Vampires of Great Britain

by Tom Slemen

  Father Hanlon had a long talk with the vampiric ex-priest and advised him to undergo exorcism and allow himself to return to death with a spotless soul, but Randall stormed out of the house and vanished into the night. Hanlon visited Mrs Randall and discovered that the woman was not only a practising witch; her idol was Crom Cruach, an evil pre-Christian deity of Erin, dating back thousands of years. The stone idol of Crom – covered by goldleaf - stood on the plain of Magh Slécht (the plain of adoration and prostration) in County Cavan, surrounded by twelve lesser graven idols of bare stone. Each year on 1 November (Samhain), a third of the children of the county were sacrificed to Crom Cruach in return for fertile land, good crop yield, disease-free cattle, and good weather. The god was one of the most feared in Ireland, and there are reports of worshippers of Crom Cruach being destroyed in the very act of adoration. The golden idol dedicated to Crom Cruach is thought to have been constructed and erected by Tigernmas, also known as the Lord of Death. Little is known about him, but he may have been a renegade Roman legion commander who had become obsessed with the Occult. One Samhain night, Tigernmas and three quarters of his army were praying prostrate on the floor to Crom Cruach when an unknown force destroyed them all instantly. Some accounts say lightning bolts from the idol of Crom Cruach struck Tigernmas and the worshippers and left nothing but smouldering carbonised corpses. The very name Crom Cruach means “bloody bent one” and is surmised to be a reference to the tall, crooked shadowy entity that lurked behind the idol. It demanded the blood of infants, and the local population supplied this with the throat-slitting of a hundred babies over the idol. From time immemorial the drinking of blood has been identified with the gaining of power, be it for man or a god. The Aztecs, to appease their graven idols, poured blood into their mouths, and the Romans were horrified when several members of the embryonic Christianity sect misinterpreted the symbolic essence of Communion with its ritual partaking of bread and wine. Instead this Christian minority resorted to actual cannibalism and did indeed eat flesh and drink the blood. In the East, the Indian Rajahs eagerly drank blood from severed heads to obtain potency and vigour, and if we look at the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, God declares: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life.”

