Supernatural Funerals: Fairies, Phantoms and Futures

You’re walking down a road in the twilight. Suddenly you’re surrounded by a jostling crowd and see a coffin being carried in a funeral cortege with many mourners. You might recognize your neighbors in the procession — or in the coffin — and are the people brushing past you fairies, phantoms, or something worse? In the high heat, Chris and Simon clash on Scotland, the pronunciation of Duchas, William Blake, FFFFs, and the question of what exactly these ghostly funerals are. In a fit of summer madness, Chris even bets a non-existent motorhome against a quarter litre of olive oil for the honour of the Fair People of Wales! Our mourning duo exchange barbs over fairy predictions, the American ghost that allegedly appears once a century, and swap notes on hummingbirds, Excel sheets, and fireflies. There are oh so useful tips on how not to die when you meet a phantom funeral ('get to the side, you fool!'), good reasons never to attend a fairy wedding, and one pressing lesson above all: read Woodyard 2022,* but beware of siren Victorians.

*Woodyard, C. (2022). 'Poets, Pipes, and Petals: Some Accounts of Fairy Funerals.' Fairy Investigation Society Newsletter, 16, 17-25

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Transcript

Simon: Well, Chris, it's lovely to be with you. (0:32) I'm talking from a very warm Italy. (0:36) We're at about 40 degrees here. (0:39) And remember that this is a country that has decided for the most part to forgo air conditioning.(0:45) What about you? (0:46) How are things going in Ohio?

Chris: (0:48) Well, it's been relatively cool, but we're set to have a heat dome next week, and it's going to be in the 90s, and then heat indexes in the 100. (0:57) It's going to be difficult, I think, for many, many people. (1:02) You know, we have some trees, we have some shade, but it's still going to be beastly hot.

Simon: (1:08) One bonus in Italy is that I can't walk in the day because, or it's foolish, it's mad dogs in English, men, to walk in the day. (1:18) But I can, of course, go walking in the evening. (1:21) And this is the moment of the year when we have fireflies. (1:25) And for me, this is one of the wonders of nature. (1:28) Do you have fireflies in the Midwest?

Chris: (1:32) We do. (1:32) And they just showed up. (1:34) I was waiting and waiting and waiting. (1:36) And all of a sudden, I see something flashing in the woods. (1:39) And I'm like, what is that? (1:40) Is that a spook? (1:42) You know, oh, no, it's fireflies. (1:43) They're back. (1:44) Yay. (1:45) So that was kind of consolation because we didn't get hummingbirds this year. (1:49) I think we had one or two hummingbirds and that was it.

Simon: (1:52) I was going to boast about the quality of our fireflies, but you've rather deflated me because we have no hummingbirds, of course. (2:01) Well, I know today we've chosen a rather curious subject, one that combines perhaps the two great loves of this podcast, fairies and death. (2:15) So, Chris, over to you. (2:16) Why don't you explain what we're going to do this episode?

Chris: (2:21) We're going to talk about both fairy funerals and phantom funerals. (2:26) And I believe that you have some very strong opinions about what constitutes a fairy funeral versus a phantom funeral. (2:35) And you're not even convinced that some of these exist.

Simon: (2:39) Well, it's worse than that, Chris. (2:40) I've been looking at the bibliography on this subject. (2:44) I've been reading up a lot. (2:46) And there is only one substantial article on the subject of fairy funerals. (2:52) An article of 2022 by a certain Chris Woodyard. (2:58) Oh, yes. (3:00) Yes. (3:00) And I am afraid I have to begin with my j'accuse. (3:05) J'accuse. (3:07) I accuse you, Chris Woodyard. (3:10) I was a great admirer of that article, but now I've been reading it more carefully and looking at our sources. (3:18) I want to take you gently to task. (3:21) And so there's also this tension, dear listener, in the episode.

Chris: (3:26) Okay, what am I being taken to task for?

Simon: (3:28) We know there are such things as fairy funerals. (3:32) They're all through our sources. (3:33) And actually, quite a few people have noted them down. (3:37) But what I've realised in the past month or so is that there are two different types of fairy funerals. (3:43) First of all, there are fairy funerals where fairies are burying fairies. (3:50) And then there are fairy funerals where fairies are pretending to bury human beings, because they're essentially predicting the future. (4:01) And actually, the difference between these two is really interesting. (4:05) And I hope that that's one of the things we can tease out today. (4:08) But Chris, you have also complicated things by insisting on bringing your oh-so-tedious ghosts along. (4:17) So we have phantom funerals. (4:19) So what's the difference between a fairy funeral and a phantom funeral?

Chris: (4:24) I see it as the inclusion of human beings in the funeral. (4:29) Now, I know that the fairies tend to sometimes rope in humans to dig graves, carry coffins, bury things. (4:39) But at the same time, I see them as a neighbour sees a living neighbour walking in this procession. (4:48) It's not a fairy funeral. (4:49) It's going to prove to be predictive of that person's funeral or of someone else. (4:55) And then the neighbour will be seen walking in that procession. (4:58) So I'm seeing the difference as you've got human beings walking in the procession. (5:04) There's some accounts of fairy funerals where they talk about this, and they just call them fairy funerals. (5:10) They don't explain what makes it a fairy funeral, because it sounds exactly like a phantom funeral. (5:15) Then you've also got a few where you see little people with little coffins. (5:22) And that logically would seem to be a fairy funeral. (5:25) You have little hearses. (5:27) You have little funeral coaches. (5:29) I can justify those as fairy funerals. (5:32) But when someone talks about, I saw a phantom funeral walking with my neighbour in the middle of it, and it suddenly disappeared, it was a fairy funeral. (5:42) I don't understand the logic of calling it a fairy funeral.

