The following tale has all the direct simplicity and truth to human nature which mark the ancient literature of Iceland. Defoe might have envied the profusion of detail; “The large chest with a lock, and the small box,” and so on. Some of the minor portents, such as the disturbances among inanimate objects, and the appearance of a glow of mysterious light, “the Fate Moon,” recur in modern tales of haunted houses. The combination of Christian exorcism, then a novelty in Iceland, with legal proceedings against the ghosts, is especially characteristic.
During that summer in which Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland (1000 A.D.), it happened that a ship came to land at Snowfell Ness. It was a Dublin vessel, manned by Irish and Hebrideans, with few Norsemen on board. They lay there for a long time during the summer, waiting for a favourable wind to sail into the firth, and many people from the Ness went down to trade with them. There was on board a Hebridean woman named Thorgunna, of whom her shipmates said that she owned some costly things, the like of which would be difficult to find in Iceland. When Thurid, the housewife at Fródá, heard of this she was very curious to see the articles, for she was a woman that was fond of show and finery. She went to the ship and asked Thorgunna whether she had any woman’s apparel that was finer than the common. Thorgunna said that she had nothing of the kind to sell, but had some good things of her own, that she might not be affronted at feasts or other gatherings. Thurid begged a sight of these, and Thorgunna showed her treasures. Thurid was much pleased with them, and thought them very becoming, though not of high value. She offered to buy them, but Thorgunna would not sell. Thurid then invited her to come and stay with her, because she knew that Thorgunna was well provided, and thought that she would get the things from her in course of time.
Thorgunna answered, “I am well pleased to go to stay with you, but you must know that I have little mind to pay for myself, because I am well able to work, and have no dislike to it, though I will not do any dirty work. I must be allowed to settle what I shall pay for myself out of such property as I have.”
Although Thorgunna spoke in this fashion, yet Thurid would have her to go with her, and her things were taken out of the ship; these were in a large chest with a lock and a small box, and both were taken home to Fródá. When Thorgunna arrived there she asked for her bed to be shown her, and was given one in the inner part of the hall. Then she opened up the chest, and took bed-clothes out of it: they were all very beautiful, and over the bed she spread English coverlets and a silken quilt. Out of the chest she also brought a bed-curtain and all the hangings that belonged to it, and the whole outfit was so fine that folk thought they had never seen the like of it.
Then said Thurid the housewife: “Name the price of all your bed-clothes and hangings”.
Thorgunna answered, “I will not lie among straw for you, although you are so stately, and bear yourself so proudly”.
Thurid was ill pleased at this, and offered no more to buy the things.
Thorgunna worked at cloth-making every day when there was no hay-making, but when the weather was dry she worked among the dry hay in the home field, and had a rake made for herself which she alone was to use. Thorgunna was a big woman, both broad and tall, and very stout; she had dark eyebrows, and her eyes were close set; her hair brown and in great abundance. She was well-mannered in her daily life, and went to church every day before beginning her work, but she was not of a light disposition nor of many words. Most people thought that Thorgunna must be in the sixties, yet she was a very active woman.
At this time one Thorir “wooden-leg” and his wife Thorgrima “charm-cheek” were being maintained at Fródá, and there was little love between them and Thorgunna. The person that she had most ado with was Kjartan, the son of the house; him she loved much, but he was rather cold towards her, and this often vexed her. Kjartan was then fifteen years old, and was both big of body and manly in appearance.
The summer that year was very wet, but in the autumn there came dry days. By this time the hay-work at Fródá was so far advanced that all the home field was mown, and nearly the half of it was quite dry. There came then a fine dry day, clear and bright, with not a cloud to be seen in all the sky. Thorodd, the yeoman, rose early in the morning and arranged the work of each one; some began to cart off the hay, and some to put it into stalks, while the women were set to toss and dry it. Thorgunna also had her share assigned to her, and the work went on well during the day. When it drew near to three in the afternoon, a mass of dark clouds was seen rising in the north which came rapidly across the sky and took its course right above the farm. They thought it certain that there was rain in the cloud and Thorodd bade his people rake the hay together; but Thorgunna continued to scatter hers, in spite of the orders that were given. The clouds came on quickly, and when they were above the homestead at Fródá there came such darkness with them that the people could see nothing beyond the home field; indeed, they could scarcely distinguish their own hands. Out of the cloud came so much rain that all the hay which was lying flat was quite soaked. When the cloud had passed over and the sky cleared again, it was seen that blood had fallen amid the rain. In the evening there was a good draught, and the blood soon dried off all the hay except that which Thorgunna had been working at; it did not dry, nor did the rake that she had been using.
Thurid asked Thorgunna what she supposed this marvel might portend. She said that she did not know, “but it seems to me most likely that it is an evil omen for some person who is present here”. In the evening Thorgunna went home and took off her clothes, which had been stained with the blood; then she lay down in her bed and breathed heavily, and it was found that she was taken with sickness. The shower had not fallen anywhere else than at Fródá.
All that evening Thorgunna would taste no food. In the morning Thorodd came to her and asked about her sickness, and what end she thought it would have. She answered that she did not expect to have any more illnesses. Then she said: “I consider you the wisest person in the homestead here, and so I shall tell you what arrangements I wish to make about the property that I leave behind me, and about myself, for things will go as I tell you, though you think there is nothing very remarkable about me. It will do you little good to depart from my instructions, for this affair has so begun that it will not pass smoothly off, unless strong measures are taken in dealing with it.”
Thorodd answered: “There seems to me great likelihood that your forebodings will come true; and therefore,” said he, “I shall promise to you not to depart from your instructions”.
