British Goblins Part 10

[63] Marquis of Bute, address before the Royal Archaeological Inst.i.tute, Cardiff meeting.

BOOK II.

THE SPIRIT-WORLD.

Where the wan spectres walk eternal rounds.

POPE.

_Miranda._ What is't? a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form:--But 'tis a spirit.

SHAKSPEARE: _Tempest_.

CHAPTER I.

Modern Superst.i.tion regarding Ghosts--American 'Spiritualism'--Welsh Beliefs--Cla.s.sification of Welsh Ghosts--Departed Mortals--Haunted Houses--Lady Stradling's Ghost--The Haunted Bridge--The Legend of Catrin Gwyn--Didactic Purpose in Cambrian Apparitions--An Insulted Corpse--Duty-performing Ghosts--Laws of the Spirit-World--Cadogan's Ghost.

I.

In an age so given to mysticism as our own, it is unnecessary to urge that the Welsh as a people are not more superst.i.tious regarding spirits than other peoples. Belief in the visits to earth of disembodied spirits is common to all lands. There are no doubt differences in the degree of this belief, as there are differences in matters of detail. Where or how these spirits exist are questions much more difficult to the average faith than why they exist. They exist for the moral good of man; of this there prevails no doubt. The rest belongs to the still unsettled science of the Unknowable. That form of mysticism called 'spiritualism' by its disciples is dignified to the thoughtful observer by being viewed as a remnant of the primeval philosophy. When we encounter, in wandering among the picturesque ghosts of the Welsh spirit-world, last-century stories displaying details exactly similar to those of modern spiritualism, our interest is strongly aroused. The student of folk-lore finds his materials in stories and beliefs which appear to be of a widespread family, rather than in stories and beliefs which are unique; and the spirit of inquiry is constantly on the alert, in following the details of a good old ghost story, however fascinating it may be in a poetic sense. The phantoms of the Welsh spirit-world are always picturesque; they are often ghastly; sometimes they are amusing to the point of risibility; but besides, they are instructive to him whose purpose in studying is, to know.

That this age is superst.i.tious with regard to ghosts, is not wonderful; all ages have been so; the wonder is that this age should be so and yet be the possessor of a scientific record so extraordinary as its own. An age which has brought forth the magnetic telegraph, steams.h.i.+ps and railway engines, sewing-machines, mowing-machines, gas-light, and innumerable discoveries and inventions of marvellous utility--not to allude to those of our own decade--should have no other use for ghostology than a scientific one. But it would be a work as idle as that of the Coblynau themselves, to point out how universal among the most civilised nations is the superst.i.tion that spirits walk. The 'controls' of the modern spiritualistic seance have the world for their audience. The United States, a land generally deemed--at least by its inhabitants--to be the most advanced in these directions of any on G.o.d's footstool, gave birth to modern spiritualism. Its disciples there compose a vast body of people, respectable and worthy people in the main (as the victims of superst.i.tion usually are), among whom are many men of high intellectual ability. With the ma.s.ses, some degree of belief in the spirits is so nearly universal that I need hardly qualify the adjective. In a country where there is practically no such cla.s.s as that represented in Europe by the peasantry, the rampancy of such a belief is a phenomenon deserving close and curious study. The present work affords no scope for this study, of course. But I may here mention in further ill.u.s.tration of my immediate theme, the constant appearance, in American communities, of ghosts of the old-fas.h.i.+oned sort. Especially in the New England states, which are notable for their enlightenment, are ghost-stories still frequent--such as that of the haunted school-house at Newburyport, Ma.s.s., where a disembodied spirit related its own murder; of the ghost of New Bedford, which struck a visitor in the face, so that he yet bears the marks of the blow; of the haunted house at Cambridge, in the cla.s.sic shadow of Harvard College. It is actually on record in the last-named case, that the house fell to decay on account of its ghastly reputation, as no one would live in it; that a tenant who ventured to occupy it in 1877 was disturbed by the spirit of a murdered girl who said her mortal bones were buried in his cellar; and that a party of men actually dug all night in that cellar in search of those bones, while the ghost waltzed in a chamber overhead. The more common form of spirit peculiar to our time appears constantly in various parts of the country; it is continually turning up in the American newspapers, rapping on walls, throwing stones, tipping over tables, etc. 'Mediums' of every grade of shrewdness and stupidity, and widely differing degrees of education and ignorance, flourish abundantly. Occasionally, where revelations of murder have been made to a mortal by a spirit, the police have taken the matter in hand. It is to be observed as a commendable practice in such cases, that the mortal is promptly arrested by the police if there has really been a murder; and when the fact appears, as it sometimes does, that the mortal had need of no ghost to tell him what he knows, he is hanged.

