ABSTRACT
I scratched my nose, smiled, then replied with one of my favorite stories. The story involved a man by the name of Richard Munslow. Munslow was
a sin eater. In actual fact, he was the very last sin eater. And he lived on the Marches, that slip of land, dotted with mountains, moorlands, green wooded valleys and castles, which separates England from the Principality of Wales. Sin eaters were always few in number and one imagines this had to be due to the nature of their work. Detested by the local population, they were an essential element of the funeral custom of the region. The sin eater would be summoned on the death of a loved one who had either refused or was unable, due to the sudden nature of their demise, to recant their sins. His function was to dine on beer or wine, and bread often served with cheese or salted meat. This might sound quite appealing to you. Indeed, it might have been, if it were not for the distasteful fact the meal had to be consumed directly off the decaying corpse of the unrepentant sinner. This, it was believed, would transfer the sins from the soul of the recently departed to the soul of the consumer of the beer, bread, and cheese-the sin eater.1
