The Vampire of Croglin Grange

Late in the 17th century, there was a town called Croglin Grange (in Cumberland County, England). It's been said by some that the town was visited by a vampire... and the young lady in the tale barely escaped with her life.

A one-story home in Croglin Grange was rented to a two brothers and their sister. One summer night, when the heat from the day still clung to the air, the sister was looking out her window at the stars. It was too hot to sleep. Suddenly, she noticed two lights that flickered in and out of the group of trees that lay beyond her window.

She watched the lights as they emerged from the trees. She had a sense of something dark and foreboding. Frightened, she ran to the door.

As she unlocked the door, she heard scratching at the window, and then pecking, as though someone were trying to get inside. With a start she realized that fingers were unpicking the lead from the window. The window glass crashed crashed into the room and the creature climbed in.

Long bony fingers twisted in her hair as she felt teeth pierce her neck. She screamed aloud. Her scream woke her brothers and they scrambled to break down the locked door to her bedroom to come to her aid. By the time the brothers got through the door, the sister was already unconscious on the bed, and the creature had fled. Although one brother gave chase, the creature eluded him.

The family moved away to help the sister to heal; seven years later they returned to face their demons. That March, the sister heard scratching again at the bedroom window. She screamed as loudly as she could.

One brother managed to wound the creature in the foreleg with a pistol but the creature still escaped into an old family crypt that had been in Croglin Grange for centuries.

The next day one of the brothers summoned everyone in Croglin Grange to the crypt and opened the vault. Inside, all coffins but one had been broken. One was intact with only the lid skewed to one side. Within, the townspeople found a withered, mummified corpse with a fresh bullet wound in the foreleg.

Disturbed, the villagers removed the corpse and burnt it atop a pyre; and the vampire of Croglin Grange was no more.

© Angie McKain