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40 Fang-tastic Facts about the History of Vampires

Tim Flight October 24, 2019 26 min

Wiertz Museum - The Premature Burial — The Premature Burial by Antoine Wiertz, 1854. Wikimedia Commons

24. There were still plenty of vampires in Romanian folklore

Bran Castle, Transylvania, is erroneously called ‘Dracula’s Castle’. G Adventures

Romanian folklore is however rich in vampires, usually called Strigoi. The real Dracula’s home, Wallachia, called its vampires murony. An illegitimate child of illegitimate parents inevitably became a murony, as did anyone killed by the creature. A murony drank the blood of the living, often in the form of a wild beast. The Wallachians lived in great fear of the murony. When a sudden death occurred, Wallachians summoned a skilled midwife to nail the body’s forehead and smear it with pork fat. A wild rose made sure the murony‘s clothes caught on the thorns if it tried to leave its coffin.

Written by

Tim Flight

I am a freelance historical and literary writer based in West Yorkshire, UK. I read for a funded PhD in English at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) and graduated in 2016. I am a former lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. My publications include peer-reviewed articles in academic publications, and pieces in mainstream magazines such as History Today and Fortean Times. For more information, please see www.drflight.co.uk