Simon: (5:45) Right. (5:46) Well, of course, I, in my colonial way, want to take possession of these phantom funerals in the name of fairy, because my suspicion would be that these are fairy funerals too. (5:58) Let's push the conversation forward and get to some concrete examples, perhaps before we really clash. (6:05) Do you want to kick us off with a reading, just to give people a flavour? (6:09) Because otherwise, perhaps there's a danger that this is all a little bit abstract.

Chris: (6:13) Right. (6:13) And we're going to begin with the most famous of the fairy funeral accounts, which is supposedly from the artist William Blake. (6:21) Now, the earliest account of this that I found was from Alan Cunningham in The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters and Sculptors. (6:29) And I have not found it in his actual letters. (6:32) Many people are familiar with this account. (6:35) He asked the lady seated next to him, Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, madam? (6:40) Never, sir, she replied. (6:42) I have, said Blake, but not before last night. (6:45) I was walking alone in my garden. (6:47) There was great stillness among the branches and flowers and more than common sweetness in the air. (6:53) I heard a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. (6:56) At last I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I saw a procession of creatures the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers, burying a body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with songs and then disappeared. (7:13) It was a fairy funeral.

Simon: (7:14) Yeah, and the exciting thing about this is that though we only get this a second hand, it's just from a couple of years after Blake's death. (7:25) And I used to, like you, Chris, take this awfully seriously. (7:30) But what I've realised over the past couple of months is that there are actually not that many fairy funerals that are for fairies, where fairies are shown burying fairies. (7:43) And also, that one of these, the earliest of our fairy funerals for fairies, my FFFF, as I abbreviate it, our earliest FFFF is actually from just a couple of years before this second-hand account of Blake's. (8:05) We then get a later account in the mid-19th century that appears in a British Folk Collection, and then actually it's everywhere. (8:14) It's in mid-19th century novels, mid-19th century poems. (8:19) We have to separate this out from the fairy funeral for humans. (8:24) And I find it very worrying that the FFFF, the fairy funerals for fairies, in only one case does it appear in a folklore source. (8:35) So, my suspicion is that this was an idea that circulated among British and then American intellectuals, and it became very fashionable for a time in the 19th century. (8:48) But we should not be, as a certain Chris Woodward was in 2022, seduced by these Victorian siren calls.

Chris: (9:00) Well, I don't know. (9:01) I think that some of them differ enough that they're not really one origin. (9:07) I agree that in the 19th century, there was a vogue for literature about these. (9:14) There's just endless, endless, terrible poems called the fairy funeral. (9:21) You could do a whole anthology, I think, of fairy funeral poems, and most of them are just dreadful.

Simon: (9:29) Easy, Chris. (9:29) Don't tempt us.

Chris: (9:31) But I just see enough variation in the stories that I read that maybe I didn't put them in that particular piece.

Simon: (9:41) Oh, Chris. (9:43) I dug an elephant trap for you, and I'm afraid you've walked straight into it.

Chris: (9:49) I don't think so.

Simon: (9:50) Well, let me make a counter case here. (9:53) I think there is actually one weird thing that almost all of these accounts have in common. (9:59) In the 18th and 19th century, we have lots of accounts of different kinds of fairies from different parts of Britain and Ireland, and of course, there are some rumours from your own dear fair republic. (10:12) But one thing that really stands out for me is that we don't have teeny weeny fairies for the most part. (10:21) There are very, very, very, very few. (10:24) So to get fairies below about six inches is vanishingly rare in British and Irish sources from this period, and yet again and again in the fairy funerals for fairies, we have teeny weeny fairies. (10:43) It's there in Blake that you so beautifully read, but it's also there in these later accounts. (10:48) These are insect style fairies.

Chris: (10:51) Yep, they are. (10:52) And they're all female. (10:53) I haven't seen any male fairy corpses.

Simon: (10:57) I can't believe I didn't notice that, but you're right.

Chris: (11:00) They're all pretty little females.

Simon: (11:02) I'm just astounded at my own ability to notice the average inch of a fairy, but not that they belong to one gender. (11:10) But you're right, I think, as well. (11:13) But doesn't that make you wobble a bit? (11:15) Doesn't that make you think, oh yeah, maybe Simon is right again?

Chris: (11:21) I think you're correct that there was a vogue for this, but you still have individuals telling these stories. (11:31) It's not just all literary. (11:33) I mean, there is a lot of fairy funeral literature, let's put it that way, and some of it is very flowery. (11:40) It is very, very 19th century romantic. (11:44) But then you get accounts, and I'm hoping I'm pronouncing this correctly, in the Duhas site where they talk about fairy funerals. (11:54) And those are individuals telling stories that happened to them.

Simon: (11:58) I think that when you look in the Duhas collection, I'm now imitating your Irish pronunciation. (12:05) Is it right or not? (12:08) Well, it's better than mine, I'm sure. (12:10) I think we can take that for granted after my catastrophic pronunciation of the county Sligo. (12:17) Sligo, I can't remember! (12:19) Anyway, those are about fairy funerals for people or related to people. (12:25) Now, I do want to acknowledge that you're right about one thing, that with William Blake, there seems to be a sincere visionary experience, and Blake certainly saw fairies. (12:37) He writes about this in his letters. (12:39) So, there's nothing incredible about it.

