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Icy Sedgwick

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graveyards

The Folklore of Lychgates and Popular Burial Monuments

April 5, 2025 by Icy Sedgwick 1 Comment

Lychgates might be scenic additions to country churchyards, but what were they for? Find out how they appear in folklore.

You would absolutely know a lychgate if you saw one. Lychgates make popular backdrops for wedding photos, and provide a quaint air of rustic charm to country churchyards. They’re the wooden or stone gateway, complete with tiled roof, that marks the entry into the churchyard. Not all churches have them, and they’re far more common […]

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Filed Under: Folklore Tagged With: #FolkloreThursday, churches, folklore, graveyards

Pay a visit to the Dead House!

October 31, 2020 by Icy Sedgwick 7 Comments

The dead house was a common occurrence in the days before refrigerated mortuaries. But are they likely to be haunted - or just eerie?

The name ‘dead house’ conjures up all kinds of ideas, doesn’t it? Is it a house occupied by the dead? Is it a rotten house that no one lives in anymore? Some beliefs posit the idea that the spirit can’t move on until the body is finally at peace. Others explore the notion that the […]

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Filed Under: Folklore Tagged With: #FolkloreThursday, cemeteries, dead-house, death, folklore, gravestones, graveyards

Cemetery superstitions: How to avoid bad luck in a graveyard

February 15, 2020 by Icy Sedgwick 45 Comments

Cemeteries are either fascinating monuments to social history or eerie gardens populated by the dead. Follow these cemetery superstitions to avoid bad luck!

Cemeteries are either fascinating monuments to social history, or eerie gardens populated by the dead. The decline in the popularity of burial and the relocation of post-death practices to undertakers rather than families has created an aura of mystery around death, particularly nowadays. Cemetery superstitions still hold sway, even now. But earlier eras had a different […]

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Filed Under: Folklore Tagged With: #FolkloreThursday, cemeteries, cemetery folklore, cemetery omens, death, folklore, graveyards, jesmond old cemetery, the gothic

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Who is Icy Sedgwick?

icy sedgwick

Icy is a folklore blogger and host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast. She is based in the north east of England, where she was born and raised amid the folk tales and legends of Tyneside and Northumberland. Icy is fascinated by history, cinema, art, and the occult, and griffins will always be her favourite mythical beast. She also writes dark fantasy novellas, Gothic short stories and the occasional weird Western, and she holds a PhD in Film Studies!

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