This sounds the just the job for me but being a crabbed atheist may rule me
out -but hang on perhaps it's a job for Dave Bircumshaw his cv is better
P Defuncter
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 08 February 2010 03:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: the sin-eater
In the late 17th century, the Englishman John Aubrey described sin-eating
like
so:
"When the Corps was brought out of the house, and layd on the Biere, a Loafe
of
Breade was brought out, and delivered to the Sinne-eater over the Corps . .
. in
consideration whereof he tooke upon him (ipso facto) all of the Sinnes of
the
Defunct, and freed him (or her) from walking after they were dead."
In Aubrey's telling, the sin-eaters were poor people at society's margin, in
particular "a long, leane, ugly, lamentable poor raskal" who lived alone,
presumably surrounded by the many sins he had spent a lifetime taking on.
[from David's Orr's NYT review of Frederick Seidel's CP]
!!
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