I find it most intriguing that one England's few recorded cases of vampirism took place in the village of Drakelow. A coincidence? Only the butler knows for sure and he's not telling. ;)

One day, in 1090 AD, two peasants left the abbey village of Stapenhill for greener pastures. They decided to make a new life for themselves across the Derbyshire border in Drakelow, a village owned by a Norman knight named Sir Roger. Upset by the loss of their tenants, the good monks of Burton Abbey politely asked Sir Roger to replace them, but he refused in less polite terms. The monks appealed to St. Modweena, their patron saint, to no avail. As a last resort, they removed her relics from her shrine, laid them on the ground and threw themselves among them in ritual humiliation. St. Modweena responded -- with a vengeance.

Upon sitting down to lunch with their new neighbours, the runaways tumbled off the bench dead. Two coffins were hastily thrown together, and the dead men were carried to the Stapenhill parish church. A few Drakelow people walked to the funeral and returned home that evening. In the gathering darkness ahead they saw the two dead peasants carrying their own coffins on their shoulders. The peasants continued to tramp through the fields all night and for weeks thereafter, sometimes turning into bears and dogs. People started locking themselves in after dark, but the dead men would bang on the walls of their homes and shout, "Get a move on! Come along!"

Next came an outbreak of plague. Barricaded in their houses, the villagers of Drakelow began to die one by one. Driven to desperate measures, the only three surviving men darmed themselves with spades and crowbars, marched to Stapenhill and unearthed the two coffins. To their horror, the corpses were still fresh, and the linen cloths over their heads were stained with blood. Their heads were promptly severed from their bodies and placed between their legs. Then their hearts were ripped out, the lids nailed shut and the coffins reburied.

The three men then built a huge bonfire at the river crossing and threw the hearts into the flames. There was a great cracking sound and an evil spirit in the form of a crow flew out. The dead men ceased to walk the town and fields, the plague ended and Sir Roger formally apologised to St Modwenna. The village of Drakelow's reputation was tarnished, however, and the few who survived moved to Castle Gresley.

Though this disturbing tale was recorded in the archives of Burton Abbey about 30 years after the event, it has only recently been translated from Latin. The source of this piece is "The miracles of St Modwenna of Burton," by Robert Bartlett, Staffordshire Studies, vol. 8 (1996), who based it on a treatise on vampires that covers cases of vampirism worldwide, written in the early part of this century by Dudley Wright.

Online source: English Vampire Lore