According to tradition, virtually any kind of melon or pumpkin kept more than ten days will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire melons, however, because they have no teeth.

Some of the properties of the strigoi include: the ability to transform into an animal, invisibility, and the propensity to drain the vitality of victims via blood loss.

Ash was the preferred wood in Russia and the Baltic states, or hawthorn in Serbia, with a record of oak in Silesia.

Van Helsing and Seward suspect that it might be Lucy who has risen as a vampire, but it is Arthur Holmwood, her former fiance, who penetrates her with his stake.

A nachzehrer is a sort of German vampire created most commonly after suicide, and sometimes from an accidental death. A person does not become a nachzehrer from being bitten or scratched; the transformation happens after death and is not communicable.

William's major work was Historia rerum Anglicarum, a history of England from 1066 to 1198, written in Latin. He is a major source for stories of medieval revenants and animated corpses that returned from their graves, with close parallels to vampire beliefs.