20 FT389suggestions of childish inspiration from
averse inthe Book of Daniel 7:7 (“After
thisIsawin the nightvisions,and behold
afourth beast,dreadful andterrible,
and strongexceedingly; and it had great
iron teeth”) seem improbable.Blamed
more widely were the invidious effectsof
ghoulish juvenile horror comics imported
from America.Acampaign composedofan
unlikely alliance of Christians,communists
and the National Union ofTe achers blamed
this frisson-inducing literature for corrupting
Glaswegian children, sparkingacampaign
to ban horror comics,acause taken up
by Alice Cullen, MP for the Gorbals.This
resultedinParliament enacting the Children
andYo ungPersons (HarmfulPublications)
Act 1955.
Beyond these and otherexamples,
traditionsofaggressivephysical revenants
in Western Europebelong to the Middle
Ages before insensiblyvanishingaway
(althoughinthe Orthodox Christian lands
of the East fears persisted much longer).
Perhaps itwastraumaofthe Black Death of
1347-51 that finished this kind of story in
Britain. Asidefromafew folkloricfragments
from the Hebrides,and real cases of
premature burial of persons stillliving
or botchedexecutions where prisoners
revived, supposedlytrue stories ofwalking
corpses are notable by their absence.The
massiveexpansion in the use of cremation
has greatly reduced the scope for them
today.
Outside folklore andfiction, stories
featuring dead bodies rising to molest the
livingare relegated to feverish visions,drug-
induced hallucinations andbad dreams.
Nonetheless,suchvisions may have
possible paranormal content on occasions.
For instance, astory entitled ‘The Corpse
that Rose’ is recorded inLordHalifax’s
Ghost Book(1936).Its sourcewasthe
Revd RAKent, who recountedanightmare
sufferedbyhis grandfatherReginald Easton
around 1890, featuringabodyclimbing out
of its coffin. Easton dreamed of staying at
Breede Hall in Staffordshire andwalking out
to the church whereabell wastolling and a
funeral cortege approaching. On enquiring
as to the identity of the deceased, he
wastold itwashis friend Monckton of
SomerfordHall (misspelt‘Summerfordin
the text). Moved by thisnews, he joined the
service for the deceased. At its conclusion
the oldverger“ofrevolting aspect”
approached him and said, “I understand
youare Mr Monckton’s oldest friend. If this
is so,willyou lead thewaytothevault after
the service?”
Eastonagreedand accompaniedthe
pallbearers in taking the coffindowninto
thevault, descending several flights of
steps to reach where itwastobelaid.
Looking around he saw“thirty to forty
coffins of members of the family”, someof them half-broken throughageand with
skeletons spilling out. After the coffinwas
deposited, theverger suddenly rushed
away up the stairs and slammed thevault
door shut, trapping Easton inside.Easton
screamedfor help and after an hour
heardcracking noises,whichheinitially
interpretedasrescuersseekingtofree
him.To hishorror he then realised itwas
the body of old Monckton, already in a
state of decomposition, wrenching itself
from the coffin. The re-animated body
got out and tried to seize him. Easton
dodgedaround the coffin toavoid its
grasp.Aghastly pursuit began until Easton
collapsedfromexhaustion, whereupon the
corpse sprang upon him and proceeded
to sink its fingernails into his face.Easton
awokescreamingatthis point, and to
his immense relief found the sun shining
through the windows.But the next day he
learned that Monckton had died, his horrific
dream apparently coinciding with the death
or providingasymbolic forewarning.
If cemeteries inWestern societies are
relatively unhaunted nowadays, ghost
beliefs may still cluster about other dark
entrances into the earth likecaves or
tunnels.Urban myths and contemporary
superstitions can invest themwith
auspicious and frightful reputations.Agood
exampleofone suchmodern tradition
involves the supposedlyhaunted MountMA
GNUS HAGDORN
/C
RE
ATIV
EC
OMMONS
GHOSTWATCHABOVE:Amural painted by teenager Ella Bryson
to commemorate the‘GorbalsVampire’was
unveiled in 2016.LEFT:The‘vampire with iron
teeth’intheSunday Mail,26September 1954.