How To Kill a Vampire: 10 Defences Against the Undead

Need a way to kill a vampire? Probably not. But it’s interesting to see what the lore says will work if you ever run into a creature of the night.

In this post, you’ll learn how to kill a vampire and why the vampire lore says these unusual methods are so effective.

Religious Paraphernalia

In most myths, vampires are created by the death of a sinful person or through pacts with dark powers; as such, many religious symbols can repel a vampire.

In Europe, traditionally, they come in the form of Christian iconography, such as the cross, rosary beads, or holy water. These sacred items are said to be anathema to the unholy vampire and an effective way of warding off the fiends.

Vampires are also said to be unable to enter consecrated grounds (i.e., grounds blessed by a holy person). This includes some Islamic countries, where a vampire cannot abide reading or being read pages of a holy book such as the Quran.

Mirrors

As a result of their sinful life and a lack of soul, vampires cannot cast a reflection. So, mirrors can be placed facing out of doorways to ward off the evil undead.

But this is not universal. Some cultures believe that the mirror will show the true reflection of a vampire in its human form, so people from many cultures will not look into mirrors after dusk.

Apotropaic Magic

Many herbs and vegetables used in magic are said to be able to repel vampires and perhaps also kill them. The most common of these is garlic – when hung in the doorways of homes, it can repel the creatures of the night.

Another common plant used is aloe in South America. Interestingly, this is due to its pungent smell, as many of our vampire myths come from the disease rabies. Sufferers of which have heightened olfactory senses.

In other stories, wolfsbane and monkshood are also said to contain repelling properties against evil, such as vampires. At the very least, if ingested, these herbs are poisonous.

Other plants, particularly those with thorns, such as roses and Hawthorne, are thought to cause harm to vampires. In Europe, this is sometimes attributed to the thorny crown Christ wears on his death in the Christian religion. In the Americas and Asia, many of their vampires have trailing entrails, and the thorny branches can cut the exposed entrails if they come too close.

Sunlight

Many of the vampire traditions we have say that bloodsuckers are more heavily active during the night, making it easier to skulk around and attack victims when they’re asleep or less suspecting.

This has led to a large superstition that vampires are either hurt or burnt by sunlight, a trope played up in film and TV. However, in the actual folklore of most regions, there is no mention of vampires being vulnerable to sunlight.

Interestingly, sunlight can affect those infected with rabies as they become more photosensitive, and this could be where the idea of UV vulnerability stemmed from.

Threshold

Some myths say that a vampire cannot enter a home unless invited or will simply move on if the door remains unanswered in search of victims.

But many of the tales and stories directly contradict this, suggesting that many vampires in folklore enter and feed on sleeping humans.

Perhaps this myth simply arose as a way for scared homeowners to feel more secure in their beds.

Grains

In many folktales, vampires share a weakness with fairy and fae folk. They have a compulsion to count grains if they are spread in front of them.

Whether that is grains of sand, salt, seeds, grain, or rice, throwing grains on the floor or leaving bags as protection will cause the vampire to stoop and count each individual grain, giving you time to flee or attack. There is some mention of this in the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

Silver

This one is more born of modern interpretations, where vampires are supposedly afraid of the purity of the metal. There is a little history of the use of iron in this way in older legends, such as placing pure iron objects on revenants to prevent them from rising again.

Stake

One of the most popular ways to kill a vampire is to stake them through the heart. This one has good footings in history as it was believed, fairly sensibly, that staking or pinning a corpse to its coffin would prevent it from rising.

The wood used to carve the stake differs in each legend but is usually based upon a religious aspect, such as holy trees in pagan lore or aspen that was believed to have been used for Christ’s cross at his crucifixion.

Decapitate

One of the more sure-fire ways to stop anything would be to decapitate it, but many people felt that decapitating a corpse and burying the head between the legs would prevent any unnatural reattachment.

It was also thought that burying the head and body face down would cause any revenant to dig further into the earth instead of rising forth.

Burn

Burn the corpse, and there is nothing left to return, right? This is probably the most effective method of all; however, it does require you to get fairly close to the monster in order to burn it. If you can find the tomb or coffin and set fire to that, it may prove to be a little less risky to yourself.

Burn, Stake, Decapitate

There are plenty of myths about how to slow a vampire down, but the three surefire ways to kill one are burn, stake, and decapitate. Of course, that would kill pretty much anything, so it’s easy to see why these were so popular in vampire folklore.

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