CHAPTER IV
VAMPIRISM IN GREAT AND GREATER BRITAIN
William of Newbury, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century, relates that in his time a man appeared corporeally in the county of Buckingham for three nights together, to his wife and, afterwards, to his other relatives. The way they took to defend themselves against his frightful visits was to stay up all night and make a noise when they observed that he was coming. Upon this he appeared to several people in broad day. Hereupon the Bishop of Lincoln summoned his council, and was informed that the thing was common in England, and that the only way to stop it which they knew of was to burn the spectre. The bishop did not relish this advice, as he thought the expedient a cruel one; but he wrote out a form of absolution on a scrap of paper and ordered it to be laid on the body of the deceased, which was found to be as fresh and entire as if it had been dead only a day; and from that time the apparition was no more heard of. The author adds that these stories would be thought incredible if several instances of them had not happened in his time, attested by persons of undoubted credit.
The same author mentions a similar story, the locale of which was Berwick-on-Tweed, where the body was cut in pieces and burnt. Another vampire was burnt at Melrose Abbey. It was that of a very worldly priest who had been in his lifetime so fond of hunting that he was commonly called a hundeprest. A still more remarkable case occurred at a castle in the north of England, where the vampire so frightened all the people that no one ever ventured out of doors between sunset and sunrise. The sons of one of his supposed victims at length opened his grave and pierced his body, from which a great quantity of blood immediately flowed, which plainly proved that a large number of persons had been his victims.
At Waterford, in Ireland, there is a little graveyard under a ruined church near Strongbow’s Tower. Legend has it that underneath the ground at this spot there lies a beautiful female vampire still ready to kill those she can lure thither by her beauty.
A vampire story is also related concerning an old Cumberland farmhouse, the victim being a girl whose screams were heard as she was bitten, and who only escaped with her life by thus screaming. In this case the monster was tracked to a vault in the churchyard, where forty or fifty coffins were found open, their contents mutilated and scattered around. One coffin only was untouched, and on the lid being taken off the form was recognised as being that of the apparition which had been seen, and the body was accordingly burnt, when the manifestations ceased.
In vol. iii. of Borderland Dr Franz Hartmann gave particulars of some vampire cases which had come under his observation.
“A young lady of G—— had an admirer, who asked her in marriage; but as he was a drunkard she refused and married another. Thereupon the lover shot himself, and soon after that event a vampire, assuming his form, visited her frequently at night, especially when her husband was absent. She could not see him, but felt his presence in a way that could leave no room for doubt. The medical faculty did not know what to make of the case; they called it ‘hysterics,’ and tried in vain every remedy in the pharmacopœia, until she at last had the spirit exorcised by a man of strong faith.”
Another case is that of a miller at D—— who had a healthy servant boy, who soon after entering his service began to fail in health. He had a ravenous appetite, but nevertheless grew daily more feeble. Being interrogated, he at last confessed that a thing which he could not see, but which he could plainly feel, came to him every night and sat upon his stomach, drawing all the life out of him, so that he became paralysed for the time being and could neither move nor cry out. Thereupon the miller agreed to share the bed with the boy, and proposed to him that he should give him a certain sign when the vampire arrived. This was done, and when the sign was given the miller grasped the invisible but very tangible substance that rested upon the boy’s stomach, and although it struggled to escape, he grasped it firmly and threw it into the fire. After that the boy recovered his health and there was no repetition of the vampire’s visits.
Dr Hartmann adds to this last account: “Those who, like myself, have on innumerable occasions removed astral tumours and thereby cured physical tumours will find the above not incredible nor inexplicable. Moreover, the above accounts do not refer to events of the past, but to persons still living in this country.”