For Whom the Bell Tolls: Folklore of Churches and Churchyards

Churches used to be a centre for the community. They were open to all classes of society, and through their association with births, marriages, and deaths, often had links to each stage in an individual’s life. Add to that their open commemoration of the dead, and churches became a clear focal point (Simpson 2003: 67).

We’ve talked about the importance of church bells before. Look at the Dick Whittington legend, where Bow Bells predict his future as London mayor. Or the superstitions surrounding church bells and their ability to predict deaths depending on what’s happening while they chime.

So it’s hardly surprising that the folklore of churches is rather common. Many of these stories here also appear in similar versions across the country, which implies that people came up with similar theories for strange or unexplained events.

Next week, we’ll look at some haunted churches. But for now, let’s dig into the folklore of churches and churchyards…

Lost Churches and Tolling Bells

There are traditions of churches lost to the sea along the coast. In these tales, bells still ring at midnight, or during storms (Simpson 2003: 67). They certainly make for an atmospheric and evocative image! Yet there are also tales of lakes that swallowed sinful villages, especially where the loss of the church is noted.

We must go to Bomere and Shomere, a few miles south of Shrewsbury, for our next church-related story. According to a local legend, related by Charlotte Burne, Bomere was originally the site of a village sitting in a hollow. The villagers turned their backs on Christianity and took up the worship of Woden and Thor. The priest warned them no good would come of their behaviour, but they persisted, with the exception of a small band who continued to worship God in the chapel. One December, that had been far wetter than usual, the priest was gathering wood on the hillside when he noticed a problem. A dam held back the nearby mere, but the water was beginning to overflow.

The priest ran down into the village, begging the men to cut a new channel to safely let the excess water out. The villagers refused as it was their winter festival, and they accused the priest of trying to spoil their fun. The priest gave up trying to help them and went to his chapel. Despite the rain, his flock gathered with him on Christmas Eve for their midnight mass. During the service, they heard an almighty roar, before a mighty flood flowed into the church. It washed away the building and the mere flooded the village, having breached the dam. People continued to claim that if you travelled over the mere on Christmas Eve, you could hear the church bell tolling just after midnight (1883: 64-65).

On top of that, one legend claimed that if the neighbouring pools of Bomere and Shomere ever met, the world would end (Burne 1883: 64).

Charlotte Burne collected several stories that were variations on this same theme. For one reason or another, a church either ended up at the bottom of the mere, or its bells did. In both cases, you could still hear them ringing at particular times or on specific days. The focus upon the loss of the church underscores the apparent sinfulness of the village (Simpson 2003: 67).

Swallowed Churches

The ground itself swallows other churches. At Dilham in Norfolk, a deep hole apparently marked the site of a church that sank without trace. When oxen wandered across the ground, it swallowed them up too (Westwood 2005: 148). This sinkhole even has a name! A Norfolk wise woman named Mrs Lubbock claimed it was called ‘Seagar-ma-hole’, and described it as a ‘Fairies’ Bay’ (Briggs and Connor 2020).

Seagar is apparently Norse-Viking surname meaning “sea spear” (Briggs and Connor 2020). So were Vikings responsible for the loss of the church? Was it fairies? Or was it just a sinkhole? Sadly, it’s probably the latter since Norfolk seems to be prone to sinkholes, but the name is still a fascinating remnant.

A hollow in the ground in Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, was said to have been the site of a church. People claimed you could still hear bells ringing underground on a Sunday morning (Westwood 2005: 766). These sorts of stories perhaps explain why certain parishes lacked a church for a long time.

Architectural Oddities

Some churches actually become famous for their structural peculiarities. Naturally, folklore grows up around these buildings to explain away the oddities. One example is the twisted spire in Chesterfield. It belongs to the church of St Mary and All Saints, a mostly 14th-century church. The spire is 69 m tall and is not just twisted, it also leans by 2 m. No one really knows why, but a variety of stories try to explain it.