(12:41) But our earliest account of a fairy funeral for fairies comes from a rather unusual Scottish philosopher, Christopher North. (12:50) And I'd taken this to be a literary game that he talks about lying down by the side of a river and seeing this incredible thing. (13:02) But actually, I found a description from his daughter, where he brought her to the river where this happened. (13:10) And he said, you know, it was here, Betty, that I had this life-changing experience, and I saw something that even now I scarcely dare tell you. (13:19) It was clearly a real visionary experience for him.

Chris (13:23) It's just couched in such a flowery, literary way that I figured it might not be a real experience. (13:33) But the fact that he said that to his daughter, that lends a whole different complexion to it. (13:39) I've also wondered about the Blake account, because reading his other letters, I mean, this sounds like somebody neatened up the narrative. (13:48) It doesn't sound like Blake's language.

Simon: (13:50) Oh, you could be right about that. (13:53) One thing that has worried me a little bit, in terms of (13:57) maybe someone neatened up an account by Blake, is that Tamsin Rosewell, the illustrator, (14:05) when I shared some of these views with her, hoping, of course, to ambush you in this episode, (14:12) she sent me a fascinating Blake frontispiece showing a figure that looks very much like a fairy (14:21) burying someone who looks very much like a fairy, female, stretched out. (14:29) And I shared this with you a couple of days ago, Chris, and thanks once more to Tamsin for this. (14:35) I must admit, if someone was to try and defend the idea that Blake really had this experience, I would be made a little bit anxious by that illustration that I'm sure we'll share on our Facebook page. (14:49) We can both agree that it could be understood as a fairy funeral.

Chris: (14:53) It certainly looks like it, because you've got two other fairies flanking the corpse that is laying prone, who are weeping. (15:02) So yeah, it definitely looks like a fairy funeral. (15:05) And I had not seen that frontispiece to Jerusalem.

Simon: (15:10) When I saw it, it took my breath away, because it rather put dynamite under the bridge I've been building for the past three months. (15:20) But anyway, never mind, never mind. (15:24) Can we reach some kind of consensus here? (15:27) Do you think my division into the FFFFs and then the fairy funeral for people works?

Chris: (15:36) Not really. (15:38) I'm afraid I just don't see it. (15:40) I see the ones where, I mean, you've got predictive funerals that are labelled as fairy funerals. (15:48) For example, this one, this again is from the Duhas site. (15:52) This man was out setting snares to catch rabbits, and he thought it was so bright. (15:58) He woke up and it was so bright, he thought it was morning, and he rushed out thinking somebody was going to steal his snares. (16:04) Went to lift them and he heard footsteps and saw four small men carrying a coffin and a large crowd of mourners following behind crying and lamenting. (16:14) They marched past him and finally disappeared into a nearby lake. (16:18) On seeing this, the poacher rushed home only to discover it was a little after midnight. (16:23) Shortly thereafter, he took ill and died. (16:26) So there you have sort of a combination of both what looks like a fairy funeral because you've got small people and it's predictive or it presages this fellow's death.

Simon: (16:40) You see, I don't see this as a combination at all. (16:43) I see this as traditional fairies doing what traditional fairies do and poking people in the eye. (16:52) Let me try and give a slightly broader picture in terms of fairies, prediction, and Christian ritual. (17:00) We also have fairy christenings. (17:03) And in these fairy christenings, we have, I know of two examples of this, both from the Isle of Man.

Chris: (17:11) I've not heard about this at all. (17:13) I don't remember seeing a fairy christening.

Simon: (17:15) Well, I hope you've not seen one.

Chris: (17:16) Well, yeah, right, right.

Simon: (17:18) Yeah. (17:18) What happens is the fairies come in with a fairy priest. (17:23) They baptise the baby. (17:26) And if they baptise it as a girl, it means the pregnant woman in bed who's watching this is carrying a girl. (17:33) And if they baptise it as a male, it means the pregnant woman in bed is carrying a male. (17:38) So it's predictive as well, predictive for a different part of the life cycle. (17:44) I also know of one example, and I hate to do battle with you with only one example. (17:50) So I'm a bit anxious on this front. (17:52) But there's a lovely Welsh fairy wedding. (17:55) And it's one of these cases where a group of people look across a field and they see someone who happens to be the house butler walking towards them. (18:05) And a group of fairies walk past them in wedding outfits. (18:10) And this, the butler seems completely insensible to their presence. (18:14) So when he arrives, everyone says, did you see the fairy wedding? (18:18) And he says no. (18:20) And it's explained afterwards that this fairy wedding was the sign both of the death of the heir in the family, but also the fact that that butler would marry the daughter of the house. (18:33) And of course, you can imagine in 18th century Wales, this is absolutely an unacceptable form of social climbing. (18:41) So the fairies, again, were predicting a future, both a death, but also a marriage. (18:49) And when we think of fairy funerals, we need to put them in this slightly broader context, that the fairies know about our futures. (18:57) And sometimes, whether we like it or not, they share those futures with us. (19:03) And this seems to be a pattern with Christian rituals. (19:07) And so, that's why I find fairy funerals for fairies a little bit different. (19:13) And if there were fairy baptisms for fairies, or fairy weddings for fairies, I would be more open to this as a traditional idea. (19:23) I do actually know of one fairy wedding for fairies, but I'm not going to tell you where that's from, because I don't want it being used as ammunition against my very fragile fairy future platform here.

Chris: (19:38) Well, there is a notion that we've seen that the fairies need humans to help them, they need a midwife. (19:48) Sometimes they need a pallbearer. (19:50) I've seen a story that said the only person that could make a fairy's coffin was a human. (19:56) They needed a human to make that coffin. (19:58) Let's see, in Meeting the Other Crowd by Eddie Lenihan, there's a story about a guy who gets swept up in a funeral. (20:07) And there's a young priest with red hair, and he says, I suppose he was the one that was swept away with the fairies. (20:12) They have to have every kind of a person, you know. (20:16) So, he does some things. (20:18) He fills in the grave, he participates in the and he gets home from the funeral. (20:22) And he says, as far as I know, they've done me no harm, and I've done them no harm, but they have to have a live person.

