Corpse road
Many of the corpse roads have long disappeared, while the original purposes of those that still survive as footpaths have been largely forgotten, especially if features such as coffin stones or crosses no longer exist.
The corpse road from Aston to Blockley churchyard is over two miles (3 km) long and crosses three small streams en route.
Spirits or ghosts were said to fly along on a direct course close to the ground, so a straight line connecting two places was kept clear of fences, walls, and buildings to avoid obstructing the flitting spectres.
[11] It is also possible those who have observed corpse candles may have been witnessing the effect of methane gases produced by decomposing organic material found in swamps, marshlands, and bogs.
Puck suggests a secret history of these routes, for unsurprisingly they attracted long extant folk lore, running not only through the physical countryside but also through the invisible geography, the 'mental terrain', of pre-industrial country-folk.
The living took pains to prevent the dead from wandering the land as lost souls or animated corpses, for the belief in revenants (ghosts) was widespread in mediæval Europe.
[13] Homer Sykes in Mysterious Britain says that the 'holed' Cornish 'Tolvan' stone was used to block a now lost ancient burial chamber, and suggests that the hole allowed a way in for funeral purposes and a passage out for the spirits of the dead.
[3] Throughout the United Kingdom and Europe it is still believed that touching a corpse in the coffin will allow the departed spirit to go in peace to its rest, and bring good luck to the living.
[7] In Ireland, the féar gortach ("hungry grass"/"violent hunger") is said to grow at a place where an unenclosed corpse was laid on its way to burial.
[17] On Aranmore Island off Ireland each passing funeral would stop and erect a memorial pile of stones on the smooth rocky surface on the roadside enclosure.
[19] Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) in the 13th-century relates the strange story of a marble footbridge leading from the church over the Alan rivulet in Saint Davids.
This bridge was worn smooth due to its age and the thousands of people who had walked over it, however the superstition was so widely held that corpses were no longer carried over it.
[21][22] Another legend is that Merlin had prophesied the death on Llechllafar of an English King, conqueror of Ireland, who had been injured by a man with a red hand.
King Henry II went on pilgrimage to Saint David's after coming from Ireland, heard of the prophecy and crossed Llechllafar without ill effect.
[21][22] A Devon legend tells of a funeral procession heading across Dartmoor on its way to Widecombe and the burial ground, carrying a particularly unpopular and evil old man.
[19] The villagers in Manaton in Devon used to carry coffins three times round the churchyard cross, much to the irritation of the vicar, who opposed the superstition.
[27] The belief was that since straight routes could facilitate the movement of spirits, so contrary features like crossroads and stone or turf labyrinths could hinder it.
The Netherlands had the Doodwegen ("deathroads") or Spokenwegen ("ghostroads"), converging on medieval cemeteries, some surviving in straight section fragments to this day.
[15] In the Arenal area of Costa Rica, NASA surveys detected straight paths running considerable distances through the mountainous rainforest.
Upon closer examination, these routes were found to date from CE 500–1200 and had been constructed as corpse paths, along which bodies were carried to burial.
