Ekimmu
One of the most fearsome creatures of the ancient world, found among the Assyrians and 
Babylonians, a departed spirit, the soul of a dead pereson who was unable to find peace. The 
creature wandered over the earth, waiting to attack. Its characters were very similiar to the 
utukku, alothough the ekimmu was more widely known and more dreaded. There were many ways in 
which a deceased could become an ekimmu, including violent and premature death, dying before love
could be fulfilled, improper burial, drowning, dying in preganancy, starvation, improper 
libations or food offerings, and the failure, for various reason, to be buried at all.

Countess Elga
A supposed vampire in the Carpathian Mountains, whose predations cause the castle of her father, 
Count B_____, to be burned by the local populace. The initial account of the conflagration was 
reported in the Nues Winer Journal in Vienna on June 10, 1909. It detailed how villagers, 
suffering the deaths of children at an alarming rate, decided that the count, who had died, had 
returned as a vampire and was residing somewhere in his castle, a fortress originally built as a 
defense against the Turks. In the Occult Review of September 1909, however, an article, "An 
Authenticated Vampire Story," offered the theory of vampirologist Franz Hartmann that the count 
was not the vampire, but that it was his daughter, COuntess Elga, who had been killed in a horse 
riding accident sometime before her father's death. Hartmann's hypothesis was suppored by a story
from an occultist journal editor who visited the castle before its destruction. He experienced 
several episodes of haunters and apparitions that centered around a painting of the countess.

Empusas
Vile, vampirelike creatures in Greek mythology, usually members of the wicked hordes in 
attendance to the mysterious goddess of magic Hecate. They served with the mormos and were 
described as demons who could assume from to time the guise of flesh and blood. The most famous 
account of their activities was recorded by Philostratus in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana. It 
told of the handsome youth Menippus, who was enticed by an empusa diguised as a Phoenician woman.
Confronted by Apollonius, the empusa revealed itself and admitted to fattening up Menippus so 
that she might devour him. The empusas were also mentioned by Aristophanes.

Eretica
A formidable Russian vampire species, associated with the traditions in the region that heretics 
became members of the undead after death. The eretica (plural ereticy) was a woman who sold her 
soul to the devil during her lifetime, returning after she had died and assuming, during the day,
the guise of an old woman in rags. By nightfall she gathered with fellow ereticy in ravines, 
where they held a sort of sabbat. She was active only in the spring and in the late fall, 
sleeping at night in the coffins of those who, in life, had been impious. To fall or sink into 
one of the graves containing an eretica caused a person to waste away. Most gernous of all was 
seeing the evil eye of the creature, as to do so brought about a slow, withering death. The 
etetica could be destroying by staking and burning.

Estrie
A feared Hebrew spirit connected both with demons and witches, always a female invariably 
assuming the shape of a vampire. The estrie was held to be one of the incorporeal spirits of 
evil that had taken flesh and blood, living among humanity in order to satisfy its appetite for 
blood. CHildren were its favorite prey, although men and women were attacked as well. It could 
change its appearance at will but reverted to its demonic shape while flying about at night. If 
injured or seen in its natural state by a human, the estrie had to acquire and eat some of the 
person's bread and salt or it would lose its powers. When prayers at religious services were 
offered for a sick woman suspected of being a vampire, no one in the congragation said "Amen." At
the burial of possible estrie, the body was examined to see if the mouth was open. If so, the 
creature would continue its activities for another year. DIrt, placed in the mouth of the corpse,
made the vampire inactive.