Corpse roads provided a practical means of allowing the transport of corpses to cemeteries that had burial rights. A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. In Britain, such routes can also be known by a number of other names: bier road, burial road, coffin road, coffin line, lyke or lych way, funeral road, procession way, etc. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Such "church-ways" have developed a great deal of associated folklore regarding wraiths, spirits, ghosts, and such-like. History The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of Romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological A wraith is an apparition of a person living or dead that may appear shortly before or after death A ghost is said to be the apparition of a Deceased person frequently similar in appearance to that person and usually encountered in places she or he frequented
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Origins
In late medieval times a population increase and a concomitant expansion of church building took place in Great Britain inevitably encroaching on the territories of existing mother churches or minsters. In English usage Minster is an honorific title attached to certain major medieval churches Demands for autonomy from outlying settlements made minster officials feel that their authority was waning, as were their revenues, so they instituted corpse roads connecting outlying locations and their mother churches (at the heart of parishes) that alone held burial rights. For some parishioners, this decision meant that corpses had to be transported long distances, sometimes through difficult terrain and usually it had to be carried unless the departed was a wealthy individual. An example would be the funeral way that runs from Rydal to Ambleside in the Lake District where a coffin stone, on which the coffin was placed while the parishioners rested, still exists. Rydal is an English Village located in the shire (non-metropolitan county of Cumbria, which is in the extreme northwest corner of England Ambleside is a Town in Cumbria, in north-west England.It is situated at the head of Windermere, England's largest lake The Coffin Stone is the name given to a large Sarsen stone at the foot of Blue Bell Hill near Aylesford in the English county of Kent [1] Many of the 'new' churches were eventually granted burial rights and corpse roads ceased to be used as such.
Church-way paths
Many of the corpse roads have long disappeared, while the original purposes of those that still survive as footpaths have been largely forgotten, especially if features such as coffin stones or crosses no longer exist. Fields crossed by church-way paths often had names like “Church-way” or “Kirk-way Field”, and today it is sometimes possible to plot the course of some lost church-ways by the sequence of old field names, local knowledge of churches, local legends and lost features of the landscape marked on old maps, etc. One of the oldest superstitions is that any land over which a corpse is carried becomes a public right of way. [2]
An example of a corpse road or way is that of the church of St Peter and Paul at Blockley, in Gloucestershire, which held the burial right to the inhabitants of the hamlets Stretton-on-Fosse in Warwickshire, where there was a chapel which became a rectory in the 12th century, and Aston Magna, where there was a chapel which was merely a chantry. This article is about the village in England for the former township in Philadelphia County Pennsylvania United States see Blockley Township Pennsylvania. History See also History of Gloucestershire Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century Geography Warwickshire is bounded to the northwest by the West Midlands Metropolitan county and Staffordshire, by Leicestershire to Aston Magna is a hamlet located off Fosse Way in north Gloucestershire between Moreton-in-Marsh and Shipston-on-Stour. All 'tithes' and 'mortuaries', however, came to the parish church of Blockley, to which church the people of Stretton and Aston were committed to carry their deceased for burial. The corpse road from Aston to Blockley churchyard is over two miles (3 km) long and crosses three small streams en route. The corpse road from Stretton to Blockley runs for some four miles (6 km) and crosses two streams. [3]
Characteristics of corpse roads
The spirits of the dead
The essence of deep-rooted spirit lore is that supposed spirits of one kind or another – spirits of the dead, phantasms of the living, wraiths, or nature entities like fairies move through the physical landscape along special routes. In the folklore of the Celtic cultures a fairy path, ‘passage’ ‘avenue’ or ‘pass’ is a route taken by these supernatural beings usually in a straight line and between sites In their ideal, pristine form, at least, such routes are conceived of as being straight, having something in common with ley lines. Ley lines are hypothetical alignments of a number of places of geographical interest such as ancient Monuments and Megaliths Their existence was suggested By the same token, convoluted or non-linear features hinder spirit movement i. e labyrinths and mazes. In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth ( Greek λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer A maze is a complex Tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route
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Spirits or ghosts were said to fly along on a direct course close to the ground, so a straight line connecting two places was kept clear of fences, walls, and buildings to avoid obstructing the flitting spectres. Many Turf mazes in England were named Troy Town, Troy-town or variations on that theme (such as Troy, The City of Troy, Troy's Aschaffenburg (aˈʃafənbʊɐ̯k dialect) is a large town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The paths would run in a straight line over mountains and valleys and through marshes. In towns, they would pass the houses closely or go right through them. The paths end or originate at a cemetery; therefore, such a path or road was believed to have the same characteristics as a cemetery, where spirits of the deceased thrive.
