A wooden stake. A crucifix. A vial of holy water. A pistol with a mold for casting silver bullets. Packed neatly into a wooden box, it's everything a cautious traveler needed to survive a trip through vampire country.
Ripley's has several of these vampire killing kits in its collection, and you can see them in person. The real question is, are they real? The answer is stranger than the legend.
Vampire Panic in Eastern Europe
Vampire-like creatures have appeared in myths and legends for millennia. But the vampire panic that gripped Eastern Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries left marks you can still dig up today.
In 1725, villagers in Serbia exhumed Peter Plogojowitz and drove a stake through his heart after blaming him for a string of sudden deaths. Official reports on cases like his circulated widely and carried vampire fears into Western Europe.
In Poland, people took no chances with the dead. In 2022, archaeologists in the village of Pień uncovered the 17th-century grave of a young woman buried with an iron sickle across her neck and a padlock on her big toe. If she tried to rise, the sickle was placed to cut off her head.
Earlier digs at a cemetery in Drawsko turned up more sickle burials, plus bodies with stones wedged under the chin.
How Dracula Spread Vampire Lore
Vampire stories reached English readers decades earlier, but Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) turned an Eastern European folk fear into a worldwide obsession. Suddenly, travelers were touring the hills of Transylvania with grave caution.
At its core, the vampire is an undead being who rises from the grave to feed on blood. How someone becomes one varies from story to story, though many tales involve curses or deals with the devil.
Folk vampires were horrid and frightening. Stoker injected Victorian sensibilities into the myth, and the vampire became something new: a monster that could also be seductive.
Strange Powers and Shapeshifting
Blood-feeding bats are real. The common vampire bat of Central and South America feeds mostly on livestock and only occasionally bites people.
Legendary vampires were far more versatile. Depending on the tale, they could shapeshift into wolves or clouds of mist, command rats and wolves, hypnotize victims in their sleep, teleport, and even pass their powers on to lesser thralls.
What's Inside a Vampire Killing Kit?
Despite the vampire's long list of advantages, folklore always offered ways to fight back. The vampire killing kits in the Ripley's collection hold just about everything a hunter would need:
Wooden stake: for piercing the heart, one of the few ways legend says to destroy a vampire for good
Crucifix and holy water: long-standing defenses against a creature with supposedly satanic origins
Pistol and bullet mold: for casting silver bullets
The gun and silver-bullet mold might seem better suited to a werewolf hunt, but that assumes European travelers thought about fighting vampires the same way we do.
Curious Contents
If the gun seems questionable, look closer at the vials. The kit featured here includes "Professor Blomberg's New Serum," a mixture no one has ever explained.
The Elixir of Vitriol is less cryptic: the name usually referred to a stomach tonic made with sulfuric acid. Then there's the vial labeled simply "vampirism," which brings us right back to mystery.
Are Vampire Killing Kits Real? Fact vs. Fiction
The kits are real objects. Whether they're genuine vintage vampire hunting gear is another story.
Ripley's has authenticated the age of some components, most notably the firearms. We can't be as certain about the boxes, crucifixes, and other contents, which may have been assembled later.
Were they sold to witlessly terrified travelers in the forests of Transylvania? Were they assembled later by mysterious individuals for purposes unknown?
Either way, these kits are real; they exist and can be seen in person in our many Ripley's Believe It or Not! locations around the world!
See a Vampire Killing Kit in Person
Vampire killing kits can be seen in person at Ripley's Believe It or Not! locations around the world. Visit this spooky season and get up close and personal with vampire deterrents!