British Goblins Part 11

The laws governing the Welsh spirit-world are clear and explicit. A ghost on duty bent has no power of speech until first spoken to. Its persistency in haunting is due to its eager desire to speak, and tell its urgent errand, but the person haunted must take his courage in both hands and put the question to the issue. Having done so, he is booked for the end of the business, be it what it may. The mode of speech adopted must not vary, in addressing a spirit; in the name of the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost it must be addressed, and not otherwise. Its business must be demanded; three times the question must be repeated, unless the ghost answer earlier. When it answers, it speaks in a low and hollow voice, stating its desire; and it must not be interrupted while speaking, for to interrupt it is dangerous in the extreme. At the close of its remarks, questions are in order. They must be promptly delivered, however, or the ghost will vanish. They must bear on the business in hand: it is offended if asked as to its state, or other idle questions born of curiosity. Neglect to obey the ghost's injunctions will lead to much annoyance, and eventually to dire results. At first the spirit will appear with a discontented visage, next with an angry one, and finally with a countenance distorted with the most ferocious rage. Obedience is the only method of escape from its revenge. Such is a _resume_ of the laws. The ill.u.s.trations thereof are generally consistent in their details.

The story of Cadogan's ghost is one of many in kind. Thomas Cadogan was the owner of a large estate in the parish of Llanvihangel Llantarnam, and being a covetous man did wickedly remove his landmarks in such a way as to absorb to himself part of the land of a widow his neighbour. After his death this injustice troubled him, and as a certain woman was going home one night, at a stile she pa.s.sed over she met Cadogan's ghost. By a strange forgetfulness, this woman for the moment lost sight of the fact that Cadogan was now a ghost; she had momentarily forgotten that Cadogan was dead. 'Mr. Cadogan,' said she, with ungrammatical curiosity, 'what does you here this time o' night?'

To which the ghost answered, 'I was obliged to come.' It then explained the matter of the landmarks, and begged the woman to request a certain person (whom it mentioned) to remove them back to their proper places; and then the ghost vanished. At this unexpected termination of the interview, the woman suddenly recollected Cadogan's death, and fell into a state of extreme terror. She however did as the ghost had bidden her, and Cadogan walked no more.

CHAPTER II.

Household Ghosts and Hidden Treasures--The Miser of St.

Donat's--Anne Dewy's Ghost--The Ghost on Horseback--Hidden Objects of Small Value--Transportation through the Air--From Brecons.h.i.+re to Philadelphia, Pa., in Thirty-Six Hours--Sir David Llwyd, the Magician--The Levitation of Walter Jones--Superst.i.tions regarding Hares--The Legend of Monacella's Lambs--Aerial Transportation in Modern Spiritualism--Exorcising Household Ghosts--The Story of Haunted Margaret.

I.

The majority of stories of this cla.s.s turn on the subject of hidden treasures. The popular belief is that if a person die while any h.o.a.rded money--or indeed metal of any kind, were it nothing more than old iron--is still hidden secretly, the spirit of that person cannot rest. Its perturbation can only be relieved by finding a human hand to take the hidden metal, and throw it down the stream of a river. To throw it up the stream, will not do. The Ogmore is the favourite river for this purpose in lower Glamorgans.h.i.+re. The spirit selects a particular person as the subject of its attentions, and haunts that person till asked what it wants, when it prefers its request. Some say it is only ill-gotten treasure which creates this disturbance of the grave's repose. A tailor's wife at Llantwit Major, who had been a stout and jolly dame, was thus haunted until she was worn to the semblance of a skeleton, 'for not choosing to take a h.o.a.rd honestly to the Ogmore.' But flesh and blood could not resist for ever, and so--this is her story: 'I at last consented, for the sake of quiet, to take the treasure to the river; and the spirit wafted me through the air so high that I saw below me the church loft, and all the houses, as if I leaned out of a balloon. When I took the treasure to throw it into the river, in my flurry I flung it up stream instead of down: and on this the spirit, with a savage look, tossed me into a whirlwind, and however I got back to my home I know not.' The bell-ringers found her lying insensible in the church lane, as they were going home from church late in the evening.