“These are my arrangements,” said Thorgunna, “that I will have myself taken to Skálholt if I die of this sickness, for my mind forbodes me that that place will some time or other be the most glorious spot in this land. I know also that by now there are priests there to sing the funeral service over me. So I ask you to have me carried thither, and for that you shall take so much of my property that you suffer no loss in the matter. Of my other effects, Thurid shall have the scarlet cloak that I own, and I give it her so that she may readily consent to my disposing of all the rest as I please. I have a gold ring, and it shall go to the church with me; but as for my bed and bed-hangings, I will have them burned with fire, because they will be of service to no one. I do not say this because I grudge that any one should possess these treasures, if I knew that they would be of use to them; rather am I so earnest in the matter, because I should be sorry for folk to fall into such trouble for me, as I know will be the case if my words are not heeded.”
Thorodd promised to do as she asked him, and after this Thorgunna’s sickness increased, so that she lay but few days before she died. The body was first taken to the church, and Thorodd had a coffin made for it. On the following day Thorodd had all the bed-clothes carried out into the open air, and made a pile of wood beside them. Then Thurid the housewife came up, and asked what he was going to do with the bed-clothes. He answered that he was to burn them with fire, as Thorgunna had directed him. “I will not have such treasures burned,” said Thurid. Thorodd answered: “She declared strongly that it would not do to depart from what she said”. “That was mere jealousy,” said Thurid; “she grudged any other person the use of them, and that was why she gave these orders; but nothing terrible will happen though her words are set aside.” “I doubt,” said he, “whether it will be well to do otherwise than as she charged me.”
Then Thurid laid her arms round his neck, and besought him not to burn the furnishings of the bed, and so much did she press him in this that his heart gave way to her, and she managed it so that Thorodd burned the mattresses and pillows, while she took for herself the quilt and coverlets and all the hangings. Yet neither of them was well pleased.
After this the funeral was made ready; trustworthy men were sent with the body, and good horses which Thorodd owned. The body was wrapped in linen, but not sewed up in it, and then laid in the coffin. After this they held south over the heath as the paths go, and went on until they came to a farm called Lower Ness, which lies in the Tongues of Staf-holt. There they asked leave to stay over night, but the farmer would give them no hospitality. However, as it was close on nightfall, they did not see how they could go on, for they thought it would be dangerous to deal with the White River by night. They therefore unloaded their horses, and carried the body into an out-house, after which they went into the sitting-room and took off their outer clothes, intending to stay there over night without food.
The people of the house were going to bed by daylight, and after they were in bed a great noise was heard in the kitchen. Some went to see whether thieves had not broken in, and when they reached the kitchen they saw there a tall woman. She was quite naked, with no clothes whatever upon her, and was busy preparing food. Those who saw her were so terrified that they dared not go near her at all. When the funeral party heard of this they went thither, and saw what the matter was—Thorgunna had come there, and it seemed advisable to them all not to meddle with her. When she had done all that she wanted, she brought the food into the room, set the tables and laid the food upon them. Then the funeral party said to the farmer: “It may happen in the end, before we part, that you will think it dearly bought that you would show us no hospitality”. Both the farmer and the housewife answered: “We will willingly give you food, and do you all other services that you require”.
As soon as the farmer had offered them this, Thorgunna passed out of the room into the kitchen, and then went outside, nor did she show herself again. Then a light was kindled in the room, and the wet clothes of the guests were taken off, and dry ones given them in their place. After this they sat down at table, and blessed their food, while the farmer had holy water sprinkled over all the house. The guests ate their food, and it harmed no man, although Thorgunna had prepared it. They slept there that night, and were treated with great hospitality.
In the morning they continued their journey, and things went very smoothly with them; wherever this affair was heard of, most people thought it best to do them all the service that they required, and of their journey no more is to be told. When they came to Skálholt, they handed over the precious things which Thorgunna had sent thither: the ring and other articles, all of which the priests gladly received. Thorgunna was buried there, while the funeral party returned home, which they all reached in safety.
At Fródá there was a large hall with a fireplace in the midde, and a bed-closet at the inner end of it, as was then the custom. At the outer end were two store-closets, one on each side; dried fish were piled in one of these, and there was meal in the other. In this hall fires were kindled every evening, as was the custom, and folk sat round these fires for a long while before they went to supper. On that evening on which the funeral party came home, while the folk at Fródá were sitting round the fires, they saw a half-moon appear on the panelling of the hall, and it was visible to all those who were present. It went round the room backwards and against the sun’s course, nor did it disappear so long as they sat by the fires. Thorodd asked Thorir Wooden-leg what this might portend. “It is the Moon of Fate,” said Thorir, “and deaths will come after it.” This went on all that week that the Fate-Moon came in every evening.
The next tidings that happened at Fródá were that the shepherd came in and was very silent; he spoke little, and that in a frenzied manner. Folk were most inclined to believe that he had been bewitched, because he went about by himself, and talked to himself. This went on for some time, but one evening, when two weeks of winter had passed, the shepherd came home, went to his bed, and lay down there. When they went to him in the morning he was dead, and was buried at the church.
Soon after this there began great hauntings. One night Thorir Wooden-leg went outside and was at some distance from the door. When he was about to go in again, he saw that the shepherd had come between him and the door. Thorir tried to get in, but the shepherd would not allow him. Then Thorir tried to get away from him, but the shepherd followed him, caught hold of him, and threw him down at the door. He received great hurt from this, but was able to reach his bed; there he turned black as coal, took sickness and died. He was also buried at the church there, and after this both the shepherd and Thorir were seen in company, at which all the folk became full of fear, as was to be expected.
This also followed upon the burial of Thorir, that one of Thorodd’s men grew ill, and lay three nights before he died; then one died after another, until six of them were gone. By this time the Christmas fast had come, although the fast was not then kept in Iceland. The store-closet, in which the dried fish were kept, was packed so full that the door could not be opened; the pile reached nigh up to the rafters, and a ladder was required to get the fish off the top of it. One evening while the folk were sitting round the fires, the fish were torn, but when search was made no living thing could be found there.
