The Ghost World

Equally strange is the omen with which the old baronet’s family of Clifton, of Clifton Hall, in Nottinghamshire, is forewarned when death is about to visit one of its members. It seems that, in this case, the omen takes the form of a sturgeon, which is seen forcing itself up the River Trent, on whose bank the mansion of the Clifton family is situated. With this curious tradition may be compared one connected with the Edgewell Oak, which is commonly reported to indicate the coming death of an inmate of Castle Dalhousie by the fall of one of its branches. Burke, in his ‘Anecdotes of the Aristocracy’ (1849, i. 122), says that ‘opposite the dining-room at Gordon Castle is a large and massive willow-tree, the history of which is somewhat singular. Duke Alexander, when four years of age, planted this willow in a tub filled with earth; the tub floated about in a marshy piece of land, till the shrub, expanding, burst its cerements, and struck root in the earth below; here it grew and prospered, till it attained the present goodly size. The Duke regarded the tree with a sort of fatherly and even superstitious regard, half believing there was some mysterious affinity between its fortunes and his own. If an accident happened to the one by storm or lightning, some misfortune was not long in befalling the other.’

It may be remembered, too, how in the Park of Chartley, near Lichfield, has long been preserved the breed of the indigenous Staffordshire cow, of sand white colour. In the battle of Burton Bridge a black calf was born, and the year of the downfall of the House of Ferrers happening about the same time, gave rise to the tradition that the birth of a parti-coloured calf from the wild herd in Chartley Park is a sure omen of death within the same year to a member of the family. Thus, ‘by a noticeable coincidence,’ says the ‘Staffordshire Chronicle’ (July 1835), ‘a calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened to the family of late years.’ It appears that the death of the seventh Earl Ferrers, and of his Countess, and of his son, Viscount Tamworth, and of his daughter, Mrs. William Joliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the eighth Earl and of his daughter, Lady Francis Shirley, were each preceded by the ominous birth of the fatal-hued calf. This tradition has been made the subject of a romantic story entitled ‘Chartley, or the Fatalist.’

Walsingham, in his ‘Ypodigma Neustriæ’ (1574, p. 153), informs us how, on January 1, 1399, just before the civil wars broke out between the houses of York and Lancaster, the River Ouse suddenly stood still at a place called Harewood, about five miles from Bedford, so that below this place the bed of the river was left dry for three miles together, and above it the waters swelled to a great height. The same thing is said to have happened at the same place in January 1648, which was just before the death of Charles I., and many superstitious persons ‘have supposed both these stagnations of the Ouse to be supernatural and portentous; others suppose them to be the effect of natural causes, though a probable natural cause has not yet been assigned.’212

The following curious anecdote, styled ‘An Irish Water-fiend,’ said to be perfectly well authenticated, is related in Burke’s ‘Anecdotes of the Aristocracy’ (i. 329). The hero of the tale was the Rev. James Crawford, rector of the parish of Killina, co. Leitrim. In the autumn of 1777, Mr. Crawford had occasion to cross the estuary called ‘The Rosses,’ on the coast of Donegal, and on a pillion behind him sat his sister-in-law, Miss Hannah Wilson. They had advanced some distance, until the water reached the saddle-laps, when Miss Wilson became so alarmed that she implored Mr. Crawford to get back as fast as possible to land. ‘I do not think there can be danger,’ replied Crawford, ‘for I see a horseman crossing the ford not twenty yards before us.’ Miss Wilson also saw the horseman. ‘You had better hail him,’ said she, ‘and inquire the depth of the intervening water.’ Crawford checked his horse, and hallooed to the other horseman to stop. He did stop, and turning round, displayed a ghastly face grinning fiendishly at Crawford, who waited for no further parley, but returned as fast as he could. On reaching home he told his wife of the spectral rencontre. The popular belief was that whenever any luckless person was foredoomed to be drowned in that estuary, the fatal event was foreshown to the doomed person by some such apparition as Crawford had seen. Despite this monitory warning, Mr. Crawford again attempted to cross the ford of the Rosses upon September 27, 1777, and was drowned in the attempt.

A correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ speaks of a superstition prevalent among the peasantry in Worcestershire, that when storms, heavy rains, or other elemental strifes take place at the death of a great man, the spirit of the storm will not be appeased till the moment of burial. ‘This superstition,’ he adds, ‘gained great strength on the occasion of the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, when, after some weeks of heavy rain, and one of the highest floods ever known in this country, the skies began to clear, and both rain and flood abated. It was a common observation in this part of the country, in the week before the interment of his Grace, “Oh, the rain won’t give over till the Duke is buried.”’

In Germany several princes have their warnings of death. In some instances it is the roaring of a lion, and in others the howling of a dog. Occasionally a similar announcement was made by the tolling of a bell, or the striking of a clock at an unusual time. Then there is the time-honoured White Lady, whose mysterious appearance has from time immemorial been supposed to indicate some event of importance. According to a popular legend, the White Lady is seen in many of the castles of German princes and nobles, by night as well as by day, especially when the death of any member of the family is imminent. She is regarded as the ancestress of the race, ‘shows herself always in snow white garments, carries a bunch of keys at her side, and sometimes rocks and watches over the children at night when their nurses sleep.’ The earliest instance of this apparition was in the sixteenth century, and is famous under the name of ‘Bertha of Rosenberg,’ in Bohemia. The white lady of other princely castles was identified with Bertha, and the identity was accounted for by the intermarriages of other princely houses with members of the house of Rosenberg,213 in whose train the White Lady passed into their castles. According to Mrs. Crowe214 the White Lady was long supposed to be a Countess Agnes of Orlamunde; but a picture of a princess called Bertha, or Perchta von Rosenberg, discovered some time since, was thought so to resemble the apparition, that it is a disputed point which of the two ladies it is, or whether it is or is not the same apparition that is seen at different places. The opinion of its being the Princess Bertha, who lived in the fifteenth century, was somewhat countenanced by the circumstance that, at a period when, in consequence of the war, an annual benefit which she had bequeathed to the poor was neglected, the apparition appeared more frequently, and seemed to be unusually disturbed. The ‘Archæologia’ (xxxiii.) gives an extract from Brereton’s ‘Travels’ (i. 33), which sets forth how the Queen of Bohemia told William Brereton ‘that at Berlin – the Elector of Brandenburg’s house – before the death of any related in blood to that house, there appears and walks up and down that house like unto a ghost in a white sheet, which walks during the time of their sickness and until their death.’215

Cardan and Henningius Grosius relate a similar marvel of some of the ancient families of Italy, the following being recorded by the latter authority: ‘Jacopo Donati, one of the most important families in Venice, had a child, the heir to the family, very ill. At night, when in bed, Donati saw the door of his chamber opened and the head of a man thrust in. Knowing that it was not one of his servants, he roused the house, drew his sword, went over the whole palace, all the servants declaring that they had seen such a head thrust in at the doors of their several chambers at the same hour; the fastenings were found all secure, so that no one could have come in from without. The next day the child died.’

Burton, in his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ says that near Rufus Nova, in Finland, Sweden, ‘there is a lake in which, when the governor of the castle dies, a spectrum is seen, in the habit of Arion, with a harp, and makes excellent music, like those clocks in Cheshire which (they say) presage death to the master of the family; or that oak in Lanthadran Park, in Cornwall, which foreshows as much.’

One of the most celebrated ghosts of this kind in Britain is the White Lady of Avenel, the creation of Sir Walter Scott. In the Highlands it was long a common belief that many of the chiefs had some kind spirit to watch over the fortunes of their house. Popular tradition has many well-known legends about white ladies, who generally dwell in forts and mountains as enchanted maidens waiting for deliverance. They delight to appear in warm sunshine to poor shepherds, or herd boys. They are either combing their long hair or washing themselves, drying wheat or spinning, they also point out treasures, &c. They wear snow-white or half-white black garments, yellow or green shoes, and a bunch of keys at their side. All these and many other traits that appear in individual legends may be traced back to a goddess of German mythology who influences birth and death, and presides over the ordering of the household.216

