Alnwick Castle Vampire Legend
According to a 12th-century account by the chronicler William of Newburgh, Alnwick Castle is associated with one of England's earliest vampire legends. The story tells of a man, a servant to the lord of the castle, who died after falling from a roof while spying on his wife. After his burial, he was said to have risen from his grave as a 'revenant' or 'bloodsucker', terrorizing the local villagers and spreading a plague.
The legend of the Alnwick revenant, as recorded by William of Newburgh, tells of a corpse that was exhumed by the terrified villagers. They found the body to be bloated and engorged with blood, which they took as evidence that it had been feeding on the living. To put an end to the plague and the creature's reign of terror, the villagers had the body moved outside the town and burned. Following the destruction of the corpse, the plague is said to have ceased.
The account of the Alnwick vampire is found in the 'Historia rerum Anglicarum' (History of English Affairs) by William of Newburgh, a 12th-century historian. This makes it one of the earliest accounts of a vampire-like creature in English history. The story reflects the beliefs and fears of the medieval period, where unexplained deaths and diseases were often attributed to supernatural causes.
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Haunted hotels and accommodation near Alnwick Castle