The tombstone of Barry John Johnson looks no different from any of the others in the quiet cemetery. It’s a plain stone slab, decorated with a simple cross. It lists Johnson’s date of birth (2 December, 1613) and death (3 January, 1647), states his rank (Sergeant), and mentions his service against the Roundheads at the battle of Marston Moor.
"We can dance if so we wish & leave thy freinds behind, For thy freinds dance not & if they dance not they be no freinds of mine."
If you were to dig beneath the stone, however—an act which is forbidden by a special order from the office of the Witchfinder General—you would find something out of the ordinary. You would have to dig through three feet of earth, then three feet of slightly different earth, then scrape through a thin layer of gravel, scoop out a hundredweight of treacle, extract several cubic metres of compacted white dog shit, go through a scale model of the Great Pyramid with a pickaxe, then break open a metal enclosure that reaches ten feet into the ground, and then dynamite your way through a solid marble sarcophagus before you got to the metal casket, which is lined with lead sheeting. If you finally managed to get the casket open, you would find what appeared to be a mummy or possibly a frankenstein, wrapped in successive layers of lead, corduroy, tweed, silk, sackcloth and ashes. After unwinding these wrappings, you would finally see the mortal remains of Barry Johnson himself. You would notice that his belly and chest have been roughly sliced open and his internal organs removed, along with his feet and most of his teeth. While pondering this macabre scene, you would be absorbing enough evil to put your immortal soul in peril. For Barry Johnson is better known to the world as Jack Pudding, the notorious Dancing Man of Walthamstow.
