Vampire Killing 101

The bitter battle between werewolves and vampires has been raging for ages – the beasts versus the leeches. The time for talk has come to an end, it’s time to defend your own race and those sharp claws of yours will only get you so far. Ripping into the flesh of a weak human is one thing, but a vampire is a whole other ball game. So sit down and shut up, your vampire hunting lessons begin now! Forget what books and movies have taught you, we’re diving into the historical world of vampire slaying, learning the methods our forefathers have perfected throughout the centuries.

Before you just run out and start attacking vamps, you need to prepare and get yourself some gear. These are the basic items all vampire killers should carry:

  • Stakes (preferably wooded and made of hawthorn)
  • Mallet
  • Mirror
  • Cross
  • Garlic
  • Holy Water
  • Knives (in an assortment of fun sizes)
  • Rope
  • Saw
  • That covers your classic supplies. Some newer additions and must haves are:
  • Guns (won’t kill the bastards but it may slow them down)
  • Flamethrower (destructive yet effective)
  • Flashlight

Now that you have your gear we can begin your first lesson – how to detect a vampire. I’ll teach you how to kill them after you have all of the necessary info. You can’t very well go into a room, balls out and attack everything in sight. No, first you need to do the ground work and figure out if what you’re dealing with is in fact a vampire. You don’t want to kill an innocent human by mistake, do you? There are clues as to how to detect the presence of a vampire, they are:

At the Cemetery

  • Finger-sized holes
  • Disturbed earth
  • Constant mists
  • Moved or fallen tombstones
  • Footprints leading from a grave
  • Dogs barking (or refusing to enter cemetery)
  • No birds singing
  • Geese screaming when near suspected grave
  • Horses shying away from grave
  • Sounds comings from under the earth

Signs on a Corpse

  • Open eyes
  • Fangs (a lot of kids nowadays like to wear fake ones, MAKE SURE they’re real before your blade gets too friendly with their neck)
  • Bloated body
  • New nails, new hair
  • Lack of decomposition
  • White liver

Appearance & Habits

  • Fangs
  • Red eyes
  • Long nails
  • Paleness
  • Reluctance to enter house without invite
  • Hairy palms
  • Hatred of bright light
  • No appetite…for food
  • Never seen during the day (not always true, some vampire species can walk in sunlight)
  • Has super strength
  • People around them often die
  • Bad breath

Do you have all of that memorized? Good, now we can get to the good stuff, the killing. Now pay close attention, you don’t want any mistakes.

Common Methods

  • Staking (right through the heart)
  • Beheading
  • Sunlight (some species are immune to this)
  • Cremation (scatter the ashes)
  • A blade in the heart (it should be blessed first)
  • Submerging them in holy water (young vamps will die quickly with this method, older ones will be more difficult and slower)
  • Touching with a crucifix (this will ONLY kill a very young and very weak vampire, it will usually just repel the undead)
  • Removing the heart
  • Trapping in the grave (iron bits, red peas, roses, garlic, and holy water can be used for this)
  • Ripping them to shreds with your fangs and claws

Uncommon Methods

  • Stealing their left sock (only works on a few species; fill sock with soil, rocks, grave dirt, or rocks, and throw outside of village limits, preferably into a river
  • One word: Flamethrower
  • Using syringe to inject holy water right into its veins
  • Bottling (Hire a professional Malaysian or Bulgarian sorcerer)
  • Breaking the spine, then cutting off the head
  • If desperate, get help from a dhampir (their vampire lineage may make them untrustworthy: beware)
  • Use animals (cocks, dogs and white wolves recommended)

And remember, you are at your strongest around the full moon, so plan your hunts around that time. Now you are as ready as you’ll ever be. You have all of your basics, along with some lesser known facts straight from the history books. Now go out and kill those filthy bloodsuckers!

– Moonlight

By moonlight

One of the writers for werewolves.com, as well as vampires.com.

19 comments

  1. You do realise that what you write here is pure fiction? In folklore werewolves and vamps are almost exclusively unrelated.

    1. No kidding. I was mixing the modern rivalry with old folklore and legends. I though that was obvious. Seriously, you need to lighten up. I’ve written in the past that the hatred between werewolves and vampires doesn’t exist in old legends, that it’s the creation of modern day writers.
      The only fiction in this post is the battle between the two. These methods for finding vampires, warding against vampires and killing vampires comes straight from the history books, I didn’t make them up, they were in fact what real people believed hundreds of year ago. Any book on vampire folklore will tell you that. I assure you, I spent countless hours researching all of this information. I just added a bit of obvious flare by writing about the the fictitious battle between vampires and werewolves.

      1. Well I often find it quite difficult to tell in your case what you are serious about and what not, especially in case of folklore since you never name your sources.
        And since we’re at it: what folklore says that vampires die in the sunlight or have to be invited?
        And if you would be so good as you think you would have added the counting of beans (from some Italian folklore) and dogs with white spots above the eyes (Romanian).
        Although Basil Copper isn’t the best source since he obviously was too much influenced by Stoker’s novel he did provide infos of value: no vampire in his accounts had fangs or needed to be invited, and if they had “superstrength” it wasn’t that much so a human could still overpower them. They had no red eyes and many looked like old leathery corpses.
        You claim to have century old knowledge, but what is the basis of that claim?

        1. It’s a blog, I don’t need to name my sources. But I have here since so many asked. I’m not trying to sound like a pretentious bitch, but I have thoroughly studied both vampire and werewolves professionally and personally for many years now. I take my research very seriously.

          According to one of my books, it’s possible that a vampire not being able to enter a home came from the Christian tradition that the devil cannot go where he is not welcome. But it was made popular by the entertainment industry.

