CHAPTER XIPHANTOM BUTTERFLIES

’Tis midnight; how gloomy and dark!By Jupiter, there’s not a star!’Tis fearful! ’tis awful! and hark!What sound is that comes from afar?A coach! but the coach has no head;And the horses are headless as it,Of the driver the same may be said,And the passengers inside who sit.

’Tis midnight; how gloomy and dark!By Jupiter, there’s not a star!’Tis fearful! ’tis awful! and hark!What sound is that comes from afar?

A coach! but the coach has no head;And the horses are headless as it,Of the driver the same may be said,And the passengers inside who sit.

According to the popular opinion, there is no authority to prove that headless people are unable to speak; on the contrary, a variation of the story of ‘The Golden Mountain,’ given in a note to the ‘Kindermärchen,’ relates how a servant without a head informed the fisherman (who was to achieve the adventure) of the enchantment of the king’s daughter, and of the mode of liberating her. Thereis the Belludo, a Spanish ghost mentioned by Washington Irving in his ‘Tales of the Alhambra.’ It issues forth in the dead of night, and scours the avenues of the Alhambra, and the streets of Granada, in the shape of a headless horse, pursued by six hounds, with terrible yellings and howlings. It is said to be the spirit of a Moorish king, who killed his six sons, who, in revenge, hunt him in the shape of hounds at night-time.

In some cases, as it has been humorously observed, the headless ghosts of well-known persons have continued to set up their carriage after death. Thus, for years past, it has been firmly believed that Lady Anne Boleyn rides down the avenue of Blickling Park once a year, with her bloody head in her lap, sitting in a hearse-like coach drawn by four headless horses, and attended by coachmen and attendants, who have, out of compliment to their mistress, also left their heads behind them. Nor, if tradition is to be believed, is her father more at rest than she, for Sir Thomas Boleyn is said to be obliged to cross forty bridges to avoid the torments of the furies. Like his daughter, he is reported to drive about in a coach and four withheadless horses, carrying his head under his arm.[146]Young Lord Dacre, who is said to have been murdered at Thetford, through the contrivance of his guardian, Sir Richard Fulmerston, in 1569, by the falling of a wooden horse, purposely rendered insecure, used to prance up and down on the ghost of a headless rocking-horse.

Another romantic story is told[147]of a large field at Great Melton, divided from the Yare by a plantation, along which the old Norwich road ran. ‘Close to the edge of where the road is said to have run is a deep pit or hole of water, locally reputed to be fathomless. Every night at midnight, and every day at noon, a carriage drawn by four horses, driven by headless coachmen and footmen, and containing four headless ladies in white, rises silently and dripping wet from the pool, flits stately and silently round the field, and sinks as silently into the pool again.’ The story goes that long, long ago, a bridal party driving along the old Norwich Road were accidentally upset into the deep hole, and were never seen again. Strangelyenough the same story is told of fields near Bury St. Edmunds, and at Leigh, Dorsetshire.[148]Another Norfolk story, amusingly told by the late Cuthbert Bede,[149]informs us how, ‘on the anniversary of the death of the gentleman whose spectre he is supposed to be, his ghostship drives up to his old family mansion. He drives through the wall, carriage and horses and all, and is not seen again for a twelvemonth. He leaves, however, the traces of his visit behind him; for, in the morning, the stones of the wall through which he had ridden over-night are found to be loosened and fallen; and though the wall is constantly repaired, yet the stones are as constantly loosened.’ In the little village of Acton, Suffolk, it was currently reported not many years ago that on certain occasions the park gates were wont to fly open at midnight ‘withouten hands,’ and that a carriage drawn by four spectral horses, and accompanied by headless grooms and outriders, proceeded with great rapidity from the park to a spot called ‘the nursery corner,’a spot where tradition affirms a very bloody engagement took place in olden times, when the Romans were governors of England.[150]A similar tale is related of Caistor Castle, the seat of the Falstofs, where the headless apparition drives round the courtyard, and carries away some unearthly visitors.

