The Mysterious Vampyre of Croglin Grange
Empire, when the beast was found, it appeared the person had just died and the body was filled with fresh blood. This vampyre's body was shriveled, yet it did have the gunshot wound. And, the body was not subject to a wooden stake, nails or anything invasive. It was simply burned.
Consider the possibility that something did, in fact happen in the 1600s and was handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition. When stories are told and retold, some people decide to add twists to the original story to make it more exciting. Or facts can become muddled and changed. It's akin to the children's game of "whisper down the alley." One child whispers something into another's ear, then what is apparently heard is repeated until the last child hears it. When the last child tells what has been heard, the results are amusing because it is rarely what the initial child said.
It is possible that Varney's author heard the legend and decided to write about it as a Penny Dreadful. It could be that Hare either read this book and copied its ideas or, independently heard about the legend and wrote his own account of it.
It is unfortunate that no one, when Hare's book was published thought to investigate and question the villagers about the event. The Cranswells could still have been alive and traced. Usually, in this paranormal literature at the time, people names were not used, but referred to Mr. Mrs. or Miss C or by initials only without a title or given pseudonyms.
And, all of this compounds the mystery of the vampire of Croglin Grange....
The Vampire of Croglin Grange: www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/legends/groglin.html
The Vampire of Croglin Grange: http://outer-rim.|web.net/mythos/20ubi.h...
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