The Premature Burial Of The Lady With The Ring, and Sites Connected with Edgar Allen Poe Who Wrote Premature Burail Stories

Premature Burial in Ireland

The Irish version of the story has a gravestone inscribed Lived Once Buried Twice.

The creepy story goes that wife was buried with her ring. When grave robbers could not remove it, they tried to hack off her finger. 

Dripping blood, she crawled or staggered back home. The husband, on seeing her, got such a shock that he died, and was buried in her now empty grave.

Would she have turned 'white as a ghost'? If still alive? I recently, September 2020, fainted at our son's wedding in London, England. My husband said that I, 'looked grey'.

I wrote this reply on Facebook.

England

I heard the same story about a lady buried with a ring on her finger and roused by grave robbers trying to remove her finger. In the north of England when I was an active travel writer. If I remember rightly, in the north or midlands in the area of cutlery making where you cannot visit the famous cutlery factory so we did this excursion instead to a Christian building with a family mausoleum. In this version of the story, the wife crawled uphill. She  surprised the husband with his new love, the housekeeper. 

The tourist board took us to a place where the mausoleum of a family had a bell inserted so that a person buried alive could ring it. Hence, one version of the phrase for whom the bell tolls.

Versions of the story also include the incident that a servant looked out of a window to see who was knocking on the door. The husband or family were told that the woman, or her ghost was outside the dor and replied, I'll believe that when the horses get out of the stables. 

At that moment the horses broke out of the stables and poked their heads through the window.

Premature Burial In Germany

In Germany a tower has statues of the two horses' heads. How the horses climbed the tower I do not know.

In addition to three countries which have something to show you, other countries have the story to tell you. What is a local guide for? To tell you fascinating stories - which may or may not be true.

BELGIUM

In Belgium, the Museum of Fine Arts has a portrait of someone being buried alive.

USA

In the USA you can visit the home of poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe. 

Poe wrote a short story called, The Premature Burial.

He also featured premature burial in four other stories:

If you are worried, an alternative to the bell is a vault with a handle enabling the occupant to turn the circular closure to the semi circular shaped aperture, a bit like a porthole. This was designed back in 1880 but doesn't seem to have caught on.

Places to Visit

England

Ireland

Germany 

Useful Websites

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_the_Ring

Edgar Allen Poe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Premature_Burial

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.