At Beverley, in Yorkshire, the headless ghost of Sir Joceline Percy drives four headless horses at night, above its streets, passing over a certain house which was said to contain a chest with one hundred nails in it, one of which dropped out every year. The reason assigned for this nocturnal disturbance is attributed to the fact that Sir Joceline once rode on horseback into Beverley Minster. It has long been considered dangerous to meet such spectral teams, for fear of being carried off by them, so violent and threatening are their movements. In ‘Rambles in Northumberland’ we are told how, ‘when the death-hearse, drawn by headless horses, and driven by a headless driver, is seen about midnight proceeding rapidly, but without noise, towards the churchyard, the death of some considerablepersonage in the parish is sure to happen at no distant period.’

Night after night, too, when it is sufficiently dark, the headless coach whirls along the rough approach to Langley Hall, near Durham, drawn by black and fiery steeds; and many years ago a headless boggart was supposed to haunt Preston streets and neighbouring lanes. Its presence was often accompanied by the rattling of chains. It presently changed its form, and whether it appeared as a woman or a black dog, it was always headless. The story went that this uncanny apparition was at length ‘laid’ by some magical or religious ceremony in Walton churchyard.[151]

Many spots where suicides have been buried are supposed to be haunted by headless ghosts attired in white grave-clothes. Some few years ago, as a peasant was passing in a waggon with three horses a ‘four-lane-end’ in Lyneal Lane, Ellesmere, Shropshire, where a man was buried with a forked stake run through the body to keep it down, a woman was seen without a head. The horses took fright, and started off, overturning the waggon, andpitching the man into the Drumby Hole, where the waggon and shaft-horse fell upon him. The other horses broke loose and galloped home, where they arrived covered with foam, and on a search being made, the dead body of the waggoner was found in the hole.[152]Exactly twelve months afterwards, his son, it is said, was killed by the same horses on the same spot. As Miss Jackson points out, the headless ghost in this story is of a different sex from the person whose death is supposed to cause its restlessness. The same, she adds, is the case ‘with the ghost of the Mary Way, a now almost forgotten spectre of more than a hundred years ago. The figure of a woman in white was supposed to haunt the spot where a murderer was buried—more probably a suicide—at the cross roads about two miles from Wenlock, on the Bridgnorth road, which is known as the “Mary Way,” no doubt from some chapel, or processional route, in honour of the Virgin.’ Another story is told of the Baschurch neighbourhood, where the ghost of a man who hanged himself at Nesscliff is to be seen ‘riding about in his trap at night without a head.’

A tragic case is recorded by Crofton Croker, who tells how, many years ago, a clergyman belonging to St. Catharine’s Church, Dublin, resided at the old Castle of Donore, in the vicinity of that city. From melancholy, or some other cause, he put an end to his existence by hanging himself out of a window near the top of the castle. After his death, a coach, sometimes driven by a coachman without a head, and occasionally drawn by headless horses, was observed at night driving furiously by Roper’s Rest.

Referring to spots where murders have taken place, a Shropshire tradition informs us how, at a certain house at Hampton’s Wood, near Ellesmere, six illegitimate children were murdered by their parents, and buried in a garden. But, soon after this unnatural event, a ghost in the form of a man, sometimes headless, at other times not so, haunted the stables, rode the horses to water, and talked to the waggoner. Once it appeared to a young lady who was passing on horseback, and rode before her on her horse. Eventually, after much difficulty, this troublesome ghost was laid, but ‘the poor minister was so exhausted by the task that he died.’[153]

There is a haunted room at Walton Abbey frequented by a spectre known as ‘The Headless Nun of Walton.’ The popular belief is that this is the unquiet spirit of a transgressing nun of the twelfth century, but some affirm it to be that of a lady brutally beheaded in the seventeenth century.[154]Another instance is that of Calverley Hall, in the same county. In ‘The Yorkshireman’ for January 5, 1884, the particulars of this strange apparition are given, from which it appears that Walter Calverley, on April 23, 1604, went into a fit of insane frenzy of jealousy, or pretended to do so. Money-lenders were pressing him hard, and he had become desperate. Rushing madly into the house, he plunged a dagger into one and then into another of his children, and then tried to take the life of their mother, a crime for which he was pressed to death at York Castle. But his spirit could not rest, and he was often seen galloping about the district at night on a headless horse, being generally accompanied by a number of followers similarlymounted, who attempted to run down any poor benighted folks whom they chanced to meet. These spectral horsemen nearly always disappeared in a cave in the wood, but this cave has now been quarried away.[155]

