(Image Credit: Simon Marsden)
Today’s post comes to you as part of the “A Grave Tale” event that we are doing in conjunction with the group read of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. The request is a simple one: just post something to do with graves or graveyards. The end of this post will have a place in which you can link to yours and on Friday night or Saturday morning I’ll be doing a random drawing for your choice of an image by our R.I.P. VII artist, Gothicrow.
Graveyards have been a source of fascination and fear, dread and delight, for as long as I can remember. My earliest recollections are of the scary kind: the grave of Lucy Westenra in an old version of a Dracula film I saw one Saturday afternoon as a kid, Edward Gorey illustrated scary stories brought home from the library, elaborate decorations adorning poorly lit yards on Halloween nights. It was later in life when graveyards also became a source of interest and then sadness.
It is that dichotomy that makes graveyards such an enduring part of stories and legends.
(The steps leading up to the oldest graveyard in my town)
On the one hand graveyards are the perfect spot for all manner of fright, for in reality and then in our imagination they represent one of mankind’s greatest fears: death. In stories in books and on film and television the undead rise from their graves in the form of vampires or zombies and wreck havoc on the lives of the living. Ancient crypts and catacombs hold malevolent spirits who punish those whose curiosity and greed lead them there to uncover their secret treasures. In real life we read of the resurrectionists who plundered graves for both valuables and to supply early medical men with corpses upon which to practice and study, we find tales of bodies disinterred showing evidence that the person was buried alive, we see the many graves of children in older cemeteries that bear witness to the harsh times and lacking medical care in our not so distant past. Graveyards can truly be a place of horror. But they can also be a place of great beauty.
The older cemeteries, like the one near my home, contain lovely old aging tombstones and monuments made of limestone, some of their dates and epitaphs fading to the point of illegibility. Places like London or Boston are filled with the tombs of men and women that we all know through our study of history, people who left their mark on their respective nations long after they breathed their last breath. Graveyards contain the carved sentiments of love from those left behind and are a tangible connection to loved ones who have gone on before us. The beauty may be tinged with melancholy, but that too is a part of what makes graveyards beautiful and fascinating. They tie us together in one thing that we all share in regardless of race, religion, color, creed or anything else because they speak to us of our mortality. I’m not a big fan of the newer graveyards that, for convenience sake, have all flat stones that sit below the grass line. I won’t be around to care, but I still don’t want to be buried in a place that is arranged to make it easier for the lawn service folks to do their job. Give me the old, rambling graveyard with cockeyed markers and faded memories, or the “newer” ones filled with a variety of mausoleums and don’t-blink-angels.
(A newer portion of the graveyard near our home. I sat in my truck under this tree and read much of The Graveyard Book when it was first released in 2008)
Though graveyards are most prevalent in my mind during this time of year, there is never a time when I can’t be pulled in to a long reverie of the way in which they spark my imagination. Be it Lovecraft or Stoker, Tim Burton or Neil Gaiman, or the many cool and creepy graveyards and crypts that pop up in my favorite video games like Clive Barker’s Undying or Skyrim or the various iterations of Thief, graveyards are scary-cool and inspiring as well as historically interesting and sorrow-inducing.
I look forward to what each of you have to share.
I’ve always loved graveyards. The one I posted is in Baltimore. I visited it because it’s where Edgar Allan Poe is buried. It’s just beautiful.
I want to visit the site of Poe’s burial at some point in my life. It is one of the graves I really want to see, and like so many before me I’d like to read one of his stories or poems while there.
What a fantastic image by artist Simon Marsden!
Like you, I am absolutely fascinated by cemeteries. When my brother was old enough to drive, he’d take me to an old, abandoned cemetery and we’d slide down the steep, weedy hill on large sheets of cardboard. Afterward, we’d stroll through the cemetery and read all the inscriptions. Those are my earliest memories of graveyards.
Simon Marsden has long been one of my favorite gothic photographers. His images are hauntingly beautiful. Sadly he passed away back in January. He wasn’t very old, 63.
That is a really fun memory. Its been far too long since I’ve slid down a hill in any fashion.
love your thoughts and thanks for hosting “a grave tale”!
“graveyards are scary-cool and inspiring as well as historically interesting and sorrow-inducing.” yes. it is interesting to me as well, how sentiment and fear and beauty and horror can abide in such a singular setting as a graveyard.
