The Ghost World

‘I took the story of devils haunting mines to be fabulous, until I was undeceived by a skilful Hanoverian operator in metals, who is now employed by our duke in tracing the metallic veins in the mountainous parts of Modena. For this man told me seriously, that in the Hanoverian mines the diggers have frequent falls, which they say are occasioned by their being knocked down by devils, which they call “Knauff-kriegen,” and that after such falls they often die in the space of three or four days; but if they outlive that time they recover.’

French mines are haunted, and many tales are told of a spectral hare which at times is seen. One story tells how ‘a miner was frightened one day by seeing a white object run and conceal itself in an iron pipe. He went forward, and stopped up the two ends of the tube, and called one of his fellow men to examine the pipe with him. They did so, but found nothing within, the hare spirit had vanished.’236 ‘Similarly at Wheal Vor,’ says Mr. Hunt,237 ‘it has always been and is now believed that a fatal accident in the mine is presaged by the appearance of a hare, or white rabbit, in one of the engine houses. The men solemnly declare that they have chased these appearances till they were hemmed in apparently, without being able to catch them; and they tell how the white rabbit on one occasion was run into a “windbore” lying on the ground, and though stopped in, escaped.’ With this belief may be compared one which was common in Sussex a few years ago, closely resembling the French superstition of the Fétiches, animals of a dazzling whiteness which appear only in the night-time, and vanish as soon as anyone attempts to touch them. A blacksmith’s wife at Ashington, the daughter of a small farmer, was found one morning much depressed in mind, and on being questioned as to the cause of it said, ‘I shall hear bad news before the day is over; for late last night as I was waiting for my husband what should I see on looking out of the window, lying close under it, but a thing like a duck, yet a great deal whiter than it ought to have been, whiter than any snow.’ It was suggested that it might have been a neighbour’s cat, and that it looked whiter than usual on account of the moonlight. ‘Oh, dear no!’ she replied, ‘it was no cat, nor anything alive; those white things were sent as warnings,’ but no sad news came as she expected.238 She nevertheless remained firmly convinced that a warning of some kind had been supernaturally sent to her.

CHAPTER XX

THE BANSHEE

One of the grandest and wildest legends of Ireland is that relating to the Banshee – a mysterious personage, generally supposed to be the harbinger of some approaching misfortune. The name of the Banshee ‘is variously pronounced Banshi and Benshee, being translated by different scholars, the “Female Fairy,” the “Woman of Peace,” the “Lady of Death,” the “Angel of Death,” the “White Lady of Sorrow,” the “Nymph of the Air,” and the “Spirit of the Air.”’ The many romantic incidents in which this weird figure has, at different times, made its appearance are treasured up among the household stories of our Irish peasantry. It must not be forgotten that in a country abounding in natural beauties such a superstition would harmonise with the surroundings of the picturesque scenery, and so gain a firm hold on the mind of the inhabitants.

Unlike, also, many of the legendary beliefs of this kind, the popular accounts illustrative of it are related on the evidence of all sections of the community, many an enlightened and well-informed advocate being enthusiastic in his vindication of its reality. It would seem, however, that no family which is not of an ancient and noble stock is honoured with this visit of the Banshee, and hence its non-appearance has been regarded as an indication of disqualification in this respect on the part of the person about to die. ‘If I am rightly informed,’ writes Sir Walter Scott, ‘the distinction of a Banshee is only allowed to families of the pure Milesian stock, and is never ascribed to any descendant of the proudest Norman or boldest Saxon who followed the banner of Strongbow, much less to adventurers of later date who have obtained settlements in the Green Isle.’ Thus, an amusing story is contained in an Irish elegy to the effect that on the death of one of the Knights of Kerry, when the Banshee was heard to lament his decease at Dingle – a seaport town, the property of those knights – all the merchants of this place were thrown into a state of alarm lest the mournful and ominous wailing should be a forewarning of the death of one of them, but, as the poet humorously points out, there was no necessity for them to be anxious on this point. Although, through misfortune, a family may be brought down from high estate to the rank of peasant tenants, the Banshee never leaves nor forgets it till the last member has been gathered to his fathers in the churchyard. The MacCarthys, O’Flahertys, Magraths, O’Neils, O’Rileys, O’Sullivans, O’Reardons, have their Banshees, though many representatives of these names are in abject poverty.239