II.

There was an old curmudgeon of a money-h.o.a.rder who lived in a cottage on the side of the cwm, or dingle, at St. Donat's, not far from the Castle. His housekeeper was an antique dame of quaint aspect. He died, and the dame lived there alone; but she began to grow so gaunt and grizzly that people wondered at it, and the children ran frightened from her. Some one finally got from her the confession that she was haunted by the miser's ghost. To relieve her of its presence the Methodists resolved to hold a prayer-meeting in the haunted house.

While they were there singing and praying the old woman suddenly jumped up and screamed, 'There he is! there he is!' The people grew silent. Then some one said, 'Ask it what it wants.' 'What do you want?' quavered the old woman. No one heard the reply, except the dame, who presently said: 'Where is it?' Then the old woman, nodding and staring as if obeying an invisible mandate, groped her way to the chimney, thrust her gaunt arm up, and drew down a bag of money. With this she cried out, 'Let me go! let me go!' which, no one preventing her, she did, as quickly as a flash of light. Some young men by the door followed her, and, it being a bright moonlight night, beheld her whisk over the stile without touching it, and so off up the road towards the Ogmore. The people now resumed their praying and singing.

It was an hour before the old woman got back, and then she was found to be spattered with mud and bedraggled with wet, as if she had been having a terrific time. She had indeed, as she confessed, been to the Ogmore, and thrown the bag of money down the stream; the ghost had then taken off its hat, made a low bow, and vanished, to trouble her no more.

III.

A young man from Llywel parish, who was courting a la.s.s who lodged at the house of Thomas Richard, in the vale of Towy, found himself haunted as he went to and fro by the ghost of Anne Dewy, a woman who had hanged herself. She would not only meet him in the road, and frighten him, but she would come to his bedside, and so scare him that he fell ill. While he was ill his cousin came to see him, and thinking his illness was due to his being crossed in love, rallied him, saying, 'Wfft! thou'rt sick because thy cariad has refused thee.' But being gravely answered, and told of Anne Dewy's ghost, this cousin advised the haunted man to speak to her. 'Speak to her,' said he, 'or thou wilt have no quiet. I will go with thee, and see thou shalt have no harm.' So they went out, and called at Tafarn y Garreg, an inn not far off; but the haunted man could not drink, and often looked towards the door. 'What ails the man?' asked the tap-room loungers. He continued to be uneasy, and finally went out, his cousin following him, and then he saw the ghost again. 'Oh G.o.d, here she is!' he cried out, his teeth chattering and his eyes rolling. 'This is a sad thing,' said his cousin: 'I know not what to think of thee; but come, I will go with thee, go where thou wilt.' They returned to the ale-house, and after a while the haunted man started up, saying he was called, but when others offered to go with him he said no, he must go alone. He did go alone, and spoke to the ghost, who said, 'Fear nothing; follow me.'

She led him to a spot behind the house where she had lived when in the flesh, and where she had hanged herself, and bade him take from the wall a small bag. He did so. The bag contained 'a great sum of money,'

in pieces of gold; he guessed it might be 200_l._ or more. But the ghost, greatly to his regret, bade him go and cast it into the river.

He obeyed, against his better judgment. The next day, and for many a day thereafter, people looked for that money where he had thrown it in the river, but it never could be found. The Rev. Thomas Lewis, a dissenting minister in those parts, saw the place in the wall where the money had been hid, in the haunted house, and wondered how the young man could reach it, it being so very high; but thought it likely he was a.s.sisted by the ghost.

IV.

This same Rev. Thomas Lewis was well acquainted with a man who was similarly employed by a perturbed spirit, and was at the man's bedside when he died. This ghost was in appearance a clergyman, dressed in black clothes, with a white wig on. As the man was looking out of an ale-house window one night, he saw this ghost on horseback, and went out to him. The ghost bowed and silently offered him drink; but this was declined. Thereupon the ghost lifted his hat, crooked his elbow, and said in a hollow tone, 'Attoch chwi, syr,' (towards you, sir).

