Stories relating to those who appear to rise from the dead are somewhat universal. One such tale of ‘suspended animation’ from the seventeenth century is told in ‘The Monthly Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend’, Volume 3.
The story centres around Mrs Erskine, wife of Reverend Henry Erskine. He was a minister in Cornhill-on-Tweed who was ‘ejected’ in 1662 due to being a nonconformist. He was later banished from Scotland as punishment for preaching and returned to England. He was caught, again, and imprisoned in Newcastle; upon securing his release he went to Moneylaws in Northumberland where he became the “pastoral charge of a dissenting place of worship”.
It was whilst living in Moneylaws that his wife died and was placed in the family vault. When she died she was wearing a valuable gold ring that could not be removed from her finger. The sexton became aware of this and decided that such a valuable item should not be left ‘among the mouldering remains’. He decided to open the grave to remove the ring; when the ring would not budge he got out his knife and cut the finger. It was at this point that “to his amazement and horror, the supposed corpse sat up in the coffin”.
Needless to say, the sexton fled. Mrs Erskine walked home, knocked on the door which was answered by a rather startled husband. It is believed that Mrs Erskine lived for many more years after this and went on to have more children, including Rev. Ralph Erskine who later became minister for Dunfermline.
The incident was reported in ‘The Newcastle Weekly Chronicle’ in 1888. Mr. R.A. Hill, the then custodian of the gold ring, wrote later in the same year that the story “has been handed down from one generation to another in our family”.
