Once upon a time, a bridegroom jokingly recited his marriage vows over a skeletal finger protruding from the earth. After placing his ring on the bone, his mirth turned to horror when a grasping hand burst forth, followed by a corpse in a tattered shroud, her dead eyes staring as she proclaimed, "My husband".
This chilling Jewish folk tale hails from a cycle of stories about the great 16th-century mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, in what is now northern Israel, said Howard Schwartz, a top Jewish folklorist and professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
It also apparently inspired Tim Burton's charmingly ghoulish animated film, "Corpse Bride". Yes, the film features a bridegroom who accidentally weds a cadaver. But the feature eschews the folk tale's grotesquerie for romanticized gloom and Halloweeny fun - a trademark of Burton fare such as "Edward Scissorhands" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
Learn more about Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, featuring the voices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, here, or view the trailer here.
# It fits easily in your back pocket or purse.
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