Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the deadSource of authenticity: “Ladies’ Cabinet,” 1835, and elsewhereCause of haunting: Murder
Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead
Source of authenticity: “Ladies’ Cabinet,” 1835, and elsewhere
Cause of haunting: Murder
The“Ladies Cabinet” for 1835 contains an account of a haunting in Merioneth that seems to me of sufficient psychic interest to record.
Hence I append it; but since the original text is a trifle too intricate in places, I have taken the liberty to tell the story more or less in my own words:
“In the summer of 1832 I was on a walking tour in Wales; in selecting, as the principal scene of my operations, Merioneth, and chancing one evening to be overtaken by a storm, when midway between Dolgelly and Bala, I was speedily placed in the most unpleasant of predicaments. To go on I was afraid, to turn back was impossible; what could I do? The night was dark, the rain almost tropical, and the roadway so broken up with furrows that I could only grope along with the utmost difficulty; whilst the frequent windings, steep ascents, and sharp declivities not only added to my embarrassment, butgreatly increased my weariness. At every few yards I either plunged into a miniature morass or, stumbling over a boulder, found myself smarting in the centre of a gorse bush.
“At length I grew desperate—human nature could stand it no longer—and resolving to perish with the cold rather than flounder on under such pitiable conditions, I threw myself down on a rock and prepared to lie there till daybreak.
“It is possible I had remained in this position for ten or so minutes, when I was roused to a sense of deliverance by the bright glow of a lamp, and starting up to my feet, I discovered I was no longer alone. Confronting me was the figure of a short man, wrapped in a shaggy great-coat, and wearing a slouched hat. He was holding a lantern in his hand. By a series of pantomimic gestures he assured me that his intentions were amicable, and that he was anxious to guide me to some place of shelter where I should have a more comfortable pallet than a bare rock.
“I accepted his offer, though not without some misgivings, as I could not remember ever having met with any one quite so uncouth or bizarre.
“Turning abruptly to the right he struck across a wide moor covered with gorse and innumerable boulders, and so studded with pools of water that I seemed to be in a perpetual state of wading. Emerging from this, we wended our way along the side of a precipice, at the bottom of which roared one of those mountain torrents so characteristic of all parts of Wales.
“Beckoning to me to follow, my guide mysteriouslydisappeared, and peering over the edge of the chasm, I perceived him, to my amazement, making his descent by an almost invisible and perpendicular pathway. For a second or so I hesitated, and then, making up my mind to brave anything rather than remain by myself in such an unfamiliar and dangerous neighbourhood, I gingerly lowered myself over the brink, and, after a few tumbles, succeeded in overtaking him just as he arrived at the bottom.
“We now found ourselves in a valley of stygian darkness, and of such restricted dimensions that the spray from the river bathed me from head to foot. My companion pressed resolutely on, and, maintaining the same extraordinary and uncanny silence, conducted me to a recess in the hillside where the outlines of a bare, dismantled house gradually arose to greet us. It was merely a pile of ruins, old, yet naked, without any of those evidences of vegetation one usually associates with the antique. I particularly noticed this deficiency; it impressed and perplexed me. If moss and lichens grew elsewhere—why not here?
“The situation of the house was strikingly romantic and weird—indeed, one could not well imagine a more dismal spot. A giant mass of black rock reared itself in the background like a Brobdingnagian bat. In the foreground, and at so close a distance that the spray blowing madly over my face and clothes drenched me to the skin, rushed a seething mass of sable water, whilst to accentuate all this Avernian horror, the wind whistled demoniacally, and the rain fell with ever-increasing fury. Turning to myguide, I impatiently requested him ‘to move on,’ and take me with the greatest expedition to the nearest available hostelry.
“In reply he took off his hat, and, thrusting his monstrous head forward, revealed to my horror-stricken gaze a shapeless, sodden mass of black flesh!
“The cause of his silence was now obvious—he couldn’t speak because he had no mouth; but neither had he eyes, ears, or nose; nothing but that awful, unmeaning, rotund protuberance.
“I stood aghast, too terrified to stir, almost too terrified to breathe, with the hideous Thing looming there before me, and the booming of the river behind. It was a ghastly situation.
“The creature advanced an inch—my blood turned to ice; it raised its arms—my soul sickened within me; it lunged suddenly forward—and—fell right through me. As it did so I heard a fiendish chuckle, which, dying slowly out, gave way to a succession of blood-curdling groans that seemed to proceed from the interior of the ruins. The figure, however, was nowhere to be seen; it must have dematerialised on the spot.
“Very much relieved at this, though still considerably frightened, I was now able to use my limbs, and turning my back on the ghostly building, I felt my way along the bank of the river. I dare not glance at the boiling foam, the very sound of it made my flesh creep; nor did I feel in any degree safe till a winding of the footpath brought me to a bridge, on the opposite side of which I saw the twinkling lights of many houses. I was now, once again, in the land of the living, and a substantialmeal by a cosy fire helped, in a good measure, to dissipate my fears and recompense me for all the trials I had undergone.
“Prior to leaving the inn next day I learned from my host that the hollow was known to be haunted, and, on that account, was universally shunned after sunset. Half a century ago the ruins—then a neat grey cottage—had been inhabited by the Evanses, a bad, thriftless ‘lot.’
“At the instigation of her husband, and with the motive of robbery, Mrs. Evans, a buxom woman—handsome in a bad bold style—had flirted openly with a pedlar, known locally as ‘Black Dave.’
“This man was easily induced to put up at their house, and his suspicions being lulled to rest by the amorous overtures of the woman, he was surprised in his sleep and butchered.
“Fearing, however, either to commit the body to the river or bury it in their garden lest it should be found, and being at the time very hard pressed for food—they improvised an oven in the earth and ate it!
“The vengeance of Heaven was, however, close on their track; the cottage, paid for out of their ill-gotten gains, caught fire during a drunken carousal, and Mrs. Evans was burned to death, whilst her husband only lingered long enough to make a full confession of the crime.
“The house was never rebuilt; the phantasm of Dave, in the disgusting guise in which he appeared to me, still haunts the precincts, and, delighting to gull unsuspecting wayfarers, leads them out of their proper courses, guiding them with a fiendish skill to the black ruin—the scene of his ghastly murder.”