Death Revenge

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(A welcome to the ghoulish age of late-Georgian Scottish grave-robbery and a warning to the bereaved) “The security inspired by rank and wealth against these irreverent intrusions on the sanctuary of the dead, is, as we all know, a mistaken confidence, since neither marble nor heraldry is a protection against such practices; for what the audacious atrocity of the resurrection-man cannot, the venality of the sexton certainly, will accomplish” - Thomas Wakely, The Lancet newspaper 1832 “'...a coffin was registered with the expressed purpose of frustrating the resurrectionists... designed to be made in cast or wrought iron, with concealed spring catches on the inner side of the lid to prevent levering, and joined in such a way as to thwart any attempt to force the sides of the coffin apart... Some parishes had communal mortsafes or 'jankers' – huge coffin-shaped pieces of stone or metal put on new graves.” - Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection, and the Destitute 1987 “Resurrection men, your fate deplore, Retire with fore vexation, Your mystery's gone, your art's no more, No more your occupation : Surgeons no more shall ye ransack The grave with feelings callous Tho' on the Old Bailey turn'd your back, Your only hopes the gallows” - Mr. Diben The Patent Cof in 1818 Stalk through hallowed headstones For notes and coin, trade flesh and bone Your eternal rest may, become nocturnal wrest The newly deceased, still bereaved Snatched from their peace, taken without leave Truncated repose, for the decomposed Adamantine clasp of the mortsafe, the muddy bonds of earth Patent coffins do not vouchsafe, calm repose beneath the turf Stone walls do not a prison make, nor six feet of sod a grave Pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the - Graves' occupants, so dearly prized But to butcher, not to eulogize To rest they were laid, now sold under the blade Who turns the key to the mortsafe, when the sexton stuffs his purse? Nightwatchmen cannot vouchsafe, calm repose beneath the turf Stone walls do not a prison make, nor six feet of sod a grave So pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the grave Defenders of the grave, hallmarks of this ghoulish age Defenders of the grave, defenders of the - Solo – Matthew Harvey Solo – Michael Burke Stone walls do not a prison make, nor shovels full of sod a grave So pray the lord your soul to take, you'll need defenders of the grave Defenders of the grave, hallmarks of this ghoulish age Defenders of the grave, defenders of the - grave

Submitted by NecroLord — Apr 24, 2025

(In which the boyhoods of Dr. Knox and William Hare mold their decrepit destinies) “...From my earliest childhood I have been a dreamer and a visionary.... I have dwelt ever apart from the visible world. Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon – but of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets....” - H.P Lovecraft, ​The Tomb Dr. Knox:​ Mem'ry haunts me clearly The winter of my thirteenth year Wind moaned through headstones dreary A siren song only I could hear A fevered brain infected Where terrors spawned each night A young man grew dejected A waking dream, a fright amongst frights Dr. Knox: ​Though my symptoms at last abated And the coughing fits did surcease An insalubrious nature gestated Breeding malaise, a subtle disease Narrator: ​Then with each passing breath In life, he dwelt in death Dr. Knox: ​This truth I now confess: Dr. Knox:​ A morbid mind obsessed Unhealthy thoughts depressed By cryptic dreams possessed To ever dwell among, the lifeless Lifeless! Hare:​ A casket-builder's low-born boy Child of the grave in name and fact Grey days and nights in dark employ Set destiny 'pon its deathly path Hare: ​Dismissed as morbid youth Obsessions quite uncouth Led to unpleasant truths Hare / Dr. Knox:​ A morbid mind obsessed Unhealthy thoughts depressed By cryptic dreams possessed To ever dwell among, the lifeless As all life ends in death So with each passing breath My destiny professed To ever dwell among, the lifeless Dr. Knox:​ Into the family crypt, I stealthily crept Knowing not what I sought 'mongst the mold and the rot A sight that was not soon forgot And as I lay in the grave, finding the solace I'd craved At peace there with the decayed, though they called me depraved It was there a dark path was paved Solo - Matthew Harvey Solo – Michael Burke Dr. Knox / Hare:​ A morbid mind obsessed Unhealthy thoughts depressed By cryptic dreams possessed To ever dwell among, the lifeless As all life ends in death So with each passing breath A destiny professed To ever dwell among, the lifeless

