Catacombs Folklore: Ghosts, Vampires & the Holy Grail

The concept of catacombs dates to first-century Rome, where the catacombs provided underground tombs. The Romans didn’t permit burial within the city walls, and while pagans cremated their dead, the Christians had to find other solutions.

Jewish communities already used the catacombs and Christian communities adopted them in the 2nd century. They’d fallen out of use by the 5th century, being abandoned following their desecration by the Goths, and becoming lost to time. Workers accidentally revealed their existence in 1578.

There are also catacombs in Odessa, Malta, Sicily, Porto, and Alexandria. Perhaps the most famous of all the catacomb networks is the Paris Catacombs, which even formed the central location in the horror film As Above, So Below.

And we can’t forget the tunnels that lie beneath churches and cemeteries right here in the British Isles.

But what folklore is attached to these unique locations? Let’s explore a handful and see what we find.

The Holy Grail in a Roman Catacomb?

The rock under Rome is largely made of a soft volcanic rock called tuff, which is easy to dig, helping to explain the extent of the galleries, vaults, and chambers within the catacombs. Originally, catacombs would have been considered cemeteries. Frank Korn explains they were called cemeteria subterranea. But by the early Middle Ages, the terminology changed, using cemetery for a cemetery above ground, and catacomb for any graveyards below ground (quoted in Marranca 2022).

Wall niches called loculi hold the deceased, usually covered by bricks or marble slabs. These might bear symbols to honour the deceased, including the sign of their profession.

The San Callisto catacombs hold 16 popes, while the San Sebastiano catacombs are the burial place of St. Sebastian (Alderisio 2022).

Only five of the catacombs in Rome are open to the public, while experts admit that many are more than likely lost now. Frank Korn debunks the myth that Christians hid from persecution in the catacombs (quoted in Marranca 2022). The evidence is pretty compelling. Between the 95% humidity, the smell of decomposing bodies, and the total absence of light, it would require a strong constitution to stay down there for long. Furthermore, the Romans knew the locations of the entrances, so hiding down there would have been largely pointless (2010).

An amateur archaeologist named Alfredo Barbagallo claimed the Holy Grail might lie in the closed catacomb beneath the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura.

One legend saw Pope Sixtus II leave the Grail with St. Lawrence to keep it safe from Emperor Valerian. While many think St. Lawrence sent it on somewhere else for safekeeping, Barbagallo thought it was in the tunnels beneath St. Lawrence’s basilica (Valsecchi, no date).

No one knows if he was right because the Vatican denied permission to look. While the evidence is scant that the Grail would be down there, it just proves the mysterious allure of catacombs—especially inaccessible ones.

The Paris Catacombs

The Paris Catacombs are perhaps the most famous in the world. They’re estimated to hold 6 million people and they stretch across 186 miles in total.

In 1763, Louis XV banned burials happening within the city since the city burial grounds were overflowing and causing a public health crisis. The church opposed the move, and it was only when heavy rains caused the wall of Les Innocents to collapse and dump corpses into a neighbouring yard in 1780 that the authorities had to act. They decided they couldn’t bury their dead in the city… but they could bury their dead under it.

The old lime quarries under the city seemed like the ideal solution and by 1786, they had been consecrated. By 1788, they’d finished moving the inhabitants from Les Innocents to the quarries. More cemeteries gave up their dead for the bones to be re-interred in the catacombs, which opened to the public by appointment in 1809.

That said, most of the catacombs have been off-limits to the general public since 1955. Some of the old passages are even now underwater (Dhwty 2019). The part of the tunnels known as the Paris Catacombs that’s open to visitors follows a 1.5km route.

Paris Urban Legends

Before we go any further, you need to know that a cataphile is someone who regularly studies or explores the Paris Catacombs. And tales of people lost in the catacombs aren’t new. Gaston Leroux wrote The Double Life in 1903, in which the two heroes get lost in the quarry tunnels. Eventually, they spot light up ahead, and find their way into the ossuary where a concert was being held. This actually happened in 1897 and Leroux wrote it into his novel (Robin 2013: 70).

The Abandoned Video Camera

In one urban legend from the 1990s, a group of cataphiles found a video camera on the floor in the ossuary. Only there was no owner nearby.

They reviewed the footage on the camera, disturbed by the noises on the footage. Whoever was carrying the camera had clearly become lost, and some believe the terror of being trapped had driven him mad.

The video ended when the man dropped the camera, but no one knows who he was or what happened to him. Several websites theorise that it went on to inspire As Above, So Below, so part of me wonders if it wasn’t made up to help promote the film. It’s funny because one website said it happened in the 1990s, and another said it was 2009, so who knows?

Meanwhile, people also claim that if you venture into the catacombs after midnight, the walls speak. Disembodied voices try to lead anyone who hears them further into the ossuary, where they become lost.

The Lost Doorman

Another story claims that Philibert Apsairt worked as a porter at the Val-de-Grâce Convent during the French Revolution. He decided to use the quarries to reach the Chartreux Convent’s cellar where they kept their famous liqueur (Robin 2013: 72). He got lost on the way and ended up wandering lost in the tunnels.

With only a candle to light his way, he couldn’t find his way out again. When his candle burned out, Philibert was doomed.

Cataphiles apparently found his body 11 years later in 1804, identifying him from his hospital key ring. According to legend, they buried him in the catacombs where they found his body, and every November 3rd, he haunts the tunnels.

