I want to start off with a case of mediaeval vampirism that has only recently come to light and was first published in 'Fortean Times'August 1999.It was orginally written by Jeremy Harte,who is the curator of Bourne Hall Museum,Ewell,Surrey.It's a good example of the possiblity of more cases existing somewhere in some dusty archives,waiting to be rediscovered....

SAINT GOES MARCHING IN.

Ghost stories from the Middle Ages are not very numerous,and the one I am about to tell you is especially gruesome.The story involves the monks of Burton-on-Trent,a Norman knight called Roger,several peasants and a saint. St Modwenna had been famous back in Saxon times,largely for being a virgin.During her lifetime she was meek and charitable,always ready to turn the other cheek...but that was then and this was now,or to be more precise,1090.Saints had to be tough in the aftermath of the Norman conquest,as the monks of Burton never ceased to remind their patron.So urgent prayers went up each time the monastery's capital investments were in danger-as,for instance,when two peasants decided they were fed up with life in the abbey village of Stapenhill.They set out for a new life across the Derbyshire border.Drakelow,the village owned by Sir Roger,looked inviting.They settled there. The monks cared a great deal for their tenants-as economic assets.Two peasants would cost a lot to replace.Roger was asked,politely,to return them.Less politely,he told Burton Abbey to get lost.It looked as if the monks had been let down by their patron saint.As a last resort,they took her relics out of the shrine,laid them on the ground and threw themselves around them in ritual humiliation.That was enough.You didn't mess around with Modwenna.No sooner had the two footloose peasants sat down to lunch with their new neighbours than they both fell dead off the bench. Now the spooky part begins.Two coffins were hastily rigged up,and the dead men returned for burial at Stapenhill,their parish church.A few Drakelow people walked over for the funeral,so it was evening by the time they returned home.In front of them,in the gathering darkness,they could see their new friends,carrying their own coffins on their shoulders.The strangers tramped up and down the fields all night,sometimes turning into bears and dogs.This went on for weeks.People took to locking themselves in when it got dark,but the dead men used to come and batter on the walls,shouting"Get a move on!Come along!" Soon there followed an outbreak of plague.Barricaded in their houses,the villagers of Drakelow began to die off one by one.When there were only three men left,they decided on desperate measures.Armed with spades and crowbars,they marched over to Stapenhill,where they dug up the two coffins. Inside,the corpses were still fresh,but the linen cloths over their heads were stained with blood.Quickly,the three cut the heads off the dead bodies and placed them down between the legs.Then they ripped out the hearts,nailed the lids back and reburied the coffins.The hearts were taken down to the river crossing,where a huge bonfire had been lit,and thrown on it. There was a great crack,and an evil spirit flew out.It looked like a crow,but it must have been an evil spirit.And the dead men ceased to walk,the plague came to an end and Roger even apologised to St Modwenna for causing her so much trouble.Drakelow still had a bad reputation though,and the survivours all moved out to Castle Gresley. This disturbing tale was recorded,about 30 years after the event,in the archives of Burton Abbey,and only recently has anyone taken the trouble to translate it from the Latin.Other ghost stories were told over and over again-but they were of quite a different sort.Usually,they tell how some poor soul in purgatory appeared to a wife or brother,begging them to find a priest to say requiems for him-how the masses were said,and the soul was saved.The antics of the Drakelow vampires are not at all like these edifying apparitions....

Source;Robert Bartlett,'The miracles of St Modwenna of Burton'in Staffordshire Studies(1996)vol 8

This piece is extracted from a treatise written on vampires in the early part of this century by Dudley Wright.It covers cases of vampirism worldwide,although some of the names of the countries are a little outdated.For instance,the chapter this is taken from covers the British Empire,as it was then,so I've only reprinted the part that actually covers the British Isles.Some of the cases mentioned I will go into in greater depth further down this page.

Chapter IV;VAMPIRISM IN GREAT AND GREATER BRITAIN

William of Newbury,who florished about the middle of the twelfth century,relates that in his time a man appeared coporeally 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 daylight.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 the 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 wordly priest who had been in his lifetime so fond of hunting that he was commonly called a 'hundeprest'.A still more remarkable case occured 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 pharmacopeia,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 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 nether 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 repition of the vampire's visits.