It would seem that in years gone by one of the punishments assigned to evil doers guilty of a lesser crime than that of murder, was their ceaselessly frequenting those very spots where in their lifetime they had committed their wicked acts, carrying their heads under their arms. Numerous tales of this kind have been long current on the Continent, and at the present day are told by the simple-minded peasantry of many a German village with the most implicit faith. It is much the same in this country, and Mr. Henderson[156]has given several amusing anecdotes. At Dalton, near Thirsk, there was an old barn, said to be haunted by a headless woman. One night a tramp went into it to sleep; at midnight he was awakened by a light, and, sitting up, he saw a woman coming towards him from the end of the barn, holding her head in her handslike a lantern, with light streaming out of the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. Hunt, too, in his ‘Popular Romances,’ notices this superstition as existing in the West of England; and Mrs. Latham, in her ‘Sussex Superstitions,’ tells us how spirits are reported to walk about without their heads; others carry them under their arms; and one haunting a dark lane is said to have ‘a ball of fire upon its shoulders in lieu of the natural finial.’ At Haddington, Worcestershire, there is an avenue of trees locally known as ‘Lady Winter’s Walk,’ where, it is said, the lady of Thomas Winter, who was obliged to conceal himself on account of his share in the Gunpowder Plot, was in the habit of awaiting her husband’s further visits, and here the headless spectre of her ladyship used to be seen occasionally pacing up and down beneath the sombre shade of the aged trees.

Lady Wilde[157]has given a laughable specimen of the headless ghost as believed in by the Irish peasantry. One Denis Molony, a cow-jobber, was on his way to the great fair at Navan when he was overtaken by night. He laid down under a hedge,but ‘at that moment a loud moaning and screaming came to his ear, and a woman rushed past him all in white, as if a winding sheet were round her, and her cries of despair were terrible to hear. Then, after her, a great black coach came thundering along the road, drawn by two black horses. But when Denis looked close at them he saw that the horses had no heads, and the coachman had no head; and out sprang two men from the coach, and they had no heads either; and they seized the woman and carried her by force into the carriage and drove off.’

It appears that the woman Denis saw was ‘an evil liver and a wicked sinner, and no doubt the devils were carrying her off from the churchyard, for she had been buried that morning. To make sure, they went next morning to the churchyard to examine the grave, and there, sure enough, was the coffin, but it was open, and not a trace of the dead woman was to be seen. So they knew that an evil fate had come on her, and that her soul was gone to eternal tortures.’[158]

Connected also with the legend of the headless ghost is the old belief that persons prior to their death occasionally appear to their friends without their heads. Dr. Ferrier, in his ‘Theory of Apparitions,’ tells of an old Northern chieftain who informed a relative of his ‘that the door of the room in which they and some ladies were sitting had appeared to open, and that a little woman without a head had entered the room; and that the apparition indicated the sudden death of some person of his acquaintance.’ The ‘Glasgow Chronicle’ (January, 1826) records how, on the occasion of some silk-weavers being out of work, mourning-coaches drawn by headless horses were seen about the town; and some years ago a very unpleasant kind of headless ghost used to drive every Saturday night through the town of Doneraile, Ireland, and to stop at the doors of different houses, when, if anyone were so foolhardy as to open the door, a basin of blood was instantly flung in his face.

