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Word puzzle headstone may have guaranteed entry to Heaven

From [url]www.ananova.com[/URL]

Story filed: 07:57 Tuesday 23rd July 2002

Word puzzle headstone may have guaranteed entry to Heaven

Researchers believe a gravestone designed like a word puzzle was an attempt to baffle the Devil.

It was erected in 1832 in the churchyard of St Mary's in Monmouth after the death of Welsh house painter John Renie.

The headstone is an acrostic, a form of riddle known since Roman times. It contains 285 individual letters and the epitaph can be read in 45,760 different ways.

The Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, a Church of Wales priest and qualified mathematics teacher, helped research the stone.

He told The Times: "The idea was for the Devil to be so confused by the jumble of letters on the headstone that he would move on to the next one, allowing the occupant of the grave to slip through the gates of Heaven. This was a time when the Day of Judgment was regarded as literal fact."

But the Rev James Coutts, the Vicar of St Mary's, said: "It's a point of considerable local interest and I have never seen anything like it before, but I think it's nonsense to suggest he was trying to cheat the Devil. I think it was probably intended to be something unusual and a bit of fun."

The paper reports Mr Renie was a radical, and a founding member of the Oddfellows, one of a number of friendly societies that started in the early nineteenth century.

Mr Fanthorpe added: "He would have had plenty of time to prepare for his own funeral, as we know he suffered a lengthy illness which may well have been caused by the toxic materials he would have used in his trade as a house painter. There was arsenic in wallpaper and lead in the paints, and there was a condition known as painter's colic from which he may well have suffered."

The gravestone also records the deaths of Mr Renie's sons John, who died aged one year and nine months, and James, who died aged 83 in 1903, and Mr Renie's widow, Sarah, in 1879.

The 33-year-old's obituary in the local Monmouthshire newspaper described him as an educated man of extraordinary natural abilities.

Anything featuring Rev Lionel Fanthorpe deserves a mention in here but even more-so when cryptography and the afterlife meet in one article!
 
what was the word puzzle? anybody got a photo?
 
Amazing maze!

Since Sally's link also referred to mazes, I'll mention an item seen on our local news last night:

A farmer in Tiverton, Devon, has for the past 3 years cut a maze in his crop, and the public are encouraged to come and explore it. This year the maze is based on the Queen's Jubilee emblem (with permission).

Oh, and the crop?

It's....







...maize!


Edit: I couldn't find a link to the Tiverton maze, but I found another one in Wiltshire! (Apparently they're common in the States too - people do like puns!)
Swindon area
 
What if some angels ready to take him up saw it and couldnt crack it?
 
There must be a few stories about these!

Yesterday I went for a little walk which took me past the parish church for the first time in a few years, and I noticed a gravestone with a skull and crossbones on it. It commemorated a man who died in 1745, IIRC, but there were some rather elderly looking artificial flowers by the grave (but maybe they had blown there from somewhere else).

The other odd thing was that the headstone faced the wrong way - west instead of east. :confused:

Some research is called for!
 
What parish church was this? There may be some information online somewhere... do you remember the fellow's name?
 
I was at my uncle's funeral a few years back, and as we were making our way through the cemetary I noticed a lovely headstone that was enscribed to a young boy from his loving parents, I was thinking how sad it was that their son had died when he was only seven, when I got up close to the stone I realised it was the grave of a cousin of mine who'd died 20 odd years ago. Gave me the willies ...
 
I believe that the "skull and crossed bones" was a common symbol for mortality and death. A crowned skull further symbolised triumph over death. There is some stuff about this in Brewers - but I don't have my copy here.

I understood that it was quite common for a headstone to face west. Do you mean that the feet face east and the inscription is on the other side of the stone, facing west?

If so then the person buried would be looking towards the rising sun.
 
LobeliaOverhill said:
...when I got up close to the stone I realised it was the grave of a cousin of mine who'd died 20 odd years ago. Gave me the willies ...
As I was leaving the churchyard, I came across a memorial to my next door neighbour, who died last year. It had been added on to the grave of (perhaps) his father.

Alb, the inscribed side of the stone faced west, unlike all the other gravestones, which face east. It is not clear which side of the stone the burial was - it's just level grass, after all this time.

I'll have a look in my copy of Brewer's! :)
 
There seems to be nothing relevent in Brewer, and there's nothing on the web about the churchyard. The local library will have stuff I can check tomorrow. Otherwise I could ring up the vicar!

