Liquid Silver Capsules and Vampires

Earlier, I was having a very interesting and enlightening conversation with someone more knowledgeable on vampirism than myself, and we came to the topic of slayers.

The talk eventually got pulled to a point where we were discussing the methods they use for killing vampires, that at first sounded a bit fictional to me, but after a while it made me want to question it further with you all. Liquid silver capsules... silver in a vampire's bloodstream. This is said to not only cause the vampire a severe and painful death, but also damage his Soul and keep it from incarnating for a very, very long time, because he has to recover before he can incarnate again.

My questions are...

Well, a vampire may get killed by poisoning with silver in his blood... but a human would as well I am sure. So, physically, and also metaphysically, what are the difference between a human's damage to his body and Soul with silver in his blood, than a vampire's?

Another question is... do you guys believe this method was used in the Epic wars? Using silver to seriously damage the enemy's Soul, keeping him prisoned from incarnating? I think it was.

I don't have much information on the tools used by slayers in modern times, but I will inquiry in a few sources and then get back to this thread.

As far as the Epic Wars, I don't fully agree with you. In those times silver was an even more precious metal than it is in these days, used mostly by royalty. I doubt it would be used metaphysically since they had far stronger metaphysical weapons, as wands, amethysts and other occult tools. Silver maybe was used in daggers, arrow heads and such, but not as much in capsules. I see that more as a modern weapon, or at the very least, from the medieval times.

I personally am not that aware of the damages that silver can cause to a human, or to a vampire, to be honest. I have heard it can damage the Soul, but 'how' it damages the body, that I do not know and look forward to some of our more knowledgeable members such as Maktub, to explain.

About silver being used for weapon in Epic Wars... I can somewhat imagine it, but I can agree with what Jonathan said, that back then there were stronger weapons than silver to use during the war...

Aghrab

I am thinking that possibly it is about 'argintul viu ' as it is called in romanian folkloric tradition ,in translation -the living silver - and seen as the most feared tool in the hand of witches ,able to do almost every possible damage to the victim and able to travel any distance . Many believe it to be the same with mercury or quick silver , hydrargyros in latin (liquid silver ) .

Hellen wrote:I am thinking that possibly it is about 'argintul viu ' as it is called in romanian folkloric tradition ,in translation -the living silver - and seen as the most feared tool in the hand of witches ,able to do almost every possible damage to the victim and able to travel any distance . Many believe it to be the same with mercury or quick silver , hydrargyros in latin (liquid silver ) .

Very interesting, thanks for sharing...

This is the first I have heard of silver killing vampires.

While I was in Romania I've heard about the "living silver" (argintul viu). I didn't expect it to be mentioned here...
Witches do use it and it's very powerful. I've heard stories about it, all bad unfortunately. One of my cousins had to face it once in her life. She told me nothing scared her as much as seeing it in front of her doorstep one night. I should have asked her more questions about that night, but i guess I was too little and not curious enough for more details.
But I do not recall hearing anything about the living silver being used as a weapon against vampires. Old tales speak about wood stakes being used as a weapon against the "strigoi" - the Romanian version of the vampire I guess. If someone that recently died was considered to be a "strigoi" he or she would be unburied and a wood stake would be put in his or her heart. The strigoi would never be able to awake again after that.

geo

In John Emsley's book -The Elements of Murder , i came across this information about tubes or vials with mercury found in Egyptian tomb at Kurna by german archeologist Heinrich Schliemann , but i couldn't trace any more details about this finding .
Does anyone know more on how quicksilver was used in ancient Egypt ?