Departedsouls, according to a Cornish piece of folk-lore, are occasionally said to take the form of moths, and in Yorkshire, writes a correspondent of ‘Notes and Queries,’ ‘the country people used, and perhaps do still, call night-flying white moths, especially theHepialus humuli, which feeds while in the grub state on the roots of docks and other coarse plants, “souls.”’ By the Slavonians the butterfly seems to have been universally accepted as an emblem of the soul. Mr. Ralston, in his ‘Songs of the Russian People’ (p. 117), says that in the Government of Yaroslaw one of its names isdushichka, a caressing diminutive ofdusha, the soul. In that of Kherson it is believed that if the usual alms are not distributed at a funeral, the dead man’s soul will reveal itself to its relatives inthe form of a moth flying about the flame of a candle. The day after receiving such a warning visit they call together the poor and distribute food among them. In Bohemia there is a popular tradition that if the first butterfly a man sees in the spring-time is a white one, he is destined to die within the year. According to a Servian belief, the soul of a witch often leaves her body while she is asleep, and flies abroad in the shape of a butterfly. If, during its absence, her body be turned round, so that her feet are placed where her head was before, the soul will not be able to find her mouth, and so will be shut out from her body. Thereupon the witch will die. The Bulgarians believe that at death the soul assumes the form of a butterfly, and flits about on the nearest tree till the funeral is over. The Karens of Burma ‘will run about pretending to catch a sick man’s wandering soul, or, as they say with the ancient Greeks, his “butterfly,” and at last drop it down upon his head.’[159]The idea is an old one, and, as Gubernatis remarks in his ‘Zoological Mythology’ (ii.213), ‘the butterfly was both a phallic symbol and afunereal one, with promises of resurrection and transformation; the souls of the departed were represented in the forms of butterflies carried towards Elysium by the dolphin.’ According to another belief, the soul was supposed to take the form of a bee, an old tradition telling us that ‘the bees alone of all animals descended from Paradise.’ In the Engadine, in Switzerland, it is believed that the souls of men emigrate from the world and return to it in the forms of bees. In this district bees are considered messengers of death. When someone dies, the bee is invoked as follows, ‘almost as if requesting the soul of the departed,’ says De Gubernatis, ‘to watch for ever over the living’:[160]

Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt,Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth.

In Russia gnats and flies are often looked upon as equally spiritual creatures. ‘In Little Russia,’ says Mr. Ralston,[161]‘the old women of a family will often, after returning from a funeral, sit up all night watching a dish in which water and honeyin it have been placed, in the belief that the spirit of their dead relative will come in the form of a fly, and sip the proffered liquid.’

Among North American tribes we are told how the Ojibways believe that innumerable spirits appear in the varied forms of insect life,[162]while some tribes supposed that ‘most souls went to a common resort near their living habitat, but returned in the daytime in the shape of flies in order to get something to eat.’[163]

Thetrade of raising spirits has probably existed at all times in which superstition has been sufficiently prevalent to make such a practice a source of power or of profit, and nations—the most polished as well as the most barbarous—have admitted the claims of persons who professed to be able to control spirits. One of the most graphic illustrations of an incantation for evoking spirits is in connection with the appearance of the shade of Darius in the ‘Persæ’ of Æschylus, which is very nobly given. After receiving news of the great defeat of her son Xerxes at Salamis, Atossa has prepared the requisite offerings to the dead—milk from a white cow, honey, water from a pure fountain, unadulterated wine, olives, and flowers—and she instructs the ancient counsellors of thedeceased king to evoke his shade. They who form the tragic chorus commence an incantation from which we quote the following:

Royal lady, Persia’s pride,Thine offerings in earth’s chamber hide;We, meanwhile, with hymns will sueThe powers who guard hell’s shadowy crew,Till they to our wish incline.Gods below, ye choir divine,Earth, Hermes, and thou King of night,Send his spirit forth to light!If he knows worse ills impending,He alone can teach their ending.&c., &c., &c.

The incantation is successful, but Darius assures his friends that exit from below is far from easy, and that the subterranean gods are far more willing to take than to let go. Indeed, the raising of spirits was a trick of magic much in use in ancient times, and the scene that took place at Endor when Saul had recourse to a professor of the art is familiar to all. The Egyptian magicians, Simon Magus, and Elymas the sorcerer, all, it is said, exhibited such corporeal deceptions. Tertullian, in his tract ‘De Anima,’ inquires whether a departed soul, either at hisown will, or in obedience to the command of another, can return from the ‘Inferi‘? After discussing the subject, he sums up thus: ‘If certain souls have been recalled into their bodies by the power of God, as manifest proof of His prerogative, that is no argument that a similar power should be conferred on audacious magicians, fallacious dreamers, and licentious poets.’

