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Earth Laid upon a Corpse
Old Scottish superstition described by eighteenth-century writer Thomas Pennant. It was the custom in the Highlands to lay on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter containing a little earth and a little salt—the former to symbolize the corruptibility of the body, the latter the incorruptibility of the soul.
Sources:
Pennant, Thomas. A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, MDCCLXXII. 1774. Reprint, Chester, U.K.: J. Monk, 1969.
Earth Laid upon a Corpse
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