Other Greek terms for the undead are often wonderfully descriptive and evocative. Among them: "timpanios", which denotes the tight, drum-like skin of a bloated corpse; in Cyprus "sarcomenos", eager or wrathful corpse; in Tinos "anakathoumenos", one who has sat back up: in Kithnos "Alitos", unsolvable or indissoluble; lampasma - a brightness or an entity.

The island of Santorini is particularly rife with vrykolakas folklore. A story goes that the Island of Hydra was infested with vampires who were banished by the local Bishop to Therasia in the Santorini group, where they were stranded, lacking the capacity to travel freely across water. The phrase "taking vampires to Santorini" has the same connotations in Greece as "taking coals to Newcastle" does in England or "taking beer to Milwaukee" does in the USA.

The most eminent writer on the subject of Greek vampires was Leone Allaci, more commonly known by his Latinised name of Leo Allatius. Allatius was born on the island of Chios in 1586 and had a distinguished career in the Roman Church, during which he travelled extensively. As a boy, he had witnessed the opening of a tomb of an alleged vampire at the Church of Saint Anthony, and this seems to have affected him profoundly: "the skin was stretched tight, hard, and livid ... the face was covered with crisp, dark hair, but the head was partly bald, and a little hair appeared on the limbs which were smooth; so swollen was the trunk that the arms had been forced out on either side; the hands were open, the eyelids drooped, the mouth gaped wide with sharp, gleaming teeth"

Allatius wrote that a vrykolakas was the corpse of a wicked person who had been possessed by a demon. Vrykolakes would rise from their graves, knock on doors and call out the name of a person inside. Anyone who answered would meet their demise the next day. The vrykolakas would never call a name more than once, so people would only reply to hails from outside the door on the second time of calling.

The causes of vampirism in Greece were broadly: to die excommunicate or under a curse, to die having committed a great crime, or to die unbaptized or apostate. Those whose baptism ceremony had not been completed properly were also at risk. When Greek clergy excommunicated people, they added the dreadful "after your death, you shall be indissoluble and unchanged".

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