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

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t people then believed in "ghosts" and held it no shame to do so; while the minority of the superior who disbelieved took no pains to dissemble their scorn and contempt for those who did. There was never any attempt at impartial investigation of supernatural occurrences; one section would have had neither the courage nor intelligence necessary, while the other would have scorned the undertaking. So Superstition's sway remained unchecked for many a long century, and though its power began to dwindle directly education became a systematic affair amongst civilised nations, yet it is only in recent years that one has begun to foresee a time when its terrors will have disappeared for good and all. Because it is only within the last few decades that men of great and trained intellect have discovered that the methods of science and law apply as perfectly in the investigation of psychic as in material phenomena; and that discovery once made, I cannot help thinking that it is me

here are, as we have seen, ghostly happenings which come as "warnings," though, as I have remarked in a former chapter, these warnings seldom appear to avert disaster. But in nine cases out of ten odd things are seen or heard, and nothing particular happens afterwards. The question-and a puzzling one-is, why should these things occur at all? Why should such a tremendous reversal of the laws which ordinarily govern our human environment take place, as is implied by, le

it, and some of us wish, in a vague sort of way, that we could know what it is. But sometimes the curtain goes up for a moment, and then, if any one is looking, he sees a glimpse of the play; and, not knowing what has come before or what is to follow, it seems rather meaningless, or even alarming. Sometimes, too, an actor will appear on the stage, or come amongst the audience with a message for one or a group of them, but only the few can see him, and his message is not always intelligible to them. Some bold people, tired of looking at the impenetrable curtain, have ventured to explore b

be classed as magicians and witches. And if we grasp this idea of a consciousness, interwoven and yet by matter separated from this life, of which only a few of us can get glimpses from time to time, but which is as absolutely real, perhaps more so than the life we live here, it will help us enormously to understand the meaning of psychic phenomena, or what we call "ghost stories." Because we shall realise that there is continuity behind the veil which hides the Unseen, just as there is contin

A little knowledge about occult matters is worse than useless; it is absolutely dangerous, and every furlong of the road that leads to such knowle

ude and brooding. Nothing could be further from the truth; they are a lively and gregarious race and never seem to cease talking amongst themselves. Nobody is fonder of junketing than a Welshman or Welshwoman, nothing in the way of an outing comes amiss; fairs, eisteddfodau, "auctions," church and chapel festivals, political meetings, anything for a jaunt! But the most important functions of all are-funerals. Every one goes to a funeral, and make

there is a curious strain of melancholy underlying the Welsh character, in common with the other Celtic races; a trait which I do not think any one can understand unless he has some Celtic blood in his veins. It is not a melancholy which colours the disposition, for most Welsh people are cheerful and pleasant companions. Of course there are vari

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woe. This is the secret of the great religious revivals that from time to time agitate the Principality; the Welsh really relish their spiritual wretchedness, and enjoy being miserable sinners (especially in company!). And well does a revivalist like Evan Roberts understand his work, and

ong ago that such beliefs were really part of a Welsh person's life, and supernatural experiences only infrequent enough to be interesting. If John Jones entered the village inn trembling and perspiring declaring that he had seen the Toili-well, he had seen it, and no one thought of questioning his statement, but all fell to wondering "whose T

en passing the spot how well the natural surroundings of romantic beauty lent themselves as a setting to any such weird happening, and have tried to conjure up the scene in my own mind. To this

ven if at first they appear to banish originality and produce monotony of character. But that is better than the type of mind which could drown an old woman because she kept a black cat, and sold nasty herbal "love-philtres" to silly girls. I do not think witches were much persecuted in Wales as a matter of fact, and, as I have shown, they and "wise men" are still to be found in the country. As we have seen, superstition took other forms there, and a greater hold, because it was, I am convinced, rooted in a foundation of psychic facts, just as the "second sight" was, and I suppose is still, a fact amongst the Highlanders of Scotland. But I have no doubt that for one Welshman who did really have the vision of his own or a neighbour's funeral, there were at least ten who would make the same assertion out of their own imaginations. And probably now the real faculty is ve

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nths told me she heard it not once but several times, and not only she, but other people in the house heard it also. The sound was described as

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Chapter VI. referri

or they bit them and were likely to even drag a man away with them, and their bite was often fatal. They collected together in huge numbers in the churchyard when a person whose death t

living or dead, but most especially when dead, is perpetually thinking over and over again the circumstances of his action. Since these thoughts are naturally specially vivid in his mind on the an

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ussex that the death of a sick person is shown by the prognostic of 'shell-fire.' This is a sort

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to roll his sleeves up above the elbow, then "Mr. Jenkins (a respectable farmer and deacon amongst the Wesleyans) took a yarn thread and placing one end on the elbow measured to the tip of Felix's (the patient) middle finger, then he tells his patient to take hold of the yarn at one end, the other end resting the while on t

st, mentions it as being haunted by an unclean spirit which "conversed with men, and in reply to their taunts upbraided them openly with everything they had done from their birth, and which they w

and that of her patien

died about a century ago, to the effect that his spirit is imprisoned within a certain rock on the

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