Hello, lovelies!!!
Happy Friday before Halloween! Past Jenna would be marinating skittles in vodka right now and piecing together a road map of debauchery. Present Jenna just picked out matching Halloween costumes for her husband and son and is already scoping out hiding spots for leftover candy. My, how things change.
This past week has been all about Vampires! I love me some Vampires. Like many others, good old Twilight started me on my writing path, though I do prefer my vampires to be of the non-sparkling variety. So! What shall we talk about? Famous vampires in literary history? Vampire folklore? How to kill a vamp?
Option C, please. Did you know that throughout history, different areas of the world not only had different ways of killing vampires, but different types of wood they’d use?
Russia, for example, preferred stakes made out of Ash. If they came upon a vampire, they’d stake it through the mouth rather than heart. Other cultures preferred Aspen, because it’s believed that the cross Christ died on was made of Aspen. The method of laying aspen branches across fresh graves was thought to discourage the dead from rising. Romani people preferred steel stakes driven through the heart, and they eventually started placing garlic in the mouths of suspected vampires.
Now what kind of post would this be if I didn’t mention perhaps the most famous impaler of all time…Vlad. Though many thought he was the inspiration for Stoker’s DRACULA, research led me to an article saying Stoker’s son had said that his father had the dream for Dracula after eating too much dressed crab, rather than basing the big bad on Vlad.
BUT. Vlad still had vampire-istic tastes. The act of impaling someone is scary enough to inspire it’s own week here at the Society. Victims were laid on their bellies and their rectums were cut open. A stake was HAMMERED into their bodies before the stake was planted in the ground. If you were lucky, the stake would sever internal organs and you’d die quickly. If not, you could last days, slowly sliding down the wooden stake. Vlad was also known to drain his victims blood, dunking chunks of bread into it like a fatty beef gravy.
But perhaps my most favorite impaler of all time has got to be the one, the only…Buffy.
That’s all for me! Have a fantastic, spooky, safe weekend!
xx.