Zombies From History E-Book

Geoff Holder

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 170

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Full details of where to find – and how to kill – all of Britain's most historic zombies. Fact files on the undead in history, including Roman revenants, people who were buried alive and some resurrected royal corpses! High-profile targets including Jane Austen, Henry VIII, Richard III and William Shakespeare. Are you worried about the zombie apocalypse? Kept awake imagining you'll only manage to take out a few before that chap at No. 9 gets you? Well, fret no more! Clasp a copy of this book and get a better class of horrible death from one of Britain's best-loved historical legends. With full zombie-hunting details – including the locations of tombs, any wounds and weaknesses and a carefully calculated difficulty rating – no apocalyptic history lover should leave home without it!

Leseprobe

To Cate, who came up with the idea.

For more on the strange and grotesque books written by the author, go to www.geoffholder.com

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Introduction

Anti-Zombie Weapons

Defending the Body

Zombies from History

Boudica

St Patrick

King Arthur

Alfred The Great

Cnut

Macbeth

William I

William Rufus

Thomas Becket

Llewellyn The Great

William Wallace

Edward I

Edward II

including Britain’s Best Anti-Zombie Castles

Robert the Bruce

Edward

Wat Tyler

Henry IV

Owain Glyndwr

Henry VII

Anne Boleyn

Henry VIII

Mary I

Mary

Sir Francis Drake

Elizabeth I

Guy Fawkes

William Shakespeare

Pocahontas

Sir Walter Raleigh

James I

Oliver Cromwell

Charles II

Nell Gwynn

Captain Kidd

Sir Isaac Newton

Rob Roy

Dick Turpin

Dr Johnson

Robert Burns

Horatio Nelson

Jane Austen

William Burke

Mary Shelley

The Duke of Wellington

Charlotte Brontë

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Charles Dickens

Charles Babbage

Charles Darwin

Karl Marx

Jack the Ripper

Lewis Carroll

Oscar Wilde

Queen Victoria

Florence Nightingale

W.G. Grace

T.E. Lawrence

Bibliography

Zombie Credits

Colour Section

Harold II

Richard III

Napoleon III

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

‘That rather terrible thing which there is in every photograph: the return of the dead.’

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucinda (2000)

‘Power is possible only if death is no longer free; only if the dead are put under surveillance.’

Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death (2000)

The Walking Dead. Walkers. Biters. Eaters. The Infected. The Contaminated. The Re-animated. Revenants. The Living Dead. Whatever you want to call them, the zombie apocalypse is coming. You know it, I know it.

So, faced with the inevitable, what do you do? Do you wait until that dull bloke from No.37 is lurching through the French windows? Or do you step up, take some pride in your actions, and take out some of history’s big guns before you are finally eaten? If the latter, then you are in the right place. For, nestled within these pages, are the secrets of sixty high-value targets from Britain’s illustrious (and ignoble) past. The good and the great mix with famous criminals, rebels and pirates. Do you itch to take on one of the grandees of nineteenth-century literature, or test yourself against an axe-wielding medieval bampot? Wrestle with Nelson? Battle with Boudica? Then here, friend, is your opportunity. Where they are buried, what wounds and weaknesses they bear, height, age, difficulty level – everything the fully prepared and thoughtful zombie hunter needs to know.

Other considerations will of course preoccupy you. Where will you have the maximum effect, for instance? The obvious answer would be Westminster Abbey, as eleven of our sixty notables are buried there. Thus, should your chosen target refuse to re-animate for some reason – possibly because they can’t find their head – then you have a multiple choice of consolation prizes. Both Canterbury Cathedral and Winchester boast three of our distinguished dead, while London’s Kensal Green Cemetery has two, as does Windsor Castle (Henry VIII and Queen Victoria) and St Paul’s Cathedral (and what two – Wellington and Nelson). The others are scattered the length and breadth of these isles – although, sadly, some graves remain merely speculative to this day. Such is the nature of the ancient dead. At the very least, the zombie apocalypse should solve a whole series of historical conundrums, including the final resting places of such notables as Macbeth, Wat Tyler, Owain Glyndwr or Oliver Cromwell, not to mention a certain Jack, nicknamed the Ripper.

Contemporary zombie culture did not start with Night of the Living Dead. The dead have been returning for centuries. This book is peppered with accounts of those who were declared dead but yet lived; those who survived the hangman’s noose or were buried alive; and descriptions of bog bodies, preserved corpses and mummified remains. Should you wish to install yourself in a defensive position, you will also find a guide to the best castles in Britain for that purpose. In addition, there are juicy bits of folklore, tall tales and unlikely legends concerning the walking dead, most taken from contemporary accounts that stretch back more than 1,000 years.