During the winter, a little before Christmas, Thorodd went out to Ness for the fish he had there; there were six men in all in a ten-oared boat, and they stayed out there all night. The same evening that Thorodd went from home, it happened at Fródá, when folk went to sit by the fires that had been made, that they saw a seal’s head rise up out of the fireplace. A maid-servant was the first who came forward and saw this marvel; she took a washing-bat which lay beside the door, and struck the seal’s head with this, but it rose up at the blow and gazed at Thorgunna’s bed-hangings. Then one of the men went up and beat the seal, but it rose higher at every blow until it had come up above the fins; then the man fell into a swoon, and all those who were present were filled with fear. Then the lad Kjartan sprang forward, took up a large iron sledge-hammer and struck at the seal’s head; it was a heavy blow, but it only shook its head, and looked round. Then Kjartan gave it stroke after stroke, and the seal went down as though he were driving in a stake. Kjartan hammered away till the seal went down so far that he beat the floor close again above its head, and during the rest of the winter all the portents were most afraid of Kjartan.
Next morning, while Thorodd and the others were coming in from Ness with the fish, they were all lost out from Enni; the boat and the fish drove on shore there, but the bodies were never found. When the news of this reached Fródá, Kjartan and Thurid invited their neighbours to the funeral banquet, and the ale prepared for Christmas was used for this purpose. The first evening of the feast, however, after the folk had taken their seats, there came into the hall Thorodd and his companions, all dripping wet. The folk greeted Thorodd well, thinking this a good omen, for at that time it was firmly believed that drowned men, who came to their own funeral feast, were well received by Rán, the sea-goddess; and the old beliefs had as yet suffered little, though folk were baptised and called Christians.
Thorodd and his fellows went right along the hall where the folk sat, and passed into the one where the fires were, answering no man’s greeting. Those of the household who were in the hall ran out, and Thorodd and his men sat down beside the fires, where they remained till they had fallen into ashes; then they went away again. This befel every evening while the banquet lasted, and there was much talk about it among those who were present. Some thought that it would stop when the feast was ended. When the banquet was over the guests went home, leaving the place very dull and dismal.
On the evening after they had gone, the fires were kindled as usual, and after they had burned up, there came in Thorodd with his company, all of them wet. They sat down by the fire and began to wring their clothes; and after they had sat down there came in Thorir Wooden-leg and his five companions, all covered with earth. They shook their clothes and scattered the earth on Thorodd and his fellows. The folk of the household rushed out of the hall, as might be expected, and all that evening they had no light nor any warmth from the fire.
Next evening the fires were made in the other hall, as the dead men would be less likely to come there; but this was not so, for everything happened just as it had done on the previous evening, and both parties came to sit by the fires.
On the third evening Kjartan advised that a large fire should be made in the hall, and a little fire in another and smaller room. This was done, and things then went on in this fashion, that Thorodd and the others sat beside the big fire, while the household contented themselves with the little one, and this lasted right through Christmas-tide.
By this time there was more and more noise in the pile of fish, and the sound of them being torn was heard both by night and day. Some time after this it was necessary to take down some of the fish, and the man who went up on the pile saw this strange thing, that up out of the pile there came a tail, in appearance like a singed ox-tail. It was black and covered with hair like a seal. The man laid hold of it and pulled, and called on the others to come and help him. Others then got up on the heap, both men and women, and pulled at the tail, but all to no purpose. It seemed to them that the tail was dead, but while they tugged at it, it flew out of their hands taking the skin off the palms of those who had been holding it hardest, and no more was ever seen of the tail. The fish were then taken up and every one was found to be torn out of the skin, yet no living thing was to be found in the pile.
Following upon this, Thorgrima Charm-cheek, the wife of Thorir Wooden-leg, fell ill, and lay only a little while before she died, and the same evening that she was buried she was seen in company with her husband Thorir. The sickness then began a second time after the tail had been seen, and now the women died more than the men. Another six persons died in this attack, and some fled away on account of the ghosts and the hauntings. In the autumn there had been thirty in the household, of whom eighteen were dead, and five had run away, leaving only seven behind in the spring.
When these marvels had reached this pitch, it happened one day that Kjartan went to Helga-fell to see his uncle Snorri, and asked his advice as to what should be done. There had then come to Helga-fell a priest whom Gizurr the white had sent to Snorri, and this priest Snorri sent to Fródá along with Kjartan, his son Thord, and six other men. He also gave them this advice, that they should burn all Thorgunna’s bed-hangings and hold a law court at the door, and there prosecute all those men who were walking after death. He also bade the priest hold service there, consecrate water, and confess the people. They summoned men from the nearest farms to accompany them, and arrived at Fródá on the evening before Candlemas, just at the time when the fires were being kindled. Thurid the housewife had then taken the sickness after the same fashion as those who had died. Kjartan went in at once, and saw that Thorodd and the others were sitting by the fire as usual. He took down Thorgunna’s bed-hangings, went into the hall, and carried out a live coal from the fire: then all the bed-gear that Thorgunna had owned was burned.
After this Kjartan summoned Thorir Wooden-leg, and Thord summoned Thorodd, on the charge of going about the homestead without leave, and depriving men of both health and life; all those who sat beside the fire were summoned in the same way. Then a court was held at the door, in which the charges were declared, and everything done as in a regular law court; opinions were given, the case summed up, and judgment passed. After sentence had been pronounced on Thorir Wooden-leg, he rose up and said: “Now we have sat as long as we can bear”. After this he went out by the other door from that at which the court was held. Then sentence was passed on the shepherd, and when he heard it he stood up and said: “Now I shall go, and I think it would have been better before”. When Thorgrima heard sentence pronounced on her, she rose up and said: “Now we have stayed while it could be borne”. Then one after another was summoned, and each stood up as judgment was given upon him; all of them said something as they went out, and showed that they were loath to part. Finally sentence was passed on Thorodd himself, and when he heard it, he rose and said: “Little peace I find here, and let us all flee now,” and went out after that. Then Kjartan and the others entered and the priest carried holy water and sacred relics over all the house. Later on in the day he held solemn service, and after this all the hauntings and ghost-walkings at Fródá ceased, while Thurid recovered from her sickness and became well again.