The Corpse roads or ways were left unploughed and it was considered very bad luck if for any reason a different route had to be taken. [4]
Corpse candles and other related phenomena
A Corpse candle or light is a flame or ball of light that is seen to travel just above the ground on the route from the cemetery to the dying person's house and back again. [5] A Corpse Fire is very similar as the name comes from lights appearing specifically within graveyards where it was believed the lights were an omen of death or coming tragedy and would mark the route of a future funeral, from the victim's house to the graveyard.
Bioluminescent Honey fungus
Among European rural people, especially in Gaelic, Slavic and Germanic folk cultures,[6] the Will-o'-the-wisps are held to be mischievous spirits of the dead or other supernatural beings attempting to lead travellers astray (compare Puck). Honey fungus or Armillaria is a Genus of parasitic fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs The Goidelic languages, (also sometimes called particularly in colloquial situations the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) historically formed a Dialect The Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European -speaking peoples originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic Folk culture refers to the localized Lifestyle of a Culture. It is usually handed down through Oral tradition, relates to a sense of Community The will-o'-the-wisp, sometimes will-o'-wisp or ignis fatuus (modern Latin, from ignis ("fire" + fatuus The English word " spirit " comes from the Latin " spiritus " (breath Death is the termination of the biological functions that define living Organisms It refers both to a specific The term supernatural or supranatural ( Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature" pertains to entities events Puck is a mythological Fairy or mischievous Nature Spirit. Puck is also a generalised personification of land spirits Sometimes they are believed to be the spirits of unbaptized or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell. Heaven may refer to the physical heavens the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the Universe beyond Hell, according to many Religious beliefs, is a location in the Afterlife, which may be described as a place of suffering Other names are Jack O' Lantern, or Joan of the Wad, Jenny Burn-tail, Kitty wi' the Whisp, or Spunkie. [7]
Anybody seeing this phenomena might merely have been seeing, without knowing, a luminescing Barn Owl, at least in some instances. The city in Russia is spelled Barnaul. The Barn Owl ( Tyto alba) is the most widely distributed species of As strange as it may seem, much anecdotal evidence supports the fact that Barn Owls have a luminescence which may be due to fungal bioluminescence (Honey fungus) or some other cause. Honey fungus or Armillaria is a Genus of parasitic fungi that live on trees and woody shrubs [8]
A Midsummer Night's Dream
In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck says:
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Now it is that time of night, |
Puck suggests a secret history of these routes, for unsurprisingly they attracted long extant folk lore, running not only through the physical countryside but also through the invisible geography, the 'mental terrain', of pre-industrial country-folk. Shakespeare's prose leaves little doubt that the physical corpse roads came to be perceived as being spirit routes, taking on qualities which lingered in the folklore of his age and which he incorporated into his play knowing that it would be a familiar concept.
Spirit roads and archaeological features
The spirit roads, such as the church-ways, were always conceived of as being straight, but the physical corpse roads of the United Kingdom vary as much as any other path. Corpses were conveyed along defined corpse roads to avoid their spirits returning to haunt the living. It was a widespread custom, for example, that the feet of the corpse be kept pointing away from the family home on its journey to the cemetery.
