Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore

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be partly rebuilt. When the masons were pulling down the wall from whence the tappings came, they found, carefully built into this very wall, an old register-book. It was in a fair state of preservation, and the later entries in it dated from the time of the Commonwealth. They showed that a mason, who could neither read nor write, was then appointed vicar of the parish, and the former incumbent turned out. However, he seems to have remained among his parishioners,

ded reply for a while, but at length said "he could not stand the ghost." It appeared that one day, soon after his arrival, he had been sitting quietly reading in one of the rooms, when on raising his eyes from his book, he had been astonished to see "a little old lady" with a "horrible frowning expression" standing close by him. As he gazed at her, she vanished as suddenly and noiselessly as she had come, but this appearance was followed by many others; in fact, the old lady, al

and occupied, that it was supposed to harbour a ghost, though inquiry could elicit little beyond the fact that Captain Morgan had remarked to a friend: "I don't know what it is about my house, but we do hear the queerest noises that we can't account for. We begin to think it is haunted." Then people who heard about these "noises" remembered rather a curious thing. Soon after the house was begun, while the workmen were engaged on the foundations they came across the skeleton of a man, buried in the earth, and examination revealed that the skull had a hole through the forehead. Instead of keeping these remains together, and having them interred in consecrated ground, the finders carelessly left the bones lying about until

says, may be met walking along a certain path in the garden by an old yew-tree, at the uncomfortable hour of one in the morning. She is also supposed to account for mysterious footsteps sometimes heard in an upstairs passage. Two peopl

then), sat down to rest at the very place where the tree now stands. He carried a staff made of maple-wood, which he plunged into the ground beside him, and soon, being very tired, he went to sleep. He never woke again, for while he slept he was foully murdered. His body, of course, was found and removed, but nobody noticed the maple staff, stuck i

ce. Well, many years ago, a young widow who was related to her hosts, went to pay a visit at this house, and was given a room containing a large, four-post bedstead. The dressing-table was against the wall opposite the bed. One night, as the widow sat before the glass, combing her plentiful locks, and murmuring sadly (we may presume in affectionate remembrance of the departed), "Poor John, poor John," she suddenly saw, reflected in her mirror, a horrid sight. There was th

this theory. Owing to the official position of its tenant, a great many people used formerly to be entertained there, and one day a certain guest asked his host which of the servants it was who had such a bad

had been disturbed by the cough, which was no earthly sound, but was cau

at night. In the morning, greatly to my friend's surprise, the door was thrown wide open, although she felt absolutely certain, and so did her husband, that it was firmly shut the night before. It was only a slight incident, but the strangeness of it rather dwelt in Mrs. L--'s mind, until o

various weird happenings. Of these, perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most inexplicable, is a story t

ed, but was again found sitting on the coffin after the lid had been screwed down. And after the funeral, a whisper went round that "the dog" had jumped into the hear

sed Brynsawdde, which they knew to be entirely uninhabited, they were astonished to see every window of the house brilliantly ill

n explanation which, in the light of many reliable witnesses' evidence, was quite inadmissible to thoughtful minds, compelled eventually to relegate the strange happenings to that domain which M. Camille Flammarion has so happily called "L'Inconnu." The first brief report of the occurrences in a local paper ran (slightly altered) as follows: "Great excitement has been caused at St. Govan's during the past week, owing to the alleged appearance in the principal street of a ghost. It has taken up its abode (so the story goes) in the house of Mr. Moore ... from which in the early hours of Sunday morning loud metallic clanks were to be heard. Mr. A. B. Rose and others a

s been deduced from the observations made.... The street opposite the house has been thronge

s the interviewer, some assertions made to her were quite extraordinary in correctness, containing as they did information known to no one else in the town or district. On the other hand, it does not seem as if anything new or interesting was imparted to anybody; the answers to questions in most cases seemed evidently framed to suit preconceived ideas in the listeners' minds, and however impressive at the moment, the statements when repeated certainly sounded most vague and unconvincing, except in the one instance referred to. But that the knocks and rappings were in themselves absolutely genuine, and produced by some supernormal means, cannot be doubted. Any one who has ever had any experience of "table-turning" will realise that this genuineness of manifestation is quite compatible with the extreme futility of

d something to do with the manifestations, for, as remarked in the previous chapter, t

nd long before that, it was an inn. And surely a "ghost" was ever a necessary appurtenance to every respectable inn of the olden days! But no authentic tale or l

efinite result having been obtained by any investigator, the subject-after forming for several weeks a sort of conversational

enchantment of beautiful scenery surrounding a house rich in literary and romantic associations. Such a place without a ghost would be incomplete, and accordingly it has the reputation of being most respectably haunted, and by more than one "spook." Fo

ountain abode, taking her maid "Brown" with her, a person, one is ass

he foot of the staircase, and disappeared round a corner into the hall. He walked very slowly, and the maid, looking round after he passed her, saw, to her great surprise, that his clothes were of the most extraordinary and antiquated cut. Her errand despatched, Brown found her way back to the housekeeper's room, where she remarked to the butler that she had just seen such an odd-looking old gentleman coming downstairs; adding that she supposed he must have arrived by some late train, and was g

old mansion is peopled, could we but see them; ghosts harmless and timid, with no mission to terrify, or grievan

