Albania - liugat/sampiro
Unfortunate Albanians of Turkish descent will turn into a vampire upon death - driven to go out at night in a shroud and high heel shoes(!) to spread death and destruction. A will o' the wisp will indicate where the tomb lies. Like the rest of Eastern Europe, these legends were reported more frequently after the sixteenth century - the Eastern Orthodoxy's flexible position on superstition seems to be a major cause.
Armenia - dakhanavar
Dakhanavar protected a valley near Mt Ararat - by sucking blood from the feet of travellers. When two men slept with their feet under each other's heads Dakhanavar mistook them for a monster with two heads and no feet and was never heard of again.
Austria - vampire
Reports from Austrian-controlled Serbia prepared by Austrian officials between 1725-1732, see Yugoslavia, introduced the word vampire into European consciousness. In 1755 the town of Olmutz in Austria was itself the scene of several vampire reports.
Australia - yara-ma-yha-who
Localised Koori legend tells of a short creature with a huge head and mouth, whose feet and hands have suckers like an octopus. It drops on people from its fig tree and drains them, later returning to swallow them whole and regurgitate them - the whole process is non-fatal though you will eventually turn into a furry bush creature.
Belarus - mjertovjec
The mjertovjec is an apostate, werewolf or witch who has died. This vampire will follow poppy seeds from its home back to its tomb.
Benin - asiman /obayifo
Witches by trade - at night they travel as a glowing ball and suck blood from children.
Bosnia-Herzegovina - blautsauger
The blautsauger is a hairy vampire with no skeleton. It can turn into a rat or a wolf. The blautsauger attempts to get people to eat dirt from its tomb so they'll become vampires. Scattering hawthorn flowers along the road from its home to the tomb will slow it down.
Brazil - lobishomen
Small, stumpy and hunch-backed, with bloodless lips, yellow skin, black teeth, bushy beard and the looks of a monkey, the bite of this vampire makes its female victims into nymphomaniacs 1. To dispose of - get it drunk on blood and crucify it to a tree while stabbing it.
Bulgaria - krvopijac / obur
One becomes a krvopijac by smoking or drinking during Lent. Disposal involves a djadadjii (or monk) calling the soul into a bottle of blood, which is burnt. To locate your krvopijac - get a nude teen virgin on a black foul to ride through the graveyard - where the horse won't go - there's your vampire.
The obur is a gluttonous blood drinker, it can be enticed with excrement or rich food and has the ability to move objects from a distance and create loud noises.
Burma - thaye / tasei
Evil persons condemned to be disembodied spirits 2 - which can appear as tall dark people with huge ears, long tongues and tusklike teeth. They enter town at noon or by dark and usually cause minor illness.
China - ch'ing shih
This Chinese vampire has red staring eyes, long curved nails, long hair, is a green-white colour and flies. Powered by the moon, it can be held in place by a circle of rice around it. The ch'ing shih often dwells underground (influences from the Ekimmu of Babylon) and was first journaled by J. de Groot in 'The Religious System of China' in 1892.
Croatia - pijawika / kuzlak
Croatia was the site of one of the first vampire epidemics of the modern age - in 1672 Giure Grando late of Khring on the Istrian peninsula, apparently returned from the grave and caused many deaths.
To kill a pijawika: cut off its head and stick it between its legs!
A kuzlak is created when an infant is not breast-fed enough and dies.
Czech Republic - ogoljen
The ogoljen wanders about with soil from its tomb in its navel. Bury it at a crossroad to be rid of it.
There is also a Moravian vampire who drops its death shroud and wanders about naked. It can be destroyed by stealing its shroud.
France - moribondo
A moribondo assaults cattle in particular. Protection for the herd is provided by moving cattle through a circle of fire 3.
Germany - nachzehrer / neuntöter
A child born with an amniotic membrane over their head (caul) or anyone who dies by drowning, becomes a nachzehrer. It lies in its tomb with its left eye open and gnaws upon its shroud or itself. Causes plagues (and also ties cows tails together). To deal with it: shove something in its mouth or chop the head off with an executioner's axe. Garlic will keep this one at bay. Minister Georg Röhrer reported these creatures in detail to none other than Martin Luther.
The neuntöter from Pomerania is similar to the nachzehrer - but must be decapitated between 11pm and midnight.
Ghana - asanbosam or asasabonsam
These vampires have hooks for feet and come in three types (male, female and child). They have iron teeth and dangle their feet down from trees onto victims. Also sucks blood from the thumbs of sleeping people.