Among certain Australian tribes the necromants are called Birraark. It is said that a Birraark was supposed to be initiated by the ‘mrarts’ (ghosts) when they met him wandering in the bush. It was from the ghosts that he obtained replies to questions concerning events passing at a distance, or yet to happen, which might be of interest or moment to his tribe. An account of a spiritual séance in the bush is given in ‘Kamilaroi and Kurnai’ (p. 254): ‘The fires were let down; the Birraark uttered the cry “Coo-ee” at intervals. At length a distant reply was heard, and shortly afterwards the sound as of persons jumping on the ground in succession. A voice was then heard in the gloom asking in a strange intonation, “What is wanted?” At thetermination of the séance, the spirit voice said, “We are going.” Finally, the Birraark was found in the top of an almost inaccessible tree, apparently asleep.’

In Japan, ghosts can be raised in various ways. One mode is to ‘put into an andon’ (a paper lantern in a frame) ‘a hundred rushlights, and repeat an incantation of a hundred lines. One of these rushlights is taken out at the end of each line, and the would-be ghost-seer then goes out in the dark with one light still burning, and blows it out, when the ghost ought to appear. Girls who have lost their lovers by death often try that sorcery.’[164]

Shakespeare has several allusions to the popular belief of certain persons being able to exorcise, or raise, spirits, and he represents Ligarius, in ‘Julius Cæsar’ (iv.2) as saying:

Soul of Rome!Brave son, derived from honourable loins!Thou, like an exorcist, has conjured upMy mortified spirit. Now bid me run,And I will strive with things impossible;Yea, get the better of them.

In days gone by, it would seem, numerous formalities were observed by the person whose object was to ‘constrain’ some spirit to appear before him. It was necessary to fix upon a spot proper for such a purpose, ‘which had to be either in a subterranean vault hung round with black, and lighted by a magical torch, or else in the centre of some thick wood or desert, or upon some extensive unfrequented plain, where several roads met, or amidst the ruins of ancient castles, abbeys, monasteries, &c., or amongst the rocks on the sea-shore, in some private detached churchyard, or any other solemn melancholy place, between the hours of twelve and one in the morning, either when the moon shone very bright, or else when the elements were disturbed with storms of thunder, lightning, wind, and rain, for in these places, times, and seasons it was contended that spirits could with less difficulty manifest themselves to mortal eyes, and continue visible with the least pain in this elemental external world.’[165]Great importance was attached to the magic circle in the invocation of spirits, the mode of procedure being thus: ‘A pieceof ground was usually chosen, nine feet square, at the full extent of which parallel lines were drawn, one within the other, having sundry crosses and triangles described between them, close to which was formed the first or outer circle; then, about half a foot within the same, a second circle was described, and within that another square correspondent to the first, the centre of which was the spot where the master and associate were to be placed. The vacancies formed by the various lines and angles of the figure were filled up by the holy names of God, having crosses and triangles described between them.... The reason assigned for the use of circles was, that so much ground being blessed and consecrated by such holy words and ceremonies as they made use of in forming it, had a secret force to expel all evil spirits from the bounds thereof, and being sprinkled with pure sanctified water, the ground was purified from all uncleanness; besides, the holy names of God being written over every part of it, its force became so powerful that no evil spirits had ability to break through it, or to get at the magician and his companion, by reason of the antipathy in nature they bore to these sacrednames. And the reason given for the triangles was, that if the spirit was not easily brought to speak the truth, they might by the exorcist be conjured to enter the same, where, by virtue of the names of the essence and divinity of God, they could speak nothing but what was true and right.’[166]We are further informed, that if the ghost of a deceased person was to be raised, the grave had to be resorted to at midnight, when a special form of conjuration was deemed necessary; and there was another for ‘any corpse that hath hanged, drowned, or otherwise made away with itself.’ And in this case, it is added, ‘the conjurations are performed over the body, which will at last arise, and, standing upright, answer with a faint and hollow voice the questions that are put to it.’