There is a lot on the web about the Christian practice of graves facing east, eg:-
http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/Grave Markers/Elements.htm
The origin of the traditional southern burial orientation is found in Europe. One finds in Great Britain both the preferred feet-to-east position and the punitive north-south alignment for wrongdoers, notably suicides…Preferences of the east may well have a pagan antecedent in the sun worship cults once widely spread in Europe. The sun god Sol Invictus was widespread in the Roman Empire at the advent of Christianity and lent to the new faith both this god’s holy day, Sunday, as the Christian Sabbath and his birthday, the winter solstice, as Christ’s nativity date. He could have also have provided the traditional Christian burial position. Perhaps an echo of this origin is heard in the claim by a minority of rural Texans that the feet to the east burial allows the dead to face the rising sun. (Jordan, 30)

Also, if you study the really old cemeteries, they looked to the rising sun to determine where was east. So, many of the markers are turned at slightly different angles due to the differences in the time of year when people died! This is true, I have noted in the very old Irish Texas cemetery I documented.}
This page, http://www.cemgineer.com/feet_to_the_east.htm , mentions some other customs, such as priests with head towards the altar.
 
One of the saddest sights in my local churchyard are the graves there are outside the cemetary (but always facing towards it), and therefore on unconsecretated ground. Many of these are children who, presumably, committed the sin of being born outside wedlock :(

Jane.
 
Doing a further web search, I found this set of pics of the church and graveyard - taken in January this year. Sadly, it doesn't include the gravestone I mentioned - I shall have to go and take a pic myself (but not today - rain and thunder!)

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cornwallpics/stgluvias/index.htm
(BTW, if you have PopUpPopper, set it to Delete All from Site here!)

I was actually looking for a link to a ghost story attached to the church: the story featured on TV's 'Strange But True', with Michael Aspell, IIRC. I thought I'd already posted on this MB about it, but I can't find it. I'll get back to you on this...!
 
All I can find on the ghost so far is this snippet:
Another ghost in Penryn is the bellringer Captain Martin who was drowned after a shipwreck in the 1880's. He resides in St Gluvias' church these days.
But the version I remember had him ringing the bells at midnight on the anniversary of his death, and there was even (supposedly) an agreement between two friends to meet at the Church to listen to the ghostly ringing.

This they did, but next morning one discovered that his friend had died the previous evening and so could not have made the rendezvous... :eek!!!!:


EDIT: I did find this shipwreck story in which a Capt. Martin was lost heroically in Biscay, but there is no mention of a Penryn connection.

P.S. In the 1881 Census a Charles Martin, born in Penryn, was in Swansea on board the "Elizabeth". He was then 19 and unmarried, and possibly an officer. If he did drown in the 1880s, he would still have been in his twenties - is a young death more likely to create a ghost?
 
two local graves spring to mind... one in Mylor harbour churchyard has the tragic story in sort of poetry about some poor chap who went out in the morning across the carrick roads and on returning was shot dead by the customs men, by accident!... and one in Wendron which is of a master and slave (the slave survivieing the master by 7 years i think) ... oh and the trengose (or is it tregrove?) rocket rescue equipment bloke in Helston..oh and theres my fav...Sister Elvis in Truro
 
One of the saddest sights in my local churchyard are the graves there are outside the cemetary (but always facing towards it), and therefore on unconsecretated ground.
A friend tells me that quakers were not allowed to be buried in church consecrated ground until some time in the 1700's. Some quakers apparently had their own burial plots - there is one at the junction of the St Just/a30 road near Land's end. There was a huegenot community near to Sennen in the 1600's, were they quakers?
 
One of my favorite funny tombstones:

"Here Lies Lester Moore
Four Slugs from a 44
No Les
No More"
 
talking about facing west/east...

i've always wondered why james joyce uses this sentence as a synonym of "it's time to die":
"the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward"
("the dead", last paragraph, when you're already drenched in tears)

like, west is where the sun sets, ok. but down here (and in latin culture, and in greek culture) (AFAIK, of course) west is not a synonym of death. not at all.
is that a celtic thing? is that a merely joyce thing?
 
Puritans and nonconformists were fond of west-east and north-south burials for a while.
In Melbourne Cemetery there's a big rock, covered over with plaques, each of these records the name of children who were stillborn or died soon after birth. It's quite sad :(
 
Puritans and nonconformists were fond of west-east and north-south burials for a while.

IIRC, during the English Civil War casualties on the Parliamentarian side were buried north-south. I can't remember if it was for religious reasons (Cromwell was Puritan, so it's possible), or just as a general gesture of defiance.

