Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 09:47 PM

THANK YOU! Some nice notations with references.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

As usual the fools make regular appearances.

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 10:17 PM

Muttley,

The miracle of the internet is that so often, there is someone with first hand experience--thank you for dredging up some difficult memories--we've all learned something--even Grab.

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: Grab
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 09:06 AM

Yeah, even me. :-)

FWIW, I'll never knock personal experience, and thanks to Muttley and others for that. I didn't say that on the last incarnation, which was not very generous of me (albeit with a little provocation).

Out of curiosity, I did another Google search just now and came up with http://jackkirbycomics.blogspot.com/2005/03/black-magic-dc-2.html. So the origin of the rumours might be a 1953 Jack Kirby horror comic book, perhaps?

Graham.

(PS. "Credo". If something doesn't seem right to me, I *will* often do a quick check on facts. That's not an insult, that's how people should respond if they're unsure whether they're being sold a line. If it comes out true, then great - I've learnt something new. But if it turns out not to be the case, please don't hold it against me if I produce the evidence against it. And even if I've got "evidence", you still might be right if I'm relying on a dodgy source, but it's worth checking which is the more factually reliable of your source and my source. It's not a one-way street - if I was repeating something which I honestly believed was true but actually wasn't, please do the same for me, otherwise again I'm not learning anything new.)

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 10:01 AM

agreed, Grab. The "folk process" is littered with half-truths and shoddy scholarship. While stories are great fun, it's not quite the same when they're presented as fact.

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 02:50 PM

Fascinating stuff, especially Muttley. Thanks for sharing.
                                                 Neil

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: GUEST,Laura
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 02:38 PM

Check out The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 06:02 AM

Margorie McCall - Lived Once, Buried Twice

Lurgan's most famous (infamous) legend (or myth) concerns a certain Margorie McCall, whose tombstone in Shankill Graveyard carries the inscription, "Lived Once, Buried Twice". (Her name is spelt as Margery in certain texts which we have seen ... however the spelling used throughout is that on her gravestone.)

The McCalls lived in Church Place. Margorie - as her husbands and friends thought - died and, after a few days, was duly interred in Shankill Graveyard. At the time of her passing away she had on one of her fingers a very valuable ring which friends and family tried in vain to prise from the corpse. To no avail. And Margorie was buried, ring and all.

This fact somehow came to the knowledge of a local thief who was determined to get his hands on the ring at any cost. On the very night of the poor woman's interment, he entered the graveyard, began to dig and uncovered the coffin in its fresh grave. He levered open the lid and his eyes lit on the prize he was after. No amount of tugging and hauling would shift the rig, however. And so, since continued skulduggery in the grave would increase his chances of detection, he decided to take a drastic course of action. He produced a knife and set about the gruesome task of severing the corpse's finger.

No sooner had he drawn blood than the "corpse" sat up in the coffin and confronted him. Like a bat out of hell he tore of the grave and across the graveyard!

In the meantime, Margorie's poor husband had been sitting alone, mourning his loss, when he heard a knock at the door. He recognised the knock as being similar to Margorie's. "If she was alive, I'd say that was her at the door!" But when he opened the door to receive the evening visitor, to his astonishment there stood Margorie, in her grave-clothes. He fainted on the spot!

But, thankfully, he soon recovered and found that his wife, supposedly dead but who had in reality been in some sort of a "swoon", was restored to him. Both Margorie and her husband lived for some years after this event. And when at last Margorie departed this life for real, her gravestone recorded the fact that although she lived only once, she had been buried twice!

Pay The Reckoning cannot, of course, shed any light on the possibility of such an event occurring "in real life". Real or not, it's a good yarn and one which is still current in Lurgan .

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 06:06 AM

Sorry I should have added from `paythereckoning`Site our old friend and former witty contributor Aidan Crossey, the gravestone is still to be seen in Shankill Cemetry.

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: GUEST,Merryn
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 12:35 PM

I found this thread (and thanks everybody, especially Muttley) while looking for the words of "Lady Wyndham's Return" by Lewis Court. It appears a few times on the Web, but each time the same three verses - they are all obviously copying from each other! Does anyone know the rest?
I would like the words of the Phil Hewett song, too, "Fine Colours", if anyone could oblige.
Thanks, whether or no.
Merryn

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 12:52 PM

The Pakefield Parson,The Roaring boys of Pakefield, oh how they all do thrive, they had but one poor parson and him they buried alive.

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 01:19 PM

One of the Irish singers we recorded in London, Mikey Kelleher, described an incident in West Clare, where it was (and still is) the custom for neighbours to dig a grave or re-open a family plot when somebody dies.
He and a couple of others opened a family plot when his neighbour died and found that the lid of the plain board coffin buried there (that of a young girl) was slightly out of place.
On examination, they found that the hands of the body were in a position indicating that she had tried to push up the lid, the inside of which was covered with scratch marks.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Buried alive - is this story true?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Nov 09 - 01:51 PM

Surprised not to have found the obvious quote anywhere on this thread ---

LOTS OF FUN AT FINNEGAN'S WAKE