Submitted by Infernal Flame — Apr 24, 2025

(In which most unwholesome paths are set upon by our protagonists, the future Dr. Knox and young William Hare, to the chagrin of polite society) “These heads of the profession convert the science of which they are ever chattering, into a mean and sordid trade, and those institutions which were founded in the purest spirit of benevolence and philanthropy, are transformed into warehouses of human wretchedness” - ​The​ ​Lancet ​newspaper​ ​editorial 1829 “It is disgusting to talk of anatomy as a science, whilst it is cultivated by a means of practices which would disgrace a race of cannibals” - ​The​ ​Lancet newspaper​ ​editorial 1832 “Anatomy is the basis of surgery... it informs the head, guides the hand, and familiarizes the heart to a kind of necessary inhumanity” - William Hunter's introductory lecture to anatomy students 1780 “The outcasts of society, who, being pointed out as resurrection men, unable to maintain themselves by any honest employment and are driven to become thieves and housebreakers...” - Benjamin Brodie ​Observations ​1832 Dr. Knox: ​My occupation was a'calling, like a tumor, it within me swelled A path some found appalling, that I would come to know so well A cadaverous career awaited, the filthy task I'd undertake With a gruesome thirst for knowledge, that only the dead could slake My studies dismissed as morbid, incurring the headmaster's scorn My deathly imagination derided, and into the darkness borne From clandestine forays into graveyards, to the operating theater's grisly scenes My bloody studies dug ever deeper into the obscene and the unclean Narrator: ​For in death's sleep what dreams may come? And in death's name, what deeds must be done - Dr. Knox: ​As an anatomist, a necrologist But I'll never be an apologist My chosen path, to carve up stiffs A career dismissed​ ​as a dead end A surgeon's trade, a butcher's blade You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid To serve my much derided trade Your legacy will fade to a dead end Solo – Michael Burke Hare: ​The pounding of my father's coffin-nails beat a dolorous refrain But by staving in those caskets, a richer living could be gained My heart beat time with the hammer-falls, I learned to pluck men from the grave And earned the name of “resurrection-man,” plying that reviled trade Narrator: ​For in death's sleep what dreams may come? And in death's name, what deeds must be done - Hare: ​As a resurrectionist, a necrologist But I'll never be an apologist My chosen path, to dig up stiffs A career dismissed as a dead end Dr. Knox:​ A surgeon's trade, ​Hare:​ a wooden spade Dr. Knox / Hare: ​You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid ​To serve our much benighted trades Your legacy will fade to a dead end

Submitted by The Void — Apr 24, 2025

(In which Dr. Knox makes the acquaintance of Misters Burke and Hare, Resurrectionists by trade) “The bulk of the work was done at night, using wooden shovels... and a “dark lanthorn” - a device commonly used by burglars: designed to shed light where necessary, but not to attract attention... A hole would be dug at the head of the grave, down to the coffin, and hooks or a crow-bar inserted under the lid. The weight of earth on the rest of the lid acted as a counter-weight, so that when pressure was exerted lid invariably snapped across, and the body could be hoisted out of the grave with ropes.” - Ruth Richardson ​Death, Dissection, and the Destitute​ 1987 “The corporation of corpse-stealers, I am told, support themselves and Families very comfortably, and that no-one should be surprised at the Nature of Such a Society, the late Resurrectionists in St. Saviours, St. Giles's and St. Pancras churchyards, are memorable Instances of this laudable Profession.” Anonymous ​A View of London and Westminster 1728 “Blest be ye man [that] spares these stones, And curste be ye [that] moves my bones” - William Shakespeare's epitaph 1616 Hare: ​Welcome to our nocturnal vocation Disembalming we grimly extract the expired Disinterring by lanthorn illumination To fulfill anatomists' cadaverous desires Dr. Knox: ​Giving Nightwatchmen fits with the mortsafes you've picked Finding fresh graves to dig, I must say it's a hell of a gig ​Night work be done, the lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight Hare: ​A livelihood in death we scrape Your casket vacant, corpse taken forthwith From our fell spades you will not escape Second coming ignominious, unclean and sick Dr. Knox: ​Wooden shovels and picks, from your tomb you'll be nicked Sink to new depths of sick, compunction cut to the quick ​Night work be done, the lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight Solo - Matthew Harvey Dr. Knox: ​It's a dirty job, finding fresh graves to rob Solo - Michael Burke Dr. Knox: ​These are dirty deeds, six feet of dirt, dug dirt cheap Solo – Matthew Harvey Dr. Knox: ​It's a dirty job, finding fresh graves to rob Toil as the casket's slaves, death is our living wage ​Night work be done, the lifeless made graveless, our prize to be won Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken this Night work be done, the lifeless made graveless our prize to be won Exhumed by torchlight, dead weight dead to rights This night work, an unholy sight, undertaken tonight

