The Tale of Laurels Abbey

The Lady Juliana was a demure young woman of but eighteen summers from a good Hampshire family. The light of her respectable family's life was she so it was a dreadful thing then when she was found to be with child. How much worse it was when Her Ladyship spoke of how she had been ravished during several nights in her chamber by what seemed to be half man and half gorilla. She spoke with great emotion at how her body had been taken by a huge creature, all covered in black hair, which gave forth a torrent of obscene curses while he did all manner of dreadful violence to her previously untouched body and committed violations of her very mind and her soul.

Of course Her Ladyship's poor family were beside themselves with horror that their lovely young daughter had not merely fallen into such grievous sin as to cause her belly to bulge but also seemed to have completely lost her mind to excuse her conduct with such a fantastic and horrible tale. For the sake of the family's honour Lady Juliana was put away, with much bitter weeping, in Laurels Abbey which was a closed order set within its own tall old stone walls.

Within those ancient walls the nuns grew their own crops, drew water from their own lake and well and farmed their own sheep, cattle, poultry and goats. So self sufficient were the nuns in their cloisters of prayer and reflection that many months could elapse before any outsider passed through their huge locked gate.

It was several months after Lady Juliana was committed to the abbey that the bishop arrived at the gate on a visit and pulled the rope to toll the bell in the ancient gatehouse. He tolled the bell again and again and no answer from within the abbey was had so he repaired to the nearby village and returned with several strong men and a great oaken tree fashioned into a battering ram.

Again and again that great tree was rammed against the gates and they did not yield but eventually the old wood of the gate began to splinter and then 'twas breached. The bishop and his clerk entered the abbey sensing that great evil had come there but nothing could prepare them for the horrific sight which met their unbelieving gaze. All about the abbey and its environs lay nuns dead and ravaged with their clothing in disarray or gone completely. The bodies of the nuns lay displayed in every lewd position and blood was everywhere. The abbey had contained upwards of one hundred nuns and every one of them, save one, had been defiled and killed with the utmost violence.

The only inmate of Laurels Abbey who was never found was Lady Juliana. No-one could ever explain how she and her child had left the abbey which had only that single locked great gate as its exit and none ever did find any hint of where they had gone. But even greater mystery hung about what was it which had come into the abbey with Juliana and had so terribly ravaged every nun. None dare even contemplate the scenes which had been enacted between the time of Her Ladyship entering the gates and that day when the bishop entered the charnel house. At the command of the bishop gunpowder was brought into the abbey and every wall except the outer wall was levelled and the entire estate put to flame in an effort to excise whatever evil may still have been lurking there alive. All who entered therein were sworn to the very greatest secrecy and no pen ever recorded the story of that grisly scene so all that survived was myth and rumour passed down the centuries. But alas this policy may have been greatly misguided for the estate was left empty and wild for two centuries at least and then, as was bound to happen, men forgot why the estate had been left alone.

Children whispered dark tales woven of shreds of half forgotten truth combined with make believe and, on winter evenings, men drew on their pipes and spoke of the abbey over their ale but with each generation more of the memory of what had befallen there was lost. So now another company of living souls inhabits that land and was it chance or the design of some dark intelligence that in that place now stands The Laurels School for Young Ladies where dwell unspoilt maidens of just the age which Lady Juliana was when she was visited by raw evil itself. We can but pray that whatever fed upon that young maid so long ago really has left the place and is not waiting to yet again feast upon unsuspecting flesh.