Thurkill's strange journey

1206 Thurkill's strange journey ('Thurkill's Vision')

The vision of Thurkill is one of a number of precedents to the Purgatory of The Divine Comedy by the Florentine poet, Dante (1265 - 1321).

We know from the medieval chronicle by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236), that on Friday (according to the 10,000-year calendar), October 27, 1206 the English peasant Thurkill was digging ditches to drain his Essex farm (possibly at the village of Twinstead, Sudbury) when a stranger, who identified himself as St James (patron saint of pilgrims), came up to him and said he would take the labourer on a journey. Thurkill lay down, going into a coma. In his vision, Thurkill passed through a "large purgatorial fire" and was immersed in a lake "incomparably salty and cold".

His family awakened him on the Sunday by pouring water down his throat ...

Categories: saint, mystery, uk, folklore