I was listening to a Halloween podcast (The Memory Palace) that told the true story of Mercy Brown in 1892. Because of various deaths in the family, George Brown (the father), who lived in Exeter, Rhode Island, was told by his neighbours that the deaths were due to undead activity, and one of the recently deceased from his family must still be visiting the house and draining the life away from other members of the household. He exhumed the bodies of his wife and two daughters (which included Mercy), and because Mercy's body was still in excellent shape (being dead for only two months in freezing conditions), he was convinced it was her doing the visiting, so he took out her heart, burnt it, mixed it with water, and gave it to his son Edwin to drink, as he was unwell at the time. It (obviously) didn't work, as Edwin died two months later. When all of this happened, Manchester United had been going for 14 years, it was only 22 years before the start of the First World War, cars had just been invented and it just shows how mad, superstitious and gullible people could be, even at that time. Amazing, but then again, l am sure there will be people alive in the present time who believe in this undead/afterlife nonsense.
toodle pip
