Death Folklore of the British Isles¶

Overview¶

The British Isles have one of the rihcest death folklore traditions in Europe. Before the professionalisation of deathcare and before the funeral director, the hospital, and the crematorium, death was managed by the community, and every stage of the process was wrapped in various levels of custom, superstition, and ritual.

These practices are not quaint survivals (I love this phrase). They are the foundation and remains of an impressively coherent system for dealing with death. Many of them are echos of the village wise woman tradition, the psychopomp traditions of pagan religion, and the "death and rebirth" cycle of the Wheel of the Year. Understanding those paints a good picture of where modern death culture came from, and what the death-positive movement is trying to recover.

The Sin-Eater¶

An impressive figure in British death folklore is the sin-eater: a person (usually poor) who was hired to eat a meal over or near the body of the recently deceased, symbolically absorbing the dead person's sins and freeing their soul for afterlife.

The practice is heavily documented in Wales and the counties in England which border Wales, but references do exist from Scotland and some northern parts of England. The ritual typically involved placing bread and sometimes beer or wine on the chest of the corpse. The sin-eater consumed the food, spoke from a text designed to remove the sins from the dead, and was paid (albeit not much) for their efforts. After the meal, the sin-eater was expected to leave quickly, carrying the dead person's sins with them.

Despite a noble sacrifice, the sin-eater was a pariah. The community needed them as no one wanted their passed love ones to face judgment burdened with sins unaccounted for, but no one wanted to be them. They were shunned between funerals, avoided in the street and regarded with a mixture of pity and repulsion. They carried the accumulated sins of every person they had served. In a way, it was a sacrificial role to take: one person bearing the spiritual burden of the community so that others did not have to.

The practice had died out by the late nineteenth century, though the last known sin-eater, Richard Munslow of Ratlinghope in Shropshire, died in 1906. His grave can still be visited; Some groups visit and eat at his grave to ease his suffering in the afterlife.

Corpse Roads¶

A corpse road (coffin path, lych way, or kirk road) is a traditional path where the dead were carried, from settlements to a place of worship for burial. In rural areas in the UK, plenty of communities didn't have their own burial ground, and the dead had to be transported, sometimes over considerable distances, across moors and through mountains, to reach consecrated or spiritual ground.

These paths acquired a powerful folklore. They were considered liminal spaces, belonging neither to the living nor the dead. It was believed that spirits could travel along corpse roads, and some traditions held that the dead were compelled to follow the path they had been carried along in life. Building a house on a corpse road was considered fucking stupid and to bring terrible luck, as the dead would pass through it on their way.

Corpse roads often followed the most direct route rather than the most convenient one, because it was believed that the dead should be carried in a straight line. Some crossed rivers, there are even accounts of mourners wading through water with the coffin on their shoulders rather than making a detour to a bridge, because the spirit might be unable to cross water and would become trapped.

Many corpse roads are still identifiable, some are even purposefully preserved. Some have become modern footpaths; others have been lost to enclosure and development. They are among the most atmospheric walking routes in Britain, carrying the weight of centuries of passage. Maps can be bought which incl

The Lyke Wake¶

A lyke wake is a vigil held over the body of the dead person between death and burial. The body was watched constantly, usually by friends and family, even through the night. Candles were kept burning, alongside scriptural readings spoken and food/drink provided for the watchers.

The lyke wake served several purposes. Practically, it helped ensure that the person was actually dead (fear of premature burial was big at the time). Spiritually, it protected the soul during a vulnerable period between death and burial, when it may be seen as being at risk from malevolent spirits. Socially, it provided an important period for the community to gather, grieve and share memories.

The tradition of the wake survives in Irish culture, where it remains a vibrant social institution, albeit altered (bastardised) by Irish catholicism. The Irish wake, with its combination of grief, storytelling, drinking, and dark humour, is perhaps the last living descendant of the older lyke wake tradition.

The Dumb Supper¶

"Dumb" here means silent, not stupid. A dumb supper is a meal eaten in complete silence, with a place set at the table for the dead. A chair, a plate of food, and a drink all laid out as though it were a normal meal together, and in many ways it is.

The custom is most closely associated with Samhain, when the veil between worlds is thinnest, though it would be performed at any time when you want to invite the dead to sit with you. The setup is fairly simple: you'd set the table, serve the food, sit down, and do not speak. The silence is intended to create a space calm enough for the dead to be encouraged to join and potentially heard or felt.

Some traditions serve the meal in reverse order (dessert first, main course last) and have everyone enter the room walking backward. Any impressions, feelings, signs, or thoughts that come to you during the meal are treated as communication from whoever has taken the empty seat.

