Money for the boatman ...

basil

Distinguished Member
About two weeks ago I posted that my mum passed away in mid December. My daughter Liane came down the day before the funeral and went and saw my mum at the funeral parlour along with my niece Joanne.
Whilst there Liane put some money under my Mum's hand and said there's some money for the boatman.
Apparently it's to pay for my mum's journey wherever she goes.
None of us had ever heard of this and according to Liane it's a northern custom.
Anyone shed any more light on it please?
 
Lots of civilisations past and present carry out similar rituals, even poor Egyptian people were buried with some mateial item kind of toll for passage to the next life - some 4000 years ago, IIRC coins on the eyes were also used in this instance in the UK.
 
The Roman's placed coins on people's eyelids to pay the ferryman - interesting that when 'across' they went either to hell or to Elysium.
Most of modern church services go back to pre- roman times e.g. Easter used to be Eostra's day (is the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring, the East, Resurrection, and Rebirth,) and was marked by a lot of the latter. The Romans also had a strategy not to offend locals by adopting their local gods and goddesses but also making their own e.g. Sulis /Minerva and the waters at Bath.
At least they had a strategy.
 
does anyone remember the pennie ferry at thelwall warrington that ferried people across the manchester ship canal bs
It was the ferry at Runcorn which gave rise to the 'poem' in "Abert arrold and others". Much like the one at Thelwall, although that was over the ship canal.
 
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