Nightmare Now

And Then He exploded Into Bats! Medieval Undead In The UK

Episode Summary

We're back! The one about corpses clawing their way out of the earth, how frequently it happened for several hundread years in Europe, and most importantly how to put 'em back in the ground where they belong!

Episode Notes

Penguin Book of the Undead

Peter Jackson's  Dead Alive

I was half wrong about potatoes


 

  1. Spirits of malice
    1. 1009-1018 AD
    2. Brandenburg Germany formerly Wasleman 
    3. Events
      1. Priest shows up, a bunch of people chillin in the cemetery, dying to get in
      2. Priest doesn’t recognize anyone, strange for 1010s because it wasn’t exactly a melting pot
      3. When he gets inside he sees some lady that recently died, she is telling him all his stuff is taken care of but he’ll be dead soon. 
      4. Dignitaries and guards also saw ghosts holding candles and praying
      5. They vanished when the observers got close though
    4. Later
      1. Bishop here was made aware of the scenario and was like you need to stay there and cleanse the place. 
      2. He sleeps there and ghosts toss him out on his cot
      3. Bishop says do it again or no balls
      4. This time at midnight the ghosts lifted up his bed and dropped him on the altar and immolated him, he was covered in holy water and gear but they didn’t care.
      5. They burned his body “until only fine ashes remained.”
      6. “As the day is conceded to the living, so the night is the dominion of the dead.
  2. The Blackened hearts of Stapenhill
    1. Sometime between 1118 and 1150 somewhere in Anglo Norman England
    2. Abbot Geoffrey of burton writing about saint Modwenna
    3.  What happened
      1. 2 shmucks defending the monks at the monastery decided that wasn’t good enough
      2. Monks steal their crops to get them to come back 
      3. They flip out with the count and attack the granaries
      4. Then the count sends knights to destroy the monastery’s crops.
      5. Monks+ abbot knew they’re trying to get them to fight back and get killed
      6. Instead chill in the church and moan at saint Modwenna’s bones.
      7. Insane battle scene where 10 holy knights fought off sixty of the counts men when they didn’t get the don’t fight memo in a ridiculous slapstick battle. w/ power of god.
      8. The two flunkies that started this whole thing just died immediately
      9. They’re buried that night but seen the next dusk carrying their own coffins around/ bears, dogs, or other animals
      10. They brought ghost plague and they were so ugly everyone died (minus 3)
      11. The count says screw that and repents 
      12. The other three including Drogo ( the money man) didn’t die but fell ill
      13. With the monks they dug up the rapscallions and found their face linens covered  BLOOD 
        1. Creepy pasta is not new See above where (this definitely happened bro trust me)
      14. Time to rebury them
        1. Cut off the heads
        2. Stick them between the legs/aka up the a**
        3. Rip out the heart like Mola ram
        4. Cook it until it pops and a bunch of crows fly out
      15. No more ghosts, no more sickness
      16. They all left for the next town over and abandoned the city.
  3. THE EVIL WELSHMAN
    1. 1140-1208
    2. Wales
    3. Walter map wrote this in “on the trifles” a satire of oral sources and historical narratives
    4. What happened
      1. Trust me bro
      2.  Will Laudun was a knight
      3. Some evil Welshman died and rose up 4 days later, this apparently doesn’t warrant explanation, nor does it merit more than a cursory glance, it wasn’t just Jesus, you could be a welsh prick and just show up
      4. So they kill him again in one sentence, chop off his head with a shovel and hose him down with holy water, I need to get hosed down with holy water after that googling. But that didn’t cut it. A phantom showed up, but without a zombie
      5. The phantom challenges William by calling his name 3 times and will follows the demon back to it’s tomb
      6. Are we demon’s bloody Marys?
      7. Will cuts off the ghost demons head, and it falls back into the grave
      8. Everyone that was sick heals, “We know for certain the outcome of this case, but we do not know the cause.”
  4. Rampaging revenants
    1. 1130-1200
    2. William of Newburgh collected tales for the history of English affairs
    3. “Numerous examples from our own time are at hand and testimonies of the fact are abundant” -on corpses walking the earth. Trust me bro my cousin hunter saw it it’s totally real. 
    4. Buckingham county