Simon: (20:29) With Irish and Scottish sources, there are lots of these references to the fairies needing a mortal. (20:37) And I think the most common context you find them in are battles and sport games.

Chris: (20:45) Oh, yes.

Simon: (20:46) But there's no question that you also find them, not to the best of my knowledge in Scotland, but certainly in Ireland, connected to various business around funerals. (20:57) But there too, I would say that either it's about prediction in these cases. (21:03) In other words, the fairies want a human to act out their farce with them. (21:09) Or in some cases, it seems to be to do with changeling law, where the fairies have grabbed someone and something false has been left in their coffin, so they're running off with the real person. (21:24) That would be my take on it.

Chris: (21:26) I still think that there's a big difference. (21:28) And I'm not perhaps expressing it as well as I might, but it does seem as though it's not just that they're acting out, they're actually put to work. (21:39) They're either put to work making the coffin, or taking a lift of the coffin, or they're digging the grave, or they're filling in the grave.

Simon: (21:47) Well, I certainly acknowledge that there are lots of these stories from 19th century Ireland, and so anyone who wanted to take this...

Chris: (21:57) And Wales. (21:58) And Wales.

Simon: (21:58) But let me disagree there. (22:00) I don't think there are stories from Wales where humans are enlisted. (22:06) There are fairy funerals for humans, not for fairies. (22:12) But I don't think from Wales, there are stories where humans are enlisted by the fairies.

Chris: (22:18) I have so many examples I would have to search, but I'm fairly certain I've seen Welsh accounts where they were asked to do something.

Simon: (22:26) Well, we've come to the moment of a wager. (22:30) But I am fairly confident. (22:33) So what I suggest is, that if you are correct, I will give you a quarter litre of Italian olive oil. (22:43) And if I am correct, you give me your motorhome. (22:47) I think this is a fair bet.

Chris: (22:49) So I don't have a motorhome.

Simon: (22:52) Well, you could buy one, surely. (22:54) I mean, if it made it more convenient, you could buy one on this side of the Atlantic and have it sent over.

Chris: (23:01) Send it over to you. (23:02) Yes, of course. (23:04) Okay.

Simon: (23:04) Well, look, we have a wager. (23:06) We haven't quite agreed on the prize, but we now have a wager, Chris.

Chris: (23:12) Right. (23:12) And I still think I'm going to find it.

Simon: (23:15) I think within a month, you will be grovelling on the Facebook page and nothing, nothing gives me greater pleasure.

Chris: (23:25) Oh, the abuse I endure on the Facebook page. (23:28) Yeah.

Simon: (23:29) It's always interesting when we both disagree. (23:32) But at the same time, we're able, perhaps, to delineate the lines of our disagreement. (23:38) And this probably brings us towards phantom funerals. (23:43) And to be honest, this is the reason I've turned up today, because there's no one in the world who knows more about this than you. (23:50) And I'm really, really curious about the line between phantom funerals and fairy funerals. (23:57) Here, then, I sit at your knees and wait for enlightenment.

Chris: (24:02) Well, they're considered tokens of death. (24:05) It's the same thing in Wales where you have the corpse candles. (24:08) It's perhaps associated with the idea of sitting in the church porch at certain midnights and watching the procession of those in the parish who are going to die in this coming year. (24:23) And of course, you don't want to see yourself. (24:25) It also, I wonder if it has some sort of funereal Ferdogor thing. (24:32) It's a Scandinavian notion of someone arriving before they actually arrive, foreshadows the real funeral. (24:40) Because you find this a lot. (24:42) People talk about, yes, I saw a boat pulling up to the door of my cottage with a coffin. (24:49) That doesn't make any sense. (24:51) There's no water there. (24:52) And then a month later, it floods and they bring a coffin to the door in a boat.

Simon: (24:59) You get this a lot in fairy funerals as well, where the funeral is acted out and there's something a little bit off with it. (25:07) A lovely example from Wales is that the fairy funeral is in the air. (25:12) It's above the hedge. (25:13) And that makes no sense. (25:15) But of course, the week after, there's a snowstorm. (25:18) And so when the coffin is brought, the people are effectively walking five feet above the earth. (25:24) So this is very common. (25:25) You, for me, have been rather abstract. (25:28) And what I beg you here is, can you give me some geography on this? (25:34) Where do we find your phantom funerals?

Chris: (25:37) A lot in Wales. (25:39) It's definitely, there's just a predominance of them in Wales. (25:43) And I'm not sure why that is. (25:46) I've got one from 1923, for example. (25:50) These people, this woman was alone and it was snowing and she could hear some weird sounds. (25:56) And she could hear, quite plainly, the usual hymn sung at funerals. (26:00) She stood as if turned to stone and then locked the door and then thought her family was going to die. (26:07) She was terrified. (26:08) Then her husband came back from church and he said, well, now this is the explanation. (26:13) There was a funeral coming from one of the valleys. (26:15) And the horse drawn hearse got stuck in the snow drift and the party were there for hours, unable to proceed. (26:22) So it was the singing by the graveside she had actually heard. (26:26) But she thought it was going to be a phantom funeral.

