Stranger Than Fiction Part 1

Stranger Than Fiction.

by Mary L. Lewes.

PREFACE

I have to thank the Editor of the _Occult Review_ for his kindness in allowing me to reprint here many stories which have appeared at different times in his magazine.

And I am most grateful to the friends who have helped to swell the contents of this little volume, by permitting me to record their interesting experiences of the supernatural, or by furnishing me with details concerning local beliefs and superst.i.tions, which would otherwise have been difficult to obtain.

M. L. LEWES

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

"Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pa.s.sed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too."

If we may judge by the a.s.sertion contained in the above quatrain, Omar Khayyam was no believer in ghosts. In which respect the Persian poet must have differed from the general opinion of his times. For until a very few centuries ago, it was only a small minority of those who considered themselves wise above their fellows, who ventured to deny the possibility of the spirit's return to earth. Even amongst the Romans during the Antonine Age (A.D. 98-180), when scepticism on religious matters had become almost universal among the learned, and the worship of the G.o.ds had sunk to mere outward observance of ceremony, Gibbon says, "I do not pretend to a.s.sert that in this irreligious age, the natural terrors of superst.i.tions, dreams, omens, apparitions, &c., had lost their efficacy." The younger Pliny, in a letter to his friend Sura, writes: "I am extremely desirous to know whether you believe in the existence of ghosts, and that they have a real form, and are a sort of divinities, or only the visionary impression of a terrified imagination." He also relates a really exciting tale of a haunted house at Athens, but it is too long to quote here.

The ancients believed that every one possessed three distinct ghosts; the _manes_, of which the ultimate destination was the lower regions, the _spiritus_, which returned to Heaven, and the _umbra_, that, unwilling to sever finally its connection with this life, was wont to haunt the last resting-place of the earthly body. These "shades" were supposed to "walk" between the hours of midnight and c.o.c.k-crow, causing burial-grounds, cemeteries or tombs to be carefully avoided at night.

One reason given as to why very old yew-trees are so often found in country churchyards is, that originally these trees were planted to supply the peasants with wood for their bows, for in lawless times it was soon discovered that the only place where the trees would be safe from nightly marauders was the churchyard, where not the most hardened thief dared venture between darkness and dawn. Particularly were the shades of those who, perishing by crimes of violence without absolution--

"Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd--"

supposed to be uneasy; haunting sometimes the scene of their end, or, in other cases, the footsteps of the slayer. If a living person could summon courage to address one of these haunting spirits (for no ghost may speak unless spoken to) and discover the cause of its restlessness, it was thought possible to give it peace or "lay it," by righting the wrong it suffered from; whether by vengeance on a murderer, atonement for a crime committed, or by the offices of a priest to give absolution to an unshrived soul. An old writer tells us: "The mode of addressing a Ghost is by commanding it in the name of the three Persons of the Trinity to tell you what it is, and what its business.... During the narration of its business a Ghost must by no means be interrupted by questions of any kind; so doing is extremely dangerous...."

Besides believing in these ghosts of departed human beings, there was ever present in the minds of our forefathers, the dread of a host of "evil spirits" who were the agents and a.s.sistants of Satan, always ready to injure innocent souls, and where possible, to cause worldly disaster also. Magicians and sorcerers[1] were supposed by their arts to have power in this world of demons, the forfeit being their own souls, lost beyond redemption. In his delightful "Memoirs," Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) describes with great vividness some experiments he conducted with a necromancer at Rome, in order to discover the whereabouts of a girl he loved. The magician was a Sicilian priest, "a man of genius and well versed in the Latin and Greek authors," who made an appointment with Cellini for a certain evening, desiring him to bring two companions. "I invited Vincenzo Romoli ... he brought with him a native of Pistoja, who cultivated the black art himself." The trio then repaired to the Colosseum, where the priest "... began to draw circles upon the ground with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable...."

After this sort of thing and many incantations had lasted an hour and a half, "there appeared several legions of devils, insomuch that the amphitheatre was quite filled with them." This terrible phenomenon sounds dreadful enough to have frightened most people, but obtaining no result from his inquiries on the first occasion, Cellini was intrepid enough to arrange for a second experiment, his account of which absolutely bristles with demons and bad spirits; the strange part being that he writes as if their appearance at the sorcerer's bidding was the most natural thing in the world, and quite what he had expected to see.

And this att.i.tude of absolute, matter-of-fact faith in the powers of darkness, and acceptance of the magician's arts, is very interesting in the man, of whose famous autobiography John Addington Symonds wrote: "The Genius of the Renaissance, incarnate in a single personality, leans forth and speaks to us."

[Footnote 1: Magicians were able to command spirits to do their bidding, while sorcerers, though they could _summon_ demons, were obliged to obey them.]