What I love about the dumb supper is how natural and domestic it is, it doesn't feel like a grand ceremonial ritual requiring special tools or robes or a particular hillside with goats and piss (seriously why do I keep finding old ritualistic traditions which include urine). It's just dinner! You are cooking a meal for someone who has died and then sit with them while they enjoy your company for the final time in this life. The grief is built into the comfortable every day ordinariness of the act: the empty chair that should not be empty, the food that will not be touched. It is one of the few rituals I have come across that acknowledges death and love simultaneously without dressing either of them up or requiring deep spiritual or religious views.

The practice survives in modern Wiccan and pagan observance, where it remains one of the most emotionally resonant Samhain rituals. It doesn't require belief in spirits or the supernatural to be powerful. Even if you believe the dead to be simply dead, sitting in silence with a plate laid for someone you have lost is a beautiful, confronting and potentially worthwhile thing to do.

Telling the Bees¶

I wrote about this on the homepage.

The practice reflects a belief that bees were messengers between the living and the dead, or that they were particularly sensitive to the spiritual state of the household. It also reflects a lovely intimate relationship between a family and its bees in an agricultural economy. See Animals as Omens of Death for more on bees and death folklore.

Mirrors, Clocks, and Windows¶

A cluster of various incarnations of local customs surrounded the moment of death in British folk tradition. Mirrors were covered or turned to the wall, to prevent the soul from being trapped in the reflection. Clocks were stopped at the moment of death. Windows were opened to allow the soul to leave the house. Curtains were drawn.

There are many more, but these practices all share a common basis. The moment of death is a threshold, and the passage across it must not be obstructed. The soul needs a clear path out of the house and out of the world. Anything that might catch it, confuse it, or delay it must be removed.

Some of these customs survived well into the twentieth century and are still practised in families today (once again, more common in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. England is just Tories, Tescos and Thatchers.)

A Bit of Churchyard Lore¶

British churchyard areas are one of my favourite places to be. Not in a performatively 15 year old edgelord goth way, but because they are some of the oldest continuously maintained public spaces in the country. Aswell as this, they are deeply layered with folklore throughout.

In many Christian denominations, the north side of the church was considered the devil's side. It received less sun and so was associated with darkness and evil. This made it the dumping ground for anyone the Church didn't fully approve of: suicides, drug addicts, the unbaptised, the excommunicated, and in some parishes anyone who had simply been a bit too difficult in life. Many churchyards still have a visible difference between the north and south sides (especially in abbeys), the south is crowded with headstones and the north is conspicuously sparse or overgrown. It is a hushed, structural cruelty that persisted for centuries. In a way you would continue to be punished by the community even after death.

The yew tree is the signature plant of the British churchyard and is a genuinely incredible plant. Nearly every part of it is toxic, however it is evergreen in a climate where most things die back in winter and can live for thousands of years. Some churchyard yews are so old that they predate their churches by centuries, which raises the obvious question: did the Church build on sites that were already seen as sacred, or did they plant the yews? I reckon the answer is both, depending on the site, but the idea that some of these trees were already ancient and venerated when the first Christian buildings popped up around them simultaniously moving and depressing.

The lych gate (similar origins to "lyke wake" again) is a roofed gateway at the entrance to the churchyard. This is where the coffin was rested while the party waited for the priest to come and meet them. It is a threshold, and like all thresholds I've explored here it carries weight. This is the last piece of ground the body occupies before entering consecrated earth. Some lych-gates have stone slabs purpose-built for resting the coffin on. Others have benches for the bearers, who might have carried the coffin for miles along a corpse road to get there.

There is also a widespread, age-old tradition (that extends outside Britain) that the first person buried in a new churchyard will serve as its spiritual guardian, or "churchyard watcher", protecting the ground and all future occupants from evil spirits. Nobody wanted to be the first, obviously, so there are accounts of parishes burying a dog or other animal first to take on the role instead.

Connections¶

• See Samhain & the Thinning Veil - many of these customs are associated with Samhain
• See The Village Wise Woman - the laying-out woman who prepared the body
• See Victorian Spiritualism & the Death-Positive Movement - the Victorian elaboration of these older traditions
• See Animals as Omens of Death - telling the bees, black dogs at churchyard gates
• See The Poison Garden - the yew tree in churchyard lore

Loose Sources/Further Reading¶

• Westwood, Jennifer & Simpson, Jacqueline. The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends (2005) - comprehensive guide to English folklore, organised by county
• Owen, Trefor M. The Customs and Traditions of Wales (1991) - includes detailed coverage of Welsh death customs
• Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. Irish Wake Amusements (1967) - the definitive account of the Irish wake tradition
• Simpson, Jacqueline & Roud, Steve. A Dictionary of English Folklore (2000) - authoritative reference