Halloween Special: Shaving the Dead in Irish Folklore

Shaving the dead in Irish folklore

The Irish Folklore Collection archive in University College Dublin contains a massive volume of documents, sound-recordings and other material collected under the auspices of the Irish Folklore Commission and other bodies since the 1920s. Two of the main elements of the archive are the Schools Folklore, compiled by schoolchildren in the 1930s, and the Main Collection, the work of folklorists working in communities throughout the state. These volumes are in the process of being digitised and transcribed – all of the examples here are from the Schools Collection at www.duchas.ie.

The archive incorporates a huge volume of material on folk medicine, magical cures, care for the dying, and the laying out, waking and burial of the dead. The work of laying out was rarely done by family members. Neighbours or local specialists, usually women, would wash and shroud the remains, and might also be involved in preparing the house for the wake. Great care was taken with the water used to wash the dead. Many accounts suggested it should be disposed of carefully, usually beneath a bush, in a corner, or somewhere where people didn’t normally walk, as it might cause the ground it touched to grow ‘fear gorta’, hungry grass, that would make passers-by feel faint or shaky, or create a ‘stray sod’ that would cause anyone walking over to become lost (‘go astray’). The things used during this time also needed to be treated carefully. Dying people were often placed on a woven straw mat, which would be burned or otherwise disposed of. The soap and towels used might be burned, buried, or placed in the fork of a tree.

Strictly-observed customs also surrounded the shaving of the dead and the things of shaving. In some areas it seems that all dead men were shaved, while elsewhere only those who had been clean-shaven during life were shaved after death. For example,in Carne, Co. Wexfordin the 1930s‘If a man was wearing a moustache or side whiskers it was shaved off’,[1]and in Sraheen, Co Mayo, it was even said ‘that if a man is not shaved before he is buried he will not go to heaven’.[2]  However, in Kilcommon, Co. Tipperary,‘A man who shaved during life is shaved, while those who wore beards are left there just as in life.’[3]The job of shaving the dead seems usually to have been done by a man, even if women did the washing. Most accounts mentioning shaving the dead agree that the razor used should be given to the man who did the job, though in some places, like Shancurry, Co. Leitrim, it was buried‘no matter how good it is’:[4]some add the detail that no payment should be asked for this work. Shaving a dead person seems to have been considered a tricky matter (cuts and nicks would doubtless displease the relatives). It might be said of a person who was good at sharpening tools that ‘He could put an edge on a scythe that would shave a corpse’.[5]

The association of men with shaving the dead is also evidenced in stories concerning encounters between mortals and the ‘Good People’ – the fairies – whose reputation for malevolence and caprice made them widely feared well into the twentieth century. While women might be detained by the fairies to act as midwives or nurses, men were more likely to be roped in to play games or music or, on occasion, to carry corpses or shave the dead – the latter is perhaps understandable in light of the Good People’s alleged aversion to iron. From Shrule, Co. Galway, comes the story of Pat Doherty:

There was once a man coming home from a wake. He had to cross a hill and on the top of the hill there was a little house. When he was near the house he heard a voice saying “Pat Doherty will shave the dead man”. Out ran the fairies from the house and brought him in. Then he shaved the dead man and the fairies gave him tea. When he was going home the fairies struck a weed and it turned into a horse. He got up on the horse and went home. He was putting in the horse into the stable and he disappeared. Then he went in and went to bed.[6]

One Mayo tale told of a man inveigled into both shaving a corpse for some supernatural women and carrying his coffin. Tom Coffey ‘was put astray’ on his way home one night and, exhausted, sought shelter in a house. An old man there died just after Tom arrived, and the two women attending him told Tom ‘he would have to shave him and he said that he never shaved a man in his life. They said that he would have to shave him.’ The women then obliged Tom to make a coffin. ‘They got a rope then and put it around the coffin. They told Tom that he would have to carry it and he [said he] would not be able. They said that he would. They put it on his back. He carried it all night until cock-crow. They told him to leave down the coffin and he did. The two women and the coffin disappeared.’[7]

Image from J. Jacobs, Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales

Another theme of which there are a few examples in the folklore archive concerns the man who braves a haunted house, only to meet a ghostly or otherworldly barber[8]or to be pressed into service as a barber himself. Seamus de Brun of Croom, Co Limerick told the story of a courageous tramp.

There was this great house, and nobody could stay there, because it was haunted. There was a notice on the gate stating that the person that would stay there three nights would get a thousand pounds.

There was a tramp walking the road and he saw the notice on the gate and read it. He went and told the owner that he would stay there. The first night the owner of the house gave him a bottle of whiskey. When he went in, he put down a big fire and sat down on a chair. At twelve o’clock a man dressed in black stood above on the stairs. The tramp said, what are you doing there, but he got no reply. He held on saying that until he fell asleep.

Next morning the owner unlocked the door and left out the tramp. Next night the owner gave him another bottle of whiskey. At about twelve o’clock, four men [came in] and a coffin on their shoulders. They set down the coffin and departed, and a corpse stood up from the coffin and asked him if he would shave him. He said he would, but he had no razor. The man in the coffin said that [it] was all right, as he himself had one. The tramp set to work and shaved him. Thanking him the corpse said that he had been coming here a long time, but had met no man with courage enough to shave him. The corpse told him where there were three crocks of gold and told him keep two for himself, and give one to the owner of the house. Next morning he done as he was told and got the thousand pounds. He was a rich man afterwards.[9]

Clearly prohibitions against payments for shaving the dead did not apply in the case of walking corpses.

