
File No. 016 of 446
Berwick revenant
Also called: Berwick vampire
At Berwick-upon-Tweed a wealthy man's corpse was said to leave its tomb each night and run through the streets with dogs baying behind it. The townspeople feared plague more than the dead man himself, on the theory that a wandering corpse poisons the air. They had it cut up and burned, but the epidemic came regardless. The case is an early example of the link between revenants and contagion that later drove vampire panics.12
First recorded
1198
William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, written in the 1190sOrigin
Medieval English / Scottish borders
United KingdomWhat causes it
Demons or evil spirits
Newburgh attributes the corpse's movements to the working of Satan.How you become one
A rich townsman who was discovered after death to have been a rogue.
How it moves
Runs
Leaves the tomb at night and ranges through the town pursued by a pack of loudly barking dogs, returning before daybreak.Intelligence
Some intelligence
Weak spots
- dismembering the body and burning it
When did it first appear?
William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, written in the 1190s
field notes
What the sources say
Could you outrun it?
Speed class from how the sources describe it (runs), not a measurement.
You, walking about 5 km/h
You, jogging about 10 km/h
A fit adult sprinting about 24 km/h
Berwick revenant about 24 km/h
A fast cyclist about 37 km/h
Sources
- William of Newburgh, History, Book 5 - Internet Medieval Sourcebook (Fordham University)
- Elif Boyacıoğlu, 'The Revenant on the Threshold', Folklore 62 (2015)
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