This headline jumped out at me: ‘Vampire’ in Poland Found Buried With a Sickle to Prevent The Rise of The Dead.”
Business Insider: The skeletal remains of a female ‘vampire’ were found in a 17th-century Polish graveyard – with a sickle across her neck to prevent her rising from the dead.
Professor Dariusz Poliński from Nicholas Copernicus University headed the archaeological dig that led to the discovery of the remains, which were found wearing a silk cap and with a protruding front tooth, the Daily Mail reported Friday.
“The sickle was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up… the head would have been cut off or injured,” Poliński told the Daily Mail.
In the 11th century, citizens of Eastern Europe reported fears of vampires and began treating their dead with anti-vampire rituals, according to Smithsonian magazine, believing that “some people who died would claw their way out of the grave as blood-sucking monsters that terrorized the living”.
For me, I’m thinking you just put dirt right on that thing and walk away. If those nice 11th century people went to the bother to do that place a sickle across the neck and padlocked the toe, I say we leave that undeterred.
We’ve all seen this movie. Just do what the main characters should’ve done. Rebury it. Walk away. Never speak of it again.
Roll credits.
