For centuries people in the Middle Ages were afraid of vampires. Now a telling sign of the precautionary measures they took against the these creatures has been found in northwestern Poland.
Many suspected vampires are found nailed or staked to the ground to prevent them rising from the ground. ‘Initially we thought he had suffered a leg wound,’ dig leader Slawomir Gorka told Kamienskie.‘But from sifting through the earth underneath, we realised there was a hole likely made from a puncture. ‘The mouth was also found without its teeth with a piece of brick in their place, which supposedly stopped the vampire rising and biting his victims.
Finding vampire burials like this is not uncommon, several burials were discovered in Poland over the last few years. It is thought that burials of this sort were common in the Kamien Pomorski area from the 13th to 17th century. According to some beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried. These vampires were often intellectuals, aristocrats and clerics. Upon their death – or even before – locals would take measures to ensure that the suspected vampires did not terrorise their communities by driving stakes through parts of their bodies or removing the teeth from their mouth.
The belief in vampires was widespread throughout Bulgaria and other parts of central Europe throughout the Middle Ages. The word vampire is stems from the original Slavic term opyrb or opir which later appears as vipir, vepir, or vapir. Alcoholics, thieves and murderers were all believed to be likely to become vampires.
Seemingly completely normal, they arrived at a town and lived amongst the people often even marrying and having children. But at night they wandered the countryside in search of blood. These types of vampires could be destroyed with a stake through the heart. One account says that a vampire was the soul of an offender who died in the mountains or forest or along a country road, and whose corpse was eaten by crows, wolves. Because such a soul is not allowed to enter heaven or hell it remains on earth haunting the place where he was killed strangling and drinking the blood of anyone who comes by.
Another account states a person who died a violent, unnatural death or whose corpse was jumped over by a cat before burial, can become a vampire. In such cases during the first 40 days after burial, the bones turn to gelatin and the vampire performs mischief at night – releasing animals from their pens, scattering house hold items, and suffocating people. During the first forty days it can be destroyed by a Vampiridzhija – a professional vampire hunter capable of seeing them – or alternatively devoured by a wolf. However if not destroyed in this time period the Vampire would develop a skeleton and becomes even more fierce.
Source: Daily Mail