But others who were there could see nothing and hear nothing. The ghost then said, 'Go to Clifford Castle, in Radnors.h.i.+re, take out some money which lies hidden there, and throw it into the river. Do this, I charge thee, or thou shalt have no rest.' Further and more explicit directions were then given, and the unhappy man set out, against his will, for Clifford Castle, which is the castle in which was born Fair Rosamond, King Henry II.'s beautiful favourite. No one but himself was allowed to enter the castle, although he was permitted to have a friend's company to the ruined gate thereof. It was dark when they came to the castle, but he was guided to the place where the money was, and ran with it and flung it into the river. After that he was haunted no more.

An old house at Ty'n-y-Twr, in Carnarvons.h.i.+re, was haunted by a ghost whose troubles were a reversal of the rule. A new tenant, who took possession of the house a few years ago, was so bothered by this spectre that he resolved to question it. He did so and got for answer the information that if he would deposit a particular sum of money in a specified place, his ghosts.h.i.+p would cease to walk. The man actually did this, and it acted like magic. The money disappeared with prompt.i.tude, and the ghost came there no more.

A man at Crumlyn, Monmouths.h.i.+re, was haunted by a ghost whose trouble related to a hidden object of small value. Nevertheless the spectre was so importunate that the man set out one night to accompany it to the scene of perturbation. In due time they came to a huge stone, which the ghost bade its friend lift up, who replied that he had not sufficient strength, it being a pretty large rock he was thus requested to move. 'But try,' said the ghost. So he tried, and lo! it was lifted as if it had been a feather. He drew forth a pike, or mattock; 'and the light,' the man afterwards related, 'was as great as if the sun shone; and in the snow there was no impression of the feet of either of us.' They went to the river, and by the ghost's command the man threw the pike over his head into the water, standing with his back to the flood. The ghost then conducted him home, and never troubled him more. But for a long time after he was out of his senses.

This was an ill.u.s.tration, according to the popular belief, of the wickedness of hiding anything, however trifling its value--a practice strongly condemned by the Welsh peasantry.

There is a Glamorgans.h.i.+re story about a certain young man who, returning late at night from courting his sweetheart, felt tired, and sitting down fell asleep. He had not slept long when he was aroused by a strange noise, and looking up recognised the ghost of his departed grandfather. Enquiring the cause of the old gentleman's visit to this scene of trials, he got this answer: 'Under the corner of the thatch of your roof, look and you will find a pair of silver spurs, surrept.i.tiously obtained by me when in the flesh, and hidden there.

Throw them into the river Taff, and I shall be at peace.' The young man obeyed these instructions, and found the spurs accordingly; and although many persons were present when he climbed to the roof and fumbled under the thatch, and saw him in the very act, not one among them could see the spurs, which were to them invisible. They said, however, that when the purloined spurs had been thrown into the river, a bright flame was seen to flash along the water.

V.

A large proportion of these stories of ghostly perturbation concerning hidden treasure include a further feature of great interest, relating to transportation through the air. I have mentioned that ghosts sometimes employ the services of the fairy b.o.o.bach in thus carrying mortals from place to place. The fairies of Wales are indeed frequently found to be on the best of terms with the ghosts. Their races have much in common, and so many of their practices are alike that one is not always absolutely sure whether he is dealing with a fairy or a spectre, until some test-point crops up. However, in transporting a mortal through the air, ghost and fairy work together.