Spiritualistic Floating Hands. Hands in Haunted Houses. Jerome Cardan’s Tale. “The Cold Hand.” The Beach-comber’s Tale. “The Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand.” The Pakeha Maori and “The Leprous Hand”. “The Hand of the Ghost that Bit.”
Nothing was more common, in the séances of Home, the “Medium,” than the appearance of “Spirit hands”. If these were made of white kid gloves, stuffed, the idea, at least, was borrowed from ghost stories, in which ghostly hands, with no visible bodies, are not unusual. We see them in the Shchapoff case, at Rerrick, and in other haunted houses. Here are some tales of Hands, old or new.
[Jerome Cardan, the famous physician, tells the following anecdote in his De Rerum Varietate, lib. x., 93. Jerome only once heard a rapping himself, at the time of the death of a friend at a distance. He was in a terrible fright, and dared not leave his room all day.]
A story which my father used often to tell: “I was brought up,” he said, “in the house of Joannes Resta, and therein taught Latin to his three sons; when I left them I supported myself on my own means. It chanced that one of these lads, while I was studying medicine, fell deadly sick, he being now a young man grown, and I was called in to be with the youth, partly for my knowledge of medicine, partly for old friendship’s sake. The master of the house happened to be absent; the patient slept in an upper chamber, one of his brothers and I in a lower room, the third brother, Isidore, was not at home. Each of the rooms was next to a turret; turrets being common in that city. When we went to bed on the first night of my visit, I heard a constant knocking on the wall of the room.
“‘What is that?’ I said.
“‘Don’t be afraid, it is only a familiar spirit,’ said my companion. ‘They call them follets; it is harmless enough, and seldom so troublesome as it is now: I don’t know what can be the matter with it.’
“The young fellow went to sleep, but I was kept awake for a while, wondering and observing. After half an hour of stillness I felt a thumb press on my head, and a sense of cold. I kept watching; the forefinger, the middle finger, and the rest of the hand were next laid on, the little finger nearly reaching my forehead. The hand was like that of a boy of ten, to guess by the size, and so cold that it was extremely unpleasant. Meantime I was chuckling over my luck in such an opportunity of witnessing a wonder, and I listened eagerly.
“The hand stole with the ring finger foremost over my face and down my nose, it was slipping into my mouth, and two finger-tips had entered, when I threw it off with my right hand, thinking it was uncanny, and not relishing it inside my body. Silence followed and I lay awake, distrusting the spectre more or less. In about half an hour it returned and repeated its former conduct, touching me very lightly, yet very chilly. When it reached my mouth I again drove it away. Though my lips were tightly closed, I felt an extreme icy cold in my teeth. I now got out of bed, thinking this might be a friendly visit from the ghost of the sick lad upstairs, who must have died.
“As I went to the door, the thing passed before me, rapping on the walls. When I was got to the door it knocked outside; when I opened the door, it began to knock on the turret. The moon was shining; I went on to see what would happen, but it beat on the other sides of the tower, and, as it always evaded me, I went up to see how my patient was. He was alive, but very weak.
“As I was speaking to those who stood about his bed, we heard a noise as if the house was falling. In rushed my bedfellow, the brother of the sick lad, half dead with terror.
“‘When you got up,’ he said, ‘I felt a cold hand on my back. I thought it was you who wanted to waken me and take me to see my brother, so I pretended to be asleep and lay quiet, supposing that you would go alone when you found me so sound asleep. But when I did not feel you get up, and the cold hand grew to be more than I could bear, I hit out to push your hand away, and felt your place empty—but warm. Then I remembered the follet, and ran upstairs as hard as I could put my feet to the ground: never was I in such a fright!’
“The sick lad died on the following night.”
Here Carden the elder stopped, and Jerome, his son, philosophised on the subject.
Miss Dendy, on the authority of Mr. Elijah Cope, an itinerant preacher, gives this anecdote of similar familiarity with a follet in Staffordshire.
* * * * *
“Fairies! I went into a farmhouse to stay a night, and in the evening there came a knocking in the room as if some one had struck the table. I jumped up. My hostess got up and ‘Good-night,’ says she, ‘I’m off’. ‘But what was it?’ says I. ‘Just a poor old fairy,’ says she; ‘Old Nancy. She’s a poor old thing; been here ever so long; lost her husband and her children; it’s bad to be left like that, all alone. I leave a bit o’ cake on the table for her, and sometimes she fetches it, and sometimes she don’t.”
[Some years ago I published in a volume of tales called The Wrong Paradise, a paper styled “My Friend the Beach-comber”. This contained genuine adventures of a kinsman, my oldest and most intimate friend, who has passed much of his life in the Pacific, mainly in a foreign colony, and in the wild New Hebrides. My friend is a man of education, an artist, and a student of anthropology and ethnology. Engaged on a work of scientific research, he has not committed any of his innumerable adventures, warlike or wandering, to print. The following “yarn” he sent to me lately, in a letter on some points of native customs. Of course the description of the Beach-comber, in the book referred to, is purely fictitious. The yarn of “The Thumbless Hand” is here cast in a dialogue, but the whole of the strange experience described is given in the words of the narrator. It should be added that, though my friend was present at some amateur séances, in a remote isle of the sea, he is not a spiritualist, never was one, and has no theory to account for what occurred, and no belief in “spooks” of any description. His faith is plighted to the theories of Mr. Darwin, and that is his only superstition. The name of the principal character in the yarn is, of course, fictitious. The real name is an old but not a noble one in England.]
“Have the natives the custom of walking through fire?” said my friend the Beach-comber, in answer to a question of mine. “Not that I know of. In fact the soles of their feet are so thick-skinned that they would think nothing of it.”
“Then have they any spiritualistic games, like the Burmans and Maories? I have a lot of yarns about them.”
“They are too jolly well frightened of bush spirits to invite them to tea,” said the Beach-comber. “I knew a fellow who got a bit of land merely by whistling up and down in it at nightfall. {292} They think spirits whistle. No, I don’t fancy they go in for séances. But we once had some, we white men, in one of the islands. Not the Oui-ouis” (native name for the French), “real white men. And that led to Bolter’s row with me.”