An interesting instance of a death-warning among uncultured tribes is told by Mr. Lang,217 on the authority of Mr. J. J. Atkinson, late of Noumea, New Caledonia, which is curious because it offers among the Kanekas an example of a belief current in Breton folk-lore. Mr. Atkinson relates how one day a Kaneka of his acquaintance paid a visit and seemed loth to go away. After some hesitation he explained that he was about to die, and would never see his English friend again, as his fate was sealed. He had lately met in the wood one whom he took for the Kaneka girl of his heart, but he became aware too late that she was no mortal woman, but a wood-spirit in the guise of his beloved. As he said, so it happened, for the unlucky man shortly afterwards died. ‘This is the ground-work,’ adds Mr. Lang, ‘of the old Breton ballad of “Le Sieur Nann,” who died after his intrigue with the forest spectre!’ A version of the ballad is printed by De la Villemarque, Barzaz-Breiz (i. 41), and variants exist in Swedish, French, and even in a Lowland Scotch version, sung by children in a kind of dancing game.218 Another story quoted by Mr. Lang tells how, in 1860, a Maneroo black fellow died in the service of Mr. Du Ve. ‘The day before he died, having been ill some time, he said that in the night his father, his father’s friend, and a female spirit he could not recognise, had come to him, and said that he would die next day, and that they would wait for him.’ Mr. Du Ve adds that, ‘though previously the Christian belief had been explained to this man, it had entirely failed, and that he had gone back to the belief of his childhood.’ But cases of this kind, it would appear, are not uncommon among rude races, and have a special value to the student of comparative folk-lore.

CHAPTER XVII

‘SECOND SIGHT’

The power of seeing things invisible to others is commonly known as ‘second sight,’ a peculiarity which the ancient Gaels called ‘shadow sight.’ The subject has, for many years past, excited popular interest, and demanded the attention even of our learned men. Dr. Johnson was so favourably impressed with the notion of ‘second sight,’ that after, in the course of his travels, giving the subject full inquiry, he confessed that he never could ‘advance his curiosity to conviction, but came away at last only willing to believe.’ Sir Walter Scott, too, went so far as to say that ‘if force of evidence could authorise us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of “second sight.”’ When we recollect how all history and tradition abound in instances of this belief, oftentimes apparently resting on evidence beyond impeachment, it is not surprising that it has numbered among its adherents advocates of most schools of thought. Although, too, of late years the theory of ‘second sight’ has not been so widely preached as formerly, yet it must not be supposed that the stories urged in support of it are less numerous, or that it has ceased to be regarded as great a mystery as in days gone by.

In defining ‘second sight’ as a singular faculty ‘of seeing an otherwise invisible object without any previous means used by the person that beholds it for that end,’ we are at once confronted with the well-known axiom that ‘a man cannot be in two places at once,’ a rule with which it is difficult to reconcile such statements as those recorded by Pennant of a gentleman of the Hebrides said to have had the gift of foreseeing visitors in time to get ready for them, or the anecdote which tells how St. Ambrose fell into a comatose state while celebrating the mass at Milan, and on his recovery asserted that he had been present at St. Martin’s funeral at Tours, where it was afterwards declared he had been seen. But it must be remembered that believers in ‘second sight’ base their faith not so much on metaphysical definitions as on the evidence of daily experience, it being of immaterial importance to them how impossible a certain doctrine may seem, provided it only has the testimony of actual witnesses in its favour. Hence, in spite of all arguments against the so-called ‘second sight,’ it is urged, on the other hand, that visions coinciding with real facts and events occurring at a distance – oftentimes thousands of miles away – are beheld by persons possessing this remarkable faculty. Thus Collins, in his ode on the ‘Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,’ alludes to this belief:

To monarchs dear, some hundred miles astrayOft have they seen Fate give the fatal blow.The seer, in Sky, shrieked as the blood did flowWhen headless Charles warm on the scaffold lay.