Simon: (26:29) But when I read these accounts, I just think of them as fairy funerals because that seems to be the optic that normally the Welsh see these in. (26:40) I would just love to have an example, but I'm not even sure this would be possible because proving a negative is always difficult. (26:47) But where you could say, there are no fairies, damn it.

Chris: (26:50) OK, you ask about geography and maybe you can help me with this. (26:54) Mrs Ella Leather, she was a folklorist and she worked for, she worked collecting songs for child and says, it is seldom indeed that fairies are heard of east of the Wye.

Simon: (27:07) So I think by the Y they basically mean the border between England and Wales. (27:14) The point being that these fairy or phantom funerals are more often found in Wales than England. (27:23) And if you exclude Cornwall and even there, there's only a rather strange case. (27:29) I can only think of one fairy funeral from England. (27:35) So I think that's something that is really quite rare.

Chris: (27:39) There seem to be plenty of phantom funerals, though, in England.

Simon: (27:42) For instance, do you know if there are any from East Anglia or the southeast? (27:47) Because there you just wouldn't have fairies.

Chris: (27:51) Got one from Essex. (27:52) This woman said one Sunday morning returning from church, I saw a funeral cortege coming towards me. (27:58) It's glass hearse bearing the coffin on which lay many beautiful wreaths. (28:02) It was followed by two mourning coaches. (28:04) She paused to watch it pass and she waited as was respectful. (28:09) And she said to the ladies who'd been walking behind her from the church, they knew whose funeral it was. (28:16) And they looked at me in blank surprise and told me there'd been no funeral whatever passing. (28:20) I looked down the long country road. (28:22) The cortege had vanished. (28:24) The next day, I received a message from a London church where he whom I should have married was a clergyman who had died from a sudden heart attack on that Sunday morning.

Simon: (28:33) For me, this is a really effective example, because in Essex for the previous 100, 150 years, fairies just weren't a particularly credible supernatural explanation, I would say. (28:45) And so whereas we can perhaps disagree about what's going on in Wales, here clearly, whether or not at one time in eastern England, fairy funerals were a thing, what you're describing here is just a typical death token.

Chris: (29:02) And here's one from Devon. (29:03) They were driving home in a trap from Dalton, and it was rather late in the autumn. (29:08) They said, my wife said, hold in, William, there's a funeral party coming. (29:12) I at once saw the procession coming on towards us and turned the horse's head in against the hedge on my left and drove slowly. (29:18) As the train seemed of extraordinary length, I observed while it was passing and said quietly to those near me, well, how many more of you? (29:27) At last, the rear passed us and all at a short distance gradually disappeared from our sight. (29:32) My friend was much alarmed and concluded his own death was betoken in what we had seen. (29:37) And soon after he fell ill and after brief suffering died. (29:41) That's from 1882.

Simon: (29:43) So I hadn't been aware that there were so many of these from England. (29:48) And yet, in functional terms, they're very, very similar to the fairy funerals.

Chris: (29:54) They are similar, yeah. Yeah, we get a whole slew of them that just sound that sort of thing. (29:59) I was riding along and there's a funeral procession and I pulled over out of respect and it walked by and disappeared. (30:05) And they believe it's a fairy funeral for no apparent reason or they interpret it as a phantom funeral and somebody's going to die, especially if they see somebody or they see themselves in the coffin, which sometimes happens.

Simon: (30:22) Chris, you hate these kind of questions, but if I was to say how many of these accounts could we gather together, are we talking about 40 or 200 from Britain?

Chris: (30:36) Honestly, I don't do statistics well. (30:40) I'd have to go count. (30:41) I've got perhaps seven or eight from the United States. (30:45) I can tell you that much.

Simon: (30:46) What about the United States? (30:48) Are they different in any way? (30:49) Are they from all over the US? (30:52) When do they die out?

Chris: (30:55) Let me have a look here.

Simon: (30:58) Now, listener, I hope that you've noticed that Chris inadvertently confessed there that she doesn't have an Excel sheet on phantom funerals.

Chris: (31:11) No, I do not.

Simon: (31:12) I hope, listener, you are as shocked as I am.

Chris: (31:18) Well, this one happened in 1986.

Simon: (31:22) Oh, my God.

Chris: (31:23) And this is in Illinois, and apparently it occurs every hundred years. (31:29) This is bizarre. (31:31) On the 4th of July, 1889, a woman named Mrs. Chris and a neighbor lady were keeping vigil over the body of Mrs. Chris's dead baby. (31:39) It was nearly midnight, and they noticed in the distance a shadowy procession of people and wagons coming down the road. (31:47) And the only clue was that there was a casket in one of the wagons. (31:52) So they identified that it was a funeral procession. (31:54) There were 40 wagons followed by 13 pairs of horsemen. (31:59) There was no noise. (32:00) It was all completely silent. (32:01) And they said they thought they were dreaming, but they saw that. (32:06) So what had they witnessed? (32:08) Supposedly Fort Deschartes. (32:10) It was built in 1756. (32:13) A prominent man had been killed by a resident of the fort. (32:17) The murder was never apprehended, and they didn't quite know what to do with the body. (32:21) They asked how the death should be handled, and they were told to bury the dead man at midnight in some cemetery with just at night. (32:29) You couldn't do it during the day. (32:31) So they realized they were looking at a ghostly reenactment of this at 100 years after the place. (32:37) And supposedly in 1989, it was seen again. (32:42) And I don't have the specifics on that.

Simon: (32:44) I think it's wonderful that an American account says every 100 years.

Chris: 100 years, yes, yes.

Simon: I mean, you're coming up for your 250th.

Chris: I know, I know.

Simon: Guys, you haven't got the data to claim this every 100 years.

Chris: We don't have, no, we really don't.

