Despite its small population, Whitby has several claims to fame in addition to serving as inspiration for Stoker - including being the home of the 18th century explorer and voyager Captain James Cook.
Whitby?s connection with the mystic and supernatural dates back over a thousand years and was likely to be one of the reasons Stoker made Whitby his home while he pursued his passion for paranormal research and of course writing.
Even today, Whitby?s connection with the supernatural is a powerful draw for many.
Whitby was home to Caedmon, one of the earliest known English poets, who was said to have been given the gift of poetry after having an angelic vision. St. Hilda, the founder of Whitby Abbey, was said to have had her destiny foretold at her birth and is associated with many supernatural abilities.
Ancient Energy Lines
Many observers have pointed out that a mass of Ley lines all converge at Whitby. Ley lines are associated with carrying all kinds of psychic energy and of retaining the memory of past events. These energy lines are still mapped with ancient marker stones that to the untrained eye appear to be dotted across the moors, and endow the town with a supernatural quality and strange energy all of its own.
The presence of so many Ley lines has prompted some researchers to suggest that when Stoker wrote Dracula he was using his own psychic energy to tap into this accumulation of ancient energy. To some, Dracula is more than just a random novel; it is the expression of Stoker?s encounter with the psychic energy that he had immersed himself in. By surrounding himself with such a highly charged energy, he quite literally brought his years of painstaking research into the supernatural to life. Fact, fantasy, myth, legend and lore became one in Whitby.
It is easy to see how the backdrop of Whitby with its tough whaling community, remote location and rich history would provide a powerful atmosphere and source of creative inspiration that Stoker could tap into. When you combine that with the latent psychic energy that accumulates here, in many respects it is the zenith of the Ley network in the area. It is both the last point of land before the lines head out to sea and equally the first piece of land that incoming energy encounters. Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the legend of the vampire came to life so vividly here. Few would deny that the energy in Whitby is different in some indefinable way.
Enter the Vampire
Those familiar with the novel will recall how Count Dracula leapt ashore from a ghost ship, the Russian Schooner, ?Demeter? in the form of a dog (one of the many forms into which a vampire could transform itself) and sped up the 199 steps to St. Mary's church graveyard. St Mary?s church graveyard is assumed of course to be inspiration for the graveyard where Stoker's ill-fated character Lucy is first seduced by the undead Count.
"But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below ... and running forward, jumped from the bow on to the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier ... it disappeared in the darkness."
Count Dracula had set up temporary court in the heart of Whitby.
Stoker based the idea of the ghost ship on a Russian schooner called ?Demitrius?, which was shipwrecked off the Whitby coast in 1885, about five years before Stoker visited the town. Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent almost a decade researching European folklore and vampire legends and was looking for a temporary home where he could channel that knowledge into a story, Whitby proved to provide both location and inspiration for that need. The novel is actually written as a collection of diary entries, telegrams, and letters from the characters, as well as fictional clippings from the Whitby and London newspapers revealing a remarkable tale of an evil that invades their lives and threatens to prey upon the citizenry of Victorian London.
It is still a popular pastime amongst young children visiting the town to wander around the small graveyard and try to guess which of the anonymous tombs, their inscriptions eaten away by driving winds and salt air, belongs to Dracula and his brides.
The History of Whitby Abbey
The ruins of Whitby Abbey stand rather ominously atop the steep cliffs that themselves loom over Whitby. Looking at the Abbey?s tumultuous past, it?s easy to see why Stoker felt it was the perfect inspiration for his Transylvanian vampire. Death and intrigue seem to have played a powerful role in the shaping of the area for well over a thousand years. Those who have visited the abbey have commented that light there seems to be absorbed rather than reflected, making it appear dark and foreboding even on the brightest of days. The area has long been associated with hard times and mixed fortunes. It was almost completely destroyed at one point by Viking invaders who pillaged and looted the town and Abbey, murdering many of its residents in a series of bloody raids in 867 A.D.
