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A Folkloric Fragment from Rural England

This story is also one of the vampiric tales we have from the historian William of Newburgh who wrote down many of the monsters and ghost stories from medieval England and Scotland. Allegedly he got the story from Stephen de Swafeld, the archdeacon of the diocese of Buckinghamshire from 1194-1202.

***William of Newburgh:*** Many of the tales about the British vampires comes from the 12th century historian, William of Newburgh. William’s major work was Historia rerum Anglicarum or Historia de rebus anglicis (“History of English Affairs”), a history of England from 1066 to 1198, written in Latin. It is written in an engaging fashion and still readable to this day, containing many fascinating stories and glimpses into 12th-century life. He is a major source for stories of medieval revenants, animated corpses that returned from their graves, with close parallels to vampire beliefs.

A well respected man of Buckinghamshire died unexpectedly in 1192 and was buried by his family and his grieving widow on the eve of Ascension Day. He must have been a rich man, as he was buried in a tomb. Buckinghamshire had acquired a lot of wealth during the Anglo-Saxons, soon to be taken by William the Conqueror.

The next night the widow was awakened at night when something laid next to her in her bed. When she opened her eyes, she saw it was her dead husband laying next to her, staring at her with dead eyes. It was said he got on top of her, pressing her down into the bed.

It is unsure and not specified what this actually means. Did he paralyze her like a night terror thing, did he force himself on her?

When the sun rose, the man went back into his tomb. But he would return the next night. Some say he did the same for a second time. But for the third, the widow was prepared. She had invited her friends and family to watch over her, in case her dead husband came back.

He crept through her window, but when he was heading for her bed, the walking dead was attacked by her protectors who chased him off with loud noises and into the fields where the animals were grassing. Some say that he went to attack his brothers instead who were living in the same town.

***Revenant:*** The term vampire or the undead was not used in medieval time, but several of the stories about the Revenant, Sanguisa or the bloodsuckers of folklore bear resemblance to what the modern world would classify as a vampire legend. In folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living and was in medieval times used interchangeably with ghosts. They come from various cultures like the Celtic and Norse, some reminding more about a classic ghost story, some more of a vampire legend. Although today a mixed version of the western and eastern European mythologies of the undead.

For a long time, the vampire kept appearing in the town, attacking sleeping people as well as resting animals. Soon, every household was up all night, guarding to defend themselves from the vampire stalking them.

It got so bad he started appearing in broad daylight, seen by big groups of people in the streets and in the fields. Often he was seen with a pack of hounds following him, something the undead in William’s writing did, as well as other British ghost and vampire stories.

***Howling Hounds:*** Often in William Newburghs tales of the undead, there is a pack of dogs following as the dog motif has been connected with death for ages in European mythology. The black dog is a supernatural, spectral, or demonic hellhound. It is usually unnaturally large with glowing red or yellow eyes, is often connected with the Devil, and is sometimes an omen of death.

Blessings from the Bishop

The story of the undead reached the Bishop and they decided to do an investigation. This has also been said to be the Archdeacon Stephen. He had written to St. Hugh, the bishop of Lincoln, asking for advice. It was said that they had to open his tomb and burn him to ashes, but the archdeacon didn’t want to and asked if there was another way.

They decided to open his tomb and exhumed his body. When the tomb was opened the body was found to have not decomposed. The bishop had written an absolution that they placed on the man’s chest before the tomb was sealed up again.

It is said that this helped and the blessing from the bishop made so the revenant remained in his grave and he never bothered anyone ever again. .

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