II.

The Welsh dearly love to discuss questions of a spiritual and religious nature, and there are no doubt many who look upon disbelief herein as something approaching paganism. That one should believe in G.o.d and a future life, and yet be utterly incredulous as to the existence of a mundane spirit-world, seems to such minds impossible.

It is not many years since the clergy taught a creed of this sort. One must not only believe in a spiritual existence, but must believe in that existence here below--must believe that ghosts walked, and meddled, and made disagreeable noises. Our friend the Prophet Jones taught this creed with energy. In his relation of apparitions in Monmouths.h.i.+re, he says: 'Enough is said in these relations to satisfy any reasonable sober-minded person, and to confute this ancient heresy, now much revived and spreading, especially among the gentry, and persons much estranged from G.o.d and spiritual things; and such as will not be satisfied with things plainly proved and well designed; are, in this respect, no better than fools, and to be despised as such.... They are chiefly women and men of weak and womanish understandings, who speak against the accounts of spirits and apparitions. In some women this comes from a certain proud fineness, excessive delicacy, and a superfine disposition which cannot bear to be disturbed with what is strange and disagreeable to a vain spirit.'

Nor does the Prophet hesitate to apply the term 'Sadducees' to all doubters of his goblins. His warrant for this is found in Wesley and Luther. That Luther saw apparitions, or believed he did, is commonly known. Wesley's beliefs in this direction, however, are of a nearer century, and strike us more strangely; though it must be said that the Prophet Jones, in our own century, believed more than either of his eminent prototypes. 'It is true,' wrote Wesley, 'that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do _not_ believe it.... They well know, whether Christians know it or not, that the giving up witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible. And they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air--deism, atheism, materialism--falls to the ground.'

III.

The ghosts of Wales present many well-defined features. It is even possible to cla.s.sify them, after a fas.h.i.+on. Of course, as with all descriptions of phantoms, the vagueness inevitable in creatures of the imagination is here; but the ghosts of Welsh tradition are often so old, and have been handed down so cleanly through successive generations, that in our day they have almost acquired definite outlines, as in the case of images arising from the perceptions.

Always bearing in mind the risk of being lost in the labyrinthine eccentricities of popular fancy, compared to which the Arsinoe of Herodotus was unperplexing, I venture to cla.s.sify the inhabitants of the Welsh spirit-world thus: 1. Departed Mortals; 2. Goblin Animals; 3. Spectres of Natural Objects; 4. Grotesque Ghosts; 5. Familiar Spirits; 6. Death Omens.

IV.

The ghosts of departed mortals are usually the late personal acquaintances of the people who see them. But sometimes they are strangers whom n.o.body knows, and concerning whom everybody is curious.

Two such ghosts haunted the streets of Ebbw Vale, in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, in January, 1877. One was in the shape of an old woman, the other in that of a girl child. Timid people kept indoors after nightfall, and there were many who believed thoroughly in the ghostly character of the mysterious visitors. Efforts were made to catch them, but they eluded capture. It was hinted by materialists that they were thieves; by unbelievers in spiritualism that they had perhaps escaped from a seance in some adjoining town. These ghosts, however, are not very interesting. A cultivated moderner can have no satisfaction in forming the acquaintance of a seance ghost; it is quite otherwise in the case of a respectable old family goblin which has haunted a friend's house in the most orthodox manner for centuries. Such ghosts are numerous in Wales, and quite faithfully believed in by selected individuals.

Indeed one of the highest claims to a dignified antiquity that can be put in by a Welsh family mansion, is the possession of a good old-fas.h.i.+oned blood-curdling spectre--like that, for example, which has haunted Duffryn House, a handsome stone manse near Cardiff, for the past two hundred years and more. This is the ghost of the doughty admiral Sir Thomas b.u.t.ton, famed in his day as an Arctic navigator.