  Crom Cruach, the blood-drinking god of old Ireland, was chased into obscurity by St Patrick when he attacked the idol with a sledgehammer and shattered it. The shadowy parasitic thing of pure evil that lived behind the façade of the gilded statue fled County Cavan to an unknown destination, and some say it resorted to vampiric attacks to satisfy its grand lust for blood. Some occultists and witches who dealt with the most dangerous and negative form of magic continued to worship Crom Cruach, and Mrs Randall, the mother of the resurrected priest, had been one such worshipper, as I have mentioned. Randall boarded a ship at Dublin and sailed for Liverpool, not once coming onto the deck during the crossing, possibly because he had developed a heightened sensitivity to light. He may have stayed below deck by pretending to be ill, but when the ship arrived at Liverpool Docks it was dusk, as the ship had been delayed by a violent storm. Randall travelled through Liverpool to Manchester, and here he was said to have used a newly discovered talent for hypnosis, which he used to ‘enslave’ several women. Some versions of this tale have him living until the 1930s, when he met a gruesome death through decapitation after being involved in a car crash. Some say that Randall is buried under a false name in All Saints Cemetery, Newton Heath, Greater Manchester, and that his black marble gravestone has a cryptic symbol showing a zig-zag line enclosed in a circle with lines radiating from its perimeter – an ancient pictogram representing Crom Cruach perhaps? There is a strange epilogue to this story. In the 1960s there was a spate of ghost reports at All Saints Cemetery in which a man in a long flowing black robe was seen to fly through the air over the gravestones. A woman living 300 yards away from the cemetery on Briscoe Lane had the misfortune of seeing the ghost one night in 1967 as it looked through her bedroom window. She described the face as being of a ghastly pale colour, and she also made a very intriguing reference. She remarked that the mouth of the ghoul was red, as if it was full of blood, and there was also a deep scar that ran around the entity’s neck; the type of scar Randall could have had when they sewed his head back onto his body prior to burial perhaps? The same apparition was seen three times that month. It was seen flying over the wall of a warehouse on Oldham Road at two o’clock in the morning by a nightwatchman, and a policeman also saw the same ghost hovering at the window of an old woman’s house at on Gaskell Street at 11pm, but the most terrifying encounter allegedly took place at midnight that month when the black-robed phantom flew after a teenaged girl down Culcheth Lane at one in the morning. Frances Dawson, aged just sixteen, had lost track of time at her boyfriend’s house in the Dean Lane area, and she had pleaded with him to escort her to her home in Culcheth, just a twelve-minute walk away. Her boyfriend said he wasn’t feeling too well and Frances stormed off in a huff. As she walked down Culcheth Lane it started to rain heavily, and the girl quickened her pace, but then she realised that someone was walking behind her. She walked on, too afraid to glance back, but the footsteps behind her suddenly ceased, so the teenager thought she was now safe. Then something swooped down on her from the front. It was a grinning white-faced man in a cloak, and he hung in the air as if he was suspended by wires. Frances screamed and ran in the other direction, and as she ran along, she felt a cold hand grabbing at her hair. She was too afraid to look up but she could see the shadow of the flying assailant on the floor as she ran back to her boyfriend’s house. When she reached the house, Frances heard laughter above and then silence. She hammered on her boyfriend’s door and when his father answered the girl ran past him and hid under the stairs, sobbing. The girl’s story was not believed initially, but then the reports of the other sightings of the cloaked fiend were reported in the local papers. The parents of Frances Dawsone went to the local police station to report the weird attacker, but the sergeant there said ‘irresponsible pranksters’ were obviously to blame. How these jokers floated up to bedroom windows and sailed over twelve foot tall warehouse walls was never explained by the common-sense sergeant. The policeman who had actually seen the apparition levitate up to the window of a house was even accused of being over-imaginative. The constable insisted he had seen the entity and was not prone to imagining things, but was advised to ‘shut up’. The sergeant’s mundane mind could not take in something extraordinary, so he swept it under the carpet and ignored it. Perhaps the ghostly assailant was just the spectre of one of the many people buried in All Saints Churchyard, or perhaps the vampiric former priest Randall rose from his grave in search of blood.

  Vampires of the Road

  The lone night-driver knows only two well how the roads and highways seem so deceptive and different during the hours of darkness. The motorist’s mind after dark becomes more susceptible to fatigue – and imagination; our worst enemy at night. Some drivers combat this fear by turning on the car radio or CD. The passing landscapes of the roads, bathed in the light of the sodium roadside lamps, become quite eerie. The shadow of a gnarled oak may be perceived as the outline of something supernatural, but sometimes it isn’t all in the mind, for there are paranormal entities that haunt roadside Britain, and a few of these may be vampires.

