Object
The Hand of Glory
Light the fingers; the house sleeps.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A shrivelled hand in a glass case
- Legend from
- Moors folk belief
- Best time
- Museum hours
- Tone
- Macabre
A thief's candle made from a hanged man's hand: if one finger won't burn, someone is awake.
Whitby Museum holds a mummified human hand found in a cottage at Castleton and identified by the stonemason and local historian Joseph Ford as a 'Hand of Glory'. It was given to the museum in 1935, and the museum says it is the only alleged Hand known to survive. A Hand of Glory was supposedly the pickled right hand of a felon, cut off while the body still hung on the gallows. Burglars used it to send sleepers into a coma. If one finger would not light, someone in the house was still awake. Only blood or skimmed milk could put the flames out.