The b.o.o.bach being set his task, complaisantly gives the mortal the choice of being transported above wind, amid wind, or below wind. The value of knowing beforehand what to expect, was never better ill.u.s.trated than in this place. The mortal who, with a natural reluctance to get into an unpleasantly swift current, avoids travelling mid-wind, misses a pleasant journey, for mid-wind is the only agreeable mode of being borne by a b.o.o.bach. Should you choose to go above wind, you are transported so high that you skim the clouds and are in danger of being frightened to death. But choosing the below-wind course is even worse, for then you are dragged through bush, through briar, in a way to impress upon you the advice of Apollo to Phaeton, and teach you the value of the golden mean. _In medio tutissimus ibis._

VI.

In the parish of Ystradgynlais, in Brecons.h.i.+re, Thomas Llewellyn, an innkeeper's son, was often troubled by the spirit of a well-dressed woman, who used to stand before him in narrow lanes, as if to bar his pa.s.sage, but he always got by her, though in great alarm. One night he mustered up courage to speak to her, and ask her what she wanted with him. To which she replied, 'Be not afraid; I will not hurt thee.' Then she told him he must go to 'Philadelphia in Pennsylvania,' and take a box from a house there, (which she described,) in which there was a sum of 200_l._ But as he did not know how to go to that far-off place, he said as much. 'Meet me here next Friday night,' said the phantom; 'meet me, I charge thee.' She then vanished. The young man went home and told this story to his neighbours and friends. They held a consultation with the curate of the parish, who promptly appointed a prayer-meeting for that Friday night, to which the young man was bidden, and by which it was hoped the purpose of the ghost to spirit him off to Philadelphia might be circ.u.mvented. The meeting continued until midnight, and when it broke up the young man's friends stayed with him; but they had no sooner got beyond the parson's stables than he was taken from among them. His subsequent adventures are thus related by himself: 'The apparition carried me away to a river, and threw me into it, chiding me for telling the people of our appointed meeting and for not coming to meet her as she had charged me; but bade me be not afraid, that she would not hurt me, because she had not charged me to be silent on the subject; nevertheless I had done wrong to go to the parson's house. Now, said she, we begin the journey. I was then lifted up and carried away I know not how. When I came to the place,' (in Philadelphia,) 'I was taken into a house, and conducted to a fine room. The spirit then bade me lift up a board, which I did. I then saw the box, and took it. Then the spirit said I must go three miles and cast it into the black sea. We went, as I thought, to a lake of clear water, where I was commanded to throw the box into it; which when I did there was such a noise as if all about was going to pieces.

From thence I was taken up and carried to the place where I was first taken up. I then asked her, Am I free now? She said I was; and then she told me a secret, which she strictly charged me to tell no person.' Extensive and ingenious guessing was indulged in by all Ystradgynlais, as to what this secret might be; and one woman made herself popular by remembering that there was a certain Elizabeth Gething in other days who had gone from this neighbourhood to Pennsylvania, and the conclusion was eagerly arrived at, that this was the woman whose phantom the young man saw, and that the secret she told him was her name when alive. They questioned him as to her appearance, and he said she was largely made, very pale, her looks severe, and her voice hollow, different from a human voice. This was considered by the Ystradgynlaisians, with many nods to each other, as a most accurate description of what Elizabeth Gething would probably be, after having shuffled off this mortal coil. The time occupied in this mysterious transportation and ghostly enterprise was three days and three nights; that is, from Friday night to Monday night; and when the voyager came home he could scarcely speak.

VII.

Sir David Llwyd, the Welsh magician, was once at Lanidloes town, in Montgomerys.h.i.+re, and as he was going home late at night, saw a boy there from his neighbourhood. He asked the lad if he would like to ride home behind him, and receiving an affirmative reply, took the boy up behind on the horse's back. They rode so swiftly that they were home in no time, and the boy lost one of his garters in the journey.

