Sin-Eater
In rural Britain and Wales, families once hired “sin-eaters” to absorb the sins of the dead. The practice involved eating bread placed on a corpse, symbolically taking on their spiritual baggage so the deceased could rest peacefully.
Sin-eaters were shunned by society, believed to carry evil or bad luck. Yet their services were oddly in demand. The job was spiritual, eerie, and laced with superstition. As organized religion and funerary customs modernized, sin-eating disappeared—though it still shows up in horror fiction.
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