One story is that the Devil was sitting on the spire when a virtuous bride arrived for her wedding. He twisted to follow her progress into the church, and thus twisted the spire as he moved. An alternative version is that he was sitting on the spire when incense made him sneeze. His convulsion caused the spire to twist (Westwood 2005: 157).

Perhaps the more prosaic theory is the right one. Here, the combination of unseasoned timber and lead plate cladding created a poor distribution of weight, leading to the twist (Westwood 2005: 156).

Spires or towers?

All Saints at Beeby in Leicestershire boasts a stump of a spire on its tower. Various legends explain why, but it boils down to a pair of brothers who built the spire at nearby Queniborough. They argued over the costs and the possibility of getting All Saints’ steeple to stay upright. Their disagreement turned into a fight, and they fell off the tower and died. The stub is known as Beeby’s Tub (Westwood 2005: 415). This is just one example of a story trope in which the builder died during construction. In some variations, the master jumps to his death when his apprentice builds a superior church.

The church in Purton, Wiltshire, has two towers, one at the west end and a central tower with a spire. According to legend, two sisters paid for the building. They couldn’t agree on the design, so they had a tower each to satisfy their tastes (Westwood 2005: 792). This is unlikely, since the spire dates to the later 14th century while the tower is from the late 15th century (St Mary’s Church Purton 2022).

Covington’s All Saints church near Huntingdon apparently had a spire that was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell. During work on the church they found evidence that the tower could have held a spire (Westwood 2005: 361). Sadly, if it did, it was pulled down around 1500 (Covington PCC, no date). This is perhaps symptomatic of legends that testify to Cromwell’s apparently ubiquitous presence around England.

Detached Bell Towers

The Church of St Augustine in Brookland, Kent, is famous for its detached bell tower. According to legend, local couples stopped getting married, preferring instead to simply live together. Eventually, a couple visited the vicar to ask about having a wedding, and the tower jumped down so it could see the pair. This links with the legends about Chesterfield, and the idea that the locals are so immoral a virtuous couple is a surprise (Westwood 2005: 375).

Likewise, the Church of St Mary the Virgin at East Bergholt in Suffolk also has a detached bell house. In this legend, the Devil kept pulling down the work done on the tower at night. The workmen gave up and constructed a separate wooden bell-house instead (Westwood 2005: 692). In reality, the village started work on a bell tower for the church in 1525. Cardinal Wolsey’s downfall meant funds dried up, and the building work stopped in 1530. The Bell Cage was a temporary solution, but the bells are still in use even now (East Bergholt & Constable Country, no date).

The idea of the Devil dismantling the work is a common motif in English folklore. If it’s not the Devil pulling down stones, it’s fairies, as we see in the legend of Callaly Castle. Here, the Devil keeps destroying that day’s work until the building is moved elsewhere. The trope perhaps explains why a building’s location was moved during the construction process.

Famous steeples

One legend claims the traditional tiered wedding cake is based on St Bride’s Church in London. According to the legend, there was a bakery at 3 Ludgate Hill. The baker had an apprentice named William Rich, who apparently fell in love with Susannah Prichard, the baker’s daughter.

William wanted to make the most elaborate cake he could to impress both Susannah and her father. He happened to look out the window and spotted the iconic steeple. The rest, as they say, is history. It’s actually unlikely to be true since confectioners only started decorating cakes in the 1830s. You can read more about that in the wedding folklore article.

The Devil and the Church

We’ve already seen the Devil being blamed for the twisted spire in Chesterfield. But he was also blamed for a tragedy at Widecombe in Devon. A legend grew up that a man named Widecombe Jan made a pact with the Devil that Lucifer could have his soul if he fell asleep in church. Naturally, one Sunday he fell asleep, and the Devil arrived during a storm to collect his due. He smashed Jan against a pillar and carried him off. This legend was said to coincide with a storm on 21 October 1638, in which “ball lightning and falling timbers” killed four and injured twelve (Westwood 2005: 203). One man died after being hurled against a pillar, which could explain the Widecombe Jan story.