Other minor ritualistic means of preventing the return of the dead person included ensuring that the route the corpse took to burial would take it over bridges or stepping stones across running water which spirits could not cross, stiles, and various other 'liminal' (“betwixt and between”) locations, all of which had reputations for preventing or hindering the free passage of spirits. The living took pains to prevent the dead from wandering the land as lost souls or animated corpses, for the belief in revenants (ghosts) was widespread in mediæval Europe. This article is about the Revenant in Folklore For the Tzimisce Revenant Families see Revenant.
People using the corpse roads assumed that they could be passages for ghosts. The ancient spirit folklore that attached itself to the medieval and later corpse roads also may have informed certain prehistoric features. In Britain, for instance, Neolithic earthen avenues called cursuses link burial mounds: these features can run for considerable distances, even miles, and are largely straight, or straight in segments, connecting funerary sites. Cursus (plural 'cursūs' or 'cursuses' was a name given by early British Archaeologists such as William Stukeley to the large parallel lengths of banks with external The purpose of these avenues is imperfectly understood, but some kind of spirit-way function may be one reasonable explanation. Similarly, some Neolithic and Bronze Age graves, especially in France and Britain, are associated with stone rows, like those at Merrivale on Dartmoor, with intriguing blocking stones at their ends. Merrivale (formerly also Merivale) is a locality in western Dartmoor, in the West Devon district of Devon, England. Dartmoor is an area of Moorland in the centre of Devon, England. [9]
Homer Sykes in says that the 'holed' Cornish 'Tolvan' stone was used to block a now lost ancient burial chamber, and suggests that the hole allowed a way in for funeral purposes and a passage out for the spirits of the dead. [10]
Associated legends and beliefs
On Aranmore Island off Ireland each passing funeral would stop and erect a memorial pile of stones on the smooth rocky surface on the roadside enclosure. The Aran Islands ( Irish: Oileáin Árann, Aran Islands Dialect: ˈɑːrənʲ ˈhɑːrənʲəxə are a group of three Islands located [11]
A Devon legend tells of a funeral procession heading across Dartmoor on its way to Widecombe and the burial ground, carrying a particularly unpopular and evil old man. Devon is a large county in the South West of England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name Dartmoor is an area of Moorland in the centre of Devon, England. Widecombe-in-the-Moor is a small Village located within the heart of the Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. They reach the coffin stone and place the coffin on it while they rest. A beam of light strikes the coffin, reducing it and its contents to ashes and splitting the coffin stone. The party believes that God did not wish to have such an evil man buried in a cemetery. [12]
Some country-folk claim that if a dead body is carried across a field it will thereafter fail to produce good crop yields. [2] Throughout the United Kingdom and Europe it still believed that touching a corpse in the coffin will allow the departed spirit to go in peace to its rest, and bring good luck to the living. [13]
An old woman at Fryup in Yorkshire was well known locally for keeping the “Mark’s e’en watch” (24 April), as she lived alongside a corpse road known as the “Old Hell Road”. Fryup is a hamlet in North Yorkshire in England. It is in the Civil parish of Danby and is located alongside Great Fryup Yorkshire is a historic county of Northern England and the largest in Great Britain. In this 'watch', typically a village seer would hold a vigil between 11 pm and 1 am on St. Mark's Day, in order to look for the wraiths of those who would die in the following year. "Saint Mark" redirects here For other uses see Saint Mark (disambiguation. [9]
Phantom lights are sometimes seen on the Scottish cemetery-island of Mun in Loch Leven and traditionally such lights were thought to be omens of impending death; the soul also was thought to depart the body in the form of a flame or light. Loch Leven ( Scottish Gaelic: Loch Lìobhann) is a Fresh water Loch in Perth and Kinross council area central Scotland. [5]