Simon: If it was a Saxon princess in Suffolk, I'd let this go.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simon: Okay.

Chris: Well, you've got to have it.

Simon: Let me approach this from another direction, and one that Chris, you'll have thought about, I'm sure. (33:12) I happily have not been to that many funerals in my life. (33:15) But when I've been to funerals, and when I've seen funerals, I've very rarely seen a funeral cortege. In fact, I think the only time in my life I've really come face to face with one was when a very important young woman in the village where I live died. (33:32) And I remember being very impressed by the entire village walking behind the car with the coffin in. (33:41) I suppose that these experiences of phantom funerals, I mean, they're not really phantom funerals for the main part, are they? (33:49) They're phantom funeral corteges.

Chris: (33:53) Right. (33:53) You don't usually see them at the graveyard. (33:56) You don't see them getting buried. (33:58) They're actually, it's perhaps a subset of road ghosts.

Simon: (34:02) That's a lovely way to look at it. (34:04) And just going back to my fairy funerals for fairies, I think all of those examples are not corteges, but burials.

Chris: (34:14) Good point. (34:15) Yeah.

Simon: (34:15) So I didn't notice the gender. (34:17) But finally, I stumbled on this.

Chris: (34:21) But there are others that there's at least one, and again, this is from Wales, that happened inside. (34:29) This woman was, her husband was ill. (34:33) She was going upstairs to his room, and she had a feeling as if a vision, though she could see nothing. (34:38) But the staircase seemed suddenly crowded with people. (34:41) And by their shuffling, irregular footsteps, low exclamations, and heavy breathings, she knew they were carrying a heavy burden downstairs. (34:50) So realistic was the impression when she had struggled to the top of the stairs, she felt weak and faint from the pressure of the crowd. (34:56) A few days later, her husband died. (34:59) And on the day of the funeral, when the house was full of people and the coffin carried with down the narrow stairs, she realized that her curious vision had been a warning of sorrow to come.

Simon: (35:10) But forgive me, Chris, that is still a funeral cortege, isn't it? (35:14) Right. (35:15) It's the moment that the coffin is being brought downstairs. (35:18) It's the beginning of the final journey to the graveyard.

Chris: (35:23) Not necessarily, though, because first you take it down and there would be a wake at the house. (35:31) So you could interpret it if you wanted to, that you're just going to take it out of the house. (35:36) But that wasn't the practice. (35:39) You took it downstairs and put it in the parlor, and that's where the wake was held.

Simon: (35:43) So this is something else that confuses me and where I need Dr. Death herself to step in. (35:50) I know there's lots of English folklore from the eastern counties about what's called the death coach. (35:58) And I think that in northwestern Ireland, Connacht, you get the same idea. (36:05) And this presumably is not the funeral cortege. (36:09) It's picking up the body.

Chris: (36:11) It's just a death token. (36:12) You see it and it's trouble. (36:16) You know someone is going to die and die very soon.

Simon: (36:19) Is it a phantom funeral? (36:21) Is it the beginning of the cortege?

Chris: (36:23) No, it isn't. (36:24) It looks like a funeral coach. (36:26) It's draped in black or it's a hearse. (36:29) And you're thinking, what's the hearse here for? (36:31) Well, somebody's going to die. (36:34) And perhaps in a week or so or two days, a hearse will come and get the body. (36:39) But at the time, it's not recognized as the body is now being picked up. (36:45) It's just a token of death.

Simon: (36:47) I mean, again, I don't want to cross you on your special subject, but for an outsider, it sounds to me like this is pretty much the same phenomenon. (36:56) It's an aspect of the body being removed, being taken as a token. (37:02) It's just in these cases, there's no procession, no mourners.

Chris: (37:07) Well, you have death coaches where you have famous people seen in them with skull lanterns and things like I think Anne Boleyn or maybe her father has been seen in one. (37:19) And again, it's a bad omen if you see it, but it's not there to pick up the body.

Simon: (37:24) I can see that that's different if you have a historic personality. (37:28) It's a little bit like the wild hunt, isn't it? (37:30) You have someone who's outside the family who is signaling.

Chris: (37:37) Yes, exactly. (37:38) Okay. (37:41) So you've got some of the characteristics are these phantom funerals are usually at night, but not always because people are seeing them in the daytime. (37:51) Usually they hear a crowd of people or they're suddenly surrounded. (37:55) They might hear singing or tramping of feet or talking or everything might be completely silent. (38:01) And sometimes you would either see or hear the phantom cortege. (38:06) You didn't do both. (38:08) And sometimes you'd have two people and one would be seeing it and one would be hearing it. (38:13) There's also stories where I don't see anything. (38:16) We'll put your foot on my foot and then the person sees it. (38:19) Yeah.

Simon: (38:20) There are lots of motifs here that repeat themselves. (38:23) I love the example from the house where the woman on the stairs felt people squeezing past. (38:30) Because that also you have that idea of people squeezing into the side of the road that of course would have been something that naturally you would have done out of respect, but they actually feel the bodies go past them. (38:44) And so some of these images, some of these narrative notions repeat themselves.

Chris: (38:50) And there's also the notion don't ever walk in the middle of the road because you might run into a phantom funeral or a fairy funeral. (38:58) Just stay out of the middle of the road, which is sensible in many ways.

Simon: (39:02) Now, Chris, 15 minutes have gone by since I last complained. (39:07) So can I please bring up my next complaint?

Chris: (39:11) Okay. (39:12) All right.

