Originally published in Terrific Register (Sherwood, Jones, and Co.; 1825).
A shoemaker's wife in the parish of Cripplegate, being thought dead, was, agreeable to her desire, buried in her wedding cloaths; her ring being on her finger, induced the sexton to the grave in the night, in order to steal it; when finding it not easy to come off, he took his knife cut the finger from the hand; which operation recalled the woman to her senses, and she rose from her coffin. The affrighted villain took to his heels; and she, taking his lanthorn, walked home, knocked up her husband, and lived several years after. Her monument is yet standing in Cripplegate church.
That is wonderful which befel two brothers, knights at Rome; the elder of whom was named Corfidius, who being in the repute of all men dead, the tablets of his last will and testament were recited, in which he made his brother the heir of all he had: but in the midst of the funeral preparations, he rose with great cheerfulness upon his legs, and said "that he had been with his brother, who had recommended the care of his daughter unto him, and had also shewed him where he had hid a great quantity of gold under ground, wherewith he should defray the funeral expences." While be was speaking in this manner, to the admiration of all that were present, a messenger came with the news of his brother's death; and the gold was also found in the very place as he had said.
"There was," saith Gregorious, "one Raparatus, a Roman, who being stiff and cold, was given over by his relations, as one who was undoubtedly dead; when soon after he returned to life, and sent a messenger to the shrine of St. Laurence in Rome, to inquire concerning Tiburtius the priest there, if any thing had befallen him. In the meantime, while the messenger was gone, he told them that were with him, that he had seen Tiburtius tormented in hell with terrible flames. The messenger he had sent returned with this news, that Tiburtius had departed this life; and soon after Reparatus himself died."
Everadus Ambula, a German knight, fell sick in Germany, in the time of Pope Innocent the Third; and when he had lain for some time as one dead, returning to himself, he said, that his soul was carried by evil spirits into the city of Jerusalem, thence into the camp of Saladine, who then reigned in Egypt, from thence it was conveyed to Lombardy, where he had spoken with a German friend of his: lastly, he was brought to the city of Rome, the situation, the form of the palaces and buildings of which, together with the features of divers princes there, he most exactly described as they were: and although this is a matter of admiration, yet the greater wonder is, that he, with whom he said he did converse in the wood, affirmed that he had there, at the same time and hour, discoursed with this Everardus, according as he had declared.
Acilius Aviola was concluded dead, both by his domestics and physicians; accordingly he was laid out upon the ground for some time, and then carried forth to his funeral fire: but as soon as the flames began to catch his body, he cried out that he was alive, imploring the assistance of his school-master, who was the only person that had tarried with him; but it was too late, for, encompassed with flames, he was dead before he could be succoured.
Sucius Lamiss had been prætor, and being supposed to be dead, he was carried, after the Roman manner, to be burnt; being surrounded with the flames, he cried out that he lived; but in vain, for he could not be withdrawn from his fate.
Plato tells us of Erus Amenius being slain in battle, among many others; when they came to take up the dead bodies on the tenth day after, they found that, though all the other carcases were putrid, this of his was entire and uncorrupted; they therefore carried it home, that it might have the just and due funeral rites performed. Two days they kept it at home in that state, and on the twelfth he was taken out to the funeral pile; and being ready to be laid upon it, he returned to life, to the admiration of all that were present. He declared several strange and prodigious things, which he had seen and known during all that time that he had remained in the state of the dead.
One of the noble family of the Tatoriedi, being seized with the plague in Burgundy, was supposed to die thereof, and was put into a coffin to be carried to the sepulchre of his ancestors, which was distant some four German miles from that place. Night coming on, the corpse was disposed of in a barn, and there attended by some rustics. These perceived a great quantity of fresh blood to issue through the chinks of the coffin; whereupon they opened it, and found that the body was wounded by a nail that was driven into the shoulder through the coffin; and that the wound was much torn by the jogging of the chariot he was carried in: but that withal they discovered that the natural heat had not left his breast. They took him out, and laid him before a fire; he recovered as out of deep sleep, ignorant of all that had passed. He afterwards married a wife, by whom he had a daughter, married afterwards to Huldericus a Psirt; from his daughter came Sagismundus a Psirt, chief pastor of Saint Mary's church in Basil.
In 1658, Elizabeth, the servant of one Mrs. Cope, of Magdalen College, Oxford, was convicted of killing her bastard child, and was accordingly hanged at Green Ditch, where she hung so long that one of the by-standers said, if she was not dead, he would be hanged for her. When cut down, the gallows being very high, she fell with such violence to the ground, that the concussion seemed sufficient of itself to have killed her. After this she was put into a coffin, and carried to the George inn, in Magdalen parish; where signs of life being observed in her, she was blooded, and put to bed to a young woman; by which means she came to herself, and, to all appearance, might have lived many years; but the next night, she was, by the order of one Mallory, a bailiff of the city, barbarously dragged to Gloucester Green, and there hanged upon the arm of a tree till she was dead.