“What about?”
“Oh, about his young woman. I told her the story; it was thoughtless, and yet I don’t know that I was wrong. After all, Bolter could not have been a comfortable fellow to marry.”
In this opinion readers of the Beach-comber’s narrative will probably agree, I fancy.
“Bad moral character?”
“Not that I know of. Queer fish; kept queer company. Even if she was ever so fond of dogs, I don’t think a girl would have cared for Bolter’s kennel. Not in her bedroom anyway.”
“But she could surely have got him to keep them outside, however doggy he was?”
“He was not doggy a bit. I don’t know that Bolter ever saw the black dogs himself. He certainly never told me so. It is that beastly Thumbless Hand, no woman could have stood it, not to mention the chance of catching cold when it pulled the blankets off.”
“What on earth are you talking about? I can understand a man attended by black dogs that nobody sees but himself. The Catholics tell it of John Knox, and of another Reformer, a fellow called Smeaton. Moreover, it is common in delirium tremens. But you say Bolter didn’t see the dogs?”
“No, not so far as he told me, but I did, and other fellows, when with Bolter. Bolter was asleep; he didn’t see anything. Also the Hand, which was a good deal worse. I don’t know if he ever saw it. But he was jolly nervous, and he had heard of it.”
The habits of the Beach-comber are absolutely temperate, otherwise my astonishment would have been less, and I should have regarded all these phenomena as subjective.
“Tell me about it all, old cock,” I said.
“I’m sure I told you last time I was at home.”
“Never; my memory for yarns is only too good. I hate a chestnut.”
“Well, here goes! Mind you I don’t profess to explain the thing; only I don’t think I did wrong in telling the young woman, for, however you account for it, it was not nice.”
“A good many years ago there came to the island, as a clerk, un nommé Bolter, English or Jew.”
“His name is not Jewish.”
“No, and I really don’t know about his breed. The most curious thing about his appearance was his eyes: they were large, black, and had a peculiar dull dead lustre.”
“Did they shine in the dark? I knew a fellow at Oxford whose eyes did. Chairs ran after him.”
“I never noticed; I don’t remember. ‘Psychically,’ as you superstitious muffs call it, Bolter was still more queer. At that time we were all gone on spirit-rapping. Bolter turned out a great acquisition, ‘medium,’ or what not. Mind you, I’m not saying Bolter was straight. In the dark he’d tell you what you had in your hand, exact time of your watch, and so on. I didn’t take stock in this, and one night brought some photographs with me, and asked for a description of them. This he gave correctly, winding up by saying, ‘The one nearest your body is that of ---’”
Here my friend named a person well known to both of us, whose name I prefer not to introduce here. This person, I may add, had never been in or near the island, and was totally unknown to Bolter.
“Of course,” my friend went on, “the photographs were all the time inside my pocket. Now, really, Bolter had some mystic power of seeing in the dark.”
“Hyperæsthesia!” said I.
“Hypercriticism!” said the Beach-comber.
“What happened next might be hyperæsthesia—I suppose you mean abnormal intensity of the senses—but how could hyperæsthesia see through a tweed coat and lining?”
“Well, what happened next?”
“Bolter’s firm used to get sheep by every mail from ---, and send them regularly to their station, six miles off. One time they landed late in the afternoon, and yet were foolishly sent off, Bolter in charge. I said at the time he would lose half the lot, as it would be dark long before he could reach the station. He didn’t lose them!
“Next day I met one of the niggers who was sent to lend him a hand, and asked results.
“‘Master,’ said the nigger, ‘Bolter is a devil! He sees at night. When the sheep ran away to right or left in the dark, he told us where to follow.’”
“He heard them, I suppose,” said I.
“Maybe, but you must be sharp to have sharper senses than these niggers. Anyhow, that was not Bolter’s account of it. When I saw him and spoke to him he said simply, ‘Yes, that when excited or interested to seek or find anything in obscurity the object became covered with a dim glow of light, which rendered it visible’. ‘But things in a pocket.’ ‘That also,’ said he. ‘Curious isn’t it? Probably the Röntgen rays are implicated therein, eh?’”
“Did you ever read Dr. Gregory’s Letters on Animal Magnetism?”
“The cove that invented Gregory’s Mixture?”
“Yes.”
“Beast he must have been. No, I never read him.”
“He says that Major Buckley’s hypnotised subjects saw hidden objects in a blue light—mottoes inside a nut, for example.”
“Röntgen rays, for a fiver! But Bolter said nothing about seeing blue light. Well, after three or four séances Bolter used to be very nervous and unwilling to sleep alone, so I once went with him to his one-roomed hut. We turned into the same bed. I was awakened later by a noise and movement in the room. Found the door open; the full moon streaming in, making light like day, and the place full of great big black dogs—well, anyhow there were four or five! They were romping about, seemingly playing. One jumped on the bed, another rubbed his muzzle on mine! (the bed was low, and I slept outside). Now I never had anything but love for dogs of any kind, and as—n’est-ce pas?—love casts out fear, I simply got up, turned them all out, shut the door, and turned in again myself. Of course my idea was that they were flesh and blood, and I allude to physical fear.
“I slept, but was anew awakened by a ghastly feeling that the blanket was being dragged and creeping off the bed. I pulled it up again, but anew began the slow movement of descent.
“Rather surprised, I pulled it up afresh and held it, and must have dozed off, as I suppose. Awoke, to feel it being pulled again; it was slipping, slipping, and then with a sudden, violent jerk it was thrown on the floor. Il faut dire that during all this I had glanced several times at Bolter, who seemed profoundly asleep. But now alarmed I tried to wake him. In vain, he slept like the dead; his face, always a pasty white, now like marble in the moonlight. After some hesitation I put the blanket back on the bed and held it fast. The pulling at once began and increased in strength, and I, by this time thoroughly alarmed, put all my strength against it, and hung on like grim death.
