I still have this issue! And I believe that Shadowcat’s Star of David worked due to it being silver rather than its religious significance.
And folks, it wasn’t just an ‘vampire’…it was Dracula himself. jeez.
If you’re looking for symbols which have been portrayed in legends as having magical or holy powers, whether for protection or smiting of evil, the list is huge. The ankh, from Egyptian lore, was a symbol of life, and there are all sorts of stories about it being able to repel evil undead of various sorts. The pentagram and other such magical sigils are all over the place. Zeus had his lightning bolts, Thor had his hammer. Though those didn’t go in much for repelling, just plain smiting. Ancient China and Japan had magical scrolls and seals, as mentioned in previous posts.
Part of the problem is that a lot of cultures that might have symbols which have such effects didn’t necessarily have vampires/ghoulies/undead as part of their mythology. Another part is that many cultures didn’t necessarily have a central symbol that was used for that sort of thing, instead having a set of tools/arcane rituals/holy prayers or what have you. And another is that a lot of symbols of this sort weren’t necessarily associated with a particular religion.
Are you looking for this sort of thing in general, or book/movie/story portrayal of same? If the latter, I don’t think you’ll have a lot of luck. Modern media storytelling tends to stick with what most people know, and a lot of this stuff is ancient history.
In general! While I am interested in the book/movie thing, it was mainly to link it to CS, because I had no clue where to put ths thread.
As I understood the OP it wasn’t just about repelling vampires, it was about non-Christian religious symbols being portrayed as powerfully, in general, as crosses are in Western fiction.
OK, so I don’t know the name of this movie, I only saw clips out of it. Back after Salmon Rushdie got the fatwa pronounced against him, for writing The Satanic Verses, it seems some Muslim fundies made a movie about what his fate might be. I saw clips on a news/entertainment show, don’t know which one.
At one point the actor portraying Rushdie is torturing two devout Muslim women(they’re tied up) by reading passages of his book out loud. They are depicted as screamin in pain at having to listen to it. Then a copy of the Koran shows up and gets this glow all around it, rising in the air, while “Rushdie” looks on in horror. There’s a booming voice, speaking in Arabic, then some kind of laser/lightning beams shoot out of the book and fry Rushdie. That little I saw made it look pretty strange. A book that can kill people sounds pretty powerful.
No cite for the above, so take my description for what it’s worth.
Right. Then Egyptian lore is full of a whole lot of symbols of the sort, though the ankh is the most well known modern one. Protective amulets are a part of just about every culture’s lore somewhere. The Norse had runes that were used in amulets for protection versus all sorts of stuff. Also for divination, but that’s wandering off topic.
Your best bet for finding particular stories would be to browse through mythology collections from various cultures. You might have to look closely for use of specific symbols, because most myths focus more on the people and actions, but they’re there.
Well, you could allways make the Star of David out of sharpened silver, so if it doesn’t ward off the vampire via it’s religious significance, you can just throw it at him like a Shuriken 
If you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is popcorn vampire mythology at best, but still very good as far as popcorn goes) then I don’t recall if it shows any religious symbols other than crosses being used (In fact, I don’t even think they ever tried using a crucifix on a vampire) I am willing to chalk this up to the fact that the secret organization that backs Buffy’s efforts (more or less) for the early part of the show is based in England, and would presumably be of largely Anglican background. Thus, what they are experienced with is mostly crosses and holy water. I don’t think Anglicans use Crucifixes for their holy purposes (as opposed to a non-Jesus-adorned Cross), but someone feel free to correct me on this if I’m wrong.
Something else interesting on Buffy re: crosses is that what they’re made of seems to make a difference. A wooden cross can stun or repel a vampire and give him a nsaty if minor burn, but a silver cross (even if it’s smaller) has a much longer lasting affect (one vampire on the show carries a cross-shaped scar on his neck or chest (I can’t remember) from kissing a girl wearing a cross, though it’s never shown if this cross-shaped scar causes him to have a constant sense of dread or a burning sensation. So, the density, or as I shall call it, the “Holiness Per Cubic Inch” (H/in^3) of the cross seems to make a big difference on that show. It’s never shown what would happen if a vampire attacks an ordained priest though, I think. (Something I’ve always been curious about when watching that show)
Wow! I had no idea that one could repulse the eldritch cyclopean horrors. What does the Sign look like? I have a feeling I may be needing it on my next visit to New England.
Got it before I did! That’s the exact scene I always think of when someone brings this up. If I recall correctly, it was KITTY herself who tried to use a cross to hold Dracula off, but he taunted her with the whole “You have no faith in that symbol” thing and walked right up to her. When he grabbed her by the throat, though, her Mogen David burned his hand so badly he had to let her go.
Just in the interests of completion, this was the storyline where everyone was after the occult book called the Darkhold, the destruction of which would also destroy Dracula.
:: hands head in shame ::
Truly, my geek-fu is weak.
Vampires on Buffy and Angel don’t seem to have any trouble attacking priests and the like. The Master (in the episode where he sired Darla) got his outfit from somewhere, right? I don’t imagine the priest it once belonged to just handed it over. And Drusilla was a nun before Angel turned her. A nun did give Angel pause once (in the episode “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”) but it was only because she had a cross in her hand at the time. But it’s long established that Angelus loved killing nuns.
