352 A TEIAD OF MEDIEVAL MYTHS. 



The Count de Salm, having been thought dead, was 

 buried alive. As night approached, great cries were heard 

 in the church of the abbey of Haute Seille ; and the fol- 

 lowing morning, his grave having been opened, the corpse 

 was found lying face downwards. Once upon a time, at 

 Bar le Due, a man having been interred, a sound was pre- 

 sently heard to come from the grave; being disinterred on 

 the day following, he was found to have eaten the flesh of 

 his arms. This man had drunk brandy to excess, and had 

 been buried as dead. Kaufft bears evidence concerning a 

 woman of Bohemia, who, in 1345, had eaten, whilst in the 

 grave, about one-half of her shroud. 



More extraordinary, and trenching more nearly on the 

 domains of pure vampiredom, is the following, narrated by 

 William of Newbridge, an English author who lived in the 

 middle of the twelfth century, and quoted by Oalmet. He 

 states that, in his time was seen, in the county of Buck- 

 ingham, a man who appeared bodily, as when alive, three 

 successive nights to his wife, and after that to his nearest 

 relatives. They could only defend themselves by watching, 

 and making a great noise when they perceived him approach- 

 ing. The creature even dared to show himself occasionally 

 in the daytime ; whereupon the Bishop of Lincoln assembled 

 his council, who told him that similar things had often hap- 

 pened in England, and that the only known remedy against 

 the evil was to catch the wandering body, and burn it. 



The bishop could not at once fall -in with this; he 

 thought the remedy cruel. He adopted another plan, and 

 it was this: Having written a schedule of absolution, he 

 placed it on the body of the corpse ; and from that time no 

 more of him was seen or heard. ' This sort of apparition 

 would appear incredible/ wrote the author, 'if several in- 

 stances had not occurred in his own lifetime, and if he did 

 not know several persons who believed in them.' 



The latter argument is ? I humbly think, irresistible. The 



