Whitby, Yorkshire early 1900s

“The story behind the Hand of Glory is macabre, as it is the carefully prepared and preserved (pickled!) right hand of a felon – usually cut off from the corpse whilst the body still hung from the gallows.” - Tim Barber

I’m such a huge fan of all things macabre and weird, so of course the story of the Hand of Glory really peaked my interest. A pickled hand?! Of course, a pickled hand!

A mummified severed human hand sits in Whitby Museum, discovered and ‘handed over’ in the early 20th Century after being found hidden on the wall of a thatched cottage in Castleton, the hand was given to a local historian and stone mason Joseph Ford. The antiquarian who did own the hand became too old to care for it, and worried for its future, hence gifting it to a historian.

Ford realised quickly that the hand was not just any hand, it was probably a ‘Hand of Glory’, understanding the significance of owning such a thing, Ford then gifted it to Whitby Museum in 1935. So what is a Hand of Glory?!

An anally prepared and then pickled right hand of a felon, cut off whilst the body still hung from the gallows. That is what a Hand of Glory is. Yum. But why? It was said that criminals, usually burglars, would use these pickled hands to send the homeowners into a deep slumber, allowing them to then ransack their house without worry of being spotted.

One iteration of the hand sees a clenched position used as a candleholder for a candle that has to incorporate human fat. Another sees an outstretched hand with its own fingers lit with matches, which helped the thieves identify if any of the household remains awake as it was said one of the fingers would refuse to light if this was the case. Once used, they had to extinguish the hands using blood or skimmed milk, never water!

Tales of ‘Hand of Glory’ hands spread across Europe, from Finland to Italy, western Ireland to Russia, in the last four hundred years. The latest Hand of Glory hands were documented from the Spital Inn in Stainmore in 1797 and the Oak Tree Inn in Leeming in 1824. Here is a lovely mental image of how a Hand of Glory might’ve been made back in the day:

It must be cut from the body of a criminal on the gibbet; pickled in salt, and the urine of man, woman, dog, horse and mare; smoked with herbs and hay for a month; hung on an oak tree for three nights running, then laid at a crossroads, then hung on a church door for one night while the maker keeps watch in the porch - "and if it be that no fear hath driven you forth from the porch ... then the hand be true won, and it be yours"

Seems like a really long-winded method to ensure you can rob a house. If you’ve gone to such effort, I think I’d let you rob me. The Hand of Glory presented at Whitby Museum is supposedly the only alleged Hand of its type known to survive. Pretty damn cool!