Various devices have been resorted to in different countries at the time of burial, in the belief that the dead could thus be prevented from returning to earth-life. In some instances, _e.g._ among the Wallachians, a long nail was driven through the skull of the corpse, and the thorny stem of a wild rose-bush laid upon the body, in order that its shroud might become entangled with it, should it attempt to rise. The Kroats and Slavonians burned the straw upon which the suspected body lay. They then locked up all the cats and dogs, for if these animals stepped over the corpse it would assuredly return as a vampire and suck the blood of the village folk. Many held that to drive a white thorn stake through the dead body rendered the vampire harmless, and the peasants of Bukowina still retain the practice of driving an ash stake through the breasts of suicides and supposed vampires—a practice common in England, so far as suicides were concerned, until 1823, when there was passed “An Act to alter and amend the law relating to the interment of the remains of any person found _felo de se_,” in which it was enacted that the coroner or other officer “shall give directions for the private interment of the remains of such person _felo de se_ without any stake being driven through the body of such person.” It was also ordained that the burial was only to take place between nine and twelve o’clock at night. The driving of a stake through the body does not seem to have had always the desired effect. De Schartz, in his _Magia Postuma_, published at Olmutz in 1706, tells of a shepherd in the village of Blow, near Kadam, in Bohemia, who made several appearances after his death and called certain persons, who never failed to die within eight days of such call. The peasants of Blow took up the body and fixed it to the ground by means of a stake driven through the corpse. The man, when in that condition, told them that they were very good to give him a stick with which he could defend himself against the dogs which worried him. Notwithstanding the stake, he got up again that same night, alarmed many people, and, presumably out of revenge, strangled more people in that one night than he had ever done on a single occasion before. It was decided to hand over his body to the public executioner, who was ordered to see that the remains were burned outside the village. When the executioner and his assistants attempted to move the corpse for that purpose, it howled like a madman, and moved its feet and hands as though it were alive. They then pierced the body through with stakes, but he again uttered loud cries and a great quantity of bright vermilion blood flowed from him. The cremation, however, put an end to the apparition and haunting of the spectre. De Schartz says that the only remedy for these apparitions is to cut off the heads and burn the bodies of those who come back to haunt their former abodes. It was, however, customary to hold a public inquiry