The Book of Dreams and Ghosts - Andrew Lang (best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT) 📗

about the living person to whom, or about the place in which, he appeared.  But on the analogy of the tales in which a dream or thought of the living seems to produce a hallucination of their presence in the minds of other and distant living people, so a dream of the dead may (it is urged) have a similar effect if “in that sleep of death such dreams may come”.  The idea occurred to Shakespeare!  In any case the ghosts of our stories hitherto have been so aimless and purposeless as to resemble what we might imagine a dead man’s dream to be.

This view of the case (that a “ghost” may be a reflection of a dead man’s dream) will become less difficult to understand if we ask ourselves what natural thing most resembles the common idea of a ghost.  You are reading alone at night, let us say, the door opens and a human figure glides into the room.  To you it pays no manner of attention; it does not answer if you speak; it may trifle with some object in the chamber and then steal quietly out again.

It is the House-maid walking in her Sleep.

This perfectly accountable appearance, in its aimlessness, its unconsciousness, its irresponsiveness, is undeniably just like the common notion of a ghost.  Now, if ordinary ghosts are not of flesh and blood, like the sleep-walking house-maid, yet are as irresponsive, as unconscious, and as vaguely wandering as she, then (if the dead are somewhat) a ghost may be a hallucination produced in the living by the unconscious action of the mind of the dreaming dead.  The conception is at least conceivable.  If adopted, merely for argument’s sake, it would first explain the purposeless behaviour of ghosts, and secondly, relieve people who see ghosts of the impression that they see “spirits”.  In the Scotch phrase the ghost obviously “is not all there,” any more than the sleep walker is intellectually “all there”.  This incomplete, incoherent presence is just what might be expected if a dreaming disembodied mind could affect an embodied mind with a hallucination.

But the good old-fashioned ghost stories are usually of another type.  The robust and earnest ghosts of our ancestors “had their own purpose sun-clear before them,” as Mr. Carlyle would have said.  They knew what they wanted, asked for it, and saw that they got it.

As a rule their bodies were unburied, and so they demanded sepulture; or they had committed a wrong, and wished to make restitution; or they had left debts which they were anxious to pay; or they had advice, or warnings, or threats to communicate; or they had been murdered, and were determined to bring their assassins to the gibbet.

Why, we may ask, were the old ghost stories so different from the new?  Well, first they were not all different.  Again, probably only the more dramatic tales were as a rule recorded.  Thirdly, many of the stories may have been either embellished—a fancied purpose being attributed to a purposeless ghost—or they may even have been invented to protect witnesses who gave information against murderers.  Who could disobey a ghost?

In any case the old ghost stories are much more dramatic than the new.  To them we turn, beginning with the appearances of Mr. and Mrs. Furze at Spraiton, in Devonshire, in 1682.  Our author is Mr. Richard Bovet, in his Pandæmonium, or the Devil’s Cloister opened (1683).  The motive of the late Mr. Furze was to have some small debts paid; his wife’s spectre was influenced by a jealousy of Mr. Furze’s spectre’s relations with another lady.

THE DAEMON OF SPRAITON IN DEVON {111} ANNO 1682

“About the month of November in the year 1682, in the parish of Spraiton, in the county of Devon, one Francis Fey (servant to Mr. Philip Furze) being in a field near the dwelling-house of his said master, there appeared unto him the resemblance of an aged gentleman like his master’s father, with a pole or staff in his hand, resembling that he was wont to carry when living to kill the moles withal.  The spectrum approached near the young man, whom you may imagin not a little surprized at the appearance of one that he knew to be dead, but the spectrum bid him not be afraid of him, but tell his master (who was his son) that several legacies which by his testament he had bequeathed were unpaid, naming ten shillings to one and ten shillings to another, both which persons he named to the young man, who replyed that the party he last named was dead, and so it could not be paid to him.  The ghost answered he knew that, but it must be paid to the next relation, whom he also named.  The spectrum likewise ordered him to carry twenty shillings to a gentlewoman, sister to the deceased, living near Totness in the said county, and promised, if these things were performed, to trouble him no further; but at the same time the spectrum, speaking of his second wife (who was also dead) called her wicked woman, though the gentleman who writ the letter knew her and esteemed her a very good woman.  And (having thus related him his mind) the spectrum left the young man, who according to the direction of the spirit took care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty shillings that was appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totness, but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said) from the devil.  The same night the young man lodging at her house, the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man challenged his promise not to trouble him any more, saying he had performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman, his sister, would not receive the money.