Since his death he has faithfully haunted (so the local farm folk say) the cellar and the garden of Duffryn House, where he lived, when he did live, which was in the 17th century. He has never been known to appear in hall or chamber of the mansion, within the memory of man, but has been seen hovering over the beer b.u.t.t or tun in the cellar, commemorated in his name, and walking in the flower-garden of a fine windy night.

It is noteworthy that in Wales it is by no means necessary that a house should be tenantless, mortally speaking, merely because a ghost haunts it. The dreary picture of desolation drawn by Hood, the all-sufficient explanation of which was--

... the place is haunted!

would not recall the smug tidiness of Duffryn House, whose clean-cut lawns and well-trimmed hedges are fit surroundings of a mansion where luxurious comfort reigns. A ghost which confines itself to the cellar and the garden need disturb neither the merrymaking nor the slumbers of the guests.

St. Donat's Castle is down on the southern coast of Glamorgans.h.i.+re, in a primitive region not yet profaned by railroads, nor likely to be perhaps for many years to come. It is owned and inhabited by a worthy gentleman whose ancestors for seven centuries sleep in the graveyard under the old castle wall. Its favourite ghost--for to confine this or any other ancient Welsh castle to a single ghost would be almost disrespectful--is that of Lady Stradling, who was done away with by some of her family in those wicked old times when families did not always dwell in peace together. This ghost makes a practice of appearing when any mishap is about to befall a member of the house of Stradling--the direct line of which is, however, extinct, a fact not very well apprehended among the neighbouring peasantry. She wears high-heeled shoes and a long trailing gown of the finest silk. In this guise doth she wander up and down the long majestic halls and chambers, and, while she wanders, the castle hounds refuse to rest, but with their howlings raise all the dogs of the village under the hill.

V.

Ghosts of this sort are vague and purposeless in character, beyond a general blood-curdling office which in all ghosts doth dwell. They haunt not only castles and family mansions, but bridges, rocks, and roads, objectless but frightful. The ghost of Pont Cwnca Bach, near Yscanhir, in Carmarthens.h.i.+re, frightens people off the bridge into the rivulet. Many belated peasants have had this dire experience at the little bridge, afterwards wandering away in a dazed condition, and finding themselves on recovering at some distance from home, often in the middle of a bog. In crossing this bridge people were seized with 'a kind of _cold dread_,' and felt 'a peculiar sensation' which they could not describe, but which the poorest fancy can no doubt imagine.

Another purposeless spectre exists in the legend of Catrin Gwyn, told in Cardigans.h.i.+re. The ruin of a shepherd's cottage, standing on a mountain waste near the river Rheidol, is the haunt of this spectre.

A peasant who was asked to escort a stranger up the narrow defile of rocks by the ruin, in horror exclaimed, 'Yn enw y daioni, peidiwch,'

(in the name of heaven, sir, don't go!) 'or you'll meet White Catti of the Grove Cave.' 'And what's that?' 'An evil spirit, sir.' And the superst.i.tious peasant would neither be laughed nor reasoned out of his fears. Catrin was the bride of a young shepherd living near Machynlleth in 1705. One day she went to market with a party of other peasants, who separated from her on the return way at a point two miles from Gelli Gogo. She was never more seen alive. A violent storm arose in the night, and next day a sc.r.a.p of her red cloak was found on the edge of a frightful bog, in which she is believed to have disappeared in the darkness and storm. The husband went mad; their cottage fell to decay; and to this day the shepherds declare that Catti's ghost haunts the spot. It is most often seen, and in its most terrific shape, during howling storms, when it rides on the gale, shrieking as it goes.[64]

FOOTNOTE:

[64] 'Camb. Quarterly,' i., 452.

VI.

Few Cambrian spirits are devoid of a didactic purpose. Some teach reverence for the dead,--a lesson in great request among the rising generation in Wales and elsewhere. The church at Tregaron, Cardigans.h.i.+re, was being rebuilt in 1877, and certain skulls were turned up by the diggers in making new foundations. The boys of Tregaron amused themselves playing ball with the skulls, picking out their teeth, banging them against the wall to see if they would break, and the like.[65] They probably never heard the story told by Mrs.

