10 Terrifying Vampire Stories For Halloween
10. The Croglin Vampire
Our first tale of terror took place between the years 1875 and 1876 at Croglin Low Hall near the picturesque village of Croglin in Cumbria. The hall was being rented by Edward, Michael and Amelia Cranswell, three Australian siblings who were visiting England. The siblings were all well liked by the locals and were enjoying their stay until a sinister chain of events began to unfold during the summer of 1875.
One night, the Cranswell brothers were awoken by their sisters screams. They charged to her aid and found her in hysterics, her bedroom window wide open. Amelia told them that she had been attacked by a creature with bony fingers that had grabbed hold of her hair and bitten her neck.
Alarmed, the Cranswell brothers called for the local doctor who assured the siblings that Amelias wounds were not serious. He also told them that a child on a local farm had suffered a similar attack recently and that the creature was probably a monkey that had escaped from a traveling circus.
Following the attack, the Cranswells travelled to Europe but returned to Croglin Low Hall the following year. Once again, the brothers were awoken by the sound of their sisters screams and raced to her bedroom. They burst into the room and this time caught a glimpse of the creature.
As Michael attended to Amelia, Edward retrieved his pistol and took chase. He fired at the creature as it attempted to flee across the Halls grounds, wounding its leg. Edward would later describe the creature as a tall and skeletally thin man wearing a long cloak. Keeping his distance, Edward followed the creature to a local churchyard and watched as it disappeared into one of the tombs.
Edward now knew that the creature that had attacked his sister was something far more evil than a circus monkey. He rallied up a group of local men and they went to the churchyard at dawn to search the tomb for what they now believed was a vampire. The men entered the tomb and reported finding a nightmarish creature with pale skin and a fresh wound on its leg. The men prepared a fire and threw the vampire into it.
Amelia Cranswell never saw the creature again but was so deeply disturbed by the attacks that she had her bedroom window at Croglin Low Hall bricked up, as it remains to this very day.