The fear of being buried alive is apparently a common fear. If so, good news. Lots of coffins have been designed with windows, ropes attached to bells, comfy lining, breathing tubes, and other reassuring devices. I think a phone with a battery would be handy. And some sandwiches.
Coffins with windows etc. Some handy stuff for survivalists. You hear lots of stories of people being rescued from morgues. One in South America.
Add the ghoulish stories about coffins opened from the WWI trenches, with fingernail marks on the insides as if people had tried to claw their way out.
Your best bet is to be buried with something which somebody would like back. You may know the story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - if you don't, this is an unforgettable story.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti buried his poems with his red-haired wife, Lizzie, who died of a suspected drug overdose. He later decided he needed his poems back, So she was secretly dug up in the middle of the night. When she was dug up it was said that her long flaming red hair had grown after her death!
But hair cannot grow after death. So maybe she was still alive when they buried her!
Others say that actually her body would have shrunk after death. The liquids would have evaporated. Her flesh would have contracted. That gave the impression that the hair roots had grown.
The memorable portrait of her as the drowned Ophelia (from the play Hamlet) was painted with her as the model in a bath. She caught pneumonia when the candles warning the bath water went out. The painter did not notice and she was too shy to tell him.
She caught pneumonia. Her angry father demanded that the painter should pay the doctor's bills.
Drowned Ophelia in Guildhall
I saw the portrait of her as Ophelia in the art Gallery on the ground floor of the Guildhall in London, well worth a visit for the portraits and the Roman ruins below glass in the basement. You can glimpse them from above and pay to get up close when the area is open.
Even when the interior is closed, you can see the bust of Shakespeare outside, which is good for a portrait or selfie. Shakespeare of course wrote the story of Hamlet and his suicidal love Ophelia.
Oops. Horrors! Maybe posing as a suicide victim put the idea into the head of the model, Elizabeth or Lizzie Siddall.
Elizabeth Siddall's Life and Death
| Elizabeth Siddall, circa 1860 |
| Born | 25 July 1829
London, England
|
|---|
| Died | 11 February 1862 (aged 32)
London, England
|
|---|
Back to Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall. I had always been haunted by the painting of the drowned woman, Ophelia. Dead. Helpless. Immobile. Hands up as if asking for help. White faced.
Knowing the model was merely posing in a bath cheered me up no end.
However, her story, like her time in the bath, was chilling. She had always been frail. At the time of her wedding she had to be carried to the church which was only five minutes away.
She had a miscarriage.
She died two years after the wedding. Accidental overdose, they said.
But suspected suicide. It was later revealed that Dante had found a note asking him to look after her brother. A friend advised him to destroy the note because suicide was scandalous and the church would not have allowed her to have a decent burial.
You can see the plaque in London on the house where they lived. Dante's dates were 1828-1882.
Plaque on the house where Dante lived.
There was at least one well-known case of a woman supposedly buried alive. In the north of England. She was placed in a mausoleum wearing a valuable ring.
I was shown by the tourist board the religious building, her mausoleum, and the bell supposedly placed so that she could ring it with an attached rope.
I wish I could remember where. I think it was in the Potteries near Sheffield.
At night, grave robbers opened the coffin and tried to hack off her ring. The pain woke her and she screamed.
They were terrifed and ran off.
I bet she was terrified too. And bleeding. She dragged herself uphill and rapped on the door.
The door was opened by the horrified housekeeper who called the new wife of the widower, who called the widower.
The widower and his new lady were very shocked. They thought it was a bloody ghost. the bleeding first wife protested she was alive, and had been buried alive.
The story goes that somebody said it is not possible that she is alive 'unless horses can climb the staircase'. Two horses then appeared at the top of the staircase!
She later died and was buried with a bell so that she could ring for help. They say you can hear the bell on windy nights. The bell was pointed out to us. A-ah!
You may be disappointed, or cheered, to hear that Wiki reports that this story, with the elements of the ring and the horses, is common all over Europe. Therefore it is a myth. Or is it? Grave robbers are hardly rare.
As for removing rings from the dead or dying, that must be pretty common too. In fact I have done it myself. When my mother was dying in Watford General Hospital, I went to visit her with my father. I overheard the relatives of the person in the next bed complaining that their relative's handbag had gone missing. They were making a noisy and continuous fuss. I sat looking at my mother's hand with the wedding ring. I thought, I should take the ring for safekeeping.
Removing Mother's Ring
I tried to get the ring off and could not remove it. to cut a long story short. My mother was unconscious. But when I tried to pull the ring off, several times, eventually my mother waved her hand as if to say, go way, stop it.
I asked a doctor. I asked a rabbi. They both said, "She was unconscious. She did not know it was you. She did not hear what you said. She did not feel you. It was just a reflex action."
I don't believe it. It was uncanny. It was memorable. I think she felt. Each time.
But she had had a stroke. One of several. A nurse told me that the x-ray showed that over time she had had several small strokes, shown by blood clots in the brain. So many clots that they thought her life would not be worth living. They wanted me to sign the no resuscitation form.
I agreed with them that I wanted to save her further misery. However, she would never have let me go. But it turned out I had no rights. Her husband, my father, was next of kin on the form and he had the veto, the final say.
Meanwhile, it took several minutes for her to work out how to react and move her hand. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
All those scratch marks from fingernails on the insides of coffins. On the walls of the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Inside the coffins of those gassed in the trenches of WWI.
Now, let's move onto another story about life after burial in Europe.
Flag of German.
Not to be confused with the upright lines of the same colours shown vertically on the flag of the upright Belgians on the flag of Belgium below.
Flag of Belgium.
Germany
In Cologne see the tower with the two white horses' heads at the top.
Photo from
Hps-poll in Wikipedia. Tower, Cologne, German.
See the two white horses' heads.
Regarding the UK, Wiki finds an example in the south of England and says this:
England[edit]
In England, numerous other ladies with the ring have been identified, including
In Scotland, the woman was identified as
Marjorie Elphinstone (second wife of
Robert Drummond of Carnock), or sometimes Margaret Halcro Erskine.
What about America. That's a big continent.
USA
Of course the writer who played on this fear of being buried alive was Edgar Allen Poe. he wrote a story which was made into a film.
Is the fear wishful thinking, that even after you are buried you are actually alive. That after your loved one is buried, they are still alive.
I visited his house in Baltimore where I learned that he married his dying teenage cousin. I later discovered to my horror why girls who died of TB attracted such devotion. It was not just pity for their frail, feeble bodies and pallid faces. But TB gave them a feverish rosy glow to their cheeks akin to a blush or orgasmic flush.
Useful Website
https://www.vox.com/2015/7/31/9075011/buried-alive-safety-coffins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_with_the_Ring
https://www.grunge.com/107520/how-to-survive-buried-alive/sl/take-an-unhinged-number-of-precautions
visitengland.com
visit-canada.com
www.germany.travel/gb/en/home
visittheusa.co.uk
https://baltimore.org/article/history-edgar-allan-poe-baltimore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Siddal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti
Author
Angela Lansbury. Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please copy and share links to your favourite posts.