Simon: (39:12) You've told us a lot about Wales. (39:14) You brought in the US. (39:16) We had Essex. (39:18) We talked about Devon. (39:19) We talked about the Wye River. (39:21) But yet again, Chris is ignoring Scotland. (39:25) So Chris, what's happening up north? (39:27) Because I think I've come across several references to phantom funerals from the Highlands.

Chris: (39:34) Yeah, there's a story in John MacTaggart, The Curiosities of the South of Scotland, alphabetically arranged. (39:43) And they talk about the fairies. (39:45) Another time a man met on an evening of funeral. (39:48) The people with it seemed fatigued and desired the honest man to take a lift of the corpse. (39:53) I'll do that, quoth he in God's name, which he had no sooner said than they all disappeared, leaving him with an empty coffin. (40:01) And the man died soon after. (40:04) This was a fairy funeral. (40:05) So there you're right. (40:07) You have a predictive aspect to the fairy funeral.

Simon: (40:11) There's an English example. (40:12) This is from Lancashire. (40:13) It's a story that personally worries me for a couple of reasons. (40:17) But it has a very effective narrative arc where two men see these small fairies walking along with a coffin. (40:27) And one of the two men are obviously astounded by this. (40:30) And they look down and they see the body in the coffin. (40:34) And one man turns to the other and says, God, that looks like you. (40:39) Yeah. (40:40) Do we have many examples of that? (40:43) Because personally, I really enjoy that little frizzle there. (40:47) Do we have people seeing themselves or seeing a friend in the open coffin? 

Chris: (40:53) Very rarely. (40:54) I can think of only two examples. (40:56) And you've named one of them. (40:59) Part of that is the coffins had lids. (41:01) So you weren't going to see what was in the coffin. (41:05) Although I'm told that the fairies leave the lid off their coffin so you can see that you're going to die. (41:10) It's more common in the sitting in the church porch situation where you see yourself. (41:16) Now, do you want more Scottish stories?

Simon: (41:18) Well, if you have some of the Scots examples, I'd be really interested.

Chris: (41:22) Sutherlandshire. (41:23) Janet Melville, a young woman, was serving as a maidservant with the minister of, I'm going to say, Lough in the same county. (41:30) She was wanting to go see her relatives, which is about seven miles from where she was working. (41:36) Remained till nearly dark. (41:37) But being a strong, fearless girl, she started as cheerfully as it had been at noon. (41:43) When she reached a part of the road, she noticed a funeral procession going along a short distance. (41:49) She was walking fast, so she overtook it. (41:51) And she spoke to some of the men whom she recognized. (41:55) But none of them answered her. (41:57) And as none of them deigned to answer her question as to whose funeral it was, she determined to follow it into the churchyard, which was close to the manse where she worked. (42:05) She did so and distinctly heard the men talking to one another. (42:09) So it was customary then they carried the coffin shoulder high. (42:12) She saw that, and she plainly heard the word relief every time the pallbearers were changed and relieved. (42:19) She stood quite close to the grave, saw the coffin lowered into it, and the earth filled in. (42:25) But the moment the internment was completed, the funeral cortege vanished out of her sight. (42:30) She knew then it was a spectral funeral and got so frightened, she had difficulty in getting home and was for four weeks afterwards confined to bed. (42:38) A few days after she saw the phantom funeral, a funeral cortege composed of the very people she had seen arrived at that churchyard. (42:47) And the grave was dug, and the coffin laid in it at the very spot where she saw the spectral burial taking place. (42:54) In some of the books on Second Sight, you will find lots and lots of stories of phantom funerals, because it's almost axiomatic. (43:03) If you have Second Sight, you're going to see phantom funerals.

Simon: (43:06) So my other question to you would be this. (43:08) And again, this is a doctor death question. (43:11) In so many of these accounts, people meet phantom funerals at night. (43:16) How common was it for a cortege to actually be walking at night? (43:21) Or was that immediately a red flag?

Chris: (43:24) It was a red flag, because there were times in the 18th century where it was customary to bury at night. (43:32) And I'm not sure why. (43:34) It runs in my mind it has something to do with taxation or church ritual or something. (43:41) I've seen an explanation, and I'm sorry I'm blanking on it. (43:44) But that was 18th century. (43:46) 19th century, you would not normally bury at night. (43:51) You might if there was an emergency, like you had someone with smallpox, and you wanted them underground, or cholera, some disease, you know, maybe you would be burying at night. (44:01) But a normal funeral would be held during the day.

Simon: (44:04) Interesting. (44:04) Thank you. (44:05) Now, another question I'd like to ask you, but here I'm doing so as Dr. Fairey, who has just completely failed in this respect. (44:15) This spring, I spent a lot of time writing on fairies. (44:18) And one thing I became much more conscious of with traditional fairies is just how important prediction is. (44:25) This is part of their relationship with the human community, that they will give us intimations of the good, and of course, more usually the bad that is coming in our direction. (44:37) How would you explain that or situate it within wider fairy lore?

Chris: (44:43) What does that say about fairy and time? (44:46) Are they somehow time travellers and they can see the future? (44:50) Do they have second sight, just like some humans have second sight? (44:55) Are they all that way? (44:57) I'm not sure how I would explain that.

Simon: (44:59) I find it very confusing. (45:01) I like to think that maybe in a year or so, we could dedicate an episode to fairies and the future, because it's such an important part of traditional fairy lore. (45:12) But I think it's one of these things that's been shorn off as fairy lore has gone through the generations.

Chris: (45:19) It's certainly nothing I've associated with the fairies. (45:23) You know, when I'm looking at these phantom funerals, so many of them are predictive, but I didn't associate that with it being a fairy trait.