It is only when we begin to investigate the origin of certain old customs and superst.i.tions that we gain any real idea of how deeply rooted in men's minds during the Dark and Middle Ages was the fear of the supernatural, and particularly of evil spirits. To this day in Pembrokeshire, the cottagers, after the Sat.u.r.day morning scrubbing, take a piece of chalk and draw a rough geometrical pattern round the edge of the threshold stone. This they do, not knowing that their ancestors thought it a sure way of keeping the Devil from entering the house.

Another custom, often noticeable in country parishes, is the reluctance to bury the dead on the north side of the churchyard; this is because evil spirits were always supposed to lurk on that side of the church precincts.

For many centuries Christianity, at all events among the ma.s.s of the people, seemed powerless to raise the dark veil of superst.i.tion which the old pagan beliefs had spread over the world; and indeed in many countries--sometimes from ignorance, sometimes from motives of expediency--heathen traditions and practices were preserved, and merely transferred to a Christian setting. Particularly was this the case among the Celtic nations, whose Christianity must in the early ages have merely been grafted on the native Druid beliefs. For the material that the great Irish and Welsh missionaries had to work with was rough indeed; and any drastic attempt to impose a new system of religion on a horde of Celtic tribesmen would doubtless have ended in speedy disaster. So it is probable that St. Patrick and St. David and their evangelist successors, instead of bluntly denouncing the most cherished of the heathen legends, merely took and adapted them to their own teaching; giving them first a decent Christian garb. Two instances of evident adaptation are quoted by Mr. Elworthy, in his book "The History of the Evil Eye," where he remarks: "Here in Britain the G.o.ddess of love was turned into St. Brychan's daughter; and as late as the fourteenth century lovers are said to have come from all parts to pray at her shrine in Anglesey. Another similar example is found in the confusion of St. Bridget and an Irish G.o.ddess, whose gifts were poetry, fire and medicine ... almost all the incidents in her legend can be referred to the Pagan ritual."

And though so many long centuries have pa.s.sed since the days when the Druid priests offered propitiatory sacrifices to the spirits that dwelt in the great oak-trees, yet in the minds of the descendants of those old Celts (in spite of all that civilisation and intermixture with other races have done) there still lingers a trace of mystery, a readiness of belief in things outside the realm of the five senses, which perhaps future ages will never quite obliterate. For this quality, call it what we will (and too often it has degenerated into mere superst.i.tion), is yet of the "Unknown," and for all we can tell may indeed be a spark, though dwindled, of the Divine fire. As every one knows, among the Highlanders this curious mystic vein sometimes produces seers, and their gift is called "second sight." According to a very interesting book called "A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," published in 1703, this power of foretelling the future was in those days a recognised talent possessed by certain individuals, which apparently excited but little surprise among the rest of the community. The writer of the "Description" says: "It is an ordinary thing for them (the seers) to see a Man who is to come to the house shortly after, and if he is not of the Seer's acquaintance, yet he gives such a lively description of his Stature, Complexion, Habit, &c., that upon his arrival he answers the character given him in all respects. I have been seen thus myself by Seers of both s.e.xes at some hundred miles' distance--some that saw me in this manner had never seen me personally." In Wales also, if we may believe the old writers, there seems to have been a cla.s.s of persons somewhat resembling the Highland seers, and called "Awenyddion"

(inspired people). "When consulted upon any doubtful event, they roar out violently, and become as it were possessed of an evil spirit. They deliver the answer in sentences that are trifling, and have little meaning, but are elegantly expressed. In the meantime, he who watches what is said unriddles the answer from some turn of a word. They are then roused as from a deep sleep, and by violent shaking compelled to return to their senses, when they lose all recollection of the answers they gave."

And though the day of the Awenyddion is long past, yet something of their inspiration, and a faint echo of the bards' songs of valour and enchantments seems still to linger about the mountains of Wales. It is true that down in the valleys the railways and Council schools have routed the "Tylwyth Teg" (fairies) from those "sweet green fields" of which Matthew Arnold wrote; and the young generation has no time to spare for listening in the winter evenings to the old folks' tales of haunted "mansions," or of the "canwyll corph," or the awe-inspiring "G[^w]rach" spectre. And there are very few people left now who will mistake the weird cry of a string of wild geese flying high overhead in the winter dusk, for the shrieks of tormented souls pursued by the hounds of h.e.l.l. Still, though fast disappearing, some of the old tales and beliefs are not entirely lost in the more remote localities; and it was with the idea of preserving a few of them from oblivion that this book was begun. Living, as I have for many years, in a hitherto little-known part of the Princ.i.p.ality, where almost every old country house has its ghost (sometimes more than one), and where the highest hill is crowned by the grave of a mighty "ca[^w]r" (or giant)--though archaeologists will tell you that it is merely a British burial-mound--and where the neighbouring lake is inhabited by fairy cattle that disappear at the approach of man; it is impossible not to feel regretful that all these old stories should be forgotten.