“To get a better hold I had taken a turn over my head (or perhaps simply to hide), when suddenly I felt a pressure outside on my body, and a movement like fingers—they gradually approached my head. Mad with fear I chucked off the blanket, grasped a Hand, gazed on it for one moment in silent horror, and threw it away! No wonder, it was attached to no arm or body, it was hairy and dark coloured, the fingers were short, blunt, with long, claw-like nails, and it was minus a thumb! Too frightened to get up I had to stop in bed, and, I suppose, fell to sleep again, after fresh vain attempts to awaken Bolter. Next morning I told him about it. He said several men who had thus passed the night with him had seen this hand. ‘But,’ added he, ‘it’s lucky you didn’t have the big black dogs also.’ Tableau!
“I was to have slept again with him next night to look further into the matter, but a friend of his came from --- that day, so I could not renew the experiment, as I had fully determined to do. By-the-bye, I was troubled for months after by the same feeling that the clothes were being pulled off the bed.
“And that’s the yarn of the Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand.”
“I think,” said I, “that you did no harm in telling Bolter’s young woman.”
“I never thought of it when I told her, or of her interest in the kennel; but, by George, she soon broke off her engagement.”
“Did you know Manning, the Pakeha Maori, the fellow who wrote Old New Zealand?”
“No, what about him?”
“He did not put it in his book, but he told the same yarn, without the dogs, as having happened to himself. He saw the whole arm, and the hand was leprous.”
“Ugh!” said the Beach-comber.
“Next morning he was obliged to view the body of an old Maori, who had been murdered in his garden the night before. That old man’s hand was the hand he saw. I know a room in an old house in England where plucking off the bed-clothes goes on, every now and then, and has gone on as long as the present occupants have been there. But I only heard lately, and they only heard from me, that the same thing used to occur, in the same room and no other, in the last generation, when another family lived there.”
“Anybody see anything?”
“No, only footsteps are heard creeping up, before the twitches come off.”
“And what do the people do?”
“Nothing! We set a camera once to photograph the spook. He did not sit.”
“It’s rum!” said the Beach-comber. “But mind you, as to spooks, I don’t believe a word of it.” {299}
The idiot Scotch laird in the story would not let the dentist put his fingers into his mouth, “for I’m feared ye’ll bite me”. The following anecdote proves that a ghost may entertain a better founded alarm on this score. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (3rd Sept., 1864) is responsible for the narrative, given “almost verbatim from the lips of the lady herself,” a person of tried veracity.
“Emma S---, one of seven children, was sleeping alone, with her face towards the west, at a large house near C---, in the Staffordshire moorlands. As she had given orders to her maid to call her at an early hour, she was not surprised at being awakened between three and four on a fine August morning in 1840 by a sharp tapping at her door, when in spite of a “thank you, I hear,” to the first and second raps, with the third came a rush of wind, which caused the curtains to be drawn up in the centre of the bed. She became annoyed, and sitting up called out, “Marie, what are you about?”
Instead, however, of her servant, she was astonished to see the face of an aunt by marriage peering above and between the curtains, and at the same moment—whether unconsciously she threw forward her arms, or whether they were drawn forward, as it were, in a vortex of air, she cannot be sure—one of her thumbs was sensibly pressed between the teeth of the apparition, though no mark afterwards remained on it. All this notwithstanding, she remained collected and unalarmed; but instantly arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where she found not a creature stirring. Her father, on coming down shortly afterwards, naturally asked what had made her rise so early; rallied her on the cause, and soon afterwards went on to his sister-in-law’s house, where he found that she had just unexpectedly died. Coming back again, and not noticing his daughter’s presence in the room, in consequence of her being behind a screen near the fire, he suddenly announced the event to his wife, as being of so remarkable a character that he could in no way account for it. As may be anticipated, Emma, overhearing this unlooked-for denouement of her dream, at once fell to the ground in a fainting condition.
On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had been bitten in the death agony. {300}
We have now followed the “ghostly” from its germs in dreams, and momentary hallucinations of eye or ear, up to the most prodigious narratives which popular invention has built on bases probably very slight. Where facts and experience, whether real or hallucinatory experience, end, where the mythopœic fancy comes in, readers may decide for themselves.
{0a} Principles of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 115. By Professor William James, Harvard College, Macmillan’s, London, 1890. The physical processes believed to be involved, are described on pp. 123, 124 of the same work.
{0b} Op. cit., ii., 130.
{4} Story received from Miss ---; confirmed on inquiry by Drumquaigh.
{5a} Phantasms of the Living, ii., 382.
{5b} To “send” a dream the old Egyptians wrote it out and made a cat swallow it!
{8} See “Queen Mary’s Jewels” in chapter ii.
{10} Narrated by Mrs. Herbert.
{11a} Story confirmed by Mr. A.
{11b} This child had a more curious experience. Her nurse was very ill, and of course did not sleep in the nursery. One morning the little girl said, “Macpherson is better, I saw her come in last night with a candle in her hand. She just stooped over me and then went to Tom” (a younger brother) “and kissed him in his sleep.” Macpherson had died in the night, and her attendants, of course, protested ignorance of her having left her deathbed.
{11c} Story received from Lady X. See another good case in Proceedings of the Psychical Society, vol. xi., 1895, p. 397. In this case, however, the finder was not nearer than forty rods to the person who lost a watch in long grass. He assisted in the search, however, and may have seen the watch unconsciously, in a moment of absence of mind. Many other cases in Proceedings of S.P.R.
{13} Story received in a letter from the dreamer.
{16} Augustine. In Library of the Fathers, XVII. Short Treatises, pp. 530-531.
{18} St. Augustine, De Cura pro Mortuis.
{20} The professor is not sure whether he spoke English or German.
{24} From Some Account of the Conversion of the late William Hone, supplied by some friend of W. H. to compiler. Name not given.
