ABSTRACT
“The corpses of the dead”, wrote the twelfth-century English churchman William of Newburgh, can sometimes “leave their graves and wander around”. William illustrated this unpleasant fact by recalling some recent events from Melrose Abbey in Yorkshire. The monastery had been plagued by nightly visits from the body of a dead priest, which came “groaning and murmuring in an alarming fashion”. After repeated incursions by the restless corpse, a team of clerics and “stalwart young men” kept vigil in the graveyard where the man was buried. Nothing stirred until midnight, when three of the company “went off to a nearby house to light a fire to allay the chill of the night”, leaving one priest to maintain the watch alone. The events that followed were predictably grim:
Seeing that the priest was now alone, the demon judged the time right to try to break his robust faith, and rose out of the tomb. Glimpsing the monster at a distance, the man at first froze with fear, but soon his courage returned and, with no prospect of escape, he prepared to resist the attack of the evil creature as it came towards him groaning terribly. He struck at it with the battle-axe he carried in his hand. Groaning still louder, the wounded creature turned round as suddenly as it had come, and retreated while the heroic defender chased it back to its tomb. The tomb opened to offer the creature refuge from its assailant and then closed behind it.