  Union Street, in Bedford, runs close to the town’s category B prison, and at the point where this street meets Tavistock Street and Clapham Road, you will find a roundabout now exists. Beneath this roundabout lies a staked corpse: the mortal remains of a vampiric highwayman nicknamed Black Tom, who was hanged for highway robbery in 1607. Strange rumours surrounded this bandit, who earned his nickname because of his swarthy, almost yellowish-green skin and coal-black hair. Some said he was a vampire, while others believed he had sold his soul to the Devil. The authorities were warned by the superst
itious people of Bedford that Black would rise from his grave if he wasn’t staked, and so, after his body was removed to the gallows, and before a huge mob, a man approached with a large hammer and a sharpened wooden stake, four inches in diameter and almost two feet in length. He tore open the dead man’s shirt, exposing his breast, then pushed the point of the stake into the corpse’s breastbone. A volunteer held the stake in place, and the man brought down the hammer hard seven times. Blood issued from the mouth, nose, and anus of the corpse, and wind thus expelled from the stomach and intestines showered several onlookers with blood and mucous. The corpse started to shudder with post-death nerves, and it was then turned over so Black Tom faced Hell when he was lowered into his deep grave. People spat down the hole as the gravediggers tried to fill it, and that should have been the end of the demonic highwayman, but it was only the beginning. He outlived everyone who had stood at his graveside, for somehow, the highwayman who had been rumoured to thirst for blood, emerged from his grave, and was seen by many of the terrified people of the town, dressed in a long black cape with his head lolling about as he walked – probably because the hangman’s noose had broken his neck. One evening in 1608 the vampire is said to have jumped onto the back of a horse being ridden across a common by a well-to-do lady named Susanna Higgins, who was subjected to a violent attack by Black Tom. Her breasts, neck and thighs were bitten deeply, and Miss Higgins was saved by a passing gentleman named John Gibbons, who was passing in a stagecoach at the time of the assault. Gibbons gave chase but the caped assailant vanished into the dusk. The vampire attacks of Black Tom went on for over two centuries, and at one point, seven priests and a gang of local men and women even attempted to ambush the bloodthirsty highwayman so they could impale him and burn him, but he managed to run off into the night at a superhuman speed. Black Tom was seen up until the 1960s, according to the folklore of Bedfordshire, and in 1963 a motorist from St Albans named George Johnson, ran into the vampire and knocked him down. This happened during the severe winter of 1963 when Mr Johnson was driving along Bedford’s Tavistock Street towards the house of his brother-in-law on Clapham Road. The time was just after 10pm and there was a sudden heavy snowfall. The road ahead was deserted, and the windscreen of Mr Johnson’s Ford Anglia became coated with large snowflakes. The windscreen wipers were switched on, and moments later the fuzzy outline of a pedestrian came out of nowhere and hurried into the path of the vehicle. Johnson braked hard but hit the person square on. The pedestrian rolled across the bonnet of the car and up over the windscreen then the roof. Johnson saw the person slide down the rear window and into the road. He got out of his car in shock, and proceeded toward the back of the Ford Anglia. A lifeless man in a long cloak lay crumpled on the thin layer of snow on the macadam. The face of the strangely-dressed man was heavily wrinkled, and his hands looked shrivelled. As George Johnson stooped down beside the man to see if he was alive, the old stranger on the floor opened his eyes, which were startlingly bloodshot with pitch-black irises. The ghastly-looking eyes swivelled to survey Johnston, then the odd-looking man got to his feet quickly and ran off into the snowy night. When Johnson reached the home of his brother-in-law, Bob, he mentioned the bizarre heart-stopping collision with the eccentric red-eyed pedestrian, and Bob told him that the same man had been seen in the area many times over the years, and was supposed to be the vampire highwayman Black Tom. George Johnston thought about the intense unnatural redness of the old man’s eyes and the apparent advanced age of his heavily wrinkled face, and shuddered.

  In the late 1960s, two amateur ghost-hunters investigated the alleged sightings of the resurrected 17th century highwayman and came to the conclusion that the vampire had a lair in a wooded area close to the A6 motorway. A vampire hunt was planned but the authorities got wind of the ‘publicity stunt’ and cautioned the ghost investigators. Perhaps Black Tom is now resting in peace at last, as he hasn’t been seen or heard from since 1969 – or is he hibernating?

  The following strange story was related to me in September 2001 by a Liverpool comedian whom I cannot identify. He stipulated that he would only relate the full facts of the bizarre and scary tale if I would give him my word that I would never identify him. I shall therefore have to call the comedian 'Bob'.

  In the early 1990s, a popular Liverpool comedian named Bob drove up the M62 to Manchester, where he was due to perform a comedy routine as part of a cabaret show. As usual, Bob's performance was warmly received by the audience, and he decided to go back onstage for twenty minutes. While Bob performed his additional material, he noticed a beautiful-looking woman of about 25 to 30 years of age sitting at a table. She was smiling at Bob, and she reminded the comedian of a film actress named Farrah Fawcett Majors, who had enjoyed some popularity in the 1970s. After the comedy act, Bob went backstage and changed, then the manager of the club escorted him to a specially-reserved table for a meal and a drink. Just before the next performer took to the stage, Bob went over to the table were the woman was sitting alone, and he offered her to join him. The woman smiled, and accepted. She was very tall and looked even more attractive at closer quarters. She had sapphire-blue eyes, and long blonde hair. In a soft voice, she said, 'My name's Danielle.' Her accent was not a local one.

