Where superstition met the supper table.

The Fragrance of Fear

Dearest Readers,

Let us journey to a Europe steeped in dread, where shadows stretched long across crumbling villages and whispers of monsters haunted the night. In the 17th and 18th centuries, tales of the vampire slithered through the Balkans and beyond, feeding the collective terror of a continent that scarcely understood disease, decomposition, or death itself. Corpses were exhumed, their mouths agape and bloodied, their bodies strangely uncorrupted. Surely, it was said, these were revenants returned to drink from the living.

Yet salvation did not come solely from the church or the blade. No, sometimes the surest defense was plucked from the soil of the kitchen garden: garlic. Humble in appearance, acrid in scent, and mighty in superstition, this bulb became both remedy and relic, both seasoning and shield.

Antiquity’s Antidote

Garlic’s path to superstition began long before it was ever pressed against a vampire’s lips. The Egyptians fed it to the builders of the pyramids as early as 2600 BCE, believing it lent strength and stamina. Herodotus himself noted inscriptions at the Great Pyramid of Giza recording rations of garlic and radishes given to laborers.

The Greeks, too, revered it. Hippocrates (c. 460–370 BCE) prescribed garlic for respiratory ailments, digestion, and even as a laxative. Olympic athletes chewed raw cloves before competition, hoping its pungent power might lend them victory. In Rome, soldiers in Julius Caesar’s legions carried garlic into battle, its sulfurous bite thought to stiffen courage. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (1st century CE), listed it as cure for everything from asthma to snake bites.

Beyond Europe, garlic’s reputation stretched to India and China, where it was prized not only as a tonic but as a guardian against unseen evils. Already it was no mere seasoning, but a spiritual sentinel.

The Plague and the Pungent Cure

By the 14th century, garlic had ascended from healing herb to holy shield. During the Black Death, when half of Europe lay prostrate to pestilence, cloves were crushed into vinegar, strung as amulets, and hung from windows. Physicians believed its “stinking virtue” might purify the air, then thought poisoned by miasma.

The iconic plague doctors’ masks, long, bird-like beaks stuffed with herbs, were often filled with garlic. It was not understood, of course, that garlic contained allicin, a compound with antimicrobial properties, but its acrid odor gave people hope. If it could banish disease, why not banish the devil himself? Garlic’s dual role as medicine and magic deepened.

When Vampires Rose

The true marriage of garlic and vampire lore occurred in the early 18th century, when hysteria swept Eastern Europe. Between 1725 and 1755, Serbia, Hungary, and Wallachia erupted with tales of villagers who returned from the grave. In one infamous case, the Serbian peasant Peter Plogojowitz was accused of rising from his tomb to strangle his neighbors; when his body was exhumed, it was found plump with “fresh blood.” Imperial officials dutifully recorded the event, lending chilling credibility to superstition.

Here, garlic reigned supreme. Corpses were staked and decapitated, but also stuffed with garlic to prevent their return. Villagers rubbed cloves across windowsills, doors, and livestock to repel nocturnal predators. Garlic became ritual armor, its stench stronger than any spell.

Folklore’s Fixation

In Romania, garlic’s grip tightened further. The strigoi, restless spirits that feasted on blood, were believed to fear it above all else. Brides wore cloves hidden in their gowns, newborns were anointed with garlic paste, and cows had their udders smeared with garlic to protect their milk from being stolen by the undead.

This obsession may have roots in real afflictions. Rabies outbreaks in Eastern Europe in the 18th century bore uncanny resemblance to vampirism: victims recoiled from strong odors and light, drooled incessantly, and lashed out in frenzied bites. Garlic, overwhelming in scent, was thought both literal and symbolic repellent. It marked the line between the sacred and profane, life and death.

Science and Stench

Today we know what the ancients only intuited. Garlic, when crushed, releases allicin, a sulfur compound lethal to bacteria and fungi. In centuries when rot and contagion were constant companions, its medicinal value was real, though unexplained. To the medieval imagination, however, this was divine power. Garlic offended witches, demons, and the devil himself. To hang a braid of garlic was to fortify one’s home as surely as walls or weapons.

It was, in short, a sacrament of the supper table.

Garlic on the Gothic Stage

By the 19th century, garlic’s reputation had leapt from folklore into literature. John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) whispered of ancient remedies, but it was Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) that immortalized the clove. Professor Van Helsing prescribes garlic blossoms to protect Lucy Westenra, surrounding her chamber with their scent as a bulwark against the Count.

What had begun in the Balkan village now perfumed the parlors of Victorian England, soon spreading through theater, cinema, and eventually Hollywood. Garlic was no longer just a seasoning; it was an immortal talisman of horror.

A Conclusion, Dearest Readers

And so we arrive at the truth: garlic is no mere garnish, no humble addition to soup or stew. It is history’s pungent paradox, food and faith, remedy and relic, seasoning and shield. To the Egyptian builder, it was strength; to the Greek athlete, triumph; to the plague-stricken peasant, hope; and to the trembling bride of Transylvania, protection against the kiss of the grave.

Thus, upon the vampire’s table, garlic was never a feast, but always a fortress.

Ever your mistress of midnight morsels,

Lady Simmertown

For the Skeptics & the Scholars

Herodotus, Histories, Book II.125 (5th c. BCE)

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XX (1st c. CE)

John Hatcher, The Black Death: A Personal History (1994)

Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (1988)

Richard Sugg, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires (2011)

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)