The mode of procedure as practised in Scotland was thus. The haunted room was made ready. He ‘who was to do the daring deed, about nightfall entered the room, bearing with him a table, a chair,a candle, a compass, a crucifix if one could be got, and a Bible. With the compass he cast a circle on the middle of the floor, large enough to hold the chair and the table. He placed within the circle the chair and the table, and on the table he laid the Bible and the crucifix beside the lighted candle. If he had not a crucifix, then he drew the figure of a cross on the floor within the circle. When all this was done, he seated himself on the chair, opened the Bible, and waited for the coming of the spirit. Exactly at midnight the spirit came. Sometimes the door opened slowly, and there glided in noiselessly a lady sheeted in white, with a face of woe, and told her story to the man on his asking her in the name of God what she wanted. What she wanted was done in the morning, and the spirit rested ever after. Sometimes the spirit rose from the floor, and sometimes came forth from the wall. One there was who burst into the room with a strong bound, danced wildly round the circle, and flourished a long whip round the man’s head, but never dared to step within the circle. During a pause in his frantic dance he was asked, in God’s name, what he wanted. He ceased his dance andtold his wishes. His wishes were carried out, and the spirit was in peace.’[167]

In Wraxall’s ‘Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna’[168]there is an amusing account of the raising of the ghost of the Chevalier de Saxe. Reports had been circulated that at his palace at Dresden there was secreted a large sum of money, and it was urged that if his spirit could be compelled to appear, that interesting secret might be extorted from him. Curiosity, combined with avarice, accordingly prompted his principal heir, Prince Charles, to try the experiment, and on the appointed night, Schrepfer was the operator in raising the apparition. He commenced his proceedings by retiring into a corner of the gallery, where, kneeling down with many mysterious ceremonies, he invoked the spirit to appear. At length a loud clatter was heard at all the windows on the outside, resembling more the effect produced by a number of wet fingers drawn over the edge of glasses than anything else to which it could well be compared. This sound announced the arrivalof the good spirits, and was shortly followed by a yell of a frightful and unusual nature, which indicated the presence of malignant spirits. Schrepfer continued his invocations, when ‘the door suddenly opened with violence, and something that resembled a black ball or globe rolled into the room. It was enveloped in smoke or cloud, in the midst of which appeared a human face, like the countenance of the Chevalier de Saxe, from which issued a loud and angry voice, exclaiming in German, “Carl, was wollte du mit mich?”—Charles, what would thou do with me?’ By reiterated exorcisms Schrepfer finally dismissed the apparition, and the terrified spectators dispersed, fully convinced of his magical powers.[169]Roscoe has given an interesting account[170]of Benvenuto Cellini’s experiences of raising spirits by incantation, but the Sicilian priest who acquainted him with the mysteries of his art of necromancy, as it has been remarked, had far greater knowledge of ‘chemistry and pharmacy than he required for his thurible or incense pot.’ His accomplices, of course, could see and reportsights of any wonderful kind. Those who penetrate into ‘magic circles may expect startling sights, overpowering smells, strange sounds, and even demoniacal dreams.’ Instances, it is stated, are recorded of many who perished by raising up spirits, particularly ‘Chiancungi,’ the famous Egyptian fortune-teller, who was so famous in England in the seventeenth century. He undertook for a wager to raise up the spirit ‘Bokim,’ and having described the circle, he seated his sister Napula by him as his associate. ‘After frequently repeating the form of exorcism, and calling upon the spirit to appear, and nothing as yet answering his demand, they grew impatient of the business, and quitted the circle; but it cost them their lives, for they were instantaneously seized and crushed to death by that infernal spirit, who happened not to be sufficiently constrained till that moment to manifest himself to human eyes.’

Among the many curious stories told of ghost-raising may be mentioned a somewhat whimsical one related by a correspondent of a Bradford paper, who tells how, in his youthful days, he assisted in an attempt to raise the ghost of the wicked old squireof Calverley Hall. ‘About a dozen scholars,’ to quote his words, ‘used to assemble close to the venerable church of Calverley, and then put their hats and caps on the ground, in a pyramidal form. Then taking hold of each other’s hands, they formed a “magic circle,” holding firmly together, and making use of an old refrain:

Old Calverley, old Calverley, I have thee by the ears,I’ll cut thee into collops, unless thee appears.

Whilst this incantation was going on, crumbs of bread mixed with pins were strewn on the ground, the lads meanwhile tramping round in the circle with a heavy tread. Some of the more venturesome boys had to go round to each of the church doors, and whistle aloud through the keyholes, repeating the magic couplet which their comrades in the circle were chanting. But, at this critical point, a pale and ghostly figure was expected to appear, and, on one occasion, some kind of apparition is said to have issued forth from the church, the lads in their terrified haste making their escape as quickly as they could.’

