blood Sucker." An ancient vampire dating perhaps to pre-celtic or early-celtic, it is greatly feared. The only way to curb its predations is to pile stones upon any grave suspected of housing such a beast. The most famous tale of the dearg-due is the story of a beautiful woman supposedly burried in Waterford, in a small churchyard near Strongbow's Tree. Several times a year she rises from the earth, using her stunning appearance to lure men to their doom.
Decapitation - The removal of a human head, one of the more effective if grim ways of destroying a vampire. The use of decapitation in the battle against the undead stems probably from the belief that the vampire can not exist without its head or its heart, being unable to regenerate either.
Dracula - The name of both the Transylvanian ruler Vlad Tepes and the infamous vampire of the 1897 novel by Bram Stroker, Dracula was based on the tittle Dracul, given to Vlad's father., Vlad II, meaning the "Devil" or the "Dragon." Dracul was used to describe Vlad II's activities, although there are tow historical views as to why it was adopted in popular usage. The first argues that the enemies of Vlad used the term to mean "Devil," thus associating him with the evil and diabolism. Another theory postulates that the name came from Vlad's dragon-stamped currency and his membership in the Order of the Dragon, which included the wearing of the dragon symbol on his clothing and on his banners. His son, Vlad III, who became known locally as Tepes, the "Impaler," apparently earned the name by being his father's son and not for any conspicuous crimes. Dracula as a name was probably not used locally, as it did not appear on the documents intended for Romanian consumption, even though Dracula was Vlad's preferred signature, Dracula having potentially evil connotations among his people. The name was expedited by foreigners, such as the Venetians, who knew Vlad as Dragulia, in an effort to attach his name to cruelty and wickedness. Virtually forgotten by the West, Vlad came to the attention of Bram Stoker, who was researching Romanian legends for his novel. He found the name perfectly suited his vampire, given the ruler's reputation for bloodthirstiness. There is, however, no link in Romanian folklore between Vlad and vampirism.
Draculea - The preferred name used by Vlad Tepes (1431-1476), meaning "Son of Dracul" the nickname given to his father by the Romanians. Draculea appeared on documents signed by Vlad, although he also wrote Drakulya and Dragulya, among others. The name is involved in the continuing debate on the part of linguistic scholars attempting to disentangle the origins of Dracula in history and in legend.
Ekimmu - One of the most fearsome creatures of the ancient world, found among the Assyrians and Babylonians, a departed spirit, the soul of a dead person whom was unable to find peace. The creature wondered over the earth, waiting to attack. Its characteristics were very similiar to the utukku, although the ekimmu was more widely known and more dreaded. There were many ways in which a deceased could become an ekimmu, including violent or premature death, dying before love could be fulfilled, improper burial, drowning, dying in pregnancy, starvation, improper libations or food offerings, and the failure, for various reasons, to be buried at all.
Elga, Countess - A supposed vampire in the Carpathian Mountains, whose predatoins cause the castle of her father, Cound B__, to be burned by the local populace. The initial account of the conflagration was reported in the Neues Wiener Journal in Vienna on June 10,1909. It detailed how villagers, suffering the deaths of children at an alarming rate, decided that the count, who had recently died, had returned as a vampire and was residing somewhere in his castle, a fortress originally built as a defense against the Turks. In the Occult Review of September 1909, however, an article, "An Authenticated Vampire Story," offered the theory of vampirologist Franz Hartmann that the count was not the vampire, but that it was his daughter, Countess Elga, who had been killed in a horse riding accident sometime before her father's death. Hartmann's hypothesis was supported by a story from an occultist journal editor who visited the castle before its destruction. He experienced several episodes of hauntings and apparitions that centered around a painting of the countess.
Eretica - A formidable Russian vampire species, associated with the traditions in the region that heretics became members of the undead after death. Eretica was a woman who sold her soul to the devil during her lifetime, returning after she had died and assuming, during the day, the guise of an old woman in rags. By nightfall she gathered with fellow ereticy in ravines, where they held a sort of Sabbat. She was active only in the spring and in the late fall, sleeping at night in the coffins of whose, in life, had been impious. To fall or sink into one of the graves containing an eretica caused a person to waste away. Most dangerous of all was seeing the evil eye of the creature, to do so brought about a slow, withering death. The eretica could be destroyed by staking and burning.