    5. What happened:
      1. Big fat guy dies, next night he shows up in his wife’s bedroom and almost crushes her under his prodigious girth, 2 nights in a row.
      2. 3rd night he shows back up but she's having a slumby with some townsfolk and they tell him to get the heck out and he leaves
      3. Same happened with the guys brothers but they also warded him off.
      4. Next the whole town is on watch while this left for dead 2 boomer waddles around trying to squash people eventually in broad daylight. 
      5. Invisible to some people but they could still hear and presumably smell him
      6. The townsfolk talk to the local priest, he sends it up the chain and the bishop is like f**k, another one? We get these all the time, all over England. Ya gotta burn him
      7. The priest thinks that’s icky so writes him a nice letter of absolution, opens the grave and puts it on him and reburies the tomb. This ends the rampage
    6. What else happens?
      1. In a different part of England, because this was so common an occurrence: A wicked wealthy man had died, and like the rest of them, he casually got up and literally I quote from the historical text: “Pranced hither and thither, accompanied by loudly barking dogs” 
      2. He terrified his neighbors and went back to his tomb at the crack of dawn
      3. The townsfolk describing this are my favorite characters in the whole podcast, except maybe Robert Liston, time me gentleman still makes me chuckle
      4. I picture Monty python commoners delivering the hither and thither lines and “We fear we may be beaten black and blue by this undead monster” and what I think is hilarious besides the obvious of that is theirs no description of the man or his howling hellhounds
      5. 10 of the bravest village people, dug up the guys corpse, ripped him limb from limb and burned the pieces 
      6. Next evil spirits made everyone sick. Definitely not from ripping apart a week old corpse. 
    7. WHAT NEXT?
      1. Another dies, this time a priest that hunts with dogs 
      2. Starts haunting the church with a quote “Great groaning and hideous murmuring” 
      3. Monks don’t care because they kick ass for the lord 
      4. He haunts his old mistress, she tells the monks to do something
      5. 4 monks stake out the tomb and it’s all quiet. When 3 are asleep he crawls from the grave
      6. Monk freezes and gets his courage back, buries a battle axe in him and the monster fled away, though not as quickly as it had came, you know on account of the battle axe.
      7. The tomb eats it, they dig it up he’s covered in gore
      8. What next, I’ll give you three guesses they rip him up and burn him
      9. “I have told this story in plain language, exactly as I  heard it myself from devout men”
    8. WHAT NEXT
      1. Happened at castle anatis
      2. An evil wealthy man Becomes lord of the castle
      3. He increased his vices instead of trying to go clean whatever that means, he got a wife 
      4. Heard rumors she was a hoor, servant helps him sneak into his own bedroom, sees her getting railed  by the neighbors Teenager. 
      5. He faints the teen takes off, she’s like honey what a terrible dream you had.
      6. Fainting back then basically meant you died the next day so the priest that told William this story showed up to give him his last rites and he says wait till tomorrow then croaks without them.
        1. There's cool shit about medieval times like sword fighting and feastsOf course, get this, he wakes up dead. Dogs show up and start screamin
      7. Everyone feared being beaten black and blue
      8. The dead man cause another plague
      9. Many people died many left
      10. Two brothers, whose father had died of corpse breath, decided to take action into their own hands while everyone else was doing palm Sunday
      11. They uncovered the corpse “Swollen to an enormous size, its face bloodied and bloated beyond measure
      12. They stabbed it with the shovel unleashing a never ending torrent of blood
      13. They take it out rip it apart, cook the heart and roast the body
      14. All the disease and stuff stopped
      15. “Now that I have explained these events let us return to the course of history”
      16. That’s just in a history book more or less. Crazy
  5. In conclusion
    1. I wonder if there's anything to this
    2. Some of the articles refer to this never happening before or since
    3. It’s so funny how stuff says the same and all the horror tropes are thousands of years old
    4. Why don't these stories pop up today? Are they fake or was this really everyday life back then?