Greece - catacano/ bruculaco/ callicantzaros
Catacano: the happy vampire - grins constantly, showing its white and pearlies. Spits blood on victims who are burnt by said bloody discharge. To kill: isolate it behind salt water or boil its head in vinegar.
The bruculaco has swollen, hard skin and sounds like a drum when struck. It can scream once per night - if you answer the call you will die - and it also spreads the plague. Cut of its head and either burn or boil it.
A child born between Christmas and the Twelfth Night (Jan 5) becomes a callicantzaros after death - appearing between Christmas and Twelfth Night each year to tear people to pieces with its extended fingernails. The rest of the year it exists in some netherworld.
India - churel / punyaiama / bhuta / rakshasas / chedipe
A woman who has died unnaturally or in childbirth may return with her feet on back to front. The churel (also known as jakhin, mukai or nagulai) attempts to dry the blood of the men of the family.
The punyaiama looks like an old woman. It passes a magic thread down a chimney and sucks the blood from the sleeping or mad/drunk women. It is also a cannibal.
Appearing at night as shadows, flickering lights or mists - the bhuta (in North India, brahmaparusha) - are souls of those who died untimely. Basically harmless, although they will attack babies who have just fed - as they love milk4. They can transmogrify into owls or bats.
Rakshasas are ogres or demons living in cemeteries: human, humanoid or half animal in shape. They have fangs and attack infants and pregnant women. First described in 'Atharva Veda.'
The chedipe (lit. prostitute) enters a house at night sending all into a trance and sucks blood from the toe of the male of the house.
Indonesia - pontianak / buo
A pontianak is a woman who died either a virgin or in childbirth. Out of jealousy it will attack infants or emasculate the men it seduces. They fly at night as birds, but in human form the hole in their backs is a dead give-away. To escape one, pluck a strand of their long black hair.
Warriors of Borneo slain in battle can become buo.
Ireland - dearg-dul
According to Montague Summers this Irish vampire can be held at bay by piling large amount of stones on its grave - but no Irish mythologist can find any reference to it.
Italy - strix / strega
Strix was a night demon from Ancient Rome which attacked infants, Ovid described them in 'Fasti.' This strix developed into the stegra - a women who flies about in bird form and attacks infants: chronicled in the Saxon Capitulary of Charlemagne in 781.
Japan - kappa
Ugly, green child-like creatures who drag horses and cows into their watery homes where they suck the blood from their anuses (yum!). They will leave the water to steal fruit, rape women and steal people's livers but can enter into binding agreements promising not to attack people. Another Japanese vampire legend involves a vampire cat 5 taking the form of a prince's concubine after killing her.
Malaysia - langsuyar / penanggalan
Much like the pontianak (which it is also known as) the langsuyar is recognised by her long fingernails and green robe - but has the hole in her neck and died in childbirth. This hole is where she feeds on infants' blood. They may fool men into marrying them as humans but at the first big dance they get over excited and fly off into the trees. Recorded by Sir William Maxwell in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (7), p.28 circa 1885.
Like the phii krasue of Thailand, the penanggalan consists of a head and some entrails. The penanggalan actually separates from its whole, female form into motionless, headless, gutless body and flying head with bits to seeks out the blood of children or the blood from childbirthing.
Macedonia - vryolakas
A messy wine drinker in life, as the undead it can be killed by a nail through navel, pouring oil over the body or just delayed by scattering bird seed on the tomb (it'll stop and count the seeds, one per century)
Mexico - cihuateteo / camazotz / tlahuelpuchi
A stillborn baby or a mother who died in childbirth - attacks and paralyses babies. It flies and is chalked white on its hands, arms and face. Offer it bread (generally any food, just to fill them up so they don't go attacking humans) or meteorites. They die if caught in sunlight - one of the few vampire legends to actually mention sunlight.
Described as a manbat with a sharp nose, large teeth and claws - the camazotz is an integral part of Mayan agricultural myth - the descent of the camazotz into the earth is linked to the planting of maize.
The tlahuelpuchi could transform itself into several different animal types (usually leaving its legs behind) and attacked infants, and rarely adults or children. Always female - the curse begins with menses and is a source of great shame to all her family 6
Namibia - otgiruru
The Herero people hold that this vampire, which looks like a dog, kills those who answer its call
Peru - pishtaco
A vampire which feeds off your fat first, then goes for the blood. 7
Philippines - aswang
A beautiful maiden who flies through the night, lands on the roof of the victim and proceeds to feed via a long pointed tubular tongue which reaches from the roof to the bed below and pierces the skin of the sleeping victim. The aswang then flies home before dawn (looking pregnant from the blood) and breast-feeds her children.