‘The Banshee,’ says Mr. McAnally, ‘is really a disembodied soul, that of one who in life was strongly attached to the family, or who had good reason to hate all its members. Thus, in different instances, the Banshee’s song may be inspired by different motives. When the Banshee loves those whom she calls, the song is a low, soft chant, giving notice, indeed, of the close proximity of the angel of death, but with a tenderness of tone that reassures the one destined to die, and comforts the survivors; rather a welcome than a warning, and having in its tones a thrill of exultation, as though the messenger spirit were bringing glad tidings to him summoned to join the waiting throng of his ancestors.’ To a doomed member of the family of the O’Reardons the Banshee generally appears in the form of a beautiful woman, ‘and sings a song so sweetly solemn as to reconcile him to his approaching fate.’ But if, during his lifetime, the Banshee was an enemy of the family, the cry is the scream of a fiend, howling with demoniac delight over the coming death agony of another of his foes.

Hence, in Ireland, a source of dread to many a family against which she has an enmity is the ‘hateful Banshee.’ ‘It appears,’ adds McAnally,240 ‘that a noble family, whose name is still familiar in Mayo, is attended by a Banshee of this description – the spirit of a young girl, deceived, and afterwards murdered by a former head of the family. With her dying breath she cursed her murderer, and promised she would attend him and his for ever. After many years the chieftain reformed his ways, and his youthful crime was almost forgotten even by himself, when one night, as he and his family were seated by the fire, the most terrible shrieks were suddenly heard outside the castle walls. All ran out, but saw nothing. During the night the screams continued as though the castle were besieged by demons, and the unhappy man recognised in the cry of the Banshee the voice of the young girl he had murdered. The next night he was assassinated by one of his followers, when again the wild unearthly screams were heard exulting over his fate. Since that night the “hateful Banshee” has, it is said, never failed to notify to the family, with shrill cries of revengeful gladness, when the time of one of their number has arrived.’

Among some of the recorded instances of the Banshee’s appearance may be mentioned one related by Miss Lefrau, the niece of Sheridan, in the Memoirs of her grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan. From this account we gather that Miss Elizabeth Sheridan was a firm believer in the Banshee, and firmly maintained that the one attached to the Sheridan family was distinctly heard lamenting beneath the windows of the family residence before the news arrived from France of Mrs. Frances Sheridan’s death at Blois. She added that a niece of Miss Sheridan’s made her very angry by observing that as Mrs. Frances Sheridan was by birth a Chamberlaine, a family of English extraction, she had no right to the guardianship of an Irish fairy, and that therefore the Banshee must have made a mistake. Then there is the well-known case related by Lady Fanshawe, who tells us how, when on a visit in Ireland, she was awakened at midnight by a supernatural scream outside her window. On looking out she saw a young and rather handsome woman, with dishevelled hair, who eventually vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had at first attracted her attention. On communicating the circumstance in the morning, her host replied, ‘A near relation of mine died last night in the castle, and before such an event happens, the female spectre whom you have seen is always visible.’

This weird apparition is generally supposed to assume the form of a woman, sometimes young, but more often old. She is usually attired in a loose white drapery, and her long ragged locks hang over her thin shoulders. As night time approaches she occasionally becomes visible, and pours forth her mournful wail – a sound said to resemble the melancholy moaning of the wind:

Who sits upon the heath forlorn,With robe so free and tresses worn?Anon she pours a harrowing strain,And then she sits all mute again!Now peals the wild funereal cry,And now – it sinks into a sigh.

Oftentimes she is not seen but only heard, yet she is supposed to be always clearly discernible to the person upon whom she specially waits. Respecting the history of the Banshee, popular tradition in many instances accounts for its presence as the spirit of some mortal woman whose destinies have become linked by some accident with those of the family she follows. It is related how the Banshee of the family of the O’Briens of Thomond is related to have been originally a woman who had been seduced by one of the chiefs of that race – an act of indiscretion which ultimately brought upon her misfortune and death.