{28} What is now called “mental telegraphy” or “telepathy” is quite an old idea. Bacon calls it “sympathy” between two distant minds, sympathy so strong that one communicates with the other without using the recognised channels of the senses. Izaak Walton explains in the same way Dr. Donne’s vision, in Paris, of his wife and dead child. “If two lutes are strung to an exact harmony, and one is struck, the other sounds,” argues Walton. Two minds may be as harmoniously attuned and communicate each with each. Of course, in the case of the lutes there are actual vibrations, physical facts. But we know nothing of vibrations in the brain which can traverse space to another brain.
Many experiments have been made in consciously transferring thoughts or emotions from one mind to another. These are very liable to be vitiated by bad observation, collusion and other causes. Meanwhile, intercommunication between mind and mind without the aid of the recognised senses—a supposed process of “telepathy”—is a current explanation of the dreams in which knowledge is obtained that exists in the mind of another person, and of the delusion by virtue of which one person sees another who is perhaps dying, or in some other crisis, at a distance. The idea is popular. A poor Highland woman wrote to her son in Glasgow: “Don’t be thinking too much of us, or I shall be seeing you some evening in the byre”. This is a simple expression of the hypothesis of “telepathy” or “mental telegraphy”.
{31} Perhaps among such papers as the Casket Letters, exhibited to the Commission at Westminster, and “tabled” before the Scotch Privy Council.
{35a} To Joseph himself she bequeathed the ruby tortoise given to her by his brother. Probably the diamonds were not Rizzio’s gift.
{35b} Boismont was a distinguished physician and “Mad Doctor,” or “Alienist”. He was also a Christian, and opposed a tendency, not uncommon in his time, as in ours, to regard all “hallucinations” as a proof of mental disease in the “hallucinated”.
{39a} S.P.R., v., 324.
{39b} Ibid., 324.
{42} Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. v., pp. 324, 325.
{43} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xi., p. 495.
{45a} Signed by Mr. Cooper and the Duchess of Hamilton.
{45b} See Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 91.
{48} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xi., p. 522.
{50} The case was reported in the Herald (Dubuque) for 12th February, 1891. It was confirmed by Mr. Hoffman, by Mr. George Brown and by Miss Conley, examined by the Rev. Mr. Crum, of Dubuque.—Proceedings, S.P.R., viii., 200-205. Pat Conley, too, corroborated, and had no theory of explanation. That the girl knew beforehand of the dollars is conceivable, but she did not know of the change of clothes.
{56a} Told by the nobleman in question to the author.
{56b} The author knows some eight cases among his friends of a solitary meaningless hallucination like this.
{58} As to the fact of such visions, I have so often seen crystal gazing, and heard the pictures described by persons whose word I could not doubt, men and women of unblemished character, free from superstition, that I am obliged to believe in the fact as a real though hallucinatory experience. Mr. Clodd attributes it to disorder of the liver. If no more were needed I could “scry” famously!
{60a} Facts attested and signed by Mr. Baillie and Miss Preston.
{60b} Story told to me by both my friends and the secretary.
{62} Mémoires, v., 120. Paris, 1829.
{66} Readers curious in crystal-gazing will find an interesting sketch of the history of the practice, with many modern instances, in Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. v., p. 486, by “Miss X.”. There are also experiments by Lord Stanhope and Dr. Gregory in Gregory’s Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 370 (1851). It is said that, as sights may be seen in a glass ball, so articulate voices, by a similar illusion, can be heard in a sea shell, when
“It remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there”.
{68} A set of scientific men, as Lélut and Lombroso, seem to think that a hallucination stamps a man as mad. Napoleon, Socrates, Pascal, Jeanne d’Arc, Luther were all lunatics. They had lucid intervals of considerable duration, and the belief in their lunacy is peculiar to a small school of writers.
{69a} A crowd of phantom coaches will be found in Messrs. Myers and Gurney’s Phantasms of the Living.
{69b} See The Slaying of Sergeant Davies of Guise’s.
{70} Principles of Psychology, by Prof. James of Harvard, vol. ii., p. 612. Charcot is one of sixteen witnesses cited for the fact.
{74} Story written by General Barter, 28th April, 1888. (S.P.R.) Corroborated by Mrs. Barter and Mr. Stewart, to whom General Barter told his adventure at the time.
{75} Statement by Mr. F. G., confirmed by his father and brother, who were present when he told his tale first, in St. Louis. S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. vi., p. 17.
{76} S.P.R., viii., p. 178.
{77} Mrs. M. sent the memorandum to the S.P.R. “March 13, 1886. Have just seen visions on lawn—a soldier in general’s uniform, a young lady kneeling to him, 11.40 p.m.”
{78} S.P.R., viii., p. 178. The real names are intentionally reserved.
{80a} Corroborated by Mr. Elliot. Mrs. Elliot nearly fainted. S.P.R., viii., 344-345.
{80b} Oddly enough, maniacs have many more hallucinations of hearing than of sight. In sane people the reverse is the case.
{82} Anecdote by the lady. Boston Budget, 31st August, 1890. S.P.R., viii., 345.
{85a} Tom Sawyer, Detective.
{85b} Phantasms of the Living, by Gurney and Myers.
{85c} The story is given by Mr. Mountford, one of the seers.
{86} Journal of Medical Science, April, 1880, p. 151.
{88} Catholic theology recognises, under the name of “Bilocation,” the appearance of a person in one place when he is really in another.
{91a} Phantasms, ii., pp. 671-677.
{91b} Phantasms of the Living.
{91c} Mr. E. B. Tylor gives a Maori case in Primitive Culture. Another is in Phantasms, ii., 557. See also Polack’s New Zealand for the prevalence of the belief.
{92} Gurney, Phantasms, ii., 6.
{93} The late Surgeon-Major Armand Leslie, who was killed at the battle of El Teb, communicated the following story to the Daily Telegraph in the autumn of 1881, attesting it with his signature.