Submitted by Infernal Flame — Apr 24, 2025

(In which Mister Hare, spurred by greed and the lack of ethics of the anatomists, proposes a drastic and loathsome course of action) “...a wretch who is not worth a farthing while alive, becomes a valuable article when knock'd on the head and carried to an anatomist; and acting on this principle, have clear'd the streets of some of those miserable offcasts of society, whom nobody miss'd because nobody wish'd to see them again” - Sir Walter Scott “If this horrid traffic in human flesh be not, by some means or other, prevented, the churchyards will not be secure against the shovel of the midnight plunderer, nor the public against the dagger of the midnight assassin.” - Editorial, ​The Lancet ​newspaper 1829 “...when there is a difficulty in obtaining bodies, and their value is so great, you absolutely throw a temptation in the way of these men to commit murder for the purpose of selling the bodies of their victims.” - Sir Henry Halford, May 1828 Dr. Knox: ​Cold stiffs may fetch five sovereigns Warmer bodies a few schilling more Trade in death to make a living Ghastly currency of gore Your cadaveric chores, so Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Dr. Knox: ​The freshest of corpses through most heinous courses Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Dr. Knox: ​The warmer the corpse The more rich the reward In this foul trade of flesh, bone and gore Dr. Knox: ​Fresher specimens are ever needed The scalpel thirsts for still-warm death Law and decorum should go unheeded When prices soar for a pound of flesh So I may slice up what's left Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Hare: ​Just think what we'll gain When we harvest the slain Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Hare: ​And the throats we would slit Would never be missed Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Burke: ​And so business is furthered By cold-blooded murder? Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Dr. Knox: ​The demand has increased For the freshly deceased And so now the living you'll reap Hare: ​The cemeteries crawl with sentries The sexton demands his bribe Graveyard gates ensure their entries Remain inhumed inside Yet another source of bodies Surrounds us every day Is not every soul but a corpse to be? And should we not just speed them on their way? Solo – Matthew Harvey Solo – Michael Burke Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Burke: ​Compunction be dashed Though this course may seem rash Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Hare: ​There's so much more profit When we fill the coffins Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Hare: ​The tramps and the urchins We'll make fodder for surgeons Chorus: ​Unspeakable! Dr. Knox: ​They live lives without worth Death cannot be much worse Wretched ways to make your purse burst Chorus: ​Unspeakable!

Submitted by Morgoth — Apr 24, 2025

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(In which Burke and Hare master the irredeemable art of procuring the freshest specimens of cadaver by the most nefarious means imaginable) “'Knowst thou not any, whom corrupting gold Would tempt unto a close exploit of death?' 'I know a discontented Irishman, whose humble means match not his haughty mind. Gold were as good as twenty orators, and will, no doubt, tempt him to do any thing'” -​ Richard III,​ William Shakespeare “In Edina town, where your friend you may meet At morning, in health, walking forth in the street And, at evening, decoy'd and depriv'd of life His corpse fresh and warm is laid out for the knife” - ​Edinburgh Broadsheet 1832 Hare: ​The first corpse was mere happenstance But the second was no accident The end soon followed pitiably Choking out curses 'til his life was spent Dr. Knox: ​Each morrow the kill comes easier Murder grown precise Axphyxiated bodies bear testament To your mastery - of this most deadly device Dr. Knox: ​A corpse is but a corpse How they are obtained, is not my concern So long as they come to my door Hare: ​With coppers o'er blind eyes, like the one you've turned Dr. Knox: ​Death is the last fact of life, scrawled out by dissecting knives Hare: ​As I'm taking your life Chorus: ​You won't survive the harrowing Hare: ​So gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke Dr. Knox: ​At the end of your rope Chorus: ​Now your hope is narrowing You won't survive the harrowing Hare:​ At first I felt revulsion Which then gave way to fear Finally came apathy And at last I came to see things clearly Dr. Knox: ​A reaver that hunts by gaslight The stranglehold comes grim and cold But your wallet filled with notes and coins Weighs more 'pon you, ​t​hen all of the dead you have sold Dr. Knox: ​A corpse is but a corpse How they are obtained, is not my concern So long as they come to my door Hare: ​With coppers o'er blind eyes, like the one you've turned Dr. Knox: ​Death is the last fact of life, scrawled out by dissecting knives Hare: ​As I'm taking your life Chorus: ​You won't survive the harrowing Hare: ​So gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke Dr. Knox: ​At the end of your rope Chorus: ​Now your hope is narrowing Death is overpowering You won't survive the harrowing Solo – Michael Burke Duet – Michael Burke / Matthew Harvey Dr. Knox: ​Death is the last act of life, post-scripted by dissecting knives Hare: ​To which I'm giving your life Chorus: ​You won't survive the harrowing Hare: ​Gasp your last breath as you choke, incomprehension, of life's final joke Dr. Knox: ​At the end of your rope Chorus: ​Now your hope is narrowing Death is overpowering Life's but time you're borrowing You won't survive the harrowing