Morgan of Newport to the Prophet Jones: of some people who were drinking at an inn there, 'two of them officers of excise,' when one of the men, to show his courage, declared he was afraid of no ghosts, and dared go to the charnel house and fetch a skull from that ghastly place. This bold and dangerous thing he did, and the men debated, over their beer, whether it was a male or a female skull, and concluded it was a woman's, 'though the grave nearly destroys the difference between male and female before the bones are turned to dust, and the difference then quite destroyed and known only to G.o.d.' After a jolly hour over the skull, the bold one carried it back and left it where he got it; but as he was leaving the church, suddenly a tremendous blast like a whirlwind seized him, and so mauled and hauled him that his teeth chattered in his head and his knees knocked together, and he ever after swore that nothing should tempt him to such a deed again.

He was still more convinced that the ghost of the original owner of the skull had been after him, when he got home, and his wife told him that his cane, which hung in the room, had been beating against the wall in a dreadful manner.

FOOTNOTE:

[65] 'Western Mail,' Dec. 14, 1877.

VII.

As a rule, the motive for the reappearance on earth of a spirit lately tenanting a mortal body, is found in some neglected duty. The spirit of a suicide is morally certain to walk: a reason why suicides are so unpopular as tenants of graveyards. It is a brave man who will go to the grave of a suicide and play 'Hob y deri dando' on the ysturmant (jew's-harp), without missing a note. Many are the tales displaying the motive, on the ghost's part, of a duty to perform--sometimes clearly defining it, sometimes vaguely suggesting it, as in the story of Noe. 'The evening was far gone when a traveller of the name of Noe arrived at an inn in Pembrokes.h.i.+re, and called for refreshment. After remaining some time he remarked that he must proceed on his journey.

"Surely," said the astonished landlord, "you will not travel at night, for it is said that a ghost haunts that road, crying out, The days are long and the nights are cold to wait for Noe." "O, I am the man sought for," said he, and immediately departed; but strange to say, neither Noe nor the ghost was ever heard of afterwards.'[66]

The ghost of a weaver, which appeared to Walter John Harry, had a very clear idea of the duty he must perform: Walter John Harry was a Quaker, a harmless, honest man, and by trade a farrier, who lived in the romantic valley of Ebwy Fawr. The house he lived in was haunted by the ghost of Morgan Lewis, a weaver, who had died in that house. One night, while lying awake in his bed, with his wife sleeping by his side, Harry saw a light slowly ascending the stairs, and being somewhat afraid, though he was naturally a fearless man, strove to awake his wife by pinching her, but could not awake her. So there he lay in great fear, and with starting eyes beheld the ghost of the weaver come up the stairs, bearing a candle in its hand, and wearing a white woollen cap on its head, with other garments usual to the weaver when alive. The ghost came near the farrier's bed, who then mustered up courage to speak to it. 'Morgan Lewis,' said Harry, 'why dost thou walk this earth?' The ghost replied with great solemnity, that its reason for so doing was that there were some 'bottoms of wool' hidden in the wall of this house, and until these said bottoms were removed from the wall it could not sleep. The ghost did not say this wool had been stolen, but such was the inference. However, the harmless farrier spoke severely to the ghost, saying, 'I charge thee, Morgan Lewis, in the name of G.o.d, that thou trouble my house no more.' Whereupon the ghost vanished, and the house ceased thereafter to be haunted.

The motives animating ghosts are much the same the world over, and these details have no greater novelty than that of the local colouring. European peoples are familiar with the duty-compelled ghost; but it is odd to encounter the same spectre in China. The most common form of Chinese ghost-story is that wherein the ghost seeks to bring to justice the murderer who shuffled off its mortal coil. The ghosts of suicides are also especially obnoxious there. The spectres which are animated by a sense of duty are more frequently met than any others: now they seek to serve virtue in distress, now they aim to restore wrongfully-held treasure.[67]

FOOTNOTES:

[66] 'Camb. Sup.,' 31.

[67] Dennys, 'Folk-Lore of China,' 73.

VIII.