‘Sometimes the song of the Banshee is heard,’ writes Mr. McAnally,241 ‘at the beginning of a course of conduct, a line of action, that has ended fatally.’ A story is told in Kerry of a young girl who engaged herself to a youth, but at the moment the promise of marriage was given, the low sad wail was heard by both above their heads. The young man deserted her, she died of a broken heart, and, on the night before her death, the Banshee’s ominous song was heard outside her mother’s cottage window. On another occasion, we are told by the same authority, one of the Flahertys of Galway marched out of his castle with his men on a foray, and, as his troops filed through the gateway, the Banshee was heard high above the towers of the fortress. The next night she sang again, and was heard no more for a month, when he heard the wail under his window, and on the following day his followers brought back his corpse. One of the O’Neils of Shane Castle, Antrim, heard the Banshee as he started on a journey, but while on the same journey he was accidentally killed. According to Lady Wilde, ‘at Lord O’Neil’s residence, Shane’s Castle, there is a room appropriated to the use of the Banshee, and she often appears there, sometimes shrouded and in a dark, mist-like cloak. At other times she is seen as a beautiful young girl, with long red-gold hair, and wearing a green kirtle and scarlet mantle, covered with gold, after the Irish fashion.’ She adds that there is no harm or fear of evil in her mere presence, unless she is seen in the act of crying. But this is a fatal sign, and the mournful wail is a sure and certain prophecy that the angel of death is waiting for one of the family.242

Mr. Crofton Croker, in his ‘Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,’ has given several entertaining stories of the Banshee; but adds, that since these spirits have become amenable to vulgar laws they have lost much of their romantic character. The introduction of the Banshee in the following stanza of a ‘keening’ – an Irish term for a wild song of lamentation poured forth over a dead body by certain mourners employed for the purpose – indicates the popular feeling on the subject. It was composed on a young man named Ryan, whose mother speaks —

’Twas the Banshee’s lonely wailing,Well I knew the voice of death,On the night wind slowly sailingO’er the bleak and gloomy heath.

If a member of an Irish family dies abroad, the Banshee notifies his misfortune at home. When the Duke of Wellington died, the Banshee was heard wailing round the house of his ancestors, and during the Napoleonic campaigns she often announced at home the death of Irish officers and soldiers – an occurrence which happened on the night preceding the Battle of the Boyne. ‘Indeed,’ says Mr. McAnally, ‘the Banshee has given notice at the family seat in Ireland of deaths in battle fought in every part of the world; from every point to which Irish regiments have followed the roll of the British drums, news of the prospective shedding of Irish blood has been brought home.’

‘The Welsh have also their Banshee, which generally makes its appearance,’ writes Mr. Wirt Sikes,243 ‘in the most curdling form,’ and is regarded as an omen of death. It is supposed to come after dusk, and to flap its leathern wings against the window where the sick person happens to be. Nor is this all, for in a broken, howling tone, it calls on the one who is to quit mortality by his or her name several times. There is an old legend of the ‘Ellyllon,’ a prototype of the Scotch and Irish Banshee, which usually appears as an old crone with streaming hair and a coat of blue, making its presence manifest by its ominous scream of death. The Welsh have a further form of the Banshee in the ‘Cyhyraeth,’ which is never seen, although the noise it makes is such as to inspire terror in those who chance to hear it. Thus, in some of the Welsh villages it is heard passing through the empty streets and lanes by night groaning dismally, and rattling the window-shutters as it goes along. According to the local belief it is only heard ‘before the death of such as are of strayed mind, or who have been long ill; but it always comes when an epidemic is about to visit the neighbourhood.’ As an instance of how superstitions are remitted from one country to another, it is told that in America there are tales of the Banshee imported from Ireland along with the sons of that soil.