Dr Clodagh Tait, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick

[1]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009243/5001110/5122935

[2]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4428066/4374474/4462894?ChapterID=4428066

[3]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922168/4857879/5018873

[4]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4605955/4605645/4644054

[5]The Irish Press, 2 June 1979, p.7.

[6]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5260385/5244869/5261376

[7]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4427950/4360421

[8]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5105151/4996451

[9]https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922034/4920807

Good and Bad Deaths in the Seventeenth Century

Whilst living well was clearly a primary concern for people in the past, dying well was equally, perhaps even more, important. A whole literature existed – the Ars Moriendi, or Art of Dying, printed in the 15^th century, which sought to instruct people in how best to conduct themselves in their last mortal moments on earth. This was an age of extremely high death rates. Death was highly visible. Unlike today where death is sanitised and usually takes place outside the home, in the early modern period sickness and death were domestic events. It would even have been common for children to have seen a corpse, and spent some time around it.

Image from Wikipedia Commons

The so-called ‘good death’ has a long history. Before the Reformation, the way a person behaved in their final moments was of signal importance since it could influence their final destination. But what constituted a good death? Ideally the sick person should firstly have prepared their soul well before. They should already have lived as a good Christian but, when sickness was upon them, they should act to ensure their affairs were in order.

The dying person should be surrounded by their family and friends who would monitor their behaviour, and take comfort at signs of piety. For example, the dying person should be humble and contrite, and show readiness to meet their God. If possible they should, out loud, confess and repent of their sins and forgive any sins against them. Finally, they might take time to speak to each of their family, expressing love and hoping to meet them on the other side. Such a death would reassure family members that their loved one was bound straight to Heaven, and that they should not worry about their soul.

After the Reformation things changed markedly in terms of attitudes towards final conduct. No longer was it firmly believed that behaviour could influence whether a person went to Heaven or Hell. But this is not to say that the ‘good death’ was not still extremely important. Protestant belief in predestination, in other words that people were already marked out before birth for either the Pearly gates or the River Styx, meant that people were ever watchful for signs that they, or their families, might be one of God’s elect. A good death might be just the sort of proof they sought.

Even in the seventeenth, and into the eighteenth, centuries people still monitored the behaviour of the dying and looked for possible messages. In 1668, John Gwin wrote in his notebook that “My wife’s mother died 25^th May, the last words she spake O Dduw Kymer Vi [Oh God, come for me/take me] for w(hi)ch words and others we received coserninge her we yield all praise to God etc” For Gwin, the old lady’s final message was Godly and pious, displaying a readiness to submit to judgement. His note about reports from others about her conduct is also telling.

When Robert More died in 1670, his brother Giles reported with satisfaction that “after a quiet night] he sent forthe with great earnestnesse 3 or 4 most Divine shorte prayers…he died at 1 in the afternoon”. David Jones, The rector of Mynydd Bach in Abergorlech, Carmarthenshire in the 1730s kept a close eye on the conduct of his sick parishioners. Of one he wrote (with more than a hint of his Welsh accent) that, despite her pain she ‘behaved herself lovely’. Of another, although she was ‘hoping to live but expecting to die’ she ‘hoped she had been a good Christian.’

Copyright Wellcome Images

But the other side of the coin was the bad death. Whilst many people would surely have preferred their final moments to be peaceful and orderly, life was seldom that straightforward. Some people died suddenly, robbing them and their relatives of the chance to prepare. Victims of murder were denied a good death, prompting some speculation that ghosts were the souls of those troubled by not having had chance to prepare themselves. Some people simply died alone. For others, bouts of sickness took away the power of speech. Such an occurrence was especially troublesome to families since their loved one was physically with them but unable to communicate their feelings.

But there is another, often overlooked, group of people who simply wanted to be left alone to die in their own way. Imagine the scene. You are in the last hours of your life, perhaps gasping for breath, in pain and misery. Your family surround you, all constantly watching you, hanging on your every word and, perhaps, prompting you to hold forth with a stream of pious utterances. Some could clearly bear it no longer.

Image from Wikipedia Commons

Others had long since abandoned any pretence at caring. In 1598 died Lord Burghley after a long sickness, and surrounded by children, family and friends who had spent several hours praying, crying by his bedside and trying in vain to save him. Burghley’s last words? “Oh ye torment me…For Godes sake let me dye quietlye’! Perhaps a similar bout of lectures, lessons and spiritual moralising prompted Elizabeth Angier, the wife of a Puritan minister to ask her doubtless devoted and panicked husband ‘Love, why will you not let mee goe?’.

Some took it a stage further and decided that misanthropy was the only way. If they were going to die, why keep up social pretences?! Reports of the death of Sir William Lisle in 1681 noted that he “Died privately in a nasty chamber – he allowed nobody to visit him, no not even his wife and children”. The last words here should fittingly go to ‘Old Duckworth’ of Yorkshire who also died in 1681. “He died miserably in poverty] his toes rotting off, he slighting it said they never did him any good, he stank that nobody could abide to come to his house, in a dreadful state”