In the search after the philosopher’s stone, andelixir of life, the most revolting ingredients were turned to use, such as blood and dead men’s bones, but occasionally with unexpected results. On one occasion, for instance, three alchemists obtained some earth mould from St. Innocent’s Church, Paris, thinking that from it might be extracted the philosopher’s stone. But, after subjecting it to distillation, they perceived in their receivers forms of men produced which caused them to desist from their labours. The Paris Institute took up the matter, and the result of their inquiries appears in the ‘Miscellanea Curiosa.’ An abstract of one of these French documents was published by Dr. Ferrier in the ‘Manchester Philosophical Transactions,’ which we quote below:

‘A malefactor was executed, of whose body a grave physician got possession for the purpose of dissection. After disposing of the other parts of the body, he ordered his assistant to pulverise a part of the cranium, which was a remedy at that time administered in dispensaries. The powder was left in a paper on the table in the museum, where the assistant slept. About midnight he was awakened by a noise in the room, which obliged him to riseimmediately. The noise continued about the table without any visible agent, and at length he traced it to the powder, in the midst of which he now beheld, to his unspeakable dismay, a small head, with large eyes, staring at him. Presently two branches appeared, which formed into arms and hands. Next the ribs became visible, which were soon clothed with muscles and integuments. Next the lower extremities sprouted out, and, when they appeared perfect, the puppet (for his size was small) reared himself on his feet; instantly his clothes came upon him, and he appeared in the very cloak he wore at his execution. The affrighted spectator, who stood hitherto mumbling his prayers with great application, was simply awe-struck; but still greater was his bewilderment when the apparition planted himself in his way, and after divers fierce looks and threatening gestures, opened the door and went out. No doubt the powder was missing next day.’

A similar strange experience is recorded by Dr. Webster in his book on witchcraft, on the authority of Dr. Flud, the facts of which were thus:

‘A certain chemical operator, named La Pierre, received blood from the hands of a certain bishopto operate upon, which he, setting to work upon the Saturday, did continue it for a week, with divers degrees of fire. But about midnight the Friday following, this artificer, lying in a chamber next to his laboratory, betwixt sleeping and waking, heard a horrible noise like unto the lowing of kine or the roaring of a lion; and continuing quiet, after the ceasing of the sound in the laboratory, the moon being at the full, and by shining enlightening the chamber, suddenly, betwixt himself and the window he saw a thick little cloud condensed into an oval form, which after, by little and little, did seem completely to put on the shape of a man, and making another and sharp clamour did suddenly vanish. And not only some noble persons in the next chambers, but also the host and his wife, lying in a lower room of the house, and also the neighbours dwelling on the opposite side of the street, did distinctly hear the bellowing as well as the voice, and some of them were awakened with the vehemence thereof. But the artificer said that in this he found solace, because the bishop from whom he had it did admonish him that if any of them from whom the blood was extracted should die in the time of its putrefaction, his spiritwas wont often to appear to the sight of the artificer with perturbation. Also forthwith, upon the Saturday following, he took the retort from the furnace and broke it with the slight stroke of a little key, and there, in the remaining blood, found the perfect representation of a human head, agreeable in face, eyes, nostrils, mouth, and hairs, that were somewhat thin and of a golden colour.’ Webster adds: ‘There were many ocular witnesses, as the noble person Lord of Bourdalone, the chief secretary to the Duke of Guise, and he (Flud) had this relation from the Lord of Menanton, living in that house at the same time, from a certain doctor of physic, from the owner of the house, and many others.’

