Vampire Hunters (folklore)

Vampire Hunters are individuals who kill vampires for a living, often because of revenge, necessity, noble intentions, or religious beliefs. There have been examples of mages and vampires as hunting fellow supernatural creatures as well as examples of bounty hunter characters who hunt vampires for profit.
==History==
===In folklore===
Professional" or semi-professional vampire-hunters played some part in the vampire beliefs of the Balkans (especially in Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romani folk beliefs). In Bulgarian, the terms used to designate them included glog (lit. "Wooden Stakes (hawthorn)", the species of wood used for the stake), vampirdzhiya, vampirar, dzhadazhiya, svetocher.
They were usually either born on Saturday (then called Sabbatarians, Bulgarian sâbotnichav, Greek sabbatianoí) or the offspring of a vampire and a woman (typically his widow), called a dhampir in Romani or a vampirović in Serbian. It was also believed that someone born on a Saturday could see a vampire when it was otherwise invisible (and sometimes other supernatural entities as well); similarly for the dhampir. In the case of the Sabbatarians, it was believed in some places that they needed to be fed meat from a sheep killed by a wolf (Bulgarian vâlkoedene); this would enable them not to fear the things that only they were able to see. In Croatian and Slovenian legends, the villages had their own vampire-hunters that were called kresniks, whose spirits were able to turn into animals at night to fight off the vampire or kudlak. Some carried a kit that used mallet, stake, crucifix. If part of a church it included holy water, holy oil, etc. However the most important things it carried were items such as rope, crowbars, or even pistol.
===Who was the first vampire hunter of the history?===
Over the years, the figure of the vampire hunter has been a source of inspiration for literary and audiovisual stories on the small and big screen. The television series Buffy or the character of Dr. Van Helsing in Dracula are just two of the examples of these hunters of the "undead".
Now the writer and researcher of hidden issues, Javier Arries discovers the first official vampire hunter of which there are documents and assures that he is Spanish, specifically of Valencian origins.
It is about Conde de Cabreras, regimental captain during the war between Austrians and Turks in 1715. The fame of hunter of these beings comes to him when Austria conquers regions that his military occupied and that were watched over by the peasants. One evening, a soldier and one of these men from the field were having dinner when a stranger sat down at the table. What was the surprise of the peasant when he saw that the unexpected visit involved a late father, buried more than 10 years ago.
It is then when the Conde de Cabreras enters the scene, in charge of clarifying the facts. Once the version of the peasant is verified, he decides to exhume the remains of his father, whose corpse appears with supposed symptoms of vampirism: an elastic body, and with red and circulating blood. After verification, the body is beheaded and reburied.
The popularity of Conde de Cabreras reached such heights that it was not the only case that he presented to him. Apparently, he also faced a father, who had died 30 years earlier, who had shown up at lunchtime to suck the blood of his daughter. Another case of vampirism presented itself to him after the death of a woman, which was followed by those of his eldest and youngest son. After unearthing the woman's body, he observes the same characteristics as in the peasant's father. He decides to cut up the corpse, although the deaths follow one another and the woman's remains remain uncorrupted.
Case after case, the Conde de Cabreras was unearthing vampires and earning the reputation of hunting "undead". His technique: trepanle their temples, burn them or the then "traditional" head cut.
===The Mexican Urban Legend of Vampire Tree that it is related to Vampire Hunters===
The story of the vampire tree begins in Guadalajara, Mexico. There is a small cemetery in the middle of the city called El Panteon de Belen. Its ancient walls play host to a number of supernatural legends, the most famous of which concerns a huge tree that grows out of one of the graves. 
According to the legend, many years ago, the citizens of Guadalajara were being stalked by a bloodthirsty vampire. The first sign that something was wrong came when they started finding dead animals all over the city. The people were puzzled and when they examined the corpses, it was discovered that they had been completely drained of blood.
Before long, newborn babies were being attacked in the middle of the night and their horrified mothers found the infants lying dead in their cribs. Just like the animals before them, all of the blood had been drained from their lifeless bodies. It was clear that a vampire was on the loose.
Everyone in the area was terrified and most people were afraid to venture outdoors after nightfall. There was one group of citizens who were tired of living in constant fear of the vampire. They decided that they would put an end to his reign of terror and set about tracking down the fiend. 
In the dark, early-morning hours, another vampire attack was reported. The local citizens were on alert and a man was seen skulking back to his house. He had light-colored eyes and pale, white skin. The angry citizens were sure he was to blame for the attacks. They burst into his house and killed him as he lay in his bed, driving a crude wooden stake through his heart. 
The next morning, they dragged his body to El Panteon de Belen and unceremoniously buried him under thick slabs of concrete, hoping this would prevent him returning from the dead. 
