Plant Spirit Shamanism: the Sin Eater
In the County of Hereford was an old Custom at Funerals, to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the Sins of the party deceased… The manner was that when a Corpse was brought out of the house and laid on the Bier; a Loaf of bread was brought out and delivered to the Sin-eater over the corps, as also a Mazer-bowl full of beer, which he was to drink up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him all the Sins of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from Walking after they were dead.
John Aubrey, Remains of Gentilism
When I was a child my family moved to the Herefordshire countryside, in the shadow of the Welsh Black Mountains and deep in the heart of Celtic mythology. At the edge of the village, alone and isolated from the rest of the scant community there was a small cottage, long fallen to disrepair; a place I was always warned to stay clear of. For in this cottage there lived a madman, who was somehow unclean and undesirable to the village… so they said. Inevitably I found my way to this place.
His cottage stood at a crossroads, just back from the road itself and surrounded by tall bushes and trees. It was a walk of about a mile from the village and there were no other houses anywhere near it. It felt somewhat like the fairytale cottage of a witch, a place you stumble upon in error, after which your life is never the same. As I stood looking at this mysterious cottage, whose lopsided architecture had begun to take on the form of the surrounding land, the door opened and its single inhabitant emerged.
He was old, thin, and dressed oddly for the times (the 1970s) in white collarless shirt, black trousers and waistcoat, like a