Garlic would indeed be covered in one of the precursors, Pijavica (a slovic monster caused by leading a sinful life, warded away with garlic). The albanian Striga can be warded with a silver coin coated in blood. But sunlight, hard to find any old references to that, Some forms have vampires as purely human by day, or their powers get stronger at night. Stoker’s vampires in fact did walk in the sun unharmed.
Is worth noting, that a lot of vampire lore seems more or less to have been written more or less as personifications of Plagues/Diseases. Of which silver and garlic both have anti-microbial effects for, and oddly many cultures considered them as tools for fighting diseases before even understanding germ theory (Hippocrates recommended silver for treating wounds and storing food in 400 BC), Garlic was used in primitive medicine going back at least 1000 years.
Sun, while obviously modern knowledge of UV light killing virus’s exists. Doesn’t seem like that was particularly noted in the past, most likely because very few people lacked exposure to the sun. It seems it wasn’t till around the mid 1800s that sunlights effects on microbes was discovered and tested.
I’m pretty sure that before 1800s some things had to be dried on the sun because otherwise it goes bad. And it would be more in the form of folk wisdom. There I would search for connection “sun does good” -> “kills vampires”
Garlic would indeed be covered in one of the precursors, Pijavica (a slovic monster caused by leading a sinful life, warded away with garlic). The albanian Striga can be warded with a silver coin coated in blood. But sunlight, hard to find any old references to that, Some forms have vampires as purely human by day, or their powers get stronger at night. Stoker’s vampires in fact did walk in the sun unharmed.
Is worth noting, that a lot of vampire lore seems more or less to have been written more or less as personifications of Plagues/Diseases. Of which silver and garlic both have anti-microbial effects for, and oddly many cultures considered them as tools for fighting diseases before even understanding germ theory (Hippocrates recommended silver for treating wounds and storing food in 400 BC), Garlic was used in primitive medicine going back at least 1000 years.
Sun, while obviously modern knowledge of UV light killing virus’s exists. Doesn’t seem like that was particularly noted in the past, most likely because very few people lacked exposure to the sun. It seems it wasn’t till around the mid 1800s that sunlights effects on microbes was discovered and tested.
I’m pretty sure that before 1800s some things had to be dried on the sun because otherwise it goes bad. And it would be more in the form of folk wisdom. There I would search for connection “sun does good” -> “kills vampires”