In Ireland, the féar gortach ("hungry grass"/"violent hunger") is said to grow at a place where an unenclosed corpse was laid on its way to burial. This is thought to be a permanent effect and anyone who stands on such grass is said to develop insatiable hunger. One such place is in Ballinamore and was so notorious that the woman of the nearby house kept a supply of food on hand for victims. Ballinamore (Béal an Átha Móir is a small town in County Leitrim, Ireland, from the border with Northern Ireland. [14]
The existence of specific coffin stones, crosses or lych gates on church-ways, suggests that these may have been specially positioned and sanctified so as to allow the coffin to be placed there temporarily without the chance of the ground becoming in some way tainted or the spirit given an opportunity to escape and haunt its place of death. A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English lic, corpse is a gateway [12]
Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) in the 13th-century relates the strange story of a marble footbridge leading from the church over the Alan rivulet in Saint Davids. St David's Cathedral ( Welsh: Eglwys Gadeiriol Tyddewi) is situated in St David's in the county of Pembrokeshire, on the most westerly point Gerald of Wales (c 1146 &ndash c 1223 also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, A stream is a body of Water with a current, confined within a bed and stream-banks Saint David ( c. 500–589 ('Dewi Sant' was a church official later regarded as a Saint and as the Patron saint of Wales. The marble stone was called 'Llechllafar' (the talking stone) because it once spoke when a corpse was carried over it to the cemetery for internment. The effort of speech had caused it to break, despite its size of ten feet in length, six in breadth and one in thickness. This bridge was worn smooth due to its age and the thousands of people who had walked over it, however the superstition was so widely held that corpses were no longer carried over it. [15] This ancient bridge was replaced in the 16th century and its present location is not known. [16][17]
Another legend is that Merlin had prophesied the death on Llechllafar of an English King, conqueror of Ireland, who had been injured by a man with a red hand. The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network ( MERLIN) is an Interferometer array of Radio telescopes spread across England and the King Henry II went on pilgrimage to Saint David's after coming from Ireland, heard of the prophesy and crossed Llechllafar without ill effect. He boasted that Merlin was a liar, to which a bystander replied that the King would not conquer Ireland and was therefore not the king of the prophesy. [15] This turned out to be true, for Henry never did conquer the whole of Ireland. [16][17]
The villagers in Manaton in Devon used to carry coffins three times round the churchyard cross, much to the irritation of the vicar, who opposed the superstition. The village of Manaton is situated on the south-eastern side of Dartmoor National Park Devon, England. Upon being ignored, he had the cross destroyed. [18]
The 'Lych way' is a track lying to the south-west of Devil's Tor on Dartmoor. The dead from remote moorland homesteads were taken along this track to Lydford church for burial. Lydford, sometimes spelled Lidford, is a village once an important town in the western parliamentary division of Devonshire in Devon situated six miles (13 Many reports have been made of monks in white and phantom funeral processions seen walking along this path. [19]
Childe's Tomb on Dartmoor is the site of the death of Childe who was caught in a snowstorm, killed and disembowelled his horse and climbed inside for shelter, but still froze to death. He left a message to say that the first person to bury him would get his lands at Plymstock. Plymstock is a Parish and lower middle class commuter Suburb of Plymouth in the English county of Devon. The greedy monks of Tavistock buried him and claimed the lands. Tavistock is a Market town within West Devon, England on the River Tavy, from which its name derives and has a The ghosts of monks carrying a bier have been seen at Childe's tomb. A bier is a stand on which a corpse, or Coffin containing a corpse is placed to Lie in state or to be carried to the Grave. [19]
Crossroads
Places where tracks intersect are considered dangerous and are believed occupied by special spirit-guardians because they are places of transition where the world and the underworld intersect. The Celtic god Lugh indicated the right road at such places and was a guide to the traveler's footsteps. Lugh (ˈluː modern Irish Lú, earlier Lug) is an Irish Deity represented in mythological texts as a hero and High King of the distant The god of the dead was the divinity of the crossroad and later Christian crosses were erected at such places. [20]
