Churchyard

It is not difficult to understand why the churchyard has come to be regarded as the special haunt of ghosts. The popular imagination may well be excused for supposing that the spirits of the dead continue to hover over the spot where their bodies are laid.

The ancient Greeks thought the souls of the dead were especially powerful near their graves or sepulchres, because of some natural tie binding body and soul, even after death. The more earthly a soul was, the less willing it was to leave the vicinity of its body, and in consequence, specters encountered in a churchyard were more to be feared than those met with elsewhere. The apparitions witnessed at the tombs of saints, however, were to be regarded as good angels rather than as the souls of the saints themselves.

church·yard / ˈchərchˌyärd/ • n. an enclosed area surrounding a church, esp. as used for burials.