Months later, they returned to find the concrete slabs were split and broken by a small tree that had grown from the stake that had been thrust into the heart of the vampire. Over time, the tree grew larger and larger and the locals called it “The Tree of the Vampire”.
To this day, the tree still stands in the middle of Belem Cemetery. They say that if you break off a branch, instead of sap, you will see blood oozing from stump. According to the legend, at night you can also see the faces of the vampire’s victims in the bark of the tree. 
The government put a fence around the giant tree to protect it, and with good reason. They say that if the tree dies, the corpse of the vampire will rise from its grave and terrorize the city again.
===The Legend of the Celakovice Vampires===
In the Czech Republic, only 25 kilometers from Prague is Celákovice. In this small walled city they discovered in 1997 a cemetery with tombs of vampires. Today they are known as the Vampires of Celákovice, and it is a legend that has gained strength because these tombs could be proof that vampires did exist.
Celákovice is a small medieval walled city located 25 kilometers from Prague. Its inhabitants lived with the belief about the existence of vampires. It is said that thanks to the reconstruction that it underwent in the 20th century, it aroused the curiosity of archaeologists for the remains found from the Paleolithic era and medieval culture. So in 1997, an archaeologist named Jaroslav Spacek discovered a unique vampire graveyard.
What Spacek found were fourteen graves with buried people accused of vampirism. The skeletons had crucifixes in their coffins, they were tied upside down, and some had their heads cut off. One of the most horrifying cases is that some of these "vampires" had a skull with an iron nail buried, others had a stake in the heart and one more had a knife stuck in his mouth. The archaeologist says that this was to avoid a bite to the one who sacrificed him. These vampires are said to date from around the 10th or 11th century.
In 2010, in a municipality in the Czech Republic called Hrádek nad Nisou, the skeleton of a suspected vampire was found, named Tobías. The archaeologist Petr Brestovansky, an investigator in this case, pointed out that the burial had the following characteristics:
The skeleton was not inside the cemetery, but one meter from the fence, buried just 25 centimeters from the ground and upside down.
Both legs and arms had stones on top (so that it would not escape in case of resurrection).
He had coins near his hand - something rare for that time - and through them it was determined that the man was murdered in the 14th century.
Although some theories indicate that he was a man with a disability because he had a certain deformity in his back, the archaeologist considers that thanks to this he could be accused of vampirism. according to this legend the vampires were killed by a presumed Vampire Hunter.
===The English Legenf of the Vampire of Highgate Hill===
For many researchers in the paranormal the figure of the vampire dates back many centuries, immortal supernatural creatures with the exceptional quality of feeding on human blood and that are still among us today. Proof of this can be found in the well-known Highgate Cemetery, in the London borough of Islington, where, according to a large number of witnesses, a real vampire has lived since 1970. Countless reports mention that the '“rests in the cemetery. The Vampire King of Wallachia ” ', a nobleman from Wallachia who was brought to England in a coffin. Beginning in 1960, stories of mysterious cemetery apparitions began to circulate and the media began reporting on England's first vampire in over a hundred years.
Highgate Cemetery was built in 1839, but in the 1960s it fell into disrepair and decay. It did not take long for the first stories related to the haunted cemetery to appear, which even surprised the media.
But long before the more current cases in the 60s and 70s, the first time the appearance of the vampire was reported was in 1922. Incredibly, several terrified witnesses claimed to see a dark being with a wingspan of two meters, flying around West Drayton Church. This event occurred on an April night illuminated by the full moon. According to the witnesses, the entity escaped through the cemetery, winding around the graves. Two police officers who were near the scene chased him, and to his horror, the creature emitted a chilling screech, just before he flapped his wings.
A local elder claimed to have seen the same entity a quarter of a century before this incident, in the 1890s. He insisted that it was the spirit of a vampire who had killed a woman at Harmondsworth and then drank their blood. But on the morning of April 16, 1922, a person was attacked near the cemetery, piercing his neck and draining his blood. The man fainted and fell to the ground. He was taken to Charing Cross Hospital, where surgeons insisted that he had been stabbed with a fine tubular object. But the patient was adamant that he had not been a person.
Surprisingly, a second victim arrived at Charing Cross, just two and a half hours later, with serious neck injuries. He had been attacked by an invisible assailant, in exactly the same way, in the same place as the first victim. In the evening a third victim arrived at the hospital. The police confirmed that this victim had also been the target of an identical attack, in the same location, just like the first two.
It was then that the rumors began that there was a vampire in London. Due to the widespread terror among the inhabitants of London, he forced the authorities to hire a professional Vampire Hunter. A police officer claimed that the vampire had been "hunted" and laid to rest in one of the deepest vaults in Highgate Cemetery, with a wooden stake through his heart.