Don't you think it's a bit weird, though, for Puritans and other extreme Christian groups to bury their dead in a pagan fashion? Aren't Roman burials and suchlike generally north-south orientated?
 
brian ellwood said:
A friend tells me that quakers were not allowed to be buried in church consecrated ground until some time in the 1700's. Some quakers apparently had their own burial plots - there is one at the junction of the St Just/a30 road near Land's end. There was a huegenot community near to Sennen in the 1600's, were they quakers?

Interesting theory, Brian - I don't know the answer. The church itself dates from either the 13th or 11th centuries (depends on who you ask), but most of the surviving gravestones are from Regency or Victorian times (the churchyard was closed in, I think, 1903). The childrens' graves generally have only the name of the child and birth and death dates. No other details.

The graves encircle the church, so there's no "east-west"/"north-south" bias. I've always assumed that that they were buried with their heads towards the headstones (ie with their feet towards the church), but I don't know the significance of this.

Jane.
 
"This is also reflected in funeral protocol where the corpse of a layman should have the feet turned towards the altar; if on the other hand the corpse be that of a priest, then the position is reversed, the head being towards the altar." (from the article Rynner linked to).

I remember this from when my dad was an undertaker. He took it to show a sign of respect, and also because it reflects the way the congregation and priest face during a service. Fittingly, my grandfather was a laypreacher and so was laid in his coffin horizontally - so not quite one of the congregation and not quite a priest. This was because he was very tall and the church was small, so there wasn't enough room for him to be pointing in the proper way. Otherwise he would've been halfway down the aisle.

I'm quite fascinated with multiple graves. There's one I've seen where a widow remarried. She was then put in the grave with her first husband, and when her second husband died, he was put in as well. Must've got a bit busy...:spinning

My family have a big grave from the 1920's, which was bought with the intention of 5 people being put it in. Only 2 people were put in it, though, so it's sinking quite precariously.

To return to Rynner's original post, about the skull and crossbones - there's a painting done by Branwell Bronte of a grave stone with 'Resurgam' ('I will rise', IIRC - and I think it was also used in 'Jane Eyre') one it and above that, skull and crossbones, with the sun beaming out from behind it. I think it was painted in about the 1820's or 30's.
 
A couple of stories.
I did a Google image search on my own name, and the first picture that came up was of a gravestone with my name on it. An odd sensation.
Billy Connely claims that when he dies he wants only a single tiny passage written on his gravestone, that you have to get very close-up to read. It says "You're standing on my balls".
Finally, this:

grave2s.jpg


By the way, isn't it strange to have a multiple grave, knowing full well that one day your body will be in that hole?
 
Even more disturbing are paupers graves. My great great grandparents were, like most London folk of the time, very poor and they were buried in graves in Highgate cemetry with complete strangers. The saddest example is this is a great aunt of mine who died as a baby in 1918 and was tucked in beside 4 adults. All that remains of this poor babe is one photograph that I treasure, the whole thing saddens me so much.

On as aside, i was very weird kid who collected the inscriptions off tombstones.......no wonder i was bullied at school.
 
I have seen Ebenezer Scrooge's grave. It is a leftover film prop which stands in a churchyard in Shropshire. I will scan and post a photo - it is quite strange to come across unawares!
 
While stationed at Ft. Riley, KS I used to drive past a graveyard that dated back to the early 1800's. There was one stone that always caught my eye, it being about 5 feet tall and light colored stone. One day when I had the time I stopped and went to read the stone.
It was the grave of a captain's wife who had died in a cholera epidemic. She had the same first and middle name as I did. She was born 99 years to the day of my birthday. That's all I can remember anymore. I sort of skittered back to my truck and got out of there.
I was so freaked it didn't occur to me to go back and take a rubbing, which I regret now and I don't know if I'll ever get back there.
 
Close to my home in Westmeath is the grave of Adolphus Cooke, a local eccentric landlord obsessed with the notion that his pet turkey was the reincarnation of his grandfather. As a magistrate, Cooke once sentenced his dog to death for immorality, but later reprieved it. Cooke's grave is marked by a giant beehive, for he believed he would be reincarnated as a bee. Also buried in it are his brother and his nurse. It is about 10 foot high and a similar width. It is not actually like a beehive - it resembles more an igloo. (Can't find a pic on-line) Cooke also believe he would be reincarnated as a fox. Funny enough any time the local hunt draw the derelict graveyard they always flush out a fox, but I have never heard of one of them being caught - weird. :eek!!!!:
 
i'm glad to find out what the skull and cross bones mean. there is a small graveyard and a ruined church on my university campus and many of the gravestones have skull and cross bones on them. to a person in this day and age it looked slighty onimus!
 
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