THE SIN EATER - Lives and Afterlives

  • 1 review
  • Brompton Cemetery Chapel

Description

  • Something A Little Different, Theatre/Arts and Walks & Tours
  • Tickets from £12.00
  • n/a
  • Sun, 31st Oct 2021 @ 13:30 - 15:00
  • 13:30 - 15:00

The sin-eater was a ‘long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor raskal’ in the words of 17th century antiquary John Aubrey. A sin-eater was employed by a recently bereaved family to (literally) consume the dead person’s sins, taking this eternal burden upon his - or sometimes her - own soul by eating a loaf of bread and drinking a bowl of beer (the food and drink represented the sins of the deceased) and receiving sixpence in compensation. The practice was prevalent in Wales and the English countries bordering on the principality. Richard Munslow, who died in Shropshire in 1906, was reported to have been the last sin-eater (presumably he went on to have a particularly tough time in Hell).



In this talk, Dr Helen Frisby surveys the evidence for this fascinating old funerary character and their mysterious rituals in service of the souls of the deceased. As it turns out things aren’t quite what they might first seem - but Helen will suggest that it’s the sin-eater’s very elusiveness which has enabled them to rise again in present-day film, TV and literature.



Tickets £12 including a 20% donation toward a host of restoration projects at Kensal Green Cemetery. Please click here to purchase.



Helen Frisby


Dr Helen Frisby is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, where she researches funeral customs past and present and what these can teach us about relating to the dead and coping with loss. Helen is Secretary of the Association for the Study of Death and Society, a Council Member of the Folklore Society and author of the Shire book Traditions of Death and Burial.







Image Credit

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Two Old Ones Eating Soup or Two Witches by Francisco Goya (1823). Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia.

Offers

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Tickets/Times

Ticket Event time Cost
The Sin-Eater

Lives and Afterlives

13:30 - 15:00 £12.00

Location

Address

Brompton Cemetery Chapel, North gate off Old Brompton Road, South gate off Fulham Road, London, SW5 9JE

Nearest Station

West Brompton (Tube)


Getting there

JustPark

Organiser

A Curious Invitation and Antique Beat
This year Antique Beat and A Curious Invitation will be hosting The London Month of the Dead, a series of 36 different events investigating the capital’s relationship with its deceased residents. Events will include a private view of the Museum of London’s bone archive, taxidermy workshops, macabre walking tours and private views and a programme of weekend death salons with talks on subjects ranging from public dissection and body snatching to reincarnation and funereal folklore. Each salon will feature a pair of speakers, authorities in fields such as osteology, forensic pathology and the paranormal, who will offer their own perspectives and insights on mortality in the city. Each year the London Month of the Dead donates 20% of all ticket revenue to one of London's magnificent seven cemeteries. In 2017 all of the death salons and concerts will be hosted at the Dissenters and Anglican chapels at Kensal Green. In previous years the month's programme has centered around Brompton Cemetery but the chapel is now undergoing important restoration work, a project the London Month of the Dead is proud to have supported. The London Month of the Dead has been curated by a Curious Invitation and Antique Beat to inform, entertain and provoke on the subject of death and London cemeteries.

T&Cs

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