William Faulkner

Hunter slayer of the Faulkner (Lancastrian) bloodline (House of Faulkner), known as The Thorn Tally. Craft: Hawthorn Craft.

William Faulkner (1576-1607) was a saddler from Pendle Forest, Lancashire, born in 1576 CE. He was the son of Ralph Faulkner and Iona Thorne, and grew up in the market towns and hand-loom villages of Lancashire. William belonged to the Faulkner family of vampire slayers, the Lancastrian bloodline that keeps the Red Ledger of vampires taken. William was a descendant of Thomas Faulkner and Isabel Proctor, whose marriage in January 1486 joined the two rival houses at the end of the Wars of the Roses. His grandfather was John Thwaites. He grew up alongside 3 siblings, including Quentin Faulkner (1575), Sabina Faulkner (1578) and Nicholas Faulkner (1583). The slayer mantle came to William in 1604 CE, on a road at dusk, when the fear left the animals before it left the people. As a vampire slayer of the Faulkner tradition, William trained as a hunter and never manifested a supernatural power. The edge came from Hawthorn Craft and flintlock pistol and hawthorn stakes. The hunters of the Lancashire tradition knew him as The Thorn Tally, and that name is recorded in the Red Ledger beside his tally of vampires taken. William learned the work from Iona Thorne, his mother, in the years before the calling made it official. William lived through the plague years and hard winters of the early Stuart reigns. For the Faulkner family those years were hard, and his name appears in the family records for the period. William spent most of his life around Pendle Forest, and the plague centuries left its mark on his work as a saddler. In 1593 CE William married Lydia Braithwaite, a dressmaker. They had 2 recorded children: Elyn Faulkner (1595) and Lydia Faulkner (1596). Elyn went on to take up the slayer's work. Like most of the Faulkners, William held that the Guest who escaped at Towton in 1461 was a Yorkist favour, never a Lancastrian failing. He died in 1607 CE of a fall from a horse, aged 31. William Faulkner appears on the House Tree of the Faulkner and Proctor families as a slayer of the Faulkner bloodline, part of the story of the Lancashire slayers in the Slayerverse, from the ledgers of 1455 to the present night.