The first Abbess of the Abbey was St. Hilda, who was born of royal blood. Hilda's father was Hereric, the Anglo Saxon nephew of Edwin, future king of Northumbria. St. Hilda became a focus for folklore and legend through the centuries, and is said to have performed many miraculous deeds. Tradition tells how she rid Whitby of snakes by beheading them with her enchanted whip and driving them over the cliffs into the sea. This legend was reinforced by the presence of fossil ammonites, which were often washed up on the shore and were thought to be the headless remains of these petrified snakes - and thus evidence of her miracles.
According to legend, St. Hilda still haunts the ruins of the Abbey and her apparition has apparently been seen by believers and sceptics alike. Even today people still go to the west side of St Mary?s Churchyard, between 10.00 and 11.00 in the morning as they did in the past; from this point there is clear view of the north side of the abbey and its highest window. When the sun shines on the window it is reported to create the illusion of a woman's form wrapped in a cloak. This strange phenomenon was said to be a reminder that Abbey's founder was never far away from her precious Abbey. Tradition grew that Hilda also walked the Abbey as a phantom and there are those who claim to have come face to face with her ghost. There are many who believe that she still protects her Abbey against wrongdoers.
The Ghost Bells of Whitby Abbey
After the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066, a conquering knight visiting the town was inspired to rebuild the Abbey, which then continued its role as a religious centre until Henry the Eighth demanded the dissolution of the monasteries. To ensure the Abbey could no longer call to its people, Henry's men had the Abbey?s magnificent bells, which could be heard for many miles, removed and loaded onto a ship bound for London. Fate intervened however and the departing ship sank while still within sight of the shore and with it of course, the loss of many sailors? lives. This was seen by the town?s people as divine retribution, the hand of St. Hilda striking back at those who would silence her Abbey.
Tradition tells how in bygone years, young lovers would stand on the cliffs and listen for the sound of the Abbey?s bells being carried from their resting place in the depths. To hear the bells was thought to be a fortunate omen for a couple?s future.
Phantoms of the Abbey
Many have also claimed to have seen a phantom coach and horses driven by a headless coachman in the Abbey grounds. The coach is said to thunder past the Abbey and halt abruptly outside the church. Others have witnessed the same coach race along the cliff near the Abbey then plunge over the edge and into the sea.
The Ghost of Constance de Beverley is also said to haunt the Abbey. Constance was a beautiful young nun who broke her sacred vows after falling in love with a dishonourable knight called Marmion in a tale immortalised by Sir Walter Scott. Legend has it that when their love affair was discovered, the terrified woman was taken to a cell in the Abbey?s dungeon where she was bricked in and left to die. Her tortured soul is said to still be trapped in the Abbey, her ghost cowering pitifully and begging to be released. This has often been reported in the winding stairway leading from the dungeon.
Stoker actually stayed in Whitby on and off for six years and would have no doubt been aware of these and many other ghostly legends. Even the wooden stake has a home and a legend behind it in Whitby. It is likely that Stoker would also have witnessed or had knowledge of one of several ancient festivals unique to Whitby such as the 'Planting of the Penny Hedge?. This particular festival was held every year in the town on the eve of Ascension Day. At dawn, a precession of men would carry wooden stakes through the town to the shore, where they are hammered into the beach and woven into a strong defence against the sea before the tide turns. The ceremony dates back to 1159 when the Abbott of Whitby imposed a penance on three local hunters and their future generations for murdering a hermit. To save them from the hangman?s noose they agreed to make a stake hedge that would resist the sea every year until their last descendant had died.
But tradition, like the vampire, never dies in Whitby.
Thirteen hundred years after Whitby Abbey was first built, people still walk the centuries-old streets and climb the 199 stone steps that lead up to the church of St. Mary that still stands in the shadow of her gothic Abbey. Only today they do so in search of vampires and other tormented souls whose ghosts may wander amidst the gothic ruins of the Abbey, ruins that provided Stoker with so much inspiration during his stay in the town. Without Whitby, many argue, there would be no Dracula.
Resources:
Gallery: Whitby - Bram Stoker's Inspirational home
Download a PDF Version of the classic book "Dracula", by Bram Stoker
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