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Romania is
surrounded by Slavic countries, so it's not surprising that their
vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called
'Strigoi', based on the Roman term strix for 'screech owl' which
also came to mean demon or witch. There are different types of
strigoi.
Strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after
death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other
witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The Strigoi
mort are the re-animated bodies which return to suck the blood of
family, livestock, and neighbours.
A person born with a caul or tail, born out of wedlock, or one
who died an unnatural death or before baptism was doomed to
become a vampire - along with the seventh child of the same sex
in a family or the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt
or was looked at by a vampire or witch. Naturally, being bitten
by vampire meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence
after death.
The Vircolac which is
sometimes mentioned in folklore was more closely related to a
mythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon and later
became connected with werewolves rather than vampires. The person
afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into a dog, pig, or wolf.
The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and
livestock, or threw things around in the house. Vampires, along
with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St
George's Day (April 22 Julian/May 4 Gregorian calendar), the
night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St
Georges Day is still celebrated in Europe today.
A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an
undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in the
corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found by distributing
garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it.
Graves were often opened three years after death of a child, five
years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the
death of an adult to check for vampirism.
Measures to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, like
the Slavians, removing the caul from a newborn and destroying it
before the baby could consume it; preventing animals from passing
over the corpse; placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the
grave, or placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle,
especially on St George's & St Andrew's days.
To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body
followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the
19th century people were shooting a bullet through the coffin.
For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces
burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.