A 19thC Cornish miner from Perranuthno falls into a mine and dies. His body was found in St Hillary. People argued where he should be buried and whether his ghost would walk.

Tt was commonly held in Cornwall that the ghost of a suicide or a person who died a violent or accidental death was bound to "walk" in the parish in which the death occurred.

In 1874, an inhabitant of the parish of Perranuthno fell into a mine shaft which happened to lie near the parish's boundary so that, owing to the underlie, the body was actually found in the adjoining parish of St. Hilary.

The Perran people maintained that the man died where he was found, in St. Hilary, and must be buried there even though he was "a Perran man." He was sure to walk, they argued, in the parish in which he died and the Perrans wanted him buried there as well.

A while later, another curious fact came to light as it was discovered that the Perran man had probably died in St. Hilary, but had actually been brought to the surface in another mine shaft which emerged in the parish of Breage.

In which parish the spirit would eventually walk was never decided.

The idea of a spirit that walks is a simple one: If a person has reason to be uneasy in death, then the spirit might linger and roam until the matter was resolved.