‘Don’t Search’

Finally, in 2004, police officers were in one part of the catacombs not open to the public. They found a PA system that played the sounds of barking guard dogs, a bar, a workshop, a living area, and a cinema that could hold 20 people. When the officers went back a few days later with a bigger team, everything had vanished. Only a note remained, saying “Don’t search”.

The Green Man

According to the Paris Catacombs guidebook, bandits that used the catacombs for their nefarious goings on spread legends of a “wandering ghost called ‘the Green Man'” to deter anyone from venturing inside (2013: 72).

That sounds a lot like the legends smugglers told to keep people away from their caves!

The Diable Vauvert

Bandits also sneaked into the limestone quarries beneath the Luxembourg Gardens and took them over in the 12th century. Apparently they “terrorised the local population”, and the locals believed the Devil caused the lights and noises. Over time, people came to believe the Diable Vauvert lived in the quarries in this area (Robin 2013: 72).

Kensal Green Cemetery

Of course, cemeteries themselves often include catacombs to maximise burial space. Kensal Green Cemetery in north west London is no exception. Its designers took their inspiration from Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, and the cemetery opened in 1833 to move burial grounds out of London. As with Paris, the authorities hoped that moving the dead away from the living would ease the public health crisis.

Plenty of famous people rest here, including Wilkie Collins, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Babbage, and Dr James Barry. I highly recommend the Friends of Kensal Green tour so you can find exactly where people are.

Catacombs stretch beneath the Anglican Chapel under the western side of the cemetery. A hydraulic lift, an example of Victorian engineering, still carries coffins from the chapel down into the catacombs for interment. Some 3000 people lie in eternal rest in peace and quiet, though there is space for 1000 more.

The catacombs were popular in their day for those who moved from the countryside to London. Burial in the catacombs was the next best thing to burial in their parish church’s vaults (Elvery 2022).

The tours no longer include the catacombs, but I found a video on Youtube from someone who’d filmed down there, so you can see for yourself.

Highgate Cemetery

Perhaps the real showstopper of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden cemeteries in London, Highgate Cemetery opened in 1839 in a bid to move burial grounds out of inner London. It seems hard to believe now, with Highgate swallowed up by the onward expansion of London, but it used to be a quiet village on the outskirts.

The West Cemetery, which is home to the likes of Christina Rossetti, boasts its own Catacombs of the Terraces, which hold 825 bodies across 55 vaults.

They became a focus of the Highgate Vampire panic in the 1970s, where amateur investigators sought to locate the eponymous bloodsucker. David Farrant claimed Satanic masses had occurred in the catacombs as part of the panic (Ian 2018). Perhaps worse than the presence of a vampire was the vandalism and desecration in the cemetery, of both graves and their unfortunate occupants.

Patreon supporters at the £3.50 a month tier can access the exclusive episode of Fabulous Folklore about the Highgate Vampire!

What do we make of these catacombs?

I’ve been to the catacombs in Paris, Highgate, Porto, and Kensal Green. To me, they feel desperately sad, rather than creepy. But I think this creepy reputation makes it easy for folklore, ghost tales, and urban legends to become attached to them.

After all, it’s the same reason people dare each other to venture into cemeteries at night. They want to see something weird.

There is a difference between the catacombs beneath a church or cemetery, and the Paris Catacombs. I think part of it comes from the fact that those in a traditional burial ground chose to be interred there. Those in the Paris Catacombs had no say in the matter.

But the fact that we don’t often see these places, and can only imagine what happens in them, helps add to their odd reputations…

Have you been to any of these catacombs?

References

Alderisio, Alessandro (2022), ‘All you need to know about Catacombs in Rome’, Wanted in Rome, https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/all-you-need-to-know-about-catacombs-in-rome.html.

Dhwty (2019), ‘The Dark Underworld of the Paris Catacombs’, The Tour Guy Travel Blog, https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/dark-underworld-paris-catacombs-002834.

Elvery, Martin (2022), ‘The Londoner who loves Kensal Green cemetery so much he moved house to be right next to it’, My London, https://www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/london-tours-tickets-hidden-history-23241638.

Ian (2018), ‘The Highgate Vampire – How It All Began – by David Farrant’, Mysterious Britain & Ireland, https://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/the-highgate-vampire-how-it-all-began-by-david-farrant/.

Marranca, Richard (2022), ‘The Roman Catacombs: The Labyrinthine City of the Dead’, Popular Archaeology, https://popular-archaeology.com/article/the-roman-catacombs-the-labyrinthine-city-of-the-dead/.

Robin, Sylvie, Gély, Jean-Pierre, Viré, Marc (2013), An Underground World the Catacombs of Paris, Paris: Paris Musées.

Sood, Suemedha (2012), ‘Exploring the history of catacombs’, BBC Travel, https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20121025-exploring-the-history-of-catacombs.

The Tour Guy Travel Blog (no date), ‘Bone-Chilling Paris Catacombs Legends And Myths’, The Tour Guy Travel Blog, https://thetourguy.com/travel-blog/france/paris/catacombs/most-bone-chilling-paris-catacombs-legends-and-stories/.

Valsecchi, Maria Cristina (no date), ‘Rome’s Ancient Catacombs’, National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/rome-catacombs.