The ancient red-sandstone royal burgh of Annan - named for the river on which it stands - was a stronghold of the Bruce's and the home of Robert de Brus 'The Competitor', Lord of Annandale, grandfather of Robert I, The Bruce.

Ever since the 12th century, the Bruce's considered themselves cursed. Robert Bruce believed his contracting leprosy was 'the finger of God upon me' and a consequence of the family's execration. Folklore says the bad luck came about in this way.

During his visit to the then castle-hamlet of Annan in 1138, the Irish Bishop of Armagh, Maolmhaodliog ua Morgair, named St Malachy O'More, was entertained at the Bruce's castle (the last traces of which were removed in 1875). While he ate, Malachy overheard servants speaking about a robber who was to be hanged. Malachy asked his host - the chief lawman of the district - to spare the robber, and Brus agreed to do so.

Malachy left soon after his repast and as he rode out of the town he saw the cadaver of the robber hanging by the roadside. Angered that Brus had lied to him, Malachy laid a curse on Brus, his family, and the little castle-hamlet. After Malachy died in 1148, Robert de Brus paid for lights to be maintained at the shrine of St Malachy at the monastery of Clairvaux, France, where the soon-to-be saint had died. But folklore has it that Malachy's curse was never expiated.

Another story was also associated with 'St Malachy's Curse on Annan'. Celtic myth speaks of blood-drinking spirits, even though the romanticism of the vampire is largely an eighteenth century invention, and Scottish folklore does not dwell much on the vampire of folklore even though some devotees point to Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, as the supposed birthplace of the inspiration that gave the Irish writer Bram Stoker (1847-1912) his Count Dracula.

It seems that no long after the laying of Malachy's curse the plague came to Annan, spread by a man on the run from Yorkshire. The Bruce's had given the man sanctuary, but Annan soon regretted the family's generosity as the man continued the 'wickedness' that had led him to flee, but the man succumbed to the plague.

Not long after he had been buried, locals reported seeing the man around Annan accompanied by 'a horrible crowd of dogs'. Terrified by the sight of the ambulant 'rotting corpse', the good folk of Annan sent for priests to come and cleanse the place with their prayers. Alas the plague raged, all spread, said the locals, by the undead visitation.

One evening the Bruce's were holding a banquet for the clergy visiting the burgh to drive out the plague with new prayers they had composed, when two brothers started a conversation concerning the death of their father in the plague. The upshot was that they volunteered to rid Annan of the dread monster and wreak their own revenge for their father's death.

As the banquet went on the two young men slipped out of the castle and through the silent streets of Annan to where the plague man had been buried. They resolved to disinter the cadaver and destroy it by fire, so they both set about digging.

At last they came to the body and observed that it had 'swollen with much enormous corpulence, and the face red and swollen above measure'. Yet the clothes in which the man had been buried seemed to have been cut as if the body had been trying to escape from its mortal trappings.

One of the two men could not contain his anger any longer as he remembered the fate of his father and, taking up the sharp spade with which he had dug the grave, he brought its point down upon the chest of the corpse with great force. He let free a huge issue of blood which soaked their feet as they stood in the shallow grave.

It was more blood than any human body might have contained and the two young men realised that they had disinterred a vampire still full of its victims' blood.

The cadaver was hauled out of the grave and dragged through the streets to the edge of town, where the two young men placed it on a pyre. Remembering the old superstition that the vampire could not be destroyed without removing the heart, this was done by a few deft strokes of the spade. As they tossed the heart separately into the flames the cadaver let out a huge sigh and was consumed. Thereafter Annan was never affected by the plague again.

Posted by Dracula's Guest Thu, 05/24/2007 - 11:25

 

Hunger

hunger...
the nothing feed until the nothing is
there is nothing to become something .
holes of empty last
unknown scares
my father forgot to teach me.
proud at the vicious anger of the last
passion and such as taken too much there is nothing again...
I scream
the child howels for the father that made her hunger
the father that forgot the crimson words on parted lips
"never fade my child"
kiss good night before the morning walk
alone...
bloodshot eyes
they call it rest...I know no such

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Chapter 04: Prepping the Inn

Huffing and puffing, Renfield slowly dragged the hand-cart up the pathway. It had been a while since he had to do this, and he was a bit out of shape as a result. "Why the Master just doesn't let me use some sort of 20th century automotive device to deliver this stuff, I'll never know". But he learned not to question his Master's word.

He stopped the cart in front of the doorway, and began to pull some bottles from within it. Wine bottles, to be exact, but of course his Master never drinks wine, nor do any of his guests, as far as he knows.

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Vampire Killers

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word vampire as "the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep." Since the word was first coined in 1734 the myth of the vampire has grown, entering into popular culture with the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897 and more recently through the books of Anne Rice, the most famous of which, Interview with a Vampire, was made into a film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

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Efil Retfa

The moon is full
And the wind is calm
The night has come
In all its splendour

A silent call
Across the land
Summons me
From my slumber

C
In the land of Efil Retfa
We dream. Our days have just begun
Chart the sky, to cloak the sun
Don't know where we're going
Nowhere to run

In the land of Efil Retfa
We seduce and kill beneath the moon
Serene and mad, we roam the land
Our day of judgement
Approaches soon

Come to me
My lovely child
Take my hand

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Lesbian Vampire Killers movie angers campaigners

June 12, 2008 (pink news / Sophie Picheta) -- An online group called Angry Lesbians has said it is outraged at a film that they say is derogatory to lesbians and women is being made. The film, Lesbian Vampire Killers, a "bloodthirsty romp featuring buckets of gore and plenty of bare breasts" is currently in production.

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