Bygdeå Churchyard

Västerbotten · Sweden · Cemetery

"Blessed are they that sleep", read the gravedigger's wife as she crossed the graves. Then something sighed heavily beneath her: "We do not all sleep so well."

The churchyard gate at Bygdeå had been left open and the cows had got in among the graves. The gravedigger's wife, who lived at Skinnarbyn, went out to drive them off. As she walked straight across the graves she recited to herself the pious verse: "Blessed are they that sleep, who have rest in the night." At that something sighed heavily from the ground beneath her feet, and a voice answered: "We do not all sleep so well." The narrator ends drily that she rather thinks all is not well with those who lie there. The account was recorded in 1931. Bygdeå is one of Västerbotten's oldest parishes, with a church dating from the 1400s, and the church village was the gathering point for the whole coastal district – the churchyard has received the dead for more than five hundred years.

FAQ

Where is Bygdeå Churchyard located?

Bygdeå Churchyard is in Västerbotten, Sweden.