People may know that Count Dracula was a real person who lived in Transylvania and he is reported to have impaled his enemies heads in rows(1000 heads on both the sides of the road)
Horror: Christopher Lee in the 1958 horror film Dracula which was inspired by Bram Stoker’s novel
The Church and the Graveyard associated with Dracula by Bram Stoker was hit by land slide and bones came tumbling down the slope!
Grave danger: Human bones have crumbled off the side of the cliff where St Mary’s Church, in Whitby, stands
Goths who flocked to the graveyard because of its links to Dracula were banned from the churchyard in 2011
Story:
A historic church and graveyard which features in Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula is faced with a horror story of its own.
Human bones uncovered after a landslide last month have been washed down the cliff St Mary‘s Church stands on in Whitby after heavy rainfall.
The human remains are then being collected at the bottom of the cliff face and re-buried.
St Mary’s Reverend Canon David Smith said: ‘The cemetery has been a closed for more than a century so if any graves are exposed it’s only bones.
‘If anything is exposed we collect and reinter them in the same churchyard away from the edge.’
There are fears the cliff the church stands on will eventually collapse in years to come.
The cemetery closed in 1865 but people still use the church.
Rev. Smith said: ‘St Mary’s is the oldest building left in Whitby. It is a grade one listed building and still the parish church so it would be a loss to the community.’
I find this curious as nearly all civilizations have some things in common,Fire,Floods,Exodus and the story of Demons like Dracula.
It is believed to be a ‘deviant burial’, where people considered the ‘dangerous dead’, such as vampires, were interred to prevent them rising from their graves to plague the living.
In reality, victims of this treatment were social outcasts who scared others because of their unusual behaviour. Only a handful of such burials have been unearthed in the UK.
The discovery is detailed in a new report by Matthew Beresford, of Southwell Archaeology.
The skeleton was found by archaeologist Charles Daniels during the original investigation of the site in Church Street in the town 1959, which revealed Roman remains.
Mr Beresford said when Mr Daniels found the skeleton one of the first things he did was to check for fangs in a light-hearted way.
“In the 1950s the Hammer Horror films were popular and so people had seen Christopher Lee‘s Dracula so it would have been quite relevant,” said Mr Beresford.
In his report, Mr Beresford says: “The classic portrayal of the dangerous dead (more commonly known today as a vampire) is an undead corpse arising from the grave and all the accounts from this period reflect this.
‘The ancient Celts had hundreds of deities, but as with most cultures, they had their demons as well. Some of the Celtic “monsters” were originally gods, but were later demonized as pagan creatures when many of the Celts became Christians. But the Celtic culture has always feared an array of evil forces.
IrishCentral has hunted down the 10 most frightening of these Celtic and Irish demons and monsters.
1. Dearg Due – the Irish vampire
Yes, Dracula himself is an Irish creation (IrishmanBram Stoker created the modern image of the monster in his masterpiece novel), but there’s also a vampire that resides right smack in the middle of Ireland.
Dearg-due, an Irish name meaning “red blood sucker,” is a female demon that seduces men and then drains them of their blood.
According to the Celtic legend, an Irish woman who was known throughout the country for her beauty, fell in love with a local peasant, which was unacceptable to her father.
Dad forced her into an arranged marriage with a rich man who treated her terribly, and eventually she committed suicide.
She was buried near Strongbow’s Tree in Waterford, and one night, she rose from her grave to seek revenge on her father and husband, sucking their blood until they dropped dead.
Now known as Dearg-due, the vampire rises once a year, using her beauty to lure men to their deaths.
Not to worry, though – there is one way to defeat Dearg-due.
To prevent the undead from rising from the grave, simply build a pile of stones over her grave. No, it won’t kill her, but at least you’ll hold her off until next year!
Another legendary Irish monster is the Dullahan, a name that can be translated to “dark man.”
Often portrayed in contemporary fantasy fiction and video games, this foreteller of death is the Irish version of the headless horseman.
The Dullahan rides a headless black horse with flaming eyes, carrying his head under one arm. When he stops riding, a human dies.
Some versions of this legend say that the Dullahan throws buckets of blood at people he passes, while other say he simply calls out the name of the mortal that will soon die.
As with most evil forces, the Dullahan has a weakness – gold.
The creature is scared of the substance, so any lonely travelers this Halloween night would be wise to have some on him in case they have a run-in with this headless horror!
3. Banshee – the Irish wailing ghost
A famous Irish creature that some say teams up with the Dullahan is the Banshee.
One of the most recognizable Celtic creatures, having made a guest appearance in “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” and all, the Banshee is a female spirit whose wail, if heard outside of a house, foretells the death of one of its inhabitants.
Several versions of the Banshee legend say the feared ghost rode alongside the Dullahan in a black cart drawn by six black horses. The pair is said to whip the horses with a human spinal cord.’
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