The "Vampires" Greeks Talk About Are Nothing Like Dracula

When people mention vampires, most think of a count in a black cape. But the vampires of folklore are very far from that.

The Greek version is called "vrykolakas", a corpse that does not decay after death. Who usually becomes one? People excommunicated from the church, those who died before they could repent, those who died an unnatural death, or those whose coffins were jumped over by a cat or dog after burial.

It is not a handsome man, but a bloated corpse, its skin stretched tight like a drum, darkly red, emerging from the grave at night to sit in someone's house, knocking on the door and calling out the name of the person inside. If someone answers, they will fall ill and die the next day. So in the Greek countryside of old, there was a rule: if you hear someone knocking and calling your name, do not answer, because legend says it will only call once; if it were a living person, they would call a second time.

The villagers' way of dealing with it was simple: dig it up at midnight, remove the heart and burn it. In some places, they boiled it in vinegar, or cut off the head and placed it between the legs.

The most famous record of this was in 1701, when a French botanist named Tournefort visited Mykonos Island in the Aegean Sea and witnessed the islanders handling a "vrykolakas" with his own eyes. In his travelogue, he wrote that the islanders were in an uproar at the time; at night, someone saw the corpse wandering the streets, knocking things over. The island's priest, officials, and many others gathered at the grave, dug up the body, removed the heart, and burned it by the sea. After it was burned, the strange occurrences on the island did not stop. His conclusion was that it was a collective panic of an island.

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