Polynesia - talamaur
Sucks the life from the dying and sometimes devours the heart of healthy men while asleep.
Portugal - bruxsa
A woman at day, a bird by night: it sucks the blood of children, and was a popular excuse to murder women during the Inquisition.
Prussia - gierach/viesczy/stryz
Sprinkling poppy seeds in the grave of this vampire will send it to sleep or keep it busy (a stocking or fishing net to unravel will do just as well). East Prussia (now north Poland) reported vampire epidemics in 1710, 1721 and 1750.
Romania - vircolac/ nosferatu/ strigoiu
All Romanian vampires are particularly active on St. George's and St. Andrew's Day. They can take on the shape of dogs, cats, frogs and insects. A vircolac (or murohy/strigol) drains the energy from people. To kill it - cut out the heart and split it, nail in the forehead (or in eyes and heart if female), dump the body of in the mountains, shove garlic in the mouth 8
Nosferatu is old Slavonic for plague carrier, it does not mean undead. A myriad of cause are quoted: the illegitimate son of two illegitimate parents or the seventh son of a seventh son, a b*****d, born with a caul, if the mother had not eaten salt while pregnant or had been looked at by a vampire while pregnant. The nosferatu feeds on its family and makes husbands impotent.
A strigoiu is a dead redheaded women, who squats in deserted houses at night. To kill: nail through the chest or blow up the coffin!
Russia - vampir / Ereticy
Heretics, witches and suicides were considered to turn into vampirs (or uppyr/upierczi) after death. They cause drought and while running them through with an aspen stake will kill them, if you strike more than once it will revive.
Ereticy (or erestuny) are either re-animated corpses brought back by sorcerers to begin feeding on their relatives, women who'd sold their souls to Satan and who sleep on graves and make unseemly noises in the public bathhouses!
Scotland - baobban sith
Occasionally seen as crows or ravens, usually these vampires are young maidens in long green dresses (which hide their cloven holves). They are afraid or repelled by horses and cause massive wounds on the necks and shoulders of men they dance with.
Thailand - phii
One of countless spirits from Thai mythology the Phii Song Nang is basically identical to the pontianak of Indonesia and Malaysia - it attacks young men mostly. A seer or maw du should be called in to make spells and incantations to get rid of this phii. The phii krasue is similar to the pelagganan of Malaysia and krappa of Japan in that it consists of a head and entrails and has a tendency to feed from people’s bottoms with its long tongue.
Tibet - The Wrathful Dieties
Also known as the 58 blood-drinking dieties, these vampires are figures representing the brain's reason and the deceased's (metaphorically) vampiric activities which appear to the spirit of the recently dead from the 8th day onwards whilst they wander the karma-dominated zones of the afterlife in Buddhist teachings. These include: Bhagavan Vajra-Heruka, Vajra-Krotishaurima, Ratna-Herucka, Padma-Heruka, Dark-Green Ghasmari, plus eight Kerimas and the Lotus Order.
West Indies - asema /loogaroo/sukuyan
An elderly person by day - skin shedding ball of flying blue light by night. The asema will drain a person to death if it liked the taste of their blood. Killed by sunlight (hence a mixture of seeds and nails will keep them busy - picking, dropping, picking...- til dawn) or better yet shrink the skin while they are a ball so they cant fit back into it!
Known in Surinam as the asema, in Haiti as the loogaroo, and in Trinidad as the sukuyan. Root origin thought to be the aziman of the Fo peoples of Benin.
Yugoslavia - vlkodlak / mulo / vukodlak
In 1725 villagers of Kisilovo in the Vojvodina region of Serbia reported that Peter Plogojowitz had returned from the grave - the Austrian government report on this incident used the word 'vampire' for the first time.
The French version of the word 'vampyre' was introduced into the language seven years later when Arnold Paole was blamed for dozens of deaths of people and cattle around the town of Medvegia, Serbia. He was apparently bitten by a vampire while fighting on the Turkish front in Kosova. The detailed description of his corpse being dug up (with growing hair, flesh complexion and fresh blood evident) as well as his dramatic staking became one of the best selling government reports ever.
A Serbian vlkodlak looks drunk, is over 20 years old and can only be undead for 7 years then having to repeat the process elsewhere. It causes eclipses and can be killed by piercing its navel with a hawthorn branch and setting it on fire with vigil candles.
A mulo is a dead gypsy who wears white and is active all day and night. It will boil the women it wants and debone them. To dispatch it - call in a dhampir (a vampire's degenerate son) who will defeat it in combat.
The Montenegran vukodlak can turn into a wolf and only goes out in the full moon. Crows will not near its tomb
