By “depends on the breed” I really mean, depends on the author. I quote as a source the Batman graphic novel where he fights Dracula and used silver batarangs. Was that Batman: Red Rain(?), can anyone confirm. I’m too sore to use a search engine.
There’s a tiny bonus joke hidden somewhere in this strip for my own amusement. Let me know if you spot it. Think of it as a value add. Speaking of value, that was probably an ounce of silver dust so that little throw cost Sidekick Matt about $14.14 according to today’s silver price…
Hidden joke in panel two. Clever, Sherlock. 🙂
Element-able, my dear Joyce! 😉
In a misspent youth, I wrote an honour’s thesis on the development of the modern vampire trope. You are quite correct, some vampire mytho list silver bullets, though this is more usually associated with werewolves. Van Helsing actually lists a ‘sacred bullet,’ not a ‘silver bullet,’ as the way of killing a vampire. Vampires were not otherwise ‘allergic’ to silver though. Dracula actually uses an old silver lamp and silver cutlery. His coffin arrives in England surrounded by silver sand, too. The misnomer comes from the use of silver crucifixes.
It’s thanks to scholars like you that we can continue to wage our underworld war against the creatures of the night. You are a hero. **SALUTE** Any idea where the garlic thing came from?
Far too much of an idea.
Garlic, as a response to the undead, is actually associated with garlic flowers not the bulbs. Strong smells, usually associated with fertility or rapid growth, are the antithesis of death. That’s a Hungarian and Romanian vampiric tradition. Of course, British- and hence likely North American- vampires were never afraid of garlic.
Notably, certain stories (in the U.S.) portray vampires as repelled by garlic—the bulb, as the story is sufficiently separated from its roots to have lost the reasons for the aversion (& any details other than “repelled by garlic”). Expansions on the theme purport to explain why Italian cuisine leans so heavily on garlic in so many recipes (likely mostly made up without any research).