Warning: due to a lack of time, resources and inclination, no Health and Safety Reports or Statutory Risk Assessments have been produced for any of the sixty encounters outlined here. Ancient remains should be considered a biohazard, and may act as vectors for disease-carrying bacteria, insects and worms. Barrier protection and filter masks are recommended at all times, not to mention a strong stomach. Proceed at your own risk. In addition, the publishers cannot be held responsible if, having followed the advice in this book, you still end up being killed and eaten.

‘An apocalypse isn’t meant to be polite.’

Tony Wilson (1977)

‘The control of corpses is always simultaneously about the social production of life; this is the underlying dualism that continues to haunt us so provocatively and which sustains these kinds of interrogations of the newly dead, of corpses, of our humanity and animality, the sacred and the secular, the humane and the hereafter, disgust and the erotic, sovereignty and power … Corpses do matter.’

Deborah Posel & Pamila Gupta, The Life of the Corpse (2009)

ANTI-ZOMBIE WEAPONS

It may seem obvious, but it’s worth remembering that zombies are not like you or me, especially when it comes to pain. They don’t pay attention to mere flesh wounds. Damage to a major limb or organ will stop you in your tracks; to the shuffling undead, it’s just an inconvenience. What you’re looking for, then, is something that can cause maximum trauma to the zombies’ Achilles heel: the neck and head area. Yes, I know in the movies and games the small packs of surviving humans take out the zombie hordes with everything from automatic weapons and grenades to flamethrowers and RPGs, but you have to ask yourself: (a) how are you going to get hold of such armaments, and (b) would you know how to use them anyway? In real life, head-shooting a moving target is not an easily acquired skill. A much more realistic scenario is that you defend yourself with whatever weapons you can scrounge or improvise. A good place to start, therefore, would be your local castle or museum, where they may well have an armoury stuffed with the kind of sharp pointy things that will be of utility to your cause. Zombies beware: we’re going to get medieval on your derrière.

Pole Weapons

Forget daggers and knives: you require something with leverage, that is, a blade at the end of a long handle, so that the momentum of the swing adds to the cutting power of the blade. Look for pole arms such as:

Halberd: an axe-blade, hook and spike at the end of a 6ft-long pole. Its kissing cousin, the pollaxe, has a smaller axe or hammerhead.

Glaive: similar to a halberd, but with just a single-edged cutting blade. Not as effective as its cousin the voulge, which has a more ‘meat cleaver’ appearance, ideal for hacking and chopping.

Bill or billhook: where the cutting blade is long and curved.

Lochaber axe: a type of Scottish halberd, with a long scythe-like blade.

Advantages: they keep the zombies 6ft away from you. And they’re excellent for neck severing.

Disadvantages: all require a two-handed swing, so you can’t otherwise defend yourself. Plus the effort required is very tiring.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: between and .

Axes, Maces and Mauls

Generally, these weapons have shorter hafts than pole weapons, so while they are easier to smash and bash with, you have to get in closer, thus risking close-combat wounds (not to mention stinking zombie-breath). Mauls are essentially war-hammers, while maces are little more than clubs – for maximum damage, seek out maces with metal ridges, spikes or flanges. Battle-axes, however, are the business: you can split a zombie skull in one blow.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: maces and mauls: ; battle-axes: .

Swords

Not as effective as you might think, being designed for slashing and stabbing rather than chopping and decapitation. One exception: the Samurai sword, where the quality and sharpness of the steel is so great that – with sufficient power put into your two-handed swing – you could cut a zombie in half.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: swords in general: ; Samurai sword: .

Bows

If you’re not already a skilled archer, the zombaclypse is probably not the time to take up the bow, as it’s the very devil to learn to use accurately, especially if your target is the head, the hardest part of the body to aim for. The same applies to crossbows, which are a shorter-range weapon (but with extra punch). A crossbow bolt to the chest is not a zombie-killer, however, and by the time you’ve slowly reloaded your weapon, well, let’s just say you might have more problems than just an awkward winding mechanism. N.B.: all medieval bows in collections are too fragile to be any use, so don’t bother.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: 0 (unless you have a modern sports bow, and you know how to use it, in which case or ).

