TY - JOUR AU - Kurasiński , Tomasz AU - Skóra, Kalina AU - Gayduchik, Viktor PY - 2018/12/16 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - A grain against a vampire? Some remarks on so-called anti-vampire practices in the light of archaeological and folkloristic-ethnographic data JF - Sprawozdania Archeologiczne JA - Spraw. Arch. VL - 70 IS - SE - Articles DO - 10.23858/SA70.2018.009 UR - https://journals.iaepan.pl/sa/article/view/2199 SP - 173-202 AB - <p>The 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 one of so-called anti-demonic practices. In archaeological literature this habit is usually not mentioned among so-called criteria of atypical burials. What is more obvious or easier to reveal are mechanic and not mental ways of stopping the “dangerous” dead in the grave. The paper discusses burials from early medieval cemeteries which contain the afore-mentioned plant seeds. Due to their fecundity, such seeds are considered hardly countable and for this reason, among others, in folk imagination they were believed to possess apotropaic and magical traits.</p> ER -