Archeologists call them “prone burials,” and the reason behind them is much less rational. These were burials driven by fear–fear that the person might come back to life. Like I said, it seems like an irrational motive, swapping out respect and reverence for supernatural fear. But if you spend any amount of time flipping through the pages of history, one thing becomes clear: they had very good reason to be afraid.

The Walking Dead stands as a modern phenomenon, but restless and ill-intentioned corpses have a rich history. The latest episode of the Lore podcast traces a representative sample, as host Aaron Mahnke invokes a wide range of cases from world folklore (China, India, Ghana, Ireland, etc.). Settling his focus on England, Mahnke shares a narrative involving the intriguingly labeled “hound priest.” The episode centers, though, on a malevolent revenant bedeviling Croglin Grange (in Cumberland County) in 1875–a tale as harrowing as any ever recounted on the podcast, and one worthy of Bram Stoker, M.R. James, or Stephen King. Replete with enlightening info (e.g. the ostensible logic behind prone burials) and gripping stories, “Deviation” is right on the mark in terms of what Lore does best.