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[ I'm including this article because of the daughter's being staked at a crossroads. This was common practice when suicide was suspected to avoid the deceased coming back as a vampire. -- Tryllyam]
An Excerpt:
The Incubus Succubus track "The Rape of Maude Bowen" from the album "WYTCHES" is in fact based on real events that took place in Cheltenham and in the nearby village of Swindon in the medieval times. The story has, through time, without doubt suffered from some embellishment, but on the whole the story related here is as near to the truth as is possible,the main source being "Norman's History of Cheltenham" by John Goding, published in 1863. There are other sources, but to some extent these have greatly warped the actual facts, and have turned what is a tale of misery, misfortune and social injustice, into a folk legend of supernatural evil.
In 1922, on May Eve, there was a violent electrical storm over the West of England. During the course of this storm the legendary tree that was known as Maude's Elm was struck by lightning and exploded into thousands of pieces. The rest of the tree was cut down in the days that followed. All that now remains of the legendary tree is a circle in the road on the outskirts of Cheltenham. The Elm had been held in awe, for it was not only a great tree, but it had grown from the stake that had impaled a young girl at the cross-roads. A young girl who had been condemned as a suicide, and was therefore staked at midnight as it was commonly believed that suicides returned as vampires, to take revenge on the living, for the misfortune of the miserable lives.
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