Accounts differ largely respecting the faculty of ‘second sight.’ Some make it hereditary, and according to an account communicated to Aubrey from a gentleman at Strathspey, some of the seers acknowledged the possibility of teaching it. A correspondent of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’219 says ‘the visions attendant on “second sight” are not confined to solemn or important events. The future visit of a mountebank or piper, the arrival of common travellers, or, if possible, still more trifling matters than these, are foreseen by the seers. Not only aged men and women have the “second sight,” but also children, horses, and cows. Children endowed with that faculty manifest it by crying aloud at the very time a corpse appears to a seer. That horses possess it is likewise plain, from their violent and sudden starting when their rider, or a seer in company with him, sees a vision of any kind, by night or by day. It is observable of a horse, that he will not go forwards towards the apparition but must be led round, at some distance from the common road; his terror is evident, from his becoming all over in a profuse sweat, although quite cool a moment before. Balaam’s ass seems to have possessed this power or faculty; and, perhaps, what we improperly style a startlish horse may be one who has the gift of the “second sight.” That cows have the “second sight” is proved by the following circumstance. If a woman, whilst milking a cow, happen to have a vision of that kind, the cow runs away in a great fright at the same instant, and cannot, for some time, be brought to stand quietly.’ It is further added, that persons who have not long been gifted with ‘second sight,’ after seeing a vision without doors, on coming into a house, and approaching the fire, will immediately fall into a swoon. All those, too, who have the ‘second sight’ do not see these appearances at the same time, but if one having this faculty designedly touches his fellow seer at the instant that a vision appears to him, in that case it will be seen by both.

Goethe relates that as he was once riding along a footpath towards Drusenheim, he saw, ‘not with the eyes of his body, but with those of his spirit, himself on horseback coming towards him, in a dress that he then did not possess. It was grey, and trimmed with gold. Eight years afterwards he found himself, quite accidentally, on that spot, on horseback, and in precisely that attire.’220

In 1652 a Scottish lawyer, Sir George Mackenzie, afterwards Lord Tarbat, when driven to the Highlands by fear of the Government of Cromwell, made very extensive inquiries concerning this supposed supernatural faculty, and wrote an elaborate account of its manifestations to the celebrated Robert Boyle, published in the correspondence of Samuel Pepys. Aubrey, too, devoted considerable attention to the subject, and in the year 1683 appeared the treatise of ‘Theophilus Insularum,’ with about one hundred cases gathered from various sources.

It was, however, in Scotland that this belief gained a specially strong footing. In the year 1799, a traveller writing of the peasants of Kirkcudbrightshire relates: ‘It is common among them to fancy that they see the wraiths of persons dying which will be visible to one and not to others present with him. Within these last twenty years it was hardly possible to meet with any person who had not seen many wraiths and ghosts in the course of his experience.’ Indeed, we are told that many of the Highlanders gained a lucrative livelihood by enlightening their neighbours on matters revealed to them through ‘second sight;’ and Mr. Jamieson writes: ‘Whether this belief was communicated to the Scotch by the northern nations who so long had possession of it, I shall not pretend to determine, but traces of the same wonderful faculty may be found among the Scandinavians.’ One of the best illustrations of this superstition as it prevailed in the Highlands is that given by Dr. Johnson in his ‘Journey to the Hebrides’: ‘A man on a journey far from home falls from a horse; another, who is perhaps at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him. Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names; if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant are seen at the instant when they happen.’ ‘At the Literary Club,’ says Boswell, ‘before Johnson came in, we talked of his “Journey to the Western Islands,” and of his coming away “willing to believe the ‘second sight,’” which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with many of the stories which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, “He is only willing to believe – I do believe; the evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle; I am filled with belief.” “Are you?” said George Colman; “then cork it up.”’ It is not many years ago since a man lived at Blackpool who was possessed, as he pretended, by this faculty, and was visited by persons from all parts anxious to gain information about absent friends. This belief, it may be added, is not confined to our own country, curious traces of it being found among savage tribes. Thus Captain Jonathan Carver obtained from a Cree medicine man a correct prophesy of the arrival of a canoe with news the following day at noon; and we are told how, when Mr. Mason Brown was travelling with the voyageurs on the Coppermine river, he was met by Indians of the very band he was seeking, these having been despatched by their medicine-man, who, on being interrogated, affirmed that ‘he saw them coming, and heard them talk on their journey.’

Again, persons gifted with ‘second sight’ are said not only to know particular events at a distance precisely at the same moment as they happen, but also to have a foreknowledge of them before they take place, for —

As the sun,Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its imageIn the atmosphere, so often do the spiritsOf great events stride on before the events,And in to-day already walks to-morrow.

Dr. Tylor, in his ‘Primitive Culture,’ relates the case of a Shetland lady who affirmed how, some years ago, she and a girl leading her pony recognised the familiar figure of one Peter Sutherland, whom they knew to be at the time in Edinburgh. He turned a corner, and they saw him no more, but next week came the news of his sudden death.