CHAPTER XXI

SEA PHANTOMS

The romance of the sea has always attracted interest, and, as Buckle once remarked, ‘the credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evidence of the multiplicity of their superstitions, and of the tenacity with which they cling to them.’ This is not surprising, for many of the weird old fancies with which the legendary lore of the sea abounds originated in certain atmospherical phenomena which were once a mystery to our seafaring community. In a ‘New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors’ (1761) the writer says: ‘I look upon sailors to care as little of what becomes of themselves as any people under the sun; yet no people are so much terrified at the thoughts of an apparition. Their sea-songs are full of them; they firmly believe in their existence, and honest Jack Tar shall be more frightened at the glimmering of the moon upon the tackling of a ship, than he would be if a Frenchman were to place a blunderbus at his head.’ The occasional reflections of mountains, cities, and ships in mirage gave rise to many strange stories of spectral lands. Early instances of this popular fancy occur, and Mrs. Jameson, in her ‘Sacred and Legendary Art,’ quotes an old Venetian legend of 1339, relating to the ring with which the Adriatic was first wedded. During a storm a fisherman was required to row three men, whom he afterwards learns were St. Mark, St. George, and St. Nicholas, first to certain churches, and then over to the entrance of the port. But there a huge Saracen galley was seen with frightful demons on board, which spectral craft the three men caused to sink, thus saving the city. On leaving the boat, the boatman is presented with a ring. In the Venetian academy is a painting by Giorgione of this phantom ship, with a demon crew, who, terrified at the presence of the three holy men, jump overboard, or cling to the rigging, while the masts flame with fire, and cast a lurid glare on the water. Collin de Plancy, in his ‘Sacred Legends of the Middle Ages,’ tells us how at Boulogne, in 663, while the people were at prayers, a strange ship – without guide or pilot – was observed approaching the shore, with the Virgin on board, who indicated to the people a site for her chapel – delusions which may be classed in the same category as the ‘phantom ship.’ Novelists and poets have made graphic use of such well-known apparitions, variations of which occur in every maritime country. But the author accounts for this philosophically, adding that ‘a great deal may be said in favour of men troubled with the scurvy, the concomitants of which disorder are, generally, faintings and the hip, and horrors without any ground for them.’

There were few ships in days gone by that ‘doubled the Cape’ but owned among the crew some who had seen the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ a phantom to which Sir Walter Scott alludes as the harbinger of woe. This ship was distinguished from earthly vessels by bearing a press of sail when all others were unable to show an inch of canvas.

The story goes that ‘Falkenburg was a noble-man who murdered his brother and his bride in a fit of passion, and was condemned to wander towards the north. On arriving at the sea-shore, he found awaiting him a boat, with a man in it, who said, “Expectamus te.” He entered the boat, attended by his good and his evil spirit, and went on board a spectral bark in the harbour. There he still lingers, while these spirits play dice for his soul. For six hundred years the ship has wandered the seas, and mariners still see her in the German Ocean, sailing northwards, without helm or helmsman. She is painted grey, has coloured sails, a pale flag, and no crew. Flames issue from the masthead at night.’244 There are numerous versions of this popular legend, and O’Reilly, in his ‘Songs of Southern Seas,’ says —

Heaven help the ship near which the demon sailor steers!The doom of those is sealed to whom the phantom ship appears,They’ll never reach their destin’d port, they’ll see their homes no more,They who see the Flying Dutchman never, never reach the shore.

Captain Marryat made this legend the basis of his ‘Phantom Ship,’ and Longfellow, in his ‘Tales of a Wayside Inn,’ powerfully tells of —

A ship of the dead that sails the sea,And is called the Carmilhan,A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew.In tempests she appears,And before the gale, or against the gale,She sails, without a rag of sail,Without a helmsman steers.And ill-betide the luckless shipThat meets the Carmilhan!Over her decks the seas will leap,She must go down into the deep,And perish, mouse and man.

There are, also, a host of stories of spectral ships, some of which are still credited by sailors. The Germans have their phantom ships, to meet which is regarded as an omen of disaster. In one instance, the crew is said to consist of ghosts of condemned sinners, who serve one hundred years in each grade, until each has a short tour as captain. This mysterious vessel is described by Oscar L. B. Wolff in ‘The Phantom Ship’:

For the ship was black, her masts were black,And her sails coal-black as death;And the Evil-One steered at the helm, and laughed,And mocked at their failing breath.

Swedish sailors have a vessel of this kind. She is so large that it takes three weeks to go from poop to prow, and hence orders are transmitted on horseback. Danish folk-lore has its spectral ship, and a Schleswick-Holstein tradition relates how a maiden was carried off by her lover in a spectral ship, as one day she sat on the shore bewailing his absence. In ‘Mélusine’ for September 1884,245 it is stated that, ‘in many localities in Lower Brittany, stories are current of a huge ship manned by giant human forms and dogs. The men are reprobates guilty of horrible crimes; the dogs, demons set to guard them and inflict on them a thousand tortures. Such a vessel wanders ceaselessly from sea to sea, without entering port or casting anchor, and will do so to the end of the world. No vessel should allow it to fall aboard, for its crew would suddenly disappear. The orders, in this strange craft, are given through huge conch-shells, and, the noise being heard several miles off, it is easy to avoid her. Besides, there is nothing to fear, if the “Ave Maria” is repeated, and the Saints appealed to, especially St. Anne d’Auray.’

