Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/243

SOME NOTES ON THE TRADITION OF FLAYING, INFLICT- ED IN PUNISHMENT OF SACRILEGE ; THE SKIN OF THE OFFENDER BEING AFFIXED TO THE CHURCH-DOORS. It may be known to some of our readers, who have chanced to visit the eastern counties of England, and are acquainted with the picturesque site of the Httle town of Linton, or the adjacent rural hamlet of lladstock, that a strange tradition yet darkly subsists amongst the peasantry in that locality, tlating, as it w^ould appear, from times anterior to the invasion of the Normans. It relates to the cruel and summary venge- ance there supposed to have been inflicted upon a sacrilegious Dane. Few years have elapsed, since the curious traveller who visited that secluded spot, upon the borders of the coun- ties of Essex and Cambridge, was wont to be directed to the north door of the little church, regarded by some as of Saxon date, to seek beneath the massive clamps and hinges for a relic of the Pirate Northman, whose skin had been attached to the door, a ghastly memorial of ecclesiastical vengeance, and a warning to all who might approach the chm'ch with like un- hallowed intention. I am not txwai'e when the earliest mention of this sinofular o tale was recorded by any antiquarian w^riter of the last cen- tury. Sir Harry Englefield laid before the Society of Anti- quaries, in 1789, a plate of iron, taken, by permission of the rector, from the door of Hadstock clim^ch, Essex, with a por- tion of skin, considered to be human, found under the iron. The tradition regarding that church had been recorded by Morant, in his History of Essex, with the statement that a second similar tale had been preserved in the village of Cop- ford, in the same county. These, however, are not solitary examples of the existence of such popular relations in Eng- land. Havino: learned that one of the doors of AVorccster cathedral had been reputed by common belief to bear a coat- ing of human skin, the circumstance appeared so singular, connected with the village traditions in a remote eastern comity, already mentioned, that I was induced to address myself to a zealous and intelligent investigator of Worcester- shire antiquities, Mr. Jabez Allies, E.S.A., through wdiose