Submitted by NecroGod — Apr 24, 2025

(In which a shocking discovery is made in West Port, Edinburgh, the repellant nature and lurid details of which stun and shock the city to its very core) “...a most extraordinary circumstance that took place on Friday night, the 31s​ t​ October 1828, in a House in the West Port, Edinburgh, where an old Woman of the name of Campbell is supposed to have been Murdered, and her Body Sold to a Medical Doctor.” - ​Edinburgh​ ​Broadsheet​ 3r​ d​ of November, 1828 “Up the close and doun the stair But and been with Burke and Hare Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief Knox the boy that buys the beef” - ​19t​ h​ century Edinburgh skipping rhyme Hare: ​Follow me to my humble lodging What's mine is yours, such as it may be Dr. Knox: ​Enjoy the hospitality, soon you'll be cold dead anatomy Hare: ​Along the narrow, crooked wynd Then through the close, this house you'll find Dr. Knox: ​So many honored guests to fete, always an empty bed to let Chorus: ​A funeral party Hare: ​Drink up, the hour is growing late Chorus: ​A funeral party Dr. Knox: ​The fete will end when you meet your fate Hare: ​Here you may rest from your journeys And warm your bones with a dram of whiskey Dr. Knox: ​Drink to what's left of your health, soon you'll be another corpse to sell Hare: ​Intoxicated, the room starts to spin And at that moment our night work begins Dr. Knox: ​Quietly asphyxiate, you see your end, but far too late Chorus: ​A funeral party Burke: ​Drink up, the hour is growing late Chorus: ​A funeral party Dr. Knox: S​ tuff the carcass in a crate Narrator: ​All revels must come to their end So for the constable the tenants send False friends meet most unpleasant ends The corpus delicti now made evident Solo – Matthew Harvey Solo – Michael Burke Solo – Matthew Harvey Chorus:​ A funeral party Burke: ​Step inside and have a quaff Chorus: ​A funeral party Hare: ​Where guests soon shuffle off Chorus: ​A funeral party Narrator: ​Protests of innocence rebuffed Chorus: ​A funeral party Narrator: ​The life of the party - snuffed

Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Apr 24, 2025

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(In which pangs of conscience at last pierce the veil of our heroes' occluded consciences, long since numbed by their morbid professions) “But woe to the riches and skill thus obtained, Woe to the wretch that would injure the dead And woe go his portion whose fingers are stained With the red drops of life that he cruelly shed” - ​Ballad of William Burke ​circa 1829 “[had] the receiver of these sixteen strangled bodies been punishable as well as the murderer, the crimes, which have cast a stain on the character of the nation and of human nature, would not have been committed” - Thomas Wakely ​The Lancet​ newspaper 21s​ t​ March, 1829 Dr. Knox: ​What is a man? Is he the sum of his beliefs? Or is he measured by the depths of his misdeeds? Is he but flesh and bone? The sum of component parts? Is he what he has wrought? Or what he has torn apart? Hare: ​Our abhorrent enterprise, so deeply despised But evidence, I'll provide, to spare my own hide Hare: ​I'll send Burke to his grave To be betrayed​ ​by incarnadined hands Dr. Knox: ​Am I a butcher uncouth? The telltale truth​ ​are these incarnadined hands Dr. Knox: ​Am I a slaughterer or a surgeon? A taker or giver of life? Hare: ​A thief or a murderer? For which crime am I to be tried? Dr. Knox: ​So many I've anatomized, truly I was desensitized I never failed to edify, ​Hare:​ nor to brutalize Dr. Knox: ​The stain of the grave I am betrayed by incarnadined hands Burke: ​The meager length of the noose The punishment due for incarnadined hands Dr. Knox: ​Please tell me who I am - Please tell me who I am! Solo – Michael Burke Dr. Knox: ​What is a man? Is he the end or is he the means? Burke: ​For lucre's gleam, undertaking hideous misdeeds Dr. Knox: ​I once thought I knew, but now I see it true When you look into death, it looks back into you Dr. Knox: ​The stain of the grave I am betrayed​ ​by incarnadined hands Burke: ​The meager length of the noose The punishment due​ ​for incarnadined hands Dr. Knox / Hare: ​Please tell me who I am