Very important, indeed. Ankh is vital part of what is described as ancient Egyptian religion, and it strongly survives even today with all kinds of myths surrounding it. Repelling undead isn’t the least of those powers, I’ve even read quite a bit of speculation that the reason why Christian cross is somewhat effective against The Spooky is just because it so closely resembles the ankh. The story goes that cross is a sort of quick fake copy of ankh used only for emergencies when a real thing wasn’t available, see how a simple cross is never exactly guaranteed to work.
Agreed. In my understanding, the whole stuff of Star of David working against supernatural is the creation of horror writers in the last few decades and doesn’t really exist in old folk legends, which, on the other hand, sport other myths like golems working via kabbalistic incantations. I might be spectacularly wrong though, as always. More generally, especially Christianity seems to have distinct religious and folk mythologies, with the religious ones set to stone and folk myths borrowing from them, and older Pagan myths when necessary. Because the cross symbol is so general in all Xtian flavours, it was bound to find its way into all tastes of legends meddling with the otherside. In many other religions, this simply is not the case. Islam, for example, frowns upon any use of holy symbols, believing this would deflect the Muslim’s attention from what is truly important in the faith. Even though the crescent is now used to symbolize Islam, and is found even on the flags of many Islamic nations, it has nothing to do with Muhammed or origins of Islam, and was probably adopted only in the early days of Ottoman Turks (maybe 1200s or as late as 1400s). And despite its widespread usage on modern days it would still be wrong to wear it to show personal faith. As so, a scene depicting a devout Muslim repelling a vampire with the crescent and thus defeating it would be rather absurd. But what Baker says about reading verses from Koran, that sounds more like it.
In one of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books ( I don’t remember which one, but I think it was one of the earlier ones.) Anita and Larry Kirkland have an encounter with a vampire.
Larry mentions having seen other people using “miniature Bibles” to repel the vampire. Anita informs him that the people in question were not using Christian Bibles, they were using miniature copies of Jewish scriptures. She also explains that the Star of David would not work on a vampire the same way that a cross would. (Please note: in her world, crosses are effective on vampires because they function as a symbol or focus of faith. Therefore, an atheist would not be able to use a cross as a means of deterring vampires.)
The trick as I see it is identifying a religious symbol vs a non-religious magical one. As I said in my previous post, most “magical” symbols were religious to someone at some time. And most religions didn’t take one particular symbol to represent the religion as a whole the way Christianity does. This is especially true for the religions that had multiple deities.
Written or spoken charms and spells are generally associated with magic in the West; in Egypt they were divine magic. (To use D&D terms for a moment.) Because language was the tool used to manifest the creative power of the gods, and was given to humans so that they might also manifest that creative power. Heka (generally translated as magic; literally “authoritative speech”) was used for medicine and for protection against malevolent entities, as well as other stuff.
In most cases, you’re not going to find a single symbol that works the way the Christian cross does in modern fiction. You’re going to find a collection of symbols that can be used in different ways depending on the symbol. Many of those symbols and ways they can be used, however, are rather more powerful than the cross is generally portrayed as. In fiction the cross can repel a vampire, but it doesn’t usually destroy one. Sometimes it can be used to do other minor magical things, but they’re not that impressive actually, when compared to, say, Excalibur or the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones. :>
The tricky thing about vampires, though, is that each author is free to make up his or her own rules. In some mythoi, anyone can wield a cross to repel a vampire. In others, the person has to have faith. In still others, anything that the wielder honestly believes will repel the vampire is effective–I seem to recall reading of a story where a crazy homeless person was able to protect himself with a hubcap that he believed to be a magical shield. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
So without a doubt, there has been some story somewhere where any particular holy symbol you can think of has been used to repel a vampire.
I should also add that Sluggy is responsible for one of my favorite vampire scenes.
Hmm…I wonder if one had a strong, even fanatical belief in something that wasn’t holy, if a symbol of it could work against the right type of vampire. (Like if Lenin tried to use a red star against Dracula, or a follower of Mao used a “Little Red Book”)
In another Laurell K. Hamilton novel- Blue Moon?- a bunch of people get attacked by a demon, and everyone who manages to pray or recite any type of holy scripture doesn’t get eaten. Again, it’s cited that faith makes the symbol or prayer effective. Anita is Christian (although one of the weirdest Christians in literature) so she uses crosses and holy water.
I always wondered about the random use of crosses in anime. Thanks. This sort of explains the wacko priest in Hellsing.
They are sort of a star-fish shaped carved soapstone, about the right size to fit in your palm. The center has a bas-relief image of one of something that looks like a flaming eye, or a tower, or a stylized tree, but is probably the likeness of something or someone the “things from beyond” fear.
Couple of things to point out:
- You’re thinking Islamic, not Arabic. Arabic’s the language and the broad ethnic group, Islam’s the religion of most Arabs. But not of all Arabs, which is the crucial distinction - there are plenty of Arab Christians, for example.
- Islam doesn’t really have any of its own symbols, but is in fact fiercely iconoclastic. Thus, most symbols would be rejected as idolatry - there are no symbols hanging in a mosque the way a cross hangs in a church or menorah devices feature in a temple.
- The common exception to this is a “crescent moon” shape, for example on the flag of Turkey. This isn’t strictly a symbol of Islam (eg Muhammad wouldn’t recognize the thing), but is often used as a shorthand for Islam, more commonly by non-Muslims. It was instead the symbol of the Ottoman Empire, who may have inherited the symbol from the Byzantines.
- The “Allahu akbar” “symbol” that you mention is merely text, and not strictly a symbol, so it gets around the prohibition on idolatry. It means “God is greatest”, which is an important tenet of Islam and figures in many prayers etc.
Only if it was a capitalist bloodsucker.