The New-Fangled Alternative

You could, of course, simply pop along to your nearest DIY barn, where there will be a selection of wood-splitting axes complete with lightweight but sturdy fibreglass handles, soft grips and steel heads. All will make for fine two-handled weapons, although sadly B&Q don’t seem to stock the modern equivalent of voulges or halberds. A chainsaw could come in handy, although you’re going to be up close and personal before you can use it (remember also to read the instructions and keep your hands behind the guard). Another good place would be the kind of family ironmongery business or traditional agricultural suppliers that are, sadly, increasingly hard to find these days. Should you locate such a gem, it will supply you with a veritable cornucopia of improvised anti-personnel devices. Rivet a razor-sharp scythe blade to a long pole, for example, and you’re laughing.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING: between and , depending on whether items are in stock (‘we’re expecting a delivery on Tuesday…’); quality; and your own ingenuity. N.B.: don’t bother with the extended warranty.

DEFENDING THE BODY

Zombies want to sink their teeth into you; it therefore makes sense to protect your skin.

Full-body metal armour

Advantages: excellent barrier protection.

Disadvantages: (a) it’s heavy and awkward; (b) helms with the visor down have very little visibility; (c) if you fall over, you’re not getting up again.

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING:

Motorcycle clothing

Advantages: much of today’s high-end anti-abrasion motorcycle clothing is reinforced with polyurethane armour at the elbows, knees, shoulders and shins, and some have stretched Kevlar fabric. Add a solid helmet and you’re temporarily zombie-proof.

Disadvantages: hot and sweaty. But what do you want to be: stinky, or dead?

ANTI-ZOMBIE RATING:

I’d say that the ideal would be a combination of motorbike gear, voulge, Samurai sword and hardware-store axe. Plus, you will look way cool.

And finally: a few useful locations for gathering your anti-zombie arms and armour

Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire

The British Museum (especially for Samurai swords)

Culzean Castle, Ayrshire

Inverarary Castle, Argyll

Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds

The Tower of London

The Wallace Collection, London

Warwick Castle

Windsor Castle

York Castle Museum

A Hunter’s Guide

ZOMBIES FROM HISTORY

BOUDICA,

QUEEN OF THE ICENI

AD ?–60/61

Height: A Roman writer who lived long after Boudica’s time described her as ‘very tall’. There are no eyewitness accounts of her true appearance.

Age at death: Unknown, but she had two daughters who were in their teens at least.

Special skills: Fury, vengeance, mass destruction and slaughter. After her husband’s death, her daughters were publicly raped and she was whipped. In retaliation, Queen Boudica marshalled up to 100,000 members of the Iceni and their neighbouring tribe, the Trinovantes, and annihilated the Roman cities of Colchester and London, leaving behind a layer of burnt ash so extensive it is still known to archaeologists as ‘the Boudica deposit’. The tribes also cut a legion to pieces near Cambridge, and attacked St Albans, home of the Iceni’s hated neighbours the Catuvellauni – an act not of war but of ethnic cleansing.

What killed her? The over-confident Celtic army made the mistake of taking on the Romans in open battle: perhaps 80,000 Britons died, the greatest one-day slaughter until the First World War. One source says Boudica committed suicide, another that she sickened and died. Much more likely is that she was one of the piles of nameless dead.

Where is she buried? Well she’s not buried between platforms 9 and 10 at King’s Cross Station, as that is a modern myth. No-one even knows where the final battle took place. Leading candidates include Atherstone (Warwickshire), and Paulerspury or Church Stowe (both Northamptonshire). The best chance, I suggest, would be to team up with other zombie hunters and stake out each site. With luck, one of you will encounter thousands of hacked-off Celtic warriors.

Weaknesses and wounds: Most of the Britons were killed with javelins or short stabbing swords, so she may be in a bad way.

Extra facts and zombie quotes: Bad-ass Boudica was responsible for ending anywhere up to 70,000 Roman lives.

Difficulty rating:

Historical disclaimer: If Boudica died in the battle there was probably no burial, as the standard rite at the time was excarnation – the bodies lying exposed to the elements and birds until only the bones were left to be scattered elsewhere. So maybe there is no body to reanimate.

ANCIENT REVENANTS?

Archaeologists have uncovered many burials from the Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods (fifth to eleventh centuries) in which the corpse has been treated unusually. Known as ‘deviant burials’, examples include decapitation (often with the skull placed at the feet or between the legs); prone (laid face down); bound, or pinned down under heavy stones. It is of course difficult to reconstruct the beliefs of the ancient people who did this to the bodies. Probably many of the burials were of the ‘despised’ – criminals or captured enemies – and this was a way of dishonouring the dead. This is likely when we look at heads that had been cut off from behind – the typical arrangement in a beheading execution. But many of the heads had been removed not only after death, when the blood had stopped pumping, but also from the front, with great care taken to work through the vertebrae.

