THE DENT VAMPIRE

If you should find yourself in the picturesque village of Dent in Cumbria, formerly of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is probable, unless you happen to be an obsessive Goth, that the phenomenon of vampirism will not be uppermost in your mind. And yet a story concerning an episode in this village’s history purports to document the refusal of one its members to lie quietly in his allotted portion of God’s acre. It is all said to have taken place some three centuries or so ago, although I cannot, of course, vouch for the veracity of what has been written on the subject. I am not that old.
Unlike most contemporary vampiric tales, which tend to be centred upon some insufferable angst-ridden teen, Dent’s vampire was said to be rather older. George Hodgeson appeared quite unremarkable, but for one thing: his great age. This wizened old farmer had been born during the reign of the first King James in 1621, and having led what was said to have been a blameless life, passed away in 1715 at the age of 94, not long after the first King George had come to the throne. Having always lived in Dentdale, he was buried that year in the parish churchyard, but it was not long before certain strange and dark rumours began to circulate concerning the deceased: a number of folk swore that they had subsequently seen him in the village, and further afield in Dentdale. Some were of the opinion that it was his spirit that now wandered, whereas others were convinced that it was his undead body that had physically hauled itself from its grave back into the land of the living.
Tongues began to wag. Tales began to be told. Hodgeson’s reputation underwent a bizarre transformation. One man, who claimed to have been one of Hodgeson’s friends, avowed that the old man had drunk a daily glass of sheep’s blood, whereas a neighbouring farmer had an even more damning story to tell. His claim was that George was a shapeshifter, able to transform himself, rather like Mrs Mothersole in M.R. James’s ‘The Ash Tree’, into a hare. In support of this latter assertion he recounted an incident from some years earlier. It just so happened that he had shot a black hare, and having failed to kill the creature followed its trail of blood right to George Hodgeson’s door. Peering through his neighbour’s window he witnessed something most unexpected: the householder absorbed in the work of dressing a gunshot wound. The explanation, for him at least, was clear - witchcraft!
By now thoroughly unsettled, the good citizens of Dent convened a meeting. A decision was reached: George Hodgeson’s body would be exhumed. It is not recorded how long after his death the exhumation is said to have taken place, but his remains were found to lack the normal signs of corruption: the corpse’s skin was ‘pink and healthy’, and both his nails, and his hair, had grown. He was, they concluded, ‘undead’, and so they did what they believed they had to: George was buried at the church door with a brass stake driven through his chest. This, it seems, proved sufficient to prevent him from walking again, for there have been no subsequent sightings of the vampire of Dent.
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