But despite the cases that occurred earlier in the century, stories about the Highgate vampire returned in 1963, when two 16-year-old girls were walking home at night after an afternoon of fun with friends. Their return journey took them to pass through the cemetery. But at one point, the girls could not believe what they were seeing pass in front of the north gate of the cemetery, the bodies of the deceased people seemed to be emerging from their graves.
Another similar incident occurred a few weeks later, where a couple was walking outside the cemetery. The woman observed something horrible "floating" behind the iron bars of the door. Her boyfriend saw it too, and they both froze staring at the ghostly apparition for several minutes. Their faces wore an expression of utter horror.
Other people reported seeing the same ghost behind the cemetery gate, where gravestones are visible on either side, until they are consumed in darkness. Some of the witnesses who claimed to see the ghostly figure wrote to the local newspaper to share their experience. Due to the large number of testimonies, it was decided to investigate the mystery that had landed a large part of the population. The discoveries they made were totally disconcerting, they found the corpses of animals that had drained their blood all over the cemetery. A short time later, the ghostly figure was described as a real vampire.
But it was not until 1971, that the facts reached the authorities' offices, when a girl said she was attacked by the vampire outside the cemetery. She was returning to her home when she was suddenly thrown to the ground with superhuman strength by a "tall black figure with a deadly white face." At that moment, a car stopped to help her and the vampire "disappeared" with her in the glare of the headlights.
She was taken to the police station in a state of shock, luckily she only suffered abrasions on her arms and legs. Police immediately conducted a thorough search of the area, but could not offer an explanation for the incident. According to the witness who helped the girl, the alleged vampire vanished through a 10-foot wall.
Another case that terrified public opinion was that of the man who felt hypnotized by something in the cemetery. He agreed one night in the cemetery in search of the origin of a mysterious light, when the light began to fade rapidly and the man decided to leave, but he felt completely lost. Not being a superstitious person, he calmly walked in search of the door when he suddenly realized that there was something behind him. He was truly terrified by fear when he saw a tall, dark figure in front of him. So great was the intensity of his fear that he froze for several minutes after the vampire vanished. He later recalled that it was almost as if he had been paralyzed with fear by a mysterious force.
The vampire-weary Londoners of Highgate decided to start the "Highgate Vampire Hunt" on March 13, 1971. The hunt lasted about three days, where a crowd of people armed with garlic, crosses, holy water and stakes, helped The authorities, unsuccessfully searched for the vampire.
Thirty years later, David Farrant, an expert on the Highgate vampire, tends to dismiss the vampire label for the mysterious events that occurred in the graveyard. He maintains with absolute certainty that the Highgate vampire was neither a joke nor a vampire, but nevertheless, it was something very real and not exactly from our world.
Farrant, the best-selling author on the subject, believes that the Highgate Vampire may be the psychic energy of people who allow the vampire to materialize when the right conditions prevail.
Other experts believe that the appearance of the Highgate vampire is accompanied by dramatic drops in temperature, clocks stop simultaneously, objects mysteriously appear and disappear, as well as a dramatic effect on animals in close proximity.
Today, the terrifying reports from Highgate Cemetery continue, the latest being the case of a lady driving near the cemetery, when she saw a 7 meter tall dark figure with luminous eyes that suddenly disappeared through the wall of the graveyard. In another recent case a man walking with his dog also claimed to see the vampire near the ancient Roman settlement, when he suddenly disappeared without a trace.
== Known vampire hunters==
*An unnamed vampire hunter who killed Petyr with sunlight, but was accidentally killed himself in the attack. "What We Do in the Shadows"
*Wesley, a half-vampire member of the Vampiric Council, is described as being a "vampire killer", making him a controversial choice for a Council member. The Trial The Trial
*Van Helsing, a legendary vampire hunter of which Guillermo is a descendant of.
*The Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area , an amateur vampire hunting group who sought to avenge the turning of Jenna by raiding the house of the Hustle Dynasty vampires. The Curse
*Guillermo de la Cruz, a likely descendant of Van Helsing. Although he primarily serves as a familiar and does not deliberately act as a vampire hunter, his actions have led to the accidental deaths of two vampires (Afanas Baron's Night Out and Ludwig. The Trial) and the deliberate deaths of dozens of vampires who attempted to attack him or his masters. "Resurrection" The Return The Return Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires
==Appearances in the Pop Culture==
*What We Do in the Shadows (film)
*What We Do in the Shadows (TV series)
**"The Trial"
**"Ancestry"
**"Brain Scramblies"
**"The Curse"
==Examples of the Vampire hunters in the pop culture==
*Abraham Van Helsing
*Blade (Marvel)
*Buffy
==Gallery==
===Images===
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Modern Vampire hunter.jpg|Modern Vampire Hunter.
Vampire Slayer.jpg
African a vampire Hunter .jpg|African Vampire Hunters.
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