Hallowed Ground: The Folklore of Churches and Churchyards

Hallowed Ground examines the surprising traditions, customs, superstitions, and secular imagery found in Christian churches and churchyards, with a particular emphasis on the traditional rural protestant church. Beginning with stories associated with the construction of church buildings themselves and the role that they played in the community, the book moves through a number of subjects where everything might not be as it would seem it should be in the Christian church and its grounds. Expect vestiges of pagan symbols hidden in the fabric of the church building and clergymen rumored to hold strange arcane knowledge of their own, kept within their personal occult libraries. Learn the ways in which you can use the church and its grounds to divine who might die in the next twelve months, where you might find love, and how you might cure illnesses. Watch out for a number of figures you wouldn't expect to find on such holy ground, from run-ins with the devil to spectral figures inhabiti