It does go to show how different things, or places, can be symbolic of so many different emotions/ideas. It was fun to add this to RIP this year. Now I’ve got to get caught up with reading what everyone wrote!
I agree the newer, flat graveyards are less appealing. They’re pretty in a park-like way too, but I still much prefer the variety and the icon of the standing stones–especially old and worn ones!
Yes, they can be pretty in a park-like way, but give me parks for that and give me cemeteries filled with graves of all shapes and sizes, some preferably set off-kilter by the passage of time.
In my younger days I avoided graveyards. I found them creepy. Now, I love to visit them, especially when I know historical residents reside there. I read the other tombstones as well–many of them are quite touching and sad. I find cemeteries peaceful now. I’m not sure what changed, but I’m glad since I’ve visited so many lovely cemeteries.
I’m not sure I visited many when I was younger but I love to visit them now. I just don’t do it very often and really should. That peaceful quality is one of the high points too.
I didn’t post the park-like pictures I took, just the grave markers. Should have, it was a beautiful place.
I’m skipping the cemetery completely, I was to be cremated. Daughter already has an urn picked out (looks like a leather bound book). Husband says…not if you go first 😉
I love the steps.
I pretty much want to be cremated too, but I still want some HUGE sprawling, horror-movie-creepy mausoleum in a graveyard. I’m sure it won’t happen, but one can dream.
Cool topic! I enjoyed it.
Thanks Audrey! 🙂
You inspired me to drive through our cemetery on my lunch break today and post a couple of photos.
Oh, cool!!!! I wanted to take some pix of ours for this post but just couldn’t manage to squeeze in the time.
Hey Carl
I love that photo of the steps leading to your cemetery. It’s a lovely picture.
Lynn 😀
Thanks. It is a really neat little cemetery, and really lovely when it snows.
LOL–I wanted to say just what Lynn did. So I will. 😛 I LOVE that photo of the steps at your cemetery! It’s beautiful, and somehow seems even more so because the stairs are leading to a cemetery. Why that seems so, I don’t know, but it does.
I’m surprised the picture turned out so well when I took it years ago as I had to stop quickly on a slick hill and take a quick snap. I’m glad it did though.
That is so cool that you read Gaiman’s book in the cemetery the first time. I keep meaning to search out the little cemetery in our town, but it is hiding in a spot I rarely drive by…excuses excuses, I know. Lovely post with some great pics!
It was probably very pretentious but I did not care one bit. I’d love to do it again sometime.
I have really enjoyed reading the posts and looking at your pictures. Thanks for sharing.
I’m glad Juno, thank you so much!
This post reminded me of my favorite poem, The Sleeper, by Edgar Allan Poe. It’s so creepy but I love it. 🙂
“My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold –
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And wingéd panels fluttering back,…”
Nice pictures, especially the first one, with all the different tombstones. I’d like to think of a final resting place beneath a tree.
I know, wouldn’t that be a great place to be laid to rest? I’d love that too.
Great poem, from one of my favorites! Years ago I named my fantasy football team the Conqueror Worms after an Edgar Allan Poe poem. He knew how to turn a phrase!
Love the image by Simon Marsden, so much to take in.
Your graveyard snowy step shot is breathtaking, I absolutely love it. I have never thought to read while actually in a graveyard, but now I feel inspired to do so… there are a few really old graveyards locally that would be a super backdrop for The Graveyard Book!
He was quite the amazing artist with the photos he created.
And thank you! It was fun reading the book there. It probably would have been more fun doing so with a light at dusk or dawn but I probably would have gotten arrested or something.
As much as I can understand how graveyards can make for interesting settings for supernatural/horror stories, in real life I really don’t find them very creepy. In fact I find them very peaceful and interesting places. I love walking around them looking at the names, dates and details on the gravestones; and wondering what these people would have been like. I also have an unusual surname so I’m always on the look out for it!
Yes, they aren’t super-creepy in real life unless you are alone in them in the dark, but that is pretty much true for any dark place if you have an active imagination, lol! I too often wonder about the people, especially when they have interesting graves, or lived through interesting periods of history.
Off to the dentist so the post on my blog is a quick one, but it’s one of my favorite cemeteries and not in the ordinary way. Everyone have a good day. Love all the stories.
Hope the dentist visit was a good one! And I hope you had a lovely day. Thanks for taking part with us.