But to those who had no conception of the stages of human decomposition, the process of decay merely added fuel to their beliefs and fears. It should be noted, too, that the stages of decay can be retarded significantly by various conditions, including burying the body 1.2 metres underground, or by wrapping the body in protective covering (winding-sheets would certainly provide some protection). Not all corpses decay at the same rate – climate and soil consistency are important aspects that impact on the process.37
Grave desecrators, being unaware of these factors, would have had their fears confirmed when two corpses, buried at roughly the same time, showed different signs – one already bone, and the other still swollen and apparently whole.
The vampire’s corpse is spoken of as uncorrupted, whole, bloated, and ruddy in colour. This has been interpreted as meaning completely without any signs of decomposition – but remember that the Slavic peasants were not familiar with the stages of decomposition. For them, the following was the expected sequence:
Death —› Pallor, rigid limbs, lack of movement (and the stench of the initial stage of decay) —› Skeleton.
Thus, when they disinterred a corpse that was in the third or fourth stage of decomposition, the corpse exhibited signs that did not fit into the pattern they expected. This difference was interpreted as evidence of vampirism.
When some later commentators or scholars collected the folklore of the Slavic regions, or examined written testimony on the physical appearance of vampires, it seems there was a tendency to assume that the peasant testimony literally and actually meant “totally uncorrupted”, “totally without any decomposition.” But decomposition begins on the inside… and its middle stages were unknown to those who earnestly testified that a particular corpse was a vampire. One cannot take as evidence of un-corruption the testimony of a Slavic peasant who, fearful and trembling, is one of a group who go after sundown, with torches in their shaking hands, to desecrate graves and peer into the uncovered hole by uncertain torchlight. They behold a corpse bloated with gases, with a ruddy appearance – natural and normal phenomena in those middle stages of decay – and to them, it’s unmistakable evidence.
The corpse, they say, is whole and fresh. It is clearly a vampire.
But all the testimonies concerning the appearance of vampires in their graves tell us that the expected appearance of the corpse must have included some of the hallmarks of corruption, for the corpse by this time has its outer layer of skin peeling away, maggots infesting it, parts of its face and flesh eaten away by decomposition, its teeth more exposed in a hellish grin, and so on. By torchlight the corpse must have seemed both to resemble its appearance while alive, and to present a most hideous and grotesque outer shell that could well have been believed to be daemonic.