Submitted by NecroGod — Apr 24, 2025

(In which the final grim realization is reached) “The mob, which was immense... received with shouts the solitary wretch who found his way to the gallows out of the five or six who seem not less guilty than he.” - Sir Walter Scott, 28t​ h​ of January 1829 “...The town of Edinburgh was filled with an immense crowd of spectators, from all places of the surrounding country, to witness the execution of a Monster, whose crime stands unparalleled in the annals of Scotland.” - Edinburgh Broadsheet 1829 “Every effort [had been] employed to convert my misfortune into positive and intended personal guilt of the most dreadful character...” - Dr. Robert Knox 1829 “The sickly and the hale Were murder'd, pack'd up, and sent off To Knox's human sale That man of skill, with subjects warm Was frequently supplied Nor did he question when or how The persons brought had died!” - Edinburgh children's verse circa 1829 “That his class received him, in consequence of these horrid disclosures, with three cheers... that savage yell within those blood-stained walls is no more, to the voice of the public, than so much squeaking and grunting in a pig-sty during a storm of thunder.... and instead of serving to convince anyone... of their lecturer's innocence, it has had... the very opposite effect – exhibiting a ruffian recklessness of general opinion and feeling on a most appalling subject.” - Christopher North ​Blackwood,​ 1829 Dr. Knox: ​A “noxious” butcher, a name they will rue When their carcasses yield postmortem truths Although Burke and Hare, have their usefulness proved From their sordid acts, I stand far removed But now from the grave's final jape I shan't emerge wholly unscathed From this calumny there's no escape A lifetime of work that may all go to waste A gentleman born, now stained by disgrace Once a surgeon, now a ghoul in his place Dr. Knox: ​Death and life forever intertwined And within their vulgar minds The penny dreadful they seek they will find, they'll have their death revenge I plied my trade bound to the grave Now they've labeled me depraved My name and my work bear their stain, this is their death revenge Hare: ​Burke alone stands judged for both our transgressions The hangman awaits him, then postmortem dissection Yet all that peers back from the looking glass Are the ghosts of my past, screaming to their last Hare: ​And now my grave, final jape Is writ large on Burke's cadaverous face From the noose he shall have no escape Why let both of our lives go to waste? In my confession the blame lay misplaced Once a man, soon a corpse in his place Hare: ​Forfeit his life to extend mine Thus ends our partnership in crime Lady justice though said to be blind, still takes her​ ​death revenge Burke: ​I earned my living from the grave And committed acts depraved Life ends unsaved and betrayed, the price paid: Death Revenge Solo – Matthew Harvey Solo – Michael Burke Dr. Knox / Hare: ​Death and life forever intertwined And within the morbid mind There's only darkness left to find, the final​ ​death revenge We lived our lives within the grave And in turn became depraved And now naught remains to be saved, the final​ ​death revenge

Submitted by Warbringer — Apr 24, 2025

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If you got something to say Then come my way I'm guarded by Satan I'm riding on Baphomet I'll teach you a lesson in violence You won't soon forget The pleasure of watching you die Is what I will get Fight - for what you believe to be right Crushing with all your might I laugh at their pitiful cries They run from the fire in my eyes Nothing can save them now You've learned a lesson in violence Get on your knees and bow Or learn a lesson in violence I love to stab my victims Until they're dead A knife to the throat Or a smashing blow to the head I'm judge and jury My sentence has just been passed Step into the circle of hell If you think you can last Fight for what you believe to be right Crushing with all your might I laugh at their pitiful cries They run from the fire in my eyes Nothing can save them now You've learned a lesson in violence Get on your knees and bow Or learn a lesson in violence

Submitted by Immortal — Nov 08, 2025