Estrie - A feared Hebrew spirit connected both with demons and witches, always a female and invariably assuming the shape of a vampire. The estrie held to be one of the incorporeal spirits of evil that had taken flesh and blood, living among humanity in order to satisfy its appetite for blood. Children were its favorite prey, although men and women were attacked as well. It could change its appearance at will but reverted to its demonic shape while flying about at night. If injured or seen in its natural state by a human, the estrie, had to acquire and eat some of the person's bread and salt or it would loose all its powers. When prayers at religious servies were offered for a sick woman suspected of being the vampire, no one in the congregation said "Amen." At the burial of a possible estrie, the body was examined to see if the mouth was open. If so, the creature would continue its activities for another year. Dirt, placed in the mouth of the corpse, made the vampire inactive.
Exhumation - The disinterring or digging up of a corpse, deemed an important early step in the detection and destruction of vampires. A suspected corpse was disinterred for examination purposes, the investigator looking for obvious vampiric characteristics. Such an act was mentioned in the numerous firsthand accounts or chronicles. In the region where the Greek church had an influence on the populace, exhumations were undertaken by local priests to determine the degree of putrefaction of a corpse that had been buried for three years.If the remains were deteriorated properly, then the soul had left the world. If not, especially if the body appeared preserved, some evil influence was thought to be at work and apppropriate action followed.
Fangs - The elongated canine teeth of the vampire, often seen bared in a hideous grimace as they sink into the neck of a hapless victim. Fangs are another example of the way in which writings and films have made an otherwise unrelated characteristic one of the most recognized aspects of the living dead. In folklore, there is virtually no significant mention of fangs. In fact, the tongue, provided with a point of barb, was more common, especially in Bulgaria, Russia, and among the eastern Slavs. It was in literature that the vampire was first provided with fangs, an attribute that emphasizes its terror, savage and demeanor, and a cruel method of drinking blood.
Female Vampires - Also known as vampiress, vamire, or lamia, the female vampire is found throughout the world in many shapes and disguises.
Fingernails - An often overlooked characteristic of the undead, despite the popularly conceived notion that the nails of the vampires are long, sharp, and as hard as iron. Their extreme length probably developed in legend as a result of the exhumations that frequently took place in parts of Europe in the hunt for revenants - corpses, bloated and hideous, and long nails, as these grew even after death.
Fishnets - An item used in many Gypsy villages, particularly among the Doms, to protect against attack. Fishnets were dropped over the doors of houses with the knowledge that vampires who sought to entrance would be compelled to count all of the knots in the net before setting about feeding. This action was similar to the placing of knots in graves to distract vampires.
Food - The sustenance of the vampire, generally assumed to be blood but often varrying, as the vampires of folklore enjoy a diverse, if not disgusting, diet.
Gayal - A kind of Indian vampire-ghost, the spirit of a man who dies unmarried or without a male hier, thereby depriving him of a person who can properly perform the funeral rites. When returning the gayal focuses his ire upon the sons of other individuals as well as his own relatives. These threats thus ensure that the dead man's distant kin or even his neighbors will complete all of the necessary funeral rituals. Among the Punjabis, the gayal is given a small platform, with a hemispherical depression which is poured milk and Ganges water as a kind of sacrifice. Lamps are placed around it. Mothers in the region hang a coin around the necks of their sons to protect them from attack.
Ghoul - A cemetry-infesting demon, known in the Arabic as algul, a name derived from the word horse-leech, a kind of bloodsucking jinn. The ghoul appears more frequently as a woman, half human, half fiend, sometimes marrying an unsuspecting man who learns, perhaps too late, of her nocturnal eating habits. Found usually in cemeteries at night, they lure travelers to their deaths, enjoying above all the taste of warm human blood. When in human form they can bare children but are distinguished by their apparent lack of appetite when presented with regular human food, eating only a few grains of rice as they prefer to wait until nightfall, when they are able to sneak away to their repasts in graves.
Graves - The burial sites of the dead, normally holes in the earth, although the term can be applied to tombs and sepulchers. As graves are most frequently the place in which a dead person becomes a vampire, they are closely identified with the discovery of the predatory undead. Around the grave of a suspected vampire will be found numerous holes, approximately the width of a man's finger, the means by which the creature issues forth at night in a mistlike form. The earth around or over the coffin is also frequently disturbed, a state explained by the constant movement of the undead below the surface. Vampire hunters most often check for these signs before they go digging into the earth.
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