Ghost Lore and Crossroads

Speaker A: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles. Crossroads occur in folklore all over the world. Robert Johnson, the legendary blues musician, claimed his talent resulted from a pact with the devil made at a crossroad. Crossroads have seen many strange old remedies attached to them. Rubbing a piece of raw meat on a wart, for example, and later burying it at a crossroad was supposed to get rid of the wart. Crossroads have often been referred to as a liminal place, something neither here or there, but instead something between different thresholds. Have you ever been out along a road or near a crossroad and seen something from the corner of your eye that is not there? The next time you look, maybe you brush this aside as something you imagined you saw. Maybe the truth is something else. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring crossroads and roads and why it is that these may be sites for paranormal and ghostly activity. Death and Burial in the United Kingdom has seen a number of changes to practices over the last few hundred years. Examining the topic of what happens after death to the body is an intriguing subject matter around the world, and here in the United Kingdom, we are no different. I've explored the question as to why so many reported ghosts seem to be from particular periods of history in previous podcast episodes. And that question is something I believe will also play some part in the themes that come up in the episode. Today burial rituals vary and change over time, and have usually been dependent on necessity of the day or religious rationale. In the United Kingdom, for example, the practice of digging graves to a depth of 6ft goes back to at least the 16th century and is one believed to have been adopted as a precautionary measure against the plague that was rampantly spreading throughout African, European and Asian countries, killing between 75 and 200 million people. The belief was that this practice would help prevent animals digging up bodies and inadvertently continuing to spread the disease. Regulations like this are no longer required, nor is the use of a shroud demanded, as it was in 1666 and again in 1679, when Parliament ordered that bodies be buried in a shroud of woolen cloth, primarily to help stimulate the English wool industry. With so many religions prescribing a particular way to live. The same was true of customs related to what to do with the body in death. The ritual of burial in many cultures, from the position of the body to grave goods, buried or entombed shrouds headstones, markers, were all there to help that soul in the afterlife with burial in the proper and fitting manner, according to the practices of those cultures seen as the way to help that individual reach the afterlife simultaneously. This would allow mourning and respect to also be shown. So what does this have to do with crossroads? If so much thought and attention to those deserving of proper burials was given. The question becomes, what about those who were judged as not deserving of the same kind of treatment? What would become of them? And is this why certain types of locations and spirits frequent those areas? So let us examine who were those that fell outside the parameters of deserving these kinds of burials, so that we can then explore what actually did happen to them and why these may account for some hauntings. Up until 1823, there were upwards of 222 hanging offenses in the United Kingdom, varying from simple, everyday small crimes ranging to murder and treason. The outcome, though, would have remained the same. The hangman's noose. Typically, scaffolds were erected near the crossroads, and it would be here that most executed prisoners would be buried. One example would be the old Tyburn Gallows, situated between modern Edgeware Road and Oxford Street in London. Part of the rationale for this was purely monetary, with nobody wishing to pay for the burial of these criminals. Crossroads were chosen because it was land belonging to no one, and so what better place to bury the dead? Depriving these individuals of a Christian burial would, of course, according to religious beliefs, hamper those souls from gaining entry into heaven. Further folklore would arise around the reasoning for the use of these locations, with speculation that the crossroads would bewilder the ghost should it attempt to return. The Murder Act of 1752 in England would alter some of this only slightly, by distinguishing this criminal act of murder from other crimes, by determining that this act should require more punishment in death. In fact, this act mandated that all criminals executed as a murderer from 1752 would be taken from the scaffold to infirmaries or shire halls for public dissection. Their skin would be flayed and often used to bind books about their life, trial and execution. These books still exist today, their bones bleached and used as skeletons in museums and hospitals, again, something you can still see in some institutions. These public affairs would be packed with spectators who would witness all manner of procedures. In Glasgow, a Dr Andrew Yur, a senior lecturer, was known to use galvanization on the corpses he was dissecting, very reminiscent of scenes from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His corpses would be attached to batteries where currents would reanimate the corpses and have them lifting arms or legs, the chest wall, to rise and fall. So realistic was this to the observer that some would believe the dead were being brought back to life. The Murder Act would pave the way for creating a market for human corpses and would contribute to the sharp rise in resurrectionists people who would steal corpses to sell again, just as before. For any criminal, this was to deny that soul entry to heaven, to punish them beyond death. The fear this would instill is clear. On the 29 July 1831, john Amy Bird bell was found guilty of murdering a 13 year old boy for the sake of nine shillings, the equivalent to 45 pence roughly today, according to the chronicle of the time. Bird, who was only 14 himself, seemed indifferent to his charge, showing no fear to the consequences for his guilt. This would change when the judge informed him his body would be handed over to surgeons for dissection. This final act of disgrace, humiliation and indignity was too much, and as he made his way to the gallows, would declare that the murdered boy was better off than him, to which the constable escorting him agreed. Up until 1823, individuals committing suicide would fare the same fate, with suicides traditionally being buried at crossroads, sometimes with a stake through the body. This crime was known as fellow desais, meaning felon of himself, an archaic legal term that denotes that the victim has committed the illegal act. Suicide was considered a crime not just against man, but against God himself, and so therefore a very particular type of punishment was required after death. Like other criminals of the day, burial at a crossroad was intentional to confuse that spirit and keep them from entering a peaceful afterlife. In 1680, a farmer murdered his wife and then committed suicide. He was found guilty of fellow desay, something that would guarantee that his corpse would not find rest in hallowed ground. A suitable crossroads was selected in a grave dug. He was laid to rest at night so that he would not be touched by the warming rays of the sun. His body was placed face down in the earth, where a stake was then driven through his heart. Locals wanted to ensure such a character would not be able to escape his grave in death. The sad truth is that very little documentation around people who suffered this fate exists. With the burials not taking place in church, ground records were unnecessary. We will never know exact numbers or locations of such sites and the people buried there. This barbaric practice of burial for suicides was condemned in Parliament in 1822, after the Foreign Secretary at the time committed suicide and was allowed to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Subsequent to this, in 1823, an act was passed allowing suicide's private burial in a churchyard, but only at night and without a Christian service. It wasn't until 1882 that a review of this act resulted in burials being allowed in daylight hours, and Parliament did not decriminalize suicide in the United Kingdom until 1961. The last crossroad burial would take place in 1823. As mentioned previously, the number of crossroad burial records are scarce. Do these explain the volume of headless horsemen, banton, coaches and other spirits that seem to converge on crossroads? Does it explain the number of prisons where executions and burials would take place and paranormal activity reported there? Spirits not at rest, spirits denied peace? Maybe spirits lost, as was hoped, or worse, spirits looking for revenge. Perhaps it is the geography itself, with crossroads sitting on parish boundaries, making the veil between our world and the spirit one a little thinner. Maybe with a number of modern roads and other upgrades that take place, maybe they disturb more than they realize. In the process, undoubtedly near you will be a crossroad where such acts would have taken place. You may have heard stories in local legends. Near to where I live is the story of Elizabeth or Betty who was buried in 1786, the reasons for which are less clear. Was it suicide? Petty theft, witchcraft? We will not know. Her spirit is often seen nearby in Fairford, so maybe that figure that you think you see by the road or the crossroad is not your imagination, but in fact someone's haunting story to share. Maybe like you, they are just trying to get home. Thank you for listening you.

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