          As for sunlight, most vampires in folklore are unaffected by the sun, correct, while most preferred to hunt at night they could also go out during the day. However, there are a few vampire legends where a vampire is destroyed by sunlight like the soucouyant. It’s rare, and doesn’t work like the vampires in modern fiction, but it isn’t unheard of.

          Fangs are also mostly modern, made popular by writers (wrote about that here and here annnd here), but there are a few vamps in folklore with fangs, like the Kuang-shi (which also has red eyes).

          As for the century old knowledge, it comes from folktales that have been recorded throughout the ages, pamphlets and treatises written hundreds of years ago and so on.

          This post was meant to be a fun mix of new and old, not something to spaz over.

          1. Like I said I have trouble sometimes differentiating with you what you are serious about and what not.
            But ok if it was just meant to be fun that you should have really taken the bean topic ;)
            According to that Italian tale a vampire just has to count the beans.

            But since we’re at it, if the vampire can’t go where the devil isn’t welcome wouldn’t that mean that they are only banned from christian homes?

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  3. People always seem to ruin a good post.
    A way I find delightfully slow and painful is showing them a picture of Justin Bieber.

  4. well then i guess we can say that this post can be argued with depending on the foklore that you are familiar with (portuguese foklore in my case) so the myth of the invitation is well known by my country

    1. The Jé-rouges from Haiti have red eyes, does that help? They’re werewolves who like to spread their curse much like vampires. :)

    2. Well said :) Every country in has their own vampire myths and legends, people should keep that in mind.

  5. The legend for the werewolves come from “the red skins” a.k.a. the the north american indians.
    We dind the werewolves in chineese and japaneese mythology too as Yokai (creatures of night).
    The vampires are very, and i mean very rare and the legends come from Europe nad Malaysia.
    It was thought that the vampires originated from the werewolves. That they were a mutation of the wereloves.
    And indeed they are. They too as the werewolves have the same thirst for killing, feeding and ofcourse blood…
    Those who were once werewolves became vampires because they were addicted to human blood and its taste, and they didn’t like the sun at all… So their bodies bagan to change. For their big surprise they maintained their reason during a full moon, and ofcourse they went astray from the pack. They moved to europe and then as they weren’t fully vampires thwy could wak under the sun and have children. These children made the era of the pureblooded vampires who could wak under the sun with no problems. The spieces that gave birth to them were called aincients. They were vampires but still they could turn to a werewolf anytime. When the wereloves found that there were vampires they started to fight with them, because they were afraid that if the blood of pureblooded vampire plus the blood of one of the first werewolves could create a kid that whould have a controll over every single element (eart, fire, water, air and soul). From there the church came in to power and decries that those creatures are made from the devil etc. Eventually they found out about the werewolves fears and tabout that kid, so they decried him as “the antichrist”, or “the son of the devil”. From there on is the story for the apocalypse.

    P.S.: And btw the things you said about bulgarian sorcerer well you were right. The first kill of a pureblooded vampire was here in bulgaria (My country). And the Inventory you said to carry are just about right.
    Ow and you forgot to say that they should use the mirror to see if they have reflection.

    1. There are werewolf legends all over the world, they didn’t originate in America. Vampire legends are also all over the world, not just Europe and Malaysia. They can be found in North America, all of Asia and every other continent.
      As for the whole werewolf morphing into a vampire and the battle between the two, that’s pure fantasy. There are no records of that in folklore. Yes, werewolves and vampires were called the same name in some countries and had links to one another, but everything else you said came from your imagination, not from a history book.

      1. If you want check for your self where the wereloves legends came from. I say that they originated from 3 plases. Those have the earliest records, after that you see those same discrptions in russia and etc. But as you go out of asian russia you will see how the description starts to cange. They become long eared with glowing eyes, they begin not to show in daylight, because they are afraid of it, then comes the attacks and the people who died were without any water in their body with 4 holes in their necks and as you go trough the ages forward and forward to spain you begin to hear less about the werewolves, and alot more for thos bloodsuckers. Few decades later there were rumors of half-wolves, half-men, who were furious warriors and could walk under daylight. So then ofcourse as allways the church intervenes and decries the leeches for devilish creation and the werewolves are twistad and ill, and were controlled by the devil too and etc, etc… And there may be legends all over the world for the two kinds but the thing you should have thought about were the years, because they are what matters in the moment and if you think about it you will see there is a connection in their paths. You said it they were called with one and the same name in different countries so that is another proof… I studied werewolves when i was second crade and i could barely read. I know everything that has to be known about them and history books.
        OW BTW. The reason there are no records for the morphing is… well you said it. It is folklore. Not everything from the folklore survives trough the ages, because in the folklore eveything is passed by speech. Not everyting is written down… And if you think you know it all well try asking your grandma’ about their songs and legends on their legends, or maybe ask someone who is older than your grandmother. You will see that I mean. The folklore is so vast that only 10% has reached us.

        And everything i said came from allmoste 10 years of research.

        1. Once again, nothing you are writing is correct. It sounds like everything you are saying is coming from teenage fiction, not from actual books on folklore and history. I have never heard more inaccurate information from anyone before. I highly suggest reading Bob Curran’s werewolf field guide, it has fantastic info on werewolf folklore and history.

          Also, I kinda doubt my German grandma knows songs about werewolves.

          1. I spended 10 years of searching and reading. I travelled all those countries and talked with old people and etc… And what do you got ?? Books. Books that you cant trust. And i read the guide and there are too little truths in it if i might say. So i recomend to you. Stop reading and start searching. Start travelling around the world and make your own investigation about them. You will find very scary things.

            P.S.: If you are beggining soon i recomend to you to start from the older countries (China, Japan, Russia[in Russia we some big nations, who are now… deciesed so if you look in russia start with those ancient regions], not to forget Bulgaria, Malaysia and Egypt). And PLEASE start learning history :P

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