Mrs. Peacock's Fiery Death
The Legend:
Sometime previous to 1809 (when it was reported in the Methodist Magazine), the keeper of an alehouse in Limerick was called to the apartment of a man at two in the morning because the burning body of a Mrs. Peacock had just fallen through his ceiling into his room; the loft above was still burning.
Theories
Joe Nickell, in his book Secrets of the Supernatural, gets his account of this event from George Henry Lewes' article "Spontaneous Combustion" (from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine #89 [April, 1861]); I will attempt to locate a copy. Nickell adds to this account that, in the room above, the grate contained the smoldering remains of a fire, "raked in the ashes, as is the manner of preserving fire by night." Nickell believes that Mrs. Peacock accidently set her cloths on fire while raking the coals, and the wooden floor then acted as a pyre.
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