{95a} This is a remarkably difficult story to believe. “The morning bright and calm” is lit by the rays of the moon. The woman (a Mrs. Gamp) must have rushed past Dr. Leslie. A man who died in Greece or Russia “that morning” would hardly be arrayed in evening dress for burial before 4 a.m. The custom of using goloshes as “hell-shoes” (fastened on the Icelandic dead in the Sagas) needs confirmation. Men are seldom buried in eye-glasses—never in tall white hats.—Phantasms of the Living, ii., 252.
{95b} From a memorandum, made by General Birch Reynardson, of an oral communication made to him by Sir John Sherbrooke, one of the two seers.
{101} This is an old, but good story. The Rev. Thomas Tilson, minister (non-conforming) of Aylesford, in Kent, sent it on 6th July, 1691, to Baxter for his Certainty of the World of Spirits. The woman Mary Goffe died on 4th June, 1691. Mr. Tilson’s informants were her father, speaking on the day after her burial; the nurse, with two corroborative neighbours, on 2nd July; the mother of Mary Goffe; the minister who attended her, and one woman who sat up with her—all “sober intelligent persons”. Not many stories have such good evidence in their favour.
{103} Phantasms, ii., 528.
{111} “That which was published in May, 1683, concerning the Daemon, or Daemons of Spraiton was the extract of a letter from T. C., Esquire, a near neighbour to the place; and though it needed little confirmation further than the credit that the learning and quality of that gentleman had stampt upon it, yet was much of it likewise known to and related by the Reverend Minister of Barnstaple, of the vicinity to Spraiton. Having likewise since had fresh testimonials of the veracity of that relation, and it being at first designed to fill this place, I have thought it not amiss (for the strangeness of it) to print it here a second time, exactly as I had transcribed it then.”—BOVET.
{118} Shchapoff case of “The Dancing Devil” and “The Great Amherst Mystery”.
{121} Additional MSS., British Museum, 27,402, f. 132.
{122} Really 1628, unless, indeed, the long-continued appearances began in the year before Buckingham’s death; old style.
{127} It may fairly be argued, granting the ghost, his advice and his knowledge of a secret known to the countess, that he was a hallucination unconsciously wired on to old Towse by the mind of the anxious countess herself!
{129a} Hamilton’s Memoirs.
{129b} Mrs. Thrale’s Diary, 28th November, 1779.
{129c} Diary of Lady Mary Coke, 30th November, 1779.
{130a} See Phantasms, ii., 586.
{130b} The difficulty of knowing whether one is awake or asleep, just about the moment of entering or leaving sleep is notorious. The author, on awaking in a perfectly dark room, has occasionally seen it in a dim light, and has even been aware, or seemed to be aware, of the pattern of the wall paper. In a few moments this effect of light disappears, and all is darkness. This is the confused mental state technically styled “Borderland,” a haunt of ghosts, who are really flitting dreams.
{131} Life of Lockhart.
{132} The author has given authorities in Blackwood’s Magazine March, 1895. A Mr. Coulton (not Croker as erroneously stated) published in the Quarterly Review, No. 179, an article to prove that Lyttelton committed suicide, and was Junius. See also the author’s Life of Lockhart.
{140} A prominent name among the witnesses at the trial.
{141} The report of the trial in the Scots Magazine of June, 1754 (magazines appeared at the end of the month), adds nothing of interest. The trial lasted from 7 a.m. of June 11 till 6 a.m. of June 14. The jury deliberated for two hours before arriving at a verdict.
{142} Sydney, no date.
{144} Phantasms, ii., 586, quoting (apparently) the Buckingham Gazette of the period.
{145a} Oddly enough a Mr. William Soutar, of Blairgowrie, tells a ghost story of his own to the S.P.R.!
{145b} I put them for convenience at the foot.—W. L. L.
{146a} The dogs in all these towns (farms) of Mause are very well accustomed with hunting the fox.
{146b} Blair (Blairgowrie) is the kirk-town of that parish, where there is also a weekly market: it lies about a mile below Middle Mause on the same side of the river.
{146c} Knockhead is within less than half a mile of Middle Mause, and the Hilltown lies betwixt the two. We see both of them from our window of Craighall House.
{148a} This George Soutar died about two or three years ago, and was very well known to William.
{148b} The Isle is a spot of ground in the wood of Rychalzie, about a mile above Middle Mause, on the same side of the river.
{149a} Glasclune is a gentleman of the name of Blair, whose house lies about three-quarters of a mile south-west from Middle Mause.
{149b} He said the voice answered him as if it had been some distance without the door.
{150} Besides the length of time since the murder was committed, there is another reason why all the bones were not found, viz., that there is a little burn or brook which had run for the space of twenty years, at least, across upon the place when the bones were found, and would have carried them all away had it not been that the bush, at the side of which they were buried, had turned the force of the stream a little from off that place where they lay, for they were not more than a foot, or at most a foot and a half, under ground, and it is only within these three years that a water-spate has altered the course of the burn.
{151} The course of the river (the Ericht) is from north to south. Middle Mause lies on the west side of it, and Craighall on the east.
{155a} With reference to the last statement in Mr. Newton’s notes see the Journal of Sir Walter Scott (edit., 1891, p. 210) under date 13th June, 1826.
{155b} L’Homme Posthume.
{155c} Denny’s Folklore of China.
{156} Story received in a letter from Lieutenant --- of H.M.S gunboat ---.
{157} He fought at Culloden, of course for King George, and was appealed to for protection by old Glengarry.
{158a} Fox’s hole.
{158b} How did Inverawe get leave to wear the Highland dress?
{160} In every version of the story that I have heard or read Ticonderoga is called St. Louis, and Inverawe was ignorant of its other name. Yet in all the histories of the war that I have seen, the only name given to the place is Ticonderoga. There is no mention of its having a French name. Even if Inverawe knew the fort they were to storm was called Ticonderoga, he cannot have known it when the ghost appeared to him in Scotland. At that time there was not even a fort at Ticonderoga, as the French only erected it in 1756. Inverawe had told his story to friends in Scotland before the war broke out in America, so even if in 1758 he did know the real name of the fort that the expedition was directed against, I don’t see that it lessens the interest of the story.—E. A. C.