To Bletsoe Church is attached the story of ‘The lady restored to life’, an international tale known in both Europe and America. In England, it was told in the 18th century of Lady Mount Edgcumbe of Cotehele, Cornwall, and is related to other ‘Ladies’ and unnamed women in other places. Several such stories are related by Katharine Briggs in her Dictionary of British Folk-Tales, where she says that the individual tales are told with greater or lesser degrees of substantiation as fact.
Katharine Briggs does not include the Bletsoe legend, which may mean either that it is relatively unknown or else its attachment to Bletsoe is comparatively modern. It concerns a wealthy and beautiful lady who once lived at Bletsoe. After a long illness, she seemingly died and was buried in a vault under Bletsoe church, wearing her favorite gold ring. This ring catching the sexton’s eye, soon after the funeral he secretly went to the vault. Twist and turn it as he might, he could not get it off, so drew his knife to cut off the lady’s finger. At the first touch, the ‘corpse’ sat bolt upright in its shroud and the terrified sexton ran shrieking from the vault and indeed from the village, where he was never seen again. The lady herself, however, lived to a ripe old age.