A curious old story illustrative of ‘second sight,’ of which there are several versions, is that of ‘Booty’s Ghost,’ an account of which occurs in Kirby’s ‘Wonderful and Eccentric Museum’ (ii. 247). It was an action for slander of a deceased husband brought by the widow, and the following extract, which contains an outline of the strange tale, is from the journal of Mr. Spinks:

‘Friday, May 15, 1687.– We had the observation of Mr. Booty this day. Captain Barrisby, Captain Bristowe, Captain Brown, I, and Mr. Ball, merchant, went on shore in Captain Barnaby’s boat to shoot rabbits upon Stromboli; and when we had done, we called our men together by us, and about half an hour and fourteen minutes after three in the afternoon, to our great surprise, we all of us saw two men come running towards us with such swiftness that no living man could run half so fast as they did run, when all of us heard Captain Barnaby say, “Lord, bless me! the foremost is old Booty, my next door neighbour,” but he said he did not know the other that run behind; he was in black clothes, and the foremost was in grey. Then Captain Barnaby desired all of us to take an account of the time, and put it down in our pocket-books, and when we got on board we wrote it in our journals; for we saw them into the flames of fire, and there was a great noise which greatly affrighted us all, for we none of us ever saw or heard the like before. Captain Barnaby said he was certain it was old Booty, which he saw running over Stromboli and into the flames of hell. It is stated that Captain Barnaby told his wife, and she told somebody else, and that it was afterwards told to Mrs. Booty, who arrested Captain Barnaby in a thousand pound action for what he had said of her husband. Captain Barnaby gave bail to it, and it came on to a trial in the Court of King’s Bench, and they had Mr. Booty’s wearing apparel brought into Court, and the sexton of the parish, and the people that were with him when he died; and we swore to our journals, and it came to the same time within two minutes. Ten of our men swore to the buttons on his coat, and that they were covered with the same sort of cloth his coat was made of, and so it proved. The jury asked Mr. Spinks if he knew Mr. Booty. He answered, “I never saw him till he ran by me on the burning mountain.”’

The Chief Justice from April 1687 to February 1689 was Sir Robert Wright. His name is not given in the report, but the judge said: ‘Lord, have mercy on me, and grant that I may never see what you have seen. One, two, or three may be mistaken, but thirty can never be mistaken.’ So the widow lost her suit.221

It appears, also, that coming events are mostly forecasted by various symbolic omens which generally take the form of spectral exhibitions. Thus, a phantom shroud seen in the morning on a living person is said to betoken his death in the course of the day; but if seen late in the evening, no particular time is indicated, further than that it will take place within the year. If, too, the shroud does not cover the whole body, the fulfilment of the vision may be expected at some distant period.

But these kind of omens vary largely in different countries; and, on the Continent, where much misplaced faith is attached to them, they are frequently the source of much needless dread.

CHAPTER XVIII

COMPACTS BETWEEN THE LIVING AND DEAD

Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made before death with some particular friend, that he or she who first died should appear to the survivor. Numerous tales are told illustrative of this belief, one of the best authenticated being that recorded by Lord Brougham,222 who, speaking of his intimate friend at the University, writes: ‘There was no divinity class, but we frequently in our walks discussed and speculated upon many grave subjects, among others, on the immortality of the soul and on a future state. This question and the possibility, I will not say of ghosts walking, but of the dead appearing to the living, were subjects of much speculation; and we actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of the “life after death.”’ Years afterwards – on December 19, 1799 – when Lord Brougham had almost forgotten the existence of his friend, as he was taking a warm bath, he appeared to him; but, as he adds, ‘No doubt I had fallen asleep, and the appearance presented to my eyes was a dream. I recollected quickly enough our old discussion, and the bargain we had made. I could not discharge from my mind the impression that my friend must have died, and that his appearance to me was to be received by me as a proof of his future state.’ In October 1862 Lord Brougham made this postscript: ‘I have just been copying out from my journal the account of this strange dream —certissima mortis imago. And now to finish the story begun about sixty years since. Soon after my return to Edinburgh, there arrived a letter from India, announcing G – ’s death, and stating that he had died on the 19th of December.’