Crossroads divination was conducted in Britain and other parts of Europe, and is associated with the belief that the Devil could be made to manifest at such intersections. Divination (from Latin divinare "to be inspired by a god" related to Divine, Diva and Deus) is the attempt of ascertaining The Devil is the Crossroads lore also includes the idea that spirits of the dead could be “bound” (immobilized or rendered powerless) at crossroads, specifically suicides and hanged criminals, but also witches, outlaws and gypsies. [20] The belief was that since straight routes could facilitate the movement of spirits, so contrary features like crossroads and stone or turf labyrinths could hinder it. In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth ( Greek λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer An example of a crossroad execution-ground was the famous Tyburn, London, which stood on the spot where the Roman road to Edgware crossed the Roman road heading west out of London. History The village was one of two manors of the Parish of St Marylebone, which was itself named after the stream St Marylebone being Edgware is a suburb of North London situated north-west of Charing Cross. [9]
Excluding the spirits of the dead
This was part of a broader fear of spirits that might flit into dwellings. A witch ball is a hollow sphere of plain or stained glass hung in cottage windows in 18th century England to ward off Evil spirits witch's spells or ill Lambroughton is a village in the old Barony of Kilmaurs, East Ayrshire, Scotland. Witch bottles were common throughout Europe – bottles or glass spheres containing a mass of threads, often with charms entangled in them. The witch bottle is a very old spell device Its purpose is to draw in and trap evil and negative energy directed at its owner Its purpose was to draw in and trap evil and negative energy directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches, also forestalling the passage into habitations of witches flying about at night. [9] A Witchball was much the same, however a more light-hearted belief was that the witch saw her distorted face in the curved glass and was frightened away. The term witch ball is probably a corruption of watch ball because it was used as a guard of evil spirits.
References
- ^ The Rydal Coffin stone
- ^ a b Waring, Philippa (1978). The Dictionary of Superstitions. Treasure Press. ISBN 1-85051-009-1. P. 66.
- ^ Corpse roads in Gloucestershire.
- ^ Ley Hunters and Corpse roads.
- ^ a b Pennick, Nigel (1996). Celtic Sacred Landscapes. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01666-6. P. 145.
- ^ Will-o'-the-Wisp - The Lantern Man, Feu Follet, Ignis Fatuus
- ^ Clarke, D. (1990). Lights in the sky. Country Life Magazine 19 April: 188 - 189.
- ^ Barn owl luminescence.
- ^ a b c d Where the Leylines led
- ^ Sykes, Homer (1993). Mysterious Britain. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- ^ Wentz, W. Y. (1911). The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries. Reprinted. Colin Smythe (1981). ISBN 0-901072-51-8. P. 40 - 41.
- ^ a b [1] Legends of Dartmoor
- ^ Waring, Philippa (1978). The Dictionary of Superstitions. Treasure Press. ISBN 1-85051-009-1. P. 67.
- ^ Pennick, Nigel (1996). Celtic Sacred Landscapes. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01666-6. P. 134.
- ^ a b Hoare, Sir Richard Colt (1806). The Itinery of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales MCLXXXVIII by Giraldus de Barri. Pub. William Miller, London. P. 6 - 8.
- ^ a b Phillips, Rev James (1909). The History of Pembrokeshire. Pub. Elliot Stock, London. P. 205 - 206.
- ^ a b Jones, William Basil and Freeman, Edward Augustus (1856). The History and Antiquities of Saint David's. Pub. Parker, Smith & Petherman, London. P. 222.
- ^ Bord, Janet and Colin (1976). The Secret Country. Pub. Paul Elek, London. ISBN 0-236-40048-7. P. 115.
- ^ a b Hippisley Coxe, Anthony E. (1973). Haunted Britain. Pub. Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-116540-7. P. 30.
- ^ a b Pennick, Nigel (1996). Celtic Sacred Landscapes. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01666-6. P. 135.
External links
- Fairy Pathways
- Where the Leylines Led
- A Researcher's Guide to Local History terminology
- Legends of Corpse Ways
- A Lake District example
- Procession ways, etc.
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