The next day, seeing something hanging in the ash-tree near the church, he climbed up to learn what it was, and to his great surprise found it was the garter he had lost. 'Which shows they rode home in the air,' observes the Prophet Jones in telling the story. Mr. Jones has a number of extraordinary narratives of this cla.s.s--e.g., the following, which I condense:

Henry Edmund, of Hafodafel, was one night visiting Charles Hugh, the conjuror of Aberystruth, and they walked together as far as Lanhiddel, where Hugh tried to persuade his companion to stay all night with him at a public house. Edmund refused, and said he would go home. 'You had _better_ stay,' said Hugh in a meaning tone. But Edmund went out into the street, when he was seized by invisible hands and borne through the air to Landovery, in Carmarthens.h.i.+re, a distance of fully fifty miles as the crow flies. There he was set down at a public house where he had before been, and talked with people who knew him. He then went out into the street, when he was seized again and borne back to Lanhiddel, arriving there the next morning at daybreak. The first man he met was the conjuror Charles Hugh, who said, 'Did I not tell you you had better stay with me?'

VIII.

The landlord of the inn at Langattock Crickhowel, in Brecons.h.i.+re, was a man called Richard the Tailor. He was more than suspected of resorting to the company of fairies, and of practising infernal arts.

One day a company of gentlemen were hunting in that vicinity, when the hounds started a hare, which ran so long and so hard that everybody was prostrated with fatigue; and this hare disappeared from view at the cellar window of the inn kept by Richard the Tailor. The circ.u.mstance begat a suspicion among the hunters that the hare which had so bothered them was none other than Richard the Tailor himself, and that his purpose in taking that form had been to lead them a dance and bring them to the door of his inn at an hour too late for them to return home, thus compelling them to spend their money there. They stayed, however, being very tired. But they growled very hard at their landlord and were perfectly free with their comments on his base conduct. One of their party, having occasion to go out-doors during the evening, did not come back; his name was Walter Jones, and he was well known in that part of the country. The company became uneasy at his absence, and began to abuse the landlord roundly, threatening to burn the house if Walter Jones did not return. Notwithstanding their threats, Walter Jones came not back all night. Late the next morning he made his appearance, looking like one who had been drawn through thorns and briars, with his hair in disorder, and his whole aspect terribly demoralised. His story was soon told. He had no sooner got out-doors than invisible hands had whisked him up, and whirled him along rough ways until daybreak, when he found himself near by the town of Newport, helping a man from Risca to raise a load of coal upon his horse. Suddenly he became insensible, and was whisked back again to the inn where they now saw him. The distance he traversed in going to and fro was about forty miles. And Walter Jones, who had hitherto been an unG.o.dly man, mended his ways from that time forth.

IX.

There are many points in all these traditional stories which are suggestive of interesting comparisons, and constantly remind us of the significance of details which, at first sight, seem trivial. The supposed adoption of the hare form by the tailor recalls a host of mythological details. The hare has been identified with the sun-G.o.d Michabo of the American Indians, who sleeps through the winter months, and symbolises the sleep of nature precisely as in the fairy myth of the Sleeping Maiden, and the Welsh legends of Sleeping Heroes. Among the Hottentots, the hare figures as the servant of the moon. In China, the hare is viewed as a telluric genius in one province, and everywhere as a divine animal. In Wales, one of the most charming of the local legends relates how a hare flying from the hounds took refuge under a fair saint's robes, so that hares were ever after called Monacella's Lambs in that parish. Up to a comparatively recent time, no person in the parish would kill a hare. When a hare was pursued by dogs, it was firmly believed that if any one cried, 'G.o.d and St. Monacella be with thee,' it was sure to escape. The legend is related by Pennant, in his tour through Montgomerys.h.i.+re: 'At about two miles distant from Llangynog, I turned up a small valley to the right, to pay my devotions to the shrine of St. Monacella, or, as the Welsh style her, Melangell.... She was the daughter of an Irish monarch, who had determined to marry her to a n.o.bleman of his court. The princess had vowed celibacy. She fled from her father's dominions, and took refuge in this place, where she lived fifteen years without seeing the face of man. Brochwel Yscythrog, prince of Powys, being one day a hare-hunting, pursued his game till he came to a great thicket; when he was amazed to find a virgin of surprising beauty engaged in deep devotion, with the hare he had been pursuing under her robe, boldly facing the dogs, who retired to a distance, howling, notwithstanding all the efforts of the sportsmen to make them seize their prey. When the huntsman blew his horn, it stuck to his lips. Brochwel heard her story, and gave to G.o.d and her a parcel of lands to be a sanctuary to all who fled there. He desired her to found an abbey on the spot. She did so, and died abbess of it, in a good old age. She was buried in the neighbouring church.... Her hard bed is shown in the cleft of a neighbouring rock. Her tomb was in a little chapel, or oratory, adjoining to the church and now used as a vestry-room. This room is still called cell y bedd, (cell of the grave).... The legend is perpetuated by some rude wooden carvings of the saint, with numbers of hares scuttling to her for protection.'