The other likely possibility is that some of these rituals were designed to prevent the dead from physically returning. An elderly woman in a Romano-British burial at Guilden Morden, Cambridgeshire, had her coffin opened after death, her body partially burned in the grave, and her head cut off and placed at her feet. In a very old legend from County Derry, the evil tyrant Abhartach is buried standing up, as befits a chieftain. However, being a dread magician, he rises from his grave. Having been ‘killed’ and buried again, he once more quits his grave to menace the locals. This time, however, he is despatched with a sword, and then buried upside down, which seals his fate and he is never seen again above ground. Abhartach is usually described as a dwarf; it may be significant that some of the skeletons in the ‘deviant burials’ showed signs of physical disfigurement or disability, factors which in life may have marked them as ‘uncanny’. To give but one example: in a late Roman cemetery in Poundbury, Dorset, a child who had been born deaf was buried face down.

Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs about the abilities of the dead continued long after England had been notionally Christianized. In the 990s Christian priests were specifically banned from conducting rituals to make corpses speak and reveal secrets of the future or the location of buried treasure. This sin of necromancy was still being forbidden in the eleventh century, which shows it remained in practice.

Above all, there is a fear that the body will literally walk after death. A man left face down in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Cambridge had had his feet cut off after death but before burial. These deeply held notions retained their grip for centuries, and in some parts of neighbouring Lincolnshire it was commonplace in the nineteenth century to tie the toes of a corpse together. The belief in prone burials for potentially dangerous individuals – the idea being that if the corpse did re-animate, it would only burrow further into the earth – persisted even longer. As late as the First World War there was an example of British troops burying a German soldier face down in the Flanders mud.

ST PATRICK,

PATRON SAINT OF IRELAND

?–493. MAYBE.

Height: Unknown. Patrick is probably the most famous person in Irish history, yet he is utterly obscure. Most of the things many people think they ‘know’ about him are later traditions. Or, to put it another way, they’re made up.

Age at death: Unknown.

Special skills: What skills do you need to convert a hostile nation of pagans? Perhaps a personality with a bit of grit, not to mention the ability to outfox, browbeat and co-opt a cluster of local Dark Age warlords.

What killed him? Unknown.

Where is he buried? That absolutely reliable source – tradition – says Patrick died at or near Saul, on the coast of County Down, where an enormous statue of him now stands. The remains were then allegedly interred at the site of what is now Down Cathedral in Downpatrick. In the twelfth century a freebooter named John de Courcy undertook his own Norman Conquest of Ulster, and ‘miraculously’ located the bones of the saint. The site swiftly became a destination for pilgrims, which was handy for anyone interested in increasing their personal revenue stream; such as, say, the local Norman landowner. De Courcy’s reliability can be judged by his claim that he had also installed at Downpatrick the bones of Ireland’s two other great saints, St Brigid (died perhaps around AD 524) and St Columba (died AD 597). Three for one! The pilgrims must have loved that. A large stone in the grounds of Down Cathedral, inscribed with the word ‘Patric’, was only installed in 1900.

Weaknesses and wounds: Unknown.

Extra facts and zombie quotes: St Patrick supposedly banished snakes from Ireland. So if you want to flush the herpetophobe holy man out, it might be worth taking a grass snake or two with you. (N.B. It’s probably not a good idea to use adders.)

Difficulty rating:

Historical disclaimer: It seems unlikely that Downpatrick holds the bodies of three saints, or even just of Patrick. However, if by any chance a trio of Dark Age icons do emerge from the ground, all carrying giant staves, don’t call us to complain – we’ll be too busy fending off our own historical anomalies.

KING ARTHUR,

BRITISH LEGEND

?–?

Height: Unknown.

Age at death: Unknown.

Special skills: If there ever was an Arthur – which is not certain – then he was a fighting man and a leader. The earliest account, written in the ninth century, calls Arthur dux bellorum (war commander) and states that he fought twelve battles against the Saxons and others in the sixth century. Arthur may not even have been a king, just a local warlord or chieftain. Then again, nobody really knows.

What killed him? He probably died in an obscure skirmish, but one of the more popular legends tells how Arthur fought and killed his bitter incest-derived son Mordred, only to be fatally wounded himself. The final battle is often said to have been at Camlann, wherever that is (there are at least a dozen candidates).

Where is he buried? Well, the monks of Glastonbury claimed to have located his body within their abbey in the twelfth century, but that was just a bit of local flim-flam with an eye to pilgrims’ purses. Several locations in England, Wales and Scotland all claim to be his true burial place. The orthodox view is that, having returned Excalibur to some kind of water goddess, Arthur was taken by barge to the Isle of Avalon, a mystical paradise where his wounds were healed, and from where he will return at the time of England’s greatest crisis. And if a zombie apocalypse isn’t a crisis, I don’t know what is.

Weaknesses and wounds: