Yorkshire.
In Yorkshire it is usual for the common people to sit and watch in the church-porch from eleven o’clock at night until one in the morning. In the third year, for this must be done thrice, it is supposed that they will see the ghosts of all those who are to die the next year pass into the church. When any one sickens, who is thought to have been seen in this manner, it is presently whispered about that he will not recover, for that such a one who has watched St. Mark’s Eve, says so. The superstition is in such force that, if the patients themselves hear of it, they almost despair of recovery, and many are actually said to have died by the influence of their imaginations on this occasion.
“‘’Tis now,’ replied the village belle,
‘St. Mark’s mysterious Eve;
And all that old traditions tell
I tremblingly believe.
‘How, when the midnight signal tolls,
Along the churchyard green
A mournful train of sentenced souls
In winding-sheets are seen!
‘The ghosts of all whom Death shall doom
Within the coming year,
In pale procession walk the gloom
Amid the silence drear.’”
Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1819, vol. i. p. 192; J. Montgomery, Vigil of St. Mark.
