A grain against a vampire? Some remarks on so-called anti-vampire practices in the light of archaeological and folkloristic-ethnographic data

ill. ; 25 cm

il. ; 25 cm

This paper focuses on a ritual of covering the dead with seeds of plants: poppy and field mustard. This habit is recorded in Slavic folkloristic-ethnographic sources and is considered as a so-called anti-demonic practice. In archaeological literature, this habit is not usually mentioned among the criteria of “atypical” burials, perhaps because physical means of restraining the “dangerous” dead are more straightforward to demonstrate than psychic ones. The paper discusses burials from early medieval cemeteries that contain the aforementioned plant seeds. Due to their fecundity, such seeds are hardly considered countable and for this reason, among others, in folk imagination they were believed to possess apotropaic and magical traits