“To which the spectrum replied that was true indeed; but withal directed the young man to ride to Totness and buy for her a ring of that value, which the spirit said she would accept of, which being provided accordingly, she received.  Since the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further trouble.

“But the next day after having delivered the ring, the young man was riding home to his master’s house, accompanyed by a servant of the gentlewoman’s near Totness, and near about the time of their entrance (or a little before they came) into the parish of Spraiton aforesaid, there appeared to be upon the horse behind the young man, the resemblance of the second wife of the old gentleman spoken of before.

“This daemon often threw the young man off his horse, and cast him with such violence to the ground as was great astonishment, not only to the gentlewoman’s servant (with him), but to divers others who were spectators of the frightful action, the ground resounding with great noise by reason of the incredible force with which he was cast upon it.  At his coming into his master’s yard, the horse which he rid, though very poor and out of case, leaped at one spring twenty-five foot, to the amazement of all that saw it.  Soon after the she-spectre shewed herself to divers in the house, viz., the aforesaid young man, Mistress Thomasin Gidly, Ann Langdon, born in that parish, and a little child, which, by reason of the troublesomeness of the spirit, they were fain to remove from that house.  She appeared sometimes in her own shape, sometimes in forms very horrid; now and then like a monstrous dog belching out fire; at another time it flew out at the window, in the shape of a horse, carrying with it only one pane of glass and a small piece of iron.

“One time the young man’s head was thrust into a very strait place betwixt a bed’s head and a wall, and forced by the strength of divers men to be removed thence, and that not without being much hurt and bruised, so that much blood appeared about it: upon this it was advised he should be bleeded, to prevent any ill accident that might come of the bruise; after bleeding, the ligature or binder of his arm was removed from thence and conveyed about his middle, where it was strained with such violence that the girding had almost stopp’d his breath and kill’d him, and being cut asunder it made a strange and dismal noise, so that the standers by were affrighted at it.  At divers other times he hath been in danger to be strangled with cravats and handkerchiefs that he hath worn about his neck, which have been drawn so close that with the sudden violence he hath near been choaked, and hardly escaped death.

“The spectre hath shewed great offence at the perriwigs which the young man used to wear, for they are often torn from his head after a very strange manner; one that he esteemed above the rest he put in a small box, and that box he placed in another, which he set against the wall of his chamber, placing a joint-stool with other weight a top of it, but in short time the boxes were broken in sunder and the perriwig rended into many small parts and tatters.  Another time, lying in his master’s chamber with his perriwig on his head, to secure it from danger, within a little time it was torn from him and reduced into very small fragments.  At another time one of his shoe-strings was observed (without the assistance of any hand) to come of its own accord out of its shoe and fling itself to the other side of the room; the other was crawling after it, but a maid espying that, with her hand drew it out, and it strangely clasp’d and curl’d about her hand like a living eel or serpent; this is testified by a lady of considerable quality, too great for exception, who was an eye-witness.  The same lady shewed Mr. C. one of the young man’s gloves, which was torn in his pocket while she was by, which is so dexterously tatter’d and so artificially torn that it is conceived a cutler could not have contrived an instrument to have laid it abroad so accurately, and all this was done in the pocket in the compass of one minute.  It is further observable that if the aforesaid young man, or another person who is a servant maid in the house, do wear their own clothes, they are certainly torn in pieces on their backs, but if the clothes belong to any other, they are not injured after that manner.

“Many other strange and fantastical freaks have been done by the said daemon or spirit in the view of divers persons; a barrel of salt of considerable quantity hath been observed to march from room to room without any human assistance.

“An hand-iron hath seemed to lay itself cross over-thwart a pan of milk that hath been scalding over the fire, and two flitches of bacon have of their own accord descended from the chimney where they were hung, and placed themselves upon the hand-iron.

“When the spectre appears in resemblance of her own person, she seems to be habited in the same cloaths and dress which the gentlewoman of the house (her daughter-in-law) hath on at the same time.  Divers times the feet and legs of the young man aforesaid have been so entangled about his neck that he hath been loosed with great difficulty; sometimes they have been so twisted about the frames of chairs and stools that they have hardly been set at liberty.  But one of the most considerable instances of the malice of the spirit against the young man happened on Easter Eve, when Mrs. C. the relator, was passing by the door of the house, and it was thus:—

“When the young man was returning