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| Anonymous |
 Posted: 23-07-2002 10:20 Post subject: Word puzzle headstone may have guaranteed entry to Heaven |
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From www.ananova.com
Story filed: 07:57 Tuesday 23rd July 2002
| Quote: | Word puzzle headstone may have guaranteed entry to Heaven
Researchers believe a gravestone designed like a word puzzle was an attempt to baffle the Devil.
It was erected in 1832 in the churchyard of St Mary's in Monmouth after the death of Welsh house painter John Renie.
The headstone is an acrostic, a form of riddle known since Roman times. It contains 285 individual letters and the epitaph can be read in 45,760 different ways.
The Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, a Church of Wales priest and qualified mathematics teacher, helped research the stone.
He told The Times: "The idea was for the Devil to be so confused by the jumble of letters on the headstone that he would move on to the next one, allowing the occupant of the grave to slip through the gates of Heaven. This was a time when the Day of Judgment was regarded as literal fact."
But the Rev James Coutts, the Vicar of St Mary's, said: "It's a point of considerable local interest and I have never seen anything like it before, but I think it's nonsense to suggest he was trying to cheat the Devil. I think it was probably intended to be something unusual and a bit of fun."
The paper reports Mr Renie was a radical, and a founding member of the Oddfellows, one of a number of friendly societies that started in the early nineteenth century.
Mr Fanthorpe added: "He would have had plenty of time to prepare for his own funeral, as we know he suffered a lengthy illness which may well have been caused by the toxic materials he would have used in his trade as a house painter. There was arsenic in wallpaper and lead in the paints, and there was a condition known as painter's colic from which he may well have suffered."
The gravestone also records the deaths of Mr Renie's sons John, who died aged one year and nine months, and James, who died aged 83 in 1903, and Mr Renie's widow, Sarah, in 1879.
The 33-year-old's obituary in the local Monmouthshire newspaper described him as an educated man of extraordinary natural abilities.
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Anything featuring Rev Lionel Fanthorpe deserves a mention in here but even more-so when cryptography and the afterlife meet in one article! |
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mejane1 miaow, miaow... purrrr Joined: 17 Jan 2002 Total posts: 1637 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 23-07-2002 15:59 Post subject: |
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Nice one, Carnacki 
Here's The Times article if anyone's interested. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-363112,00.html
I wonder why he felt he had to outwit the devil? What had he got up to in his short life? Or was the idea of meeting the devil on the way to Heaven common - a sort of test perhaps?
Jane. |
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| H_James Ancient Cow (&)
Creepy thing Joined: 18 May 2002 Total posts: 5624 |
| Posted: 23-07-2002 16:16 Post subject: |
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| what was the word puzzle? anybody got a photo? |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 23-07-2002 17:16 Post subject: |
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| Here's more info on Rennie, but no pic. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-07-2002 19:12 Post subject: Amazing maze! |
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Since Sally's link also referred to mazes, I'll mention an item seen on our local news last night:
A farmer in Tiverton, Devon, has for the past 3 years cut a maze in his crop, and the public are encouraged to come and explore it. This year the maze is based on the Queen's Jubilee emblem (with permission).
Oh, and the crop?
It's....
...maize!
Edit: I couldn't find a link to the Tiverton maze, but I found another one in Wiltshire! (Apparently they're common in the States too - people do like puns!)
Swindon area
Last edited by rynner on 23-07-2002 19:20; edited 1 time in total |
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| Adam Rang |
| Posted: 23-07-2002 19:45 Post subject: |
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| What if some angels ready to take him up saw it and couldnt crack it? |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 11:59 Post subject: Gravestones and Epitaphs |
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There must be a few stories about these!
Yesterday I went for a little walk which took me past the parish church for the first time in a few years, and I noticed a gravestone with a skull and crossbones on it. It commemorated a man who died in 1745, IIRC, but there were some rather elderly looking artificial flowers by the grave (but maybe they had blown there from somewhere else).
The other odd thing was that the headstone faced the wrong way - west instead of east. 
Some research is called for! |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 12:11 Post subject: |
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| What parish church was this? There may be some information online somewhere... do you remember the fellow's name? |
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| Imperial_Call Joined: 22 Sep 2002 Total posts: 2327 |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 12:28 Post subject: |
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| I was at my uncle's funeral a few years back, and as we were making our way through the cemetary I noticed a lovely headstone that was enscribed to a young boy from his loving parents, I was thinking how sad it was that their son had died when he was only seven, when I got up close to the stone I realised it was the grave of a cousin of mine who'd died 20 odd years ago. Gave me the willies ... |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 12:30 Post subject: |
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I believe that the "skull and crossed bones" was a common symbol for mortality and death. A crowned skull further symbolised triumph over death. There is some stuff about this in Brewers - but I don't have my copy here.
