Buckinghamshire Vampire

The Buckinghamshire Vampire incident concerns an English undead that was relayed by William of Newburgh.   The supposed vampire was said to be related to the archdeacon of Buckinghamshire.   The vampire term was not used by William of Newburgh that time since the word vampire has yet to be introduced in the English language.

In 1192, a man who recently died was sighted by some people in Buckinghamshire.  The first person who saw him was his wife who was sleeping on that time.  The phantom supposedly went into his bed; he pressed his entire weight on his wife.  An event which is popularly called the Old Hag syndrome or sleep paralysis.  The wife claimed she almost died on the first day of attack.  And just when she thought that it was the last f it, the husband continue to visit her every night.

The wife was so scared that he might not be able to survive the succeeding attack so she called other people in the house to stay with her.  When the vampire visited again that night, the people started to shout at the vampire, successfully driving him away.  But the vampire is not willing to end the night without tormenting someone so he went to see his brother.  The people made strong scary noises that eventually drive the vampire away from the house.  He then went to the other house of the villagers and terrorized the sleeping town’s folks and other farm animals.  People had to keep on guard and awake during the wee hours of the night just to protect them from the suspected vampire.  But the presence of the vampire grew stronger and stronger as he can now walk in a broad daylight.

The people seek the help of the archdeacon who wrote a letter to the bishop asking them what should be done to the restless spirit.  The priests noted a similar incident that happened in England, it is believed that you need to exhume the corpse and burn the internal organs of the body.  But the archdeacon is not willing to desecrate the grave of the suspected vampire; he nonetheless wrote a document of forgiveness and decided to place it on the chest of the perfectly preserved corpse of the vampire.  The attack reportedly ceases after they placed the absolution in his casket.