Vampire Hunter's Guide - Stakes

Staking a vampire has been one of the major methods of killing vampires for hundreds of years. Originally, it was used as a way of affixing the corpse within the ground. Before coffins, the only way people could be sure the revenant would not escape from its burial site was to fix it through the ground. Traditionally, this was done by staking the corpse through the stomach or back.

After coffins were in widespread use, the importance of the stake changed somewhat. It became instead a method of actually killing the vampire. There were two common beliefs of how this method worked.

• By destroying the heart, which pumped the blood that gave the vampire life.

The wooden stake itself killed the vampire.

For those who believed it was the wood itself, several types of wood were recommended; ash, aspen or juniper were among the most common. Bram Stoker used this method heavily in both the killing of Lucy and also of Dracula.

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