I understood that it was quite common for a headstone to face west. Do you mean that the feet face east and the inscription is on the other side of the stone, facing west?
If so then the person buried would be looking towards the rising sun. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 13:13 Post subject: |
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| LobeliaOverhill wrote: |
...when I got up close to the stone I realised it was the grave of a cousin of mine who'd died 20 odd years ago. Gave me the willies ... |
As I was leaving the churchyard, I came across a memorial to my next door neighbour, who died last year. It had been added on to the grave of (perhaps) his father.
Alb, the inscribed side of the stone faced west, unlike all the other gravestones, which face east. It is not clear which side of the stone the burial was - it's just level grass, after all this time.
I'll have a look in my copy of Brewer's! |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 14:16 Post subject: |
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There seems to be nothing relevent in Brewer, and there's nothing on the web about the churchyard. The local library will have stuff I can check tomorrow. Otherwise I could ring up the vicar!
There is a lot on the web about the Christian practice of graves facing east, eg:-
http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/Grave%20Markers/Elements.htm | Quote: | The origin of the traditional southern burial orientation is found in Europe. One finds in Great Britain both the preferred feet-to-east position and the punitive north-south alignment for wrongdoers, notably suicides…Preferences of the east may well have a pagan antecedent in the sun worship cults once widely spread in Europe. The sun god Sol Invictus was widespread in the Roman Empire at the advent of Christianity and lent to the new faith both this god’s holy day, Sunday, as the Christian Sabbath and his birthday, the winter solstice, as Christ’s nativity date. He could have also have provided the traditional Christian burial position. Perhaps an echo of this origin is heard in the claim by a minority of rural Texans that the feet to the east burial allows the dead to face the rising sun. (Jordan, 30)
Also, if you study the really old cemeteries, they looked to the rising sun to determine where was east. So, many of the markers are turned at slightly different angles due to the differences in the time of year when people died! This is true, I have noted in the very old Irish Texas cemetery I documented.} |
This page, http://www.cemgineer.com/feet_to_the_east.htm , mentions some other customs, such as priests with head towards the altar. |
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| mejane1 miaow, miaow... purrrr Joined: 17 Jan 2002 Total posts: 1637 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 14:56 Post subject: |
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One of the saddest sights in my local churchyard are the graves there are outside the cemetary (but always facing towards it), and therefore on unconsecretated ground. Many of these are children who, presumably, committed the sin of being born outside wedlock 
Jane. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 15:38 Post subject: |
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Doing a further web search, I found this set of pics of the church and graveyard - taken in January this year. Sadly, it doesn't include the gravestone I mentioned - I shall have to go and take a pic myself (but not today - rain and thunder!)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cornwallpics/stgluvias/index.htm
(BTW, if you have PopUpPopper, set it to Delete All from Site here!)
I was actually looking for a link to a ghost story attached to the church: the story featured on TV's 'Strange But True', with Michael Aspell, IIRC. I thought I'd already posted on this MB about it, but I can't find it. I'll get back to you on this...!
Last edited by rynner on 22-06-2003 15:46; edited 1 time in total |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 22-06-2003 17:38 Post subject: |
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All I can find on the ghost so far is this snippet: | Quote: | | Another ghost in Penryn is the bellringer Captain Martin who was drowned after a shipwreck in the 1880's. He resides in St Gluvias' church these days. |
But the version I remember had him ringing the bells at midnight on the anniversary of his death, and there was even (supposedly) an agreement between two friends to meet at the Church to listen to the ghostly ringing.
This they did, but next morning one discovered that his friend had died the previous evening and so could not have made the rendezvous... 
EDIT: I did find this shipwreck story in which a Capt. Martin was lost heroically in Biscay, but there is no mention of a Penryn connection.
P.S. In the 1881 Census a Charles Martin, born in Penryn, was in Swansea on board the "Elizabeth". He was then 19 and unmarried, and possibly an officer. If he did drown in the 1880s, he would still have been in his twenties - is a young death more likely to create a ghost?
Last edited by rynner on 22-06-2003 18:15; edited 1 time in total |
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