Simon: (45:32) You also have it in other areas. (45:34) It's not just about X is about to die, though there's a lot of that. (45:39) For instance, there are several Welsh accounts where the fairies basically do some inside trading and let humans know what the price of grain is going to be at the local market. (45:53) And then we talked about the example of predicting the sex of a child, predicting a wedding. (45:58) So there are other examples. (46:00) Personally, it's something I find a little bit difficult to get my head around, maybe just because it's new.

Chris: (46:06) We definitely find the fairies playing pranks on people involved with fairy funerals. (46:12) Let me give you an example. (46:14) This guy's name was the Reverend Prosser, and late one evening he saw a funeral procession going down the church lane. (46:21) Supposing it to be the funeral of a man who had recently died in the upper part of his parish, yet wondering he'd not been notified of the burial, he put on his bands in order to perform his office over the dead and hastened to meet the procession. (46:34) But when he came to it, he saw it was composed of strangers. (46:37) Nevertheless, he laid his hand on the bier to help carry the corpse, when instantly the whole thing vanished and he was alone. (46:44) But in his hand, he found the skull of a dead horse.

Simon: (46:47) Yeah, and here we have the fairy funeral, not as prediction, but as theatre of the absurd. (46:53) I mean, what would we call this?

Chris: (46:56) I call it pranks. (46:57) I call it pranks.

Simon: (46:58) There is another example from the same author, this is Edmund Jones, where a fairy funeral goes by and the man actually snatches from the coffin. (47:09) Yes, the pall. (47:11) Thank you. (47:12) So that's a lovely example of a fairy gift coming out of one of these pranks.

Chris: (47:19) And I was really surprised that it said that he escaped being hurt for this bold act, was long the marvel of the parish.

Simon: (47:26) My God. (47:27) There's another example where a Welshman actually grabs a tiny coffin from some fairies walking down the lane and he runs home. (47:37) And, you know, talk about asking for trouble, Chris.

Chris: (47:40) Yeah, yeah.

Simon: (47:40) I would not like to. (47:42) He gets home and he discovers that he's got a horse's thigh bone in his hand. (47:49) He's carrying a horse's thigh bone. (47:51) So again, this idea of glamour, of putting on an act.

Chris: (47:55) There's just some oddities when you look at some of these stories, like a minister walks up to his church and he hears his own voice preaching a funeral sermon. (48:06) That's just strange. (48:07) You know, what's going on here? (48:10) Is it time travel? (48:12) I'm just fascinated by how the second site stories, they give very, very specific details. (48:18) These people are going to be the pallbearers.

(48:20) This is going to be the date of the funeral. (48:23) On that date, they're going to have to take this path because the regular path's been snowed in, that kind of thing. (48:30) It's very, very specific. (48:32) So, you know, maybe as you say, that's part of the fairies predicting things.

Simon: (48:35) When we talk about superstitions around luck, we've reflected on the fact that soldiers, miners, there are some professions that are much more likely to be concerned about omens because perhaps it creates some kind of illusion of agency in the lives of these people. (48:58) And I suppose that in rural communities, having a handle on dying and who's going to die is another matter. (49:06) So perhaps we see the equivalent here, just this desperate attempt to get some kind of handle on individuals' own lives.

Chris: (49:15) Right. (49:16) I mean, I've written a lot on death tokens, and that's it. (49:19) It gives you the illusion of control, or at least, oh, that's going to happen, we'd better try to prepare. (49:26) And you're never truly prepared, even if you have these omens. (49:30) But the neighbours at least will say, well, yes, there was that token. (49:34) They should have known.

Simon: (49:37) It makes a good story.

Chris: (49:38) It makes a good story. (49:40) Now, as far as further reading, there is no book on the subject.

Simon: (49:44) But there is an article, Chris, from 2022.

Chris: (49:48) I know. (49:48) It's in the FIS newsletter. (49:51) So perhaps we could post that version on our page. (49:55) But I've got dozens and dozens and dozens of articles, but they all come from different sources for the most part. (50:03) Although there's a fair number at the Doha site. (50:05) And Meeting the Other Crowd by Eddie Linehan has one. (50:09) There's a story in a Canadian book called Spirited Away by Dawes. (50:14) I've actually collected another story from Nova Scotia. (50:17) And I have a whole list of blog posts and things that we can post on the B&B page.

Simon: (50:24) Now, there is one secondary article from Notes and Queries 2011, and it's by a gentleman called Bentley, and it's called Blake and a Fairy Funeral. (50:37) OK. (50:37) And Bentley does make a first shot at trying to put together other fairy funerals. (50:46) Chris and I clearly disagree on this, but from my point of view, Bentley hasn't understood this critical difference between fairy funerals for fairies and fairy funerals aping humans.

Chris: (51:00) So you'll have to take it up with him as well.

Simon: (51:02) Oh, I will.

Chris: (51:03) Make a wager.

Simon: (51:05) Me and my gang, we're coming for you. (51:09) As my daughter would say, Bentley's going down. (51:14) Right, well, with that little bit of unwarranted aggression, Chris, do you want to play us out with a famous final reading?

Chris: (51:22) The heat's getting to you. (51:25) This is called A Premonition of a Burial, 1904. (51:30) The theosophist gives a pathetic story of a little boy and girl who said as an excuse for being late for tea that they had followed a funeral and had seen two little coffins taken to the grave and buried under a sycamore tree. (51:43) Their mother whipped them soundly and sent them to bed, believing that they had lied to her as the grave belonged to her family and could not be opened without her knowledge. (51:51) The children, however, remained in bed until their deaths a fortnight later from scarlet fever and the funeral occurred just as they had described it.