  Bob ordered champagne and was soon chatting Danielle up. The woman, however, preferred to sip mineral water. There was a stay-behind at the club, and it wasn't long before Bob and Danielle were dancing slowly as they embraced each other. Bob had learned from Danielle that her boyfriend had arranged to meet her at the club, but hadn't turned up for some reason. She had said she lived in St Helens, on the outskirts of Liverpool, and Bob said that as she had not been drinking, she could drive him home to Liverpool in his car. Danielle had said Bob could stay overnight at her home until he was fit enough to drink in the morning. At 3 a.m., Bob and Danielle left the club in Manchester and walked through the chilly night air towards the club car park. Danielle shivered in her sleeveless top, so Bob gave her his leather jacket. Minutes later the couple embarked on the return journey down the M62. Danielle had to strap Bob's seatbelt on him because he was so intoxicated. During the journey, Bob reached for the controls of the car radio, as he wanted to hear some music to pierce the deadly silence inside the vehicle, but Danielle's hand intercepted his, and so, the couple sat in silence as the car sped along the motorway.

  Bob suddenly turned to look at Danielle, and he saw something that still gives him nightmares to this day. The girl's features changed into what can only be described as a demonic face. She turned to him and her eyes turned blood red, and her mouth opened wide - twice as wide as a normal mouth - to reveal an array of long pointed teeth.

  The comedian was suddenly sober. He felt faint and breathless with the shock. The girl driving his car was some sort of supernatural entity resembling a vampiress. The thing in his driving seat screamed with laughter and suicidally zig-zagged between the lanes of the motorway. Bob was not a religious man, but he suddenly said, 'Jesus please save me.'

  The car screeched into a 180-degree turn and slid off the hard shoulder onto a slip road, where the vehicle veered into a ditch. Bob opened the door and tried to get out, but in the blind panic, he forgot to unclick his seatbelt. He shouted for help and looked at the seat beside him; it was empty, except for his leather jacket. There was no trace of the fiend that had been masquerading as a woman. The police found Bob wandering along the hard shoulder of the M62, and he related his bizarre tale, but wasn't believed. The police checked the club, and the management confirmed that Bob had left with a woman and that she had driven him home. Not one person at the club knew who 'Danielle' was and she was never seen at that club again. Bob was badly shaken by the spine-chilling incident, and has never appeared at the Manchester club since. Every so often, Bob relives the horror of the vampiric woman in his dreams, and on more than one occasion has woken up in a cold sweat. He has no idea why the entity chose him, and wonders what fate he would have met if he had not called upon Jesus to save hi
m. The case is a real puzzler. Will Danielle perform her devilish transfiguration trick on some other unsuspecting male one day? Time will tell.