Stories of phantom ships are found, more or less, all over the world, and are associated with many a romantic and tragic tale. Bret Harte246 relates how some children go on board a hulk to play, but it breaks away from its moorings, drifts out to sea, and is lost. Yet at times there are heard:

The voices of children, still at play,In a phantom hulk that drifts awayThrough channels whose waters never fail.

And Whittier247 tells how the young captain of a schooner visits the Labrador coast where, in a certain secluded bay, two beautiful sisters live with their mother. Both fall in love with him, and, just as the younger is about to meet her lover and fly with him, she is imprisoned in her room by her mother, whereupon her elder sister goes in her stead, and is carried to sea in the vessel. The disappointed lover, on learning the deception, returns only to find his loved one dead. But the schooner, adds Whittier, never returned home and:

Even yet, at Seven Isle Bay,Is told the ghastly taleOf a weird unspoken sail.She flits before no earthly blast,With the red sign fluttering from her mast,The ghost of the Schooner Breeze.

In Dana’s ‘Buccaneer,’ the pirate carries a lady to sea, who jumps overboard, and on the anniversary of her death:

A ship! and all on fire! hull, yards, and mast,Her sails are sheets of flame; she’s nearing fast!

Occasionally a spectre ship is seen at Cap d’Espoir, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is commonly reported to be the ghost of the flagship of a fleet sent to reduce the French forts by Queen Anne, and which was wrecked here, and all hands. On this phantom ship, which is crowded with soldiers, lights are seen, and on the bowsprit stands an officer, pointing to the shore with one hand, while a woman is on the other side. The lights suddenly go out, a scream is heard, and the ill-fated vessel sinks. Under one form or another, the phantom ship has long been a world-wide piece of folk-lore, and even in an Ojibway tale, when a maiden is on the eve of being sacrificed to the spirit of the falls, a spectral canoe, with a fairy in it, takes her place as a sacrifice.

Dennys, in his ‘Folk-lore of China,’ gives a novel variety of the phantom ship. The story goes that a horned serpent was found in a tiger’s cage near Foochow by a party of tiger-hunters. They tried to ship it to Canton, but during the voyage the serpent escaped, through a flash of lightning striking the cage and splitting it. Thereupon the captain offered a thousand dollars to anyone who would destroy the monster, but its noxious breath killed two sailors who attempted the task. Eventually the junk was abandoned, and is still believed to cruise about the coast, and cautious natives will not board a derelict junk.

One of the chief features of many of these phantom-ship stories is the idea of retribution for evil deeds, as in the following, told by Irving in the ‘Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost.’ A certain Ramnout van Dam had ‘danced and drank until midnight – Saturday – when he entered his boat to return home. He was warned that he was on the verge of Sunday morning, but he pulled off, swearing that he would not land until he reached Spiting Devil, if it took him a month of Sundays. He was never seen afterwards, but may be heard plying his oars, being the Flying Dutchman of the Tappan Sea, doomed to ply between Kakiot and Spiting Devil until the day of judgment.’ Moore in his account of the phantom ship seen in the description of Deadman’s Island, where wrecks were once common, writes:

To Deadman’s Isle, on the eve of the blast,To Deadman’s Isle, she speeds her fast,By skeleton shapes, her sails are furled,And the hand that steers is not of this world.

Turning to our own country, similar phantom vessels have long been supposed to haunt the coast, and Mr. Hunt248 describes one that visited the Cornish shores on the occasion of a storm, and to rescue which delusive bark help was despatched: ‘Away they pulled, and the boat which had been first launched still kept ahead by dint of mechanical power and skill. At length the helmsman cried, “Stand by to board her.” The vessel came so close to the boat that they could see the men, and the bow oarsman made a grasp at the bulwarks. His hand found nothing solid and he fell. Ship and light then disappeared. The next day the “Neptune” of London was wrecked, and all perished. The captain’s body was picked up after a few days, and that of his son also.’ Among other Cornish stories may also be mentioned those known as the ‘Pirate-wrecker and the Death Ship;’ and the ‘Spectre Ship of Porthcurno.’ Occasionally off the Lizard a phantom lugger is seen, and Bottrell249 tells how, at times, not only spectral ships, but the noise of falling spars, &c., are heard during an incoming fog.