Comments on: Victorian Funeral Customs and Superstitions

By: administrator

administrator — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:15:15 +0000

The superstition about the owl is mentioned in the list above. Seems like birds are an ill omen all around, pecking at windows, getting caught in chimneys, etc. Owls, crows, ravens are all harbingers of an impending funeral. Poe’s Raven perched above his chamber door is immortalized in verse, although there, Lenore, his Beloved, is already dead. My grandmother always said a black animal of any kind coming up on a porch or hanging about near the house
was an omen of death to come.

By: tiffany

tiffany — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:59:08 +0000

this is lovely

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:38:28 +0000

There is a tradition in our family that women should cover their faces and indeed their heads before a corpse.
I remember the night that my mother in-law died by accident near our home. We saw an owl out side our window , it stayed every night
about a month . we had never seen it before . It called all night and then about a year later it came back but did not stay as long. we’ve never seen an owl there again

By: KENN

KENN — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:27:33 +0000

I usually hear that 3 knock thing too, it scares the hell out of me..My father just passed 3 xmas’ ago and i was his #1,what does all this mean? Am i about to leave this world? I do think there is a God,they also say that some people just have a feeling before it’s time..What do you think?

By: Darkone

Darkone — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:35:26 +0000

I have also heard that a corpse should leave the house feet first and ALWAYS through the front door. Both sets of grandparents always came and went through the back door of their houses ( even though that meant walking past the front door) and the only time the front doors were used were for coming in carrying coal and silver after midnight on new years day ( having left via the back door just before the stroke of midnight), and when they died, and their coffins left the house.I am from Darlington , my grandparents all being from Durham.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:15:10 +0000

“A cat hissing when a body is laid is consider a bad omen”

By: Anne Edge

Anne Edge — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 04:52:56 +0000

I was born in1951 from a scottish father and english mother we lived on one of the (new at the time) housing estates.
When any one died in the street on the day of the funeral all the curtains in all of the houses would be kept closed until the funeral party had left.
Also anybody on the street at the time of leaving the ladies would bow their heads and the men would doff their hats.
I still to this day keep all my curtains closed whenever there is a family funeral.
This is all part of the ritual of life, from churching after the birth till the time of leaving.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:58:52 +0000

Can you tell me what they call the window/door that was used to move the dead body from the home? I have heard it called “death’s door” hence the expression of one being at death’s door. There is some superstition about moving the dead through the front door.

By: Tess Elliott

Tess Elliott — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:56:41 +0000

I remember being horrified of pictures taken of the dead in Victorian times. It was used in a Nicole Kidman movie in an interesting way. Since then, I have seen quite a few of these post mortem portraits and wonder what the emotional payoff was, as I would only have nightmares remembering my loved ones dead. I always remember them as full of life and feeling. I know that artists often drew their loved ones, and that famous people had death masks made (this was actually an ancient Roman custom, taken in wax, and worn by the living to invite the dead to important family events). My view is that photography was like magic back then, and the idea of keeping an image was a way to remember the person. Not many people got portraits made. It must have been quite a picture to watch a funeral in ancient Rome with portraits of the dead ancestors walking in the procession!

By: Gloria

Gloria — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:01:11 +0000

I understand the meaning of the tradition of being carried out feet first in your coffin is because you “Come into the world head first and go out feet first.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:37:54 +0000

what type, colours, amounts of fragrant flowers were used in victorian times for home funerals? were flowers placed all through out the house? what would have been done at Christmas? would the family clebrate as always? namaste eliz

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:39:57 +0000

betty says:
May 13, 2011 at 7:03 pm
my mother passed away feb 25 this year and within the last month a crow started pecking on a den window and then when it heard me talk in followed to my bedroom window,then peck on my bedroom door that leads outside and then moved to 2nd bedroom window. wherever it hears it follows me.it even wakes me up around 6 ampecking outside my window by the head of my bed we have heard if someone hhas recently died in your family their spirit is in that bird also heard it means death to a family member does in mean inside the home the crow is pecking on or just close family

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