Finding Vampires

This page is heavily under construction and will be updated.
This is a list of Folk ways to Cure vampire bites and reverse it's effects.
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=== Blue Light ===
* Main Entry: Blue Lights
* Global, Italy
A vampire's Grave may glow with a pale blue light at night. This is said to be the vampire's soul entering or leaving the grave/tomb. These days, however, it is known that certain types of stone will reflect any source of nearby light, be it the moon, a car's headlights or a street lamp.
=== Chalk ===
* Main Entry: Chalk 
* Modern Europe and USA, Old Russian Orthodoxy
This is something of a modern catch-all though it does have it's origins in Russian Orthodoxy. The idea is that Chalk will not leave a mark on any object that has seen an evil or unclean presence. Namely it's use is drawing lines and marks on floors, walls and doors. Or rather, it wont leave a mark were a vampire has passed. It gained popularity in the Western World after being featured in a Hammer Horror movie. 
=== Crooked Headstone ===
* Main Entry: Graveyards 
* Europe and USA
If a Cross or Holy symbol is prominently featured on a headstone - standing or flat - and the headstone moves to one side it is a sign that the soul was rejected by or barred from entering the afterlife. If the headstone is marked only with a name or date and moves it is a sign that the grave has been disturbed. 
=== Dead / Sick Cattle ===
* Main Entry: Livestock 
* Europe, some parts of Russia
Oxen and Cows are said to be a favored 'first food' of a newly resurrected vampire and any mysterious outbreaks of illness or mass die offs of livestock was often taken as a sure sign that someone buried last season has returned from their grave.
=== Dogs in a Graveyard ===
* Main Entry: Dogs and Wolves 
* Europe, the UK, and USA
A popular tale for discovering the grave of a vampire was to walk a virgin hunting dog, usually either all white or all black, through a cemetery. Any grave it growls at or refuses to walk over was suspected of containing a sleeping vampire. It is unclear if the virgin part means it has yet to be bred or yet to help make a kill.
=== Eyebrows Grow Together ===
* Main Entry: Decomposition 
* Italy and Greece, some parts of southern Europe
During the mourning period where a body remains in the home special attention should be paid to the corpse's eyebrows. Should they grow or move together into a Unibrow they are in the process of becoming a vampire.
=== Footprints ===
* Main Entry: 
* Global
One of the oldest continually in-use methods for discovering a Walking Corpse is to take ash, salt, flour, sand, fine dust, sawdust and so on and spread it about the floor of a crypt, room or hallway when you are sure that the living have left the area.
=== Hicky / Hickies ===
* Main Entry: Impropriety 
* USA and UK
* 1880-1930
Especially when found on the left side of the neck, Hickies were though to be a sure sign of a vampire's attention. One newspaper from 1892 states "the characteristic vampire marks upon the neck, which consisted of a bluish raised wound directly over the left jugular."
=== Gander / Geese / Goose ===
* Main Entry: Livestock 
* Slavic Lore
Though never as popular as Horses or Dogs, vampire hunting Geese were considered infallible by those who took the time to properly train them. They were extreamly expensive as it took a great deal of patience to properly train one and it was considered deeply unlucky to ever eat a vampire hunting goose. You walk the goose through a cemetery and they will either honk like mad, attempt to attack the headstone or refuse to cross over the grave of a sleeping vampire.
=== Glowing Headstone ===
* Main Entry: Will O Wisp 
* Global
Sometimes they glow with a pale blue light, others it is a pale yellow to orange and on rare occasions a brilliant white light. This is said to be the vampire's soul entering or leaving the grave/tomb. These days, however, it is known that certain types of stone will reflect any source of nearby light, be it the moon, a car's headlights or a street lamp.
=== Holes ===
* Main Entry: Graveyards 
* Africa, Asia, East Europe
Most common in places where vampires are able to shapeshift into small creatures. Instead of fully digging itself up every night, the vampire will become a small animal or insect and burrow a tunnel from it's coffin out to the air. 
=== Horse over Grave ===
* Main Entry: Horse 
* USA, Russia, Europe, UK
The horse must be a solid color, usually, white or black and usually one that has never been bred. Sometimes a young girl or boy - pure of heart and virginal should be riding it. Other times you can just walk a horse. When the horse steps on a vampire's grave it will immediately refuse to take another step.
=== Mass Baby / Infant Deaths ===
* Main Entry: Young Children 
* Global
Why bite an adult who can fight back when there are infants around? Usually mysterious illnesses affecting more children than normal is a sign of a vampire. Most of these tales involved women who have become an Undead and have survived long enough to go relatively unnoticed when the leave their tomb and move back into town.
=== No Plants Will Grow ===
* Main Entry: Graveyards 
* Europe, UK, USA
A barren grave is a cursed grave, or so the idea goes. The idea behind it is that the evil of a vampire will permeate the soil and prevent the life of even as much a grass. Flowers will wilt in just an hour or so and bare dirt will mark the outline of the grave.
=== No Rigor Mortis / Soft Corpse ===
* Main Entry: Decomposition 
* Europe
If a body fails to stiffen into Rigor or remains soft enough to bend limbs it was once believed that this was a sure sign that the person was in the process of becoming a vampire. 
=== Outbreak ===
* Main Entry: Disease 
* Global
In the USA outbreaks of Tuberculosis, Flu and Cholera were the main Vampire Illnesses. In the UK and Europe it was feared Cholera and Leprosy and Chronic Fatigue were signs a vampire was near. In Asia the Flu, Tuberculosis and Syphilis. In Russia Tuberculosis, Cholera, Chronic Fatigue, Scurvy, Anemia have all taken turns as being caused by a vampire. In Africa it's generally limited to Tuberculosis, Syphilis, Anemia but there are moments where others were said to have been caused by the Undead.
=== Spontaneous Rose Bush ===
* Main Entry: Graveyards 
* Slavic Folklore
A grave that spontaneously grows a rosebush, seemingly out of no where and over night or a single weekend is said to be the home of a very powerful vampire.
=== Supplemental Burial ===
* Main Entry: 
* Serbian Lore
Some Serbian tales state that the corpse of a loved one should be exhumed after three years, the bones washed, dried and blessed in a special mass before they are reinterred. Obviously, if there no sign of decomposition in this three year period the body is suspected of being either a saint or a vampire.
=== Sunken Grave ===
* Main Entry: Graveyards 
* Global
In Eastern Europe and Russia it is thought that a grave which sinks is a sign that it held a vampire who is now powerful enough to leave the grave for good. In Western Europe, the UK and parts of Africa it is thought that the vampire has simply gotten up and moved away probably during it's first weeks of being back.
=== Virgin in a Graveyard ===
* Main Entry: Young Children 
* Europe, USA
A child who is about 10 to 12, can be male or female, pure of heart and virginal must walk about the cemetery. Sometimes they get to ride an equally pure horse, sometimes they just walk around. If they are walking around the grave they faint on is though to be a vampire.
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Category:Hunting