Especially will any one feel this who happens to have Celtic blood in his veins; in which case, and if he inhabits a corner of "fair Cambria,"

some of the things he hears will not appear so highly improbable and far-fetched as they might to the less imaginative Saxon. We all know Owen Glendower's celebrated a.s.sertion:

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep,"

and his description of the wonders that local tradition told him had preceded his birth. And we remember Hotspur's aggravating retort to what he doubtless considered the empty boasting of the great Welshman. But living amongst a people absolutely steeped in occult and legendary lore, quite ready to attribute any extraordinary characteristics in their leaders to supernatural aid, there is little doubt that Glendower's belief in his wizard powers was as entirely sincere as his courage and energy were unquestioned. But one rather sympathises, too, with Hotspur, when he describes afterwards how Glendower had kept him up

"last night, at least nine hours, In reckoning up the several devils' names That were his lackeys."

Most people like a good "ghost story." Even the loudest of scoffers does so really; and he is generally the person who draws his chair nearest to that of the story-teller, and who, after a.s.serting that the tale is "all rubbish," will nevertheless proceed to say what he would have done at that particular point in the narrative when "the candle burnt blue, and a faint rattling of chains was heard," &c. &c. But, as a fact, there are few real old-fashioned scoffers left. We have pa.s.sed through the phase of extreme incredulity regarding occult happenings which was inevitable, and was merely the swing of the pendulum from the rank superst.i.tion and ignorance of the Middle Ages. Few people now venture to declare that "there are no such things as ghosts"; for the ma.s.s of evidence collected and weighed by savants, such as Gurney, Myers, Hodgson, T. H. Hudson, and Sir Oliver Lodge, is overwhelming as regards the truth that things _have_ happened, and do still happen, quite outside the limit of human explanation. But while most intelligent persons admit this, the time is still far distant when we shall be able to say how or why these things occur; though, guided by some of the greatest thinkers of our day, we may at last dare to hope that our feet are set in the path of knowledge, and that at some future time humanity may perhaps reach the goal, and lift the dark and impenetrable curtain that hides the Unseen. Whether the world will be any better off, when, or if, that happens, concerns us of this generation not at all; in fact, most of us who have this world's work to do, will find it best to leave close investigation of supernormal phenomena to those who are able to approach such subjects with a scientific mind, capable of recognising and collecting truthful evidence, and of detecting and setting aside what is false. And how very much the false outweighs the true, when it comes to a question of evidence in psychic inquiry, only the really conscientious searcher knows. All sorts of questions rise up in the mind of the critical inquirer and have to be satisfied before he will admit the impossibility of accounting by human explanation for the experiences brought to his notice. And besides the need for this severely critical att.i.tude of mind, which we do not all of us possess, and in many cases the lack of leisure necessary for such abstract study, there is another reason why it is best for the majority of us to refrain from speculating overmuch on the whys and hows of these glimpses of the "Unknown" that we are occasionally granted. It is because many people have actually not the strength of mind necessary to withstand the possible shock occasioned by occult experiences, and for these, such studies end only too often in mental disaster. This a.s.sertion may sound exaggerated, but it is not so; and if it serves as a hint of warning to those over-fond of dabbling in a sea of mystery, fathomless and wide beyond all human imaginings, so much the better.

After these remarks, it will be realised that this book has nothing to do with the scientific aspect of "ghost-hunting," but is merely an attempt to gather together a number of stories dealing with the supernatural, and particularly those connected with the old superst.i.tions and beliefs of Welsh people which have happened to come to my knowledge. Of course some of these tales are absurd, and interesting only from their quaintness; yet in many of them there is an element which, as the French say, "gives to think," and should interest serious students of the occult in search of fresh material. So, much of the ghostly gossip in the following chapters belongs to Wales; indeed my original purpose was to deal with Welsh ghosts and superst.i.tions only.

But in the course of collection, I came across so many interesting particulars and incidents concerning people and places beyond the borders of the Princ.i.p.ality, that I decided to include them in this volume, on the chance that they may be new to most of my readers. All the stories to be narrated are what are known as "true" ones, or have at least a well-established reputation in tradition; the majority having either been told me at first-hand, or imparted by people who believed in their truth, and who, in many cases, had personal knowledge of the people whose experiences they related, and of the localities they described.

Naturally, such tales as follow, in which hear-say must figure considerably, cannot lay claim to the evidential value possessed by the carefully sifted records of the Psychical Research Society. But it may be pointed out that many of the stories contained in Chapters II., III., and IV. concern the constant _repet.i.tion_ of certain definite phenomena, a feature which strongly supports belief in their foundation on a basis of truth.