An alternative legend said Jan was a gambler and sold his soul to pay his debts. He took a pack of cards to church and the Devil arrived to carry him off. Jan then dropped four aces near Birch Tor, where it was said you could still see four small fields where they fell (Westwood 2005: 203).

Church-Based Divination

Of course, churches and their churchyards also performed a key role in various divinatory practices.

One tradition called people to sit in the church porch on St Mark’s Eve (24 April). They sat there silently between 11 pm and 1 am, since the ghosts of those who would die the following year would pass by the congregation into the church (Simpson 2003: 68). This tradition was at its height between the 17th and late 19th centuries. There are variations on the practice. For some, you had to repeat the vigil every year, and in others, you just had to do it on three successive years. Some people also said you had to walk around the outside of the church before starting the vigil. Others advised those keeping watch to fast (Ian 2019).

Single and want to know which person you’ll end up with? Head to a churchyard near midnight on Midsummer Eve. At the stroke of 12, run around the church scattering rose leaves and rosemary. Chant “Rose leaves, rose leaves, rose leaves I strew, He that will love me, come after me now.” (Simpson 2003: 239). You should see a vision of your intended—though that might give you a fright in a dark churchyard.

There was also a specific version for young men. They should circle a church at midnight three or nine times with a drawn sword saying, “Here’s the sword, but where’s the scabbard?” to see a vision of their intended sweetheart (Simpson 2003: 68).

Running around various village churches seven times on a moonlit night then whistling through/peering through/dropping a pin through the keyhole would apparently reveal the Devil (Simpson 2003: 68).

What of we make of this folklore of churches?

I’ve deliberately grouped these tales into ‘types’ so we can see the kind of themes that run through the folklore of churches. And clearly, there are far more churches with similar stories than I can include here. These are simply examples that illustrate wider tropes. We’ve got stories that explain architectural oddities, which probably have really mundane explanations that were never recorded. The lost churches, still ringing their bells either underwater or underground, act as a form of morality tale, reminding the world of what happens when spirituality is lost.

Some of the tales involve the Devil, bursting into the church to create havoc, and these tales appear to mirror meteorological events. Either those present didn’t have the language to accurately process what was happening, or over time, the oral accounts have become embellished, to create the legends we have to explain them. The Devil seems an obvious choice of antagonist in these stories, setting him against the authority of the church.

Yet for me, it is the divination that involves the church that tells us the most. Here, the forms of divination are largely mundane, trying to find who will die (so you can make preparations) or who will find love (especially for women, when that was such a pressing financial concern). The idea of performing divination to see the Devil inside a church speaks of a certain kind of illicit thrill, perhaps an origin for the urban folklore in which people run up to supposedly haunted houses to peer through the window or letterbox. Besides, knowing you will need a funeral or a wedding means that it makes sense that the church would be at the centre of the divination.

While the truth that explains apparently normal events has long since faded into obscurity, the lore and legends preserve the old magic that has seeped into the church stones. As we found with the pubs last week, these stories help to preserve local history—even if the link isn’t immediately obvious.

What folklore of churches do you know? Let me know below!

References

Briggs, Stacia and Siofra Connor (2020), ‘WEIRD NORFOLK: The Norfolk church that was swallowed by the Earth’, Eastern Daily Press, https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/weird-norfolk-dilham-lost-church-folklore-1578436.

Burne, Charlotte Sophia (1883), Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings, London: Trübner & co.

Covington PCC (no date), ‘Covington Parish Church’, All Saints Church, Covington, http://www.covington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/CovingtonChurchLeaflet.pdf.

East Bergholt & Constable Country (no date), ‘The Bell Cage’, East Bergholt & Constable Country, https://eastbergholt-bells.org.uk/bergbell.htm.

Ian (2019), ‘St Mark’s Eve’, Mysterious Britain, https://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/festivals/st-marks-eve/.

Simpson, Jacqueline and Steve Roud (2003), A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

St Mary’s Church Purton (2022), ‘History’, St Mary’s Church Purton, https://www.stmaryspurton.org.uk/85/History.

Westwood, Jennifer and Simpson, Jacqueline (2005), The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, London: Penguin.