  Myloch and Nesmo

  Throughout the summer and autumn of 1754, a private green lacquered horse-drawn carriage prowled Georgian London after nightfall, and its aristocratic-looking passenger was said to entice young and old women into the coach’s plush interior so he could have his wicked way with them – and this did not involve any form of sex, but the drawing of large quantities of blood from the females via their necks. The ‘gentleman’ would begin by gently kissing the necks of the females in a seductive fashion before digging his pointed incisors deep into the tissues of the neck, occasionally piercing the carotid artery – with fatal consequences. The victims of the vampiric attacks, be they alive or dead, were either dumped in a dark alleyway or thrown into the Thames. The haematophiliac (a person having a fetish for drinking blood) who was carrying out these outrageous attacks was said to be an obscure Count named Myloch who had come to London from Gratz in Styria (now a province of Austria). The reports of the aristocratic vampire died down by early December of that year, and most rational-minded people in the capital and elsewhere dismissed the stories of blood-drained women as far-fetched tales, but some claimed Count Myloch had merely left London to satisfy his blood-craving in the country villages of England. A man who was said to be an expert in Satanism believed Myloch was associated with Sir Francis Dashwood’s so-called Hellfire Club which met in the chalk-mine caves of West Wycombe. Members of this ‘club’ allegedly indulged in obscene sex orgies, Devil-worship, hedonism, alcohol and drug abuse, and other indecent activities. Almost a hundred years after the rumours of the Georgian vampire Myloch had faded into folklore, the name Myloch resurfaced in an isolated vampire report in Sussex in the summer of 1851. John Morton, a farm labourer at Pulborough, claimed his sweetheart, a 15-year-old girl named Jane Hubbard, had fought off a strange-looking attacker who had entered her bedroom at night. Jane had awakened at 1am to find a bald yellow-faced man with red eyes and pointed teeth leaning over her. As the intruder lunged forward in an attempt to bite her neck, the teenager slapped his face, grabbed a silver candlestick, and began to club his head as she screamed for help. The girl’s uncle, a muscular blacksmith named Joseph, soon entered the room and tried to tackle the weird-looking assailant, but he jumped out the open first-floor window and landed in the street below before running off at an unearthly high speed. The fiend was later identified as he passed a church by a Mrs Townsend, the local greengrocer. She had also been attacked by the man in her bedroom, and he had also attempted to rape her. The man fled when two men tried to apprehend him, and the mystery deepened when a traveller from Crowborough arrived at a lodging house in Pulborough in the August of that year. The traveller was a man of incredible tales named John Wakefield. He claimed to be a necromancer, an exorcist, a demonologist, a healer, and a hunter of vampires. Furthermore, he claimed that Count Myloch, who had once been at large in London and the Home Counties a century before, was again on the prowl in Sussex. When Wakefield heard about the bald-headed ochre-skinned ghoul described by Jane Hubbard and Mrs Townsend, he set out to hunt down the creature, convinced it was Count Myloch. Using an obscure form of divination with a device in a box that resembled a magnetic compass, John Wakefield roamed an ancient deer park on the slopes of the South Downs, until he came upon an isolated cottage. This proved to be the home of the vampire, but the bloodsucker was too quick for Wakefield, and fled into the night, but not before the vampire-hunter caught a glimpse of the bloodthirsty Austrian parasite’s face. It was the very same face Wakefield had seen a year before looking through the bedroom window of his young sister at their home in Crowborough. On that occasion, Wakefield had fired a pistol at Myloch, but he had escaped into the night unscathed. Wakefield pursued Myloch across the country as far as Kent, but the vampire managed to evade capture near Gravesend. Wakefield later claimed that Count Myloch had returned to his old prowling ground – London, and had moved into a palatial old house with another vampire – formerly a Polish man surnamed Nesmo who had committed suicide in 1823. In the early 19th century, all kinds of taboos surrounded the burial of suicides, and elaborate superstitious precautions were taken to prevent the dead person from rising as a vampire. Nesmo was buried face-down at a crossroads near Hamsptead Heath with a stake driven through his mid-section. This barbaric practice was carried out at midnight on unhallowed ground which is now bisected by Spaniards Road. Weeks after the burial, a ghastly-looking figure was seen walking like a somnambulist from the crossroads one night, and Nesmo’s grave was later found to be empty. Bodysnatchers, who had perhaps taken the corpse to sell to a medical school, were suspected, but others believed Nesmo had risen from his grave as a vampire. Strangely enough, in the 1920s, there was a gruesome but intriguing report about a group of children who would often pay a visit to the ‘vampire’s house’ – the nickname of a crumbling old mansion on the Belsize estate, within a stone’s throw of Spaniards Road. A 12-year-old child named Susan Browne was challenged by her peers to put her hand through the front-door letter box of the mansion, and so she playfully lifted the brass flap, inserted her hand into the slot – and began to scream. Moments later the girl collapsed with blood spurting from her hand. Two of her fingers were missing. They’d been bitten off at the knuckles. The police made a forced entry into the house and discovered that no one had lived in it for several years, and they found no evidence of any recent squatters.