For instance, it seems to happen continually that a person going to a house which he does not know is haunted, sees a "ghost," and afterwards finds, on relating his experience, that the apparition he describes is exactly what other people have also seen. A good example of this occurs in Chapter IV., where "Colonel and Mrs. West" saw the ghost of the headless woman, being previously unaware that they were occupying a haunted room.

This agreement in the testimony of people who at different times, and generally quite unprepared, have seen particular apparitions is an interesting fact in itself, and surely not to be altogether despised as evidence of the c.u.mulative order, though the scientific details demanded by the professional ghost-hunter may be lacking.

The stories in my later chapters dealing with some ancient Welsh superst.i.tions need no comment, as, whatever may be thought of them as supernatural incidents, their interest from the standpoint of folk-lore is indisputable, and for that reason alone they are worth recording.

Throughout this book I shall change the real names of people for fict.i.tious ones or initials, for reasons that will be obvious to every one. There are a few exceptions; and where they occur they will be noted. In most cases I shall disguise the names of houses, and sometimes those of villages and towns; but where the names of counties are mentioned they are the true ones.

CHAPTER II

WELSH GHOSTS

"A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge and tiled and tall."

In one of the most remote parts of South Wales there stands on a low cliff that is washed by the waters of a certain bay in St. George's Channel a very curious old house which we will call Plasgwyn. Inside one finds walls many feet in thickness, dark panelled rooms with enormous cupboards, and a beautiful oak staircase, its shallow, uneven steps polished by the feet of many generations. Of course there is a ghost story too, and one possessing an element of picturesqueness, its origin dating far back to the days when smuggling was considered by quite respectable people as a useful means of increasing their income in a gentlemanly manner.

When one reflects on the lonely situation of Plasgwyn, and listens--especially in winter--to the boom of wind and wave advertising with loud persistence the nearness of the sea, it is not difficult for the imagination to conjure up those far-away times; to picture the landing of many an interesting cargo in the little cove hard by when the nights were dark and stormy and the Revenue men off their guard; and to conjecture that perhaps many crimes were committed at that period by villains using the smuggler's cloak to cover misdoing, and that possibly some such dark deed may have happened in the old house, thus giving a real foundation to our story.

It begins with an incident that was told me as having occurred a few years ago at Plasgwyn. One day two maid-servants went to do some work in the largest bedroom, used always as a visitors' room. When they quickly came downstairs again, with white faces and trembling knees, they had a strange tale to tell. They declared that in the room, floating in the air near the bed, they had seen what appeared to be a human hand and wrist, bleeding as if just severed from an arm, the fingers of the hand covered with splendid rings. Horribly frightened, the two maids did not look long at the apparition but fled downstairs as fast as they could.

However, so convinced were they both of the reality of the thing they saw that neither could ever be induced to enter the room alone as long as they remained in the house, and one at least was in the service of the family for some years.

Now the legend of Plasgwyn is as follows. Long ago a strange lady of great wealth once stayed there, and, for reasons now unknown, her hosts went away leaving her alone one night. Feeling solitary and remembering with alarm tales she had heard of the lawless doings of smugglers known to frequent the coast, she went early to her room and tried to sleep.

Well-grounded indeed were her fears, for in the middle of the night she was aroused by loud knocking at her door and rough voices demanding admittance. Terrified, the lady tried to hold the door, but in vain. It soon gave way beneath violent blows, and her arm, thrust forward in feeble resistance, was seized and held. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to remove her rings, of which she wore many of great size and brilliance, and the sight of the jewels so excited the greedy robbers that they immediately tried to pull them off. They fitted the fingers so tightly, however, that they would not move; accordingly, the ruffians, determined to have possession of them, ruthlessly chopped off the poor woman's hand and wrist, immediately afterwards decamping with their dreadful booty. Ever since that night, runs the tale, those who have the "gift" may sometimes see the jewel-covered hand hovering over the bed in the room once occupied by the ill-fated lady.

Nor is the spectral hand the only uncanny thing to be seen at Plasgwyn, if local rumour be correct; which declares that the spirit of "Old Brown," a former owner of the property, and from all accounts a person of much character (whether good or bad matters not), has been seen in a ball of fire rolling down the staircase into the hall at midnight!

I have never met anybody who has witnessed this somewhat alarming phenomenon, but the legend is merely related for what it is worth, and as it was told me by a very old inhabitant of the neighbourhood. And whether the "ball of fire" is only an absurdity, originating in some one's too lively imagination, or really one of those "fire elementals"

of which advanced occultists tell us, must be left to the reader's judgment to determine. But there are few people of imagination who could visit this quaint old house without feeling that scarcely any tale of the marvellous relating to it would sound incredible in such a setting.

Of quite a different type is another incident connected with the same place, which, though it certainly lacks sensation, is curious as one of that cla.s.s of apparently pointless events so realistic as to seem commonplace, and which yet leave one in a perfect "cul-de-sac" of mystification as to why they should have happened at all.