Vintage Scary Stories for the Modern Ghost Volume 2

The Tomb of Sarah

By F.G. Loring

My father was the head of a celebrated firm of church restorers and
decorators about sixty years ago. He took a keen interest in his work,
and made an especaal study of any old legends or family histories that
came under his observation. He was necessarily very well read and
thoroughly well posted in all questions of folklore and medieval legend.
As he kept a careful record of every case he investigated the manuscripts
he left at his death have a special interest. From amongst them I have
selected the following, as being a particularly weird and extraordinary
experience. In presenting it to the public I feel it is superfluous to
apologize for its supernatural character.

MY FATHER'S DIARY

1841 .--June 17th. Received a commission from my old friend Peter Grant
to enlarge and restore the chancel of his church at Hagarstone, in the
wilds of the West Country.

July 5th. Went down to Hagarstone with my head man, Somers. A very long
and tiring journey.

July 7th. Got the work well started. Be old church is one of special
interest to the antiquarian, and I shall endeavour while restoring it to
alter the existing arrangements as little as possible. One large tomb,
however, must be moved bodily ten feet at least to the southward.
Curiously enough, there is a somewhat forbidding inscription upon it in
Latin, and I am sorry that this particular tomb should have to be moved.
It stands amongst the graves of the Kenyons, an old family which has been
extinct in these parts for centuries. The inscriptaon on it runs thus:

SARAH.
1630.
FOR THE SAKE OF THE DEAD AND THE WELFARE
OF THE LIVING, LET THIS SEPULCHRE REMAIN
UNTOUCHED AND ITS OCCUPANT UNDISTURBED TILL
THE COMING OF CHRIST.
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON, AND
THE HOLY GHOST.

July 8th. Took counsel with Grant concerning the 'Sarah Tomb'. We are both
very loth to disturb it, but the ground has sunk so beneath it that the
safety of the church is in danger; thus we have no choice. However, the
work shall be done as reverently as possible under our own direction.

Grant says there is a legend in the neighbourhood that it is the tomb of
the last of the Kenyons, the evil Countess Sarah, who was murdered in
1630. She lived quite alone in the old castle, whose ruins still stand
three miles from here on the road to Bristol. Her reputation was an evil
one even for those days. She was a witch or were-woman, the only
companion of her solitude being a familiar in the shape of a huge Asiatic
wolf. This creature was reputed to seize upon children, or failing these,
sheep and other small animals, and convey them to the castle, where the
Countess used to suck their blood. It was popularly supposed that she
could never be killed. This, however, proved a fallacy, since she was
strangled one day by a mad peasant woman who had lost two children, she
declaring that they had both been seized and carried off by the
Countess's familiar. This is a very interesting story, since it points to
a local superstition very similar to that of the Vampire, existing in
Slavonic and Hungarian Europe.

The tomb is built of black marble, surmounted by an enormous slab of the
same material. On the slab is a magnificent group of figures. A young and
handsome woman reclines upon a couch; round her neck is a piece of rope,
the end of which she holds in her hand. At her side is a gigantic dog
with bared fangs and lolling tongue. The face of the reclining figure is
a cruel one: the corners of the mouth are curiously lifted, showing the
sharp points of long canine or dog teeth. The whole group, though
magnificently executed, leaves a most unpleasant sensation.

If we move the tomb it will have to be done in two pieces, the covering
slab first and then the tomb proper. We have decided to remove the
covering slab tomorrow.