or so? One descends to fetch a forgotten book, and pushing open the door, one wishes the candle gave a better light that would reach those far dark corners. For surely the ro

hing time

nvisible, and return for a little space to that human atmosphere, which

he story of Glanwern, in South Wales. Several mysterious tales are told about this house, but the most interesting one (and undoubt

some one had violently pushed open her door and rushed into the room. Imagine her alarm! And the greater, as nothing was to be seen, although the first was followed by a succession of noises resembling the shuffling of feet about the floor, and struggles as of people fighting. After a time the sounds ceased, but poor Miss Travers, too terrified to move, lay quaking, and how she got through the night she never knew, for in an hour or so the same thing occu

s after the first lonely night there was no repetition of the sounds. But when at a neighbouring house she mentioned where she was staying, her friend remarked, "I wonder if the ghost ever 'walks' there now." Judicious inquiry from Miss Travers elicited t

possible localisation, as it is connected with a very well-known house and family in West Wales. Oaklands will be a good name for th

end, to stay at Oaklands, and besides Carter there was another guest, a Captain Seaton,

passage, and begin swiftly mounting the stairs. She wore a kind of loose, flowing garment, and as she passed Carter, who had involuntarily drawn back against the wall, he saw that her face was extraordinarily beautiful. He also noticed the candlestick she carried: it was of brilliantly polished silver, and most curiously shaped in the form of a swan. As the lady (for Carter instantly divined that she was no servant) glided by without taking the slightest notice of him, his astonishment became curiosity, and determining to see what became of her, he followed her up the stairs. Never turning her head, or showing by the slightest sign that she was aware of Carter's presence, she reached the landing, where she

ady stop?" Carter replying that it was the third door, Captain Seaton would say no more, remarking that they

er was taken out of its wrappings and displayed, and at length Seaton said, "But where are those queer candlesticks? You know the ones I mean-made in the shape of a swan." The butler answered rather reluctantly that the candlesticks mentioned had been put away for many years, and he feared they must be very tarnished. However, on being pressed, he fetched down from a high shelf in the plate cupboard, a baize-covered parcel, and from it dr

d when he heard that the lady had entered the third room in the corridor, the

an apparition, and that her appearance, carrying the swan-shaped candlestick-always

ccasion her coming has not been for evil," a hope that was unfulfilled, as before the

venant." The Welsh have a superstition about "hell-hounds," or c?n ann?n, as they are called in the Principality. These fearsome creatures are said to hunt the souls of the departed, and generally only their mournful cry can be heard-a sound to make one shudde

a gate and path leading off the road. Just after the two ladies had passed this gate Mrs. Hudson heard a sound of loud panting behind her. She stopped, and looking back, saw a large black dog come running out of the quarry down the path towards the gate. Whe

ntly turned and walked on, feeling convinced the dog was there, and ma

describing where she had seen it. The brother-in-law, listening with a rather queer expression, answered, "So you have seen that dog! Then, according to tradition, eith

was a real animal. But it was an explanation she recalled with a feeling of horror, when within six months of the date of that walk, her friend most unexpectedly died. T

Mr. Blair-who was partly of Highland extraction, and therefore possessed something of the Celtic temperament-of a singular little adventure that befell him in Wales, did not seem to him at all far-fetched at the time, but rather the one most appropriate, and quite characteristic of the country. Business obliged Mr. Blair to live some years in this part

shivering, the other suddenly darted away and disappeared up the lane that led to the farm, much to the apparent relief of the spaniel, who immediately seemed to forget his fright, and became quite lively again. Blair continued his homeward way, wondering to whom the collie belonged, as he did not remember having seen it anywhere about before. But the incident, slight though it was, somehow made a decided impression on his mind, so much so, that he could not forbear mentioning it next day to his old landlady, remarking that he supposed they must have got a new dog at Nantgwyn-the farm to w

a great noise was suddenly heard exactly like hounds in full cry. It seemed as if the pack swept past the drawing-room windows, turned the corner of the house, and entered the yard behind. The kennels of the local hunt were only four miles away, and on hunting days the hounds often met or ran in the direction of t

ing about in a state of frenzy. She opened the front door, and the collie ran out, barking and growling savagely, made a great jump in the air as if springing at somebody or something, then suddenly sank down cowering to the ground, and crept back whimpering to his mistress's side. An exha

the hounds cry, again tallied exactly. And while meditating on the strangeness of such a coincidence occurring twice over, Miss Johnson remembered the tales that the country peopl

er it a sure sign of approaching death should a bird chance to dash itself against a window-pane,

have on certain minds, and how the mind, reacting on the body, may indeed bring fulfilment of what was regarded as a prophecy.

and mentioned the following circumstances. On a cold Sunday evening last winter, just as Mr. R--, the Rector, was going to the pulpit for the sermon, a starling perched on Mr. Jones's head, and remained there: presently he put out his hand, gentl

d me an entry in his diary to this effect, and told me that he had been giving his son, a lad of eighteen, all sorts

eptember 1907, some months aft

31), the author, William Howells, refers to the Welsh belief in death-warnings bro

call it to memory. As they were seated in the parlour with an invalid lying very ill on the sofa, they were much surprised at the appearance of a bird, similar in size and colour to a blackbird, w

the story doubtless sounded more impressive than it does when read eighty years afterwards. After relating another story of the same kind, Mr. Howells goes on to say,