Garlic and vampires

“Pass me some athelas, please?”

“Some WHAT? There’s gotta be 10,000 herbs in this greengrocers!”…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG

Also called Athelas or asëa aranion. It was difficult to get even back in the day in Middle-Earth.

However, I don’t believe it had any special properties for keeping vampires or the undead away.

There is a school of thought that porphyria sufferers were thought to be vampires. And often, they were sensitive to strong herbs such as garlic (or so I’ve heard).
Of course, this could be complete bullshit. Anyone else familiar with this theory?

Cecil is And it is complete bullshit.

And it needs a king to be able to cure more than a cough, so unless you keep one in your back pocket, not very useful.

In my Grandmother’s stories of Vampire back in the Old Country, garlic was not mentioned. Crosses and such backed by strong faith of a true holy person worked, as did the more gory methods.