In recent years the so-called spiritualism has attracted much attention, and ‘as of old, men live now in habitual intercourse with the spirits of the dead.... The spirits of the living as well as of the dead, the souls of Strauss and Carl Vogt as well as of Augustine and Jerome, are summoned by mediums to distant spirit-circles.’[171]But for further information on this subject reports of the Psychical Research Society should be consulted.[172]

Inhis amusing account of the art of ‘laying’ ghosts, published in the last century, Grose tells us ‘a ghost may be laid for any term less than a hundred years, and in any place or body, full or empty; as a solid oak, the pommel of a sword, a barrel of beer, if a yeoman or simple gentleman; or a pipe of wine, if an esquire or a justice.’ But this, as Dr. Tylor writes,[173]‘is one of the many good instances of articles of serious savage belief surviving as jests among civilised men.’ However whimsical the idea of laying a ghost may seem to the prosaic mind, an inquiry into the history of human belief shows how widely this expedient has been resorted to in times past, although St. Chrysostom is saidto have insulted some African conjurors of old with this quaint and humiliating observation: ‘Miserable and woful creatures that we are, we cannot so much as expel fleas, much less devils.’

It was not so very long ago that, at the trial of Laurie for the murder of Mr. Rose,[174]Sergeant Munro, on being asked by the Dean of Faculty a question as to the disappearance of the murdered man’s boots, replied that he believed they had been buried on the beach at Corne, below high-water mark. This curious ceremony seems to have been adopted by the Highland police, with the intention of laying Mr. Rose’s ghost—an object which, according to tradition, might be attained by burying his boots under water. The expedient resorted to by the Highland police was founded not upon any inadequate estimate of the powers of ghosts, but upon an intimate knowledge of their likes and dislikes. They are known to entertain a strong objection to water, an antipathy which is sufficiently strong to make them shun a spot on which wateris to be found; in fact, as Mr. Hunt writes,[175]spirits are supposed to be unable to cross water.

A story is told of ‘Dary Pit,’ Shropshire, a dismal pool, which was a much dreaded spot, because it was said spirits were laid under the water, and might, it seems, in spite of being so laid, walk abroad.

This belief may be traced in various parts of the world, and ‘one of the most striking ways,’ writes Mr. James G. Frazer,[176]‘of keeping down the dead man is to divert the course of a river, bury him in its bed, and then allow the river to resume its course. It was thus that Alaric was buried, and Commander Cameron found the same mode of burial in vogue amongst a tribe in Central Africa.’

Among the Tipperahs of Chittagong, if a man dies away from home, his friends stretch a thread over all the intermediate streams, so that the spirit of the dead man may return to his own village; ‘it being supposed that,[177]without assistance, spirits are unable to cross running water,’ and hence streams are occasionally bridged over in the manner afore-said.[178]A somewhat similar idea prevails among the Fijians, and we are told how those who have reason to suspect others of plotting against them occasionally ‘build themselves a small house, and surround it with a moat, believing that a little water will neutralise the charms which are directed’ to hurt them.[179]

The idea of water as a barrier against ghosts has given rise to many strange customs, some of which Mr. Frazer quotes in his paper on ‘The Primitive Ghost.’[180]Among the Metamba negroes, a woman is bound hand and foot by the priest, who flings her into the water several times over with the intention of drowning her husband’s ghost, who may be supposed to be clinging to his unfeeling spouse. A similar practice exists in Angola, and in New Zealand those who have attended a funeral plunge several times into the nearest stream. In Tahiti, all who assisted at a burial plunged into the sea; and in some parts of West Africa, after the corpse has been deposited in the grave, ‘all thebearers rush to the waterside and undergo a thorough ablution before they are permitted to return to the town.’

According to Mr. Ralston, the Lusatian Wends place water between themselves and the dead as they return from a burial, even, if necessary, breaking ice for the purpose. And ‘in many parts of Germany, in modern Greece, and in Cyprus, water is poured out behind the corpse when it is carried from the house, in the belief that if the ghost returns he will not be able to cross it.’[181]A Danish tradition says, ‘If a person dies who, it is feared, will reappear, as a preventive let a basinful of water be thrown after the corpse when it is carried out’[182]and there will be no further cause of alarm. In Bohemia, after a death, the water-butt is turned upside down, for if the ghost bathe in it, and anyone should happen to drink of it afterwards, he would be a dead man within the year. In Pomerania, after a funeral, no washing is done for some time, lest the dead man should be wet in his grave.

Drake, in his legends of New England, alludesto a story of a wreck at Ipswich, and says that, when the storms come, the howling of the wind is ‘Harry Main’—a legend which has thus been versified by A. Morgan:

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