X.

It is interesting to observe, in connection with the subject of transportation through the air, with what vitality this superst.i.tion lingers in modern spiritualism. The accounts of such transportation are familiar to every reader of newspapers. That Mr. Home was seen, by a learned English n.o.bleman, sailing through the moonlight seventy feet from the ground, is on record; that Mrs. Guppy was transported from Highbury Park to Lamb's Conduit Street, in London, in a trance and a state of partial _deshabille_, is also on record; and that a well-known American spiritualist was borne by invisible hands from Chicago to Milwaukee and back, between midnight and 4 A.M., I have been a.s.sured by a number of persons in Illinois who thoroughly believed it, or said they did. But it certainly is not too much to demand, that people who give credence to these instances of aerial transportation should equally believe in the good old ghost stories of the Welsh. The same consistency calls for credulity as to the demoniacal elevation of Simon Magus, and the broomstick riding of the witches whose supernatural levitation was credited by Lord Bacon and Sir Matthew Hale, not to speak of Addison and Wesley.

There is something peculiarly fascinating to the gross denizens of earth in this notion of skimming like a bird over house-tops. No dreams, save those of love and dalliance, are so charming to the dreamer as visions of flying; to find oneself floating along over the tops of trees, over the streets where less favoured mortals walk, to look down on them as they stroll, is to feel an exquisite pleasure.

The mind of childhood and that of ignorance, alike unable to discriminate between reality and illusion, would naturally retain the impression of such a dream with peculiar vividness. The superst.i.tion has no doubt been fostered by this fact, although it, like most superst.i.tions, began its career in pre-historic days. The same cla.s.s of belief attaches to the magical lore of widely separated lands, in all ages. The magic carpet of the Arabian Nights finds its parallel to-day in the enchanted mat of the Chinese conjuror, which carries him from place to place, at a height of twenty or thirty feet in the air.

The levitation involved is in Welsh story embodied in the person of Sgilti Yscawndroed; when he was sent on a message through the wood he went along the tops of the trees; in his whole life, a blade of reed gra.s.s never bent beneath his feet, so light was his tread.[68]

FOOTNOTE:

[68] Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' 225.

XI.

It remains but to add, in connection with our household ghosts, that the method of exorcising such goblins in Wales is explicit. The objectionable spectre must be conjured, in the name of Heaven, to depart, and return no more. Not always is this exorcism effective; the ghost may have a specific purpose in hand, or it may be obstinate. The strength of the exorcism is doubled by employing the Latin language to deliver it; it receives its utmost power, however, through the clergy; three clergymen, it is thought, will exorcise any ghost that walks.

The exorcism is usually for a stated period; seven years is the favourite time; one hundred years the limit. There are many instances where a ghost which had been laid a hundred years returned at the end of the time to its old haunts. In all cases it is necessary the ghost should agree to be exorcised; no power can lay it if it be possessed of an evil demon--a spirit within a spirit, as it were--which stubbornly refuses to listen to argument. In such cases the terrors of Heaven must be rigorously invoked; but the result is only temporary.

Properly const.i.tuted family ghosts, however, will lend a reasonable ear to entreaty, backed by prayer. There are even cases on record where the ghost has been the entreater, as in the story of Haunted Margaret.