GHOST LAYING
In his amusing account of the art of 'laying' ghosts, published in the
last century, Grose tells us 'a ghost may be laid for any term less
than a hundred years, and in any place or body, full or empty; as a
solid oak, the pommel of a sword, a barrel of beer, if a yeoman or
simple gentleman; or a pipe of wine, if an esquire or a justice.' But
this, as Dr. Tylor writes,[173] 'is one of the many good instances of
articles of serious savage belief surviving as jests among civilised
men.' However whimsical the idea of laying a ghost may seem to the
prosaic mind, an inquiry into the history of human belief shows how
widely this expedient has been resorted to in times past, although St.
Chrysostom is said to have insulted some African conjurors of old with
this quaint and humiliating observation: 'Miserable and woful creatures
that we are, we cannot so much as expel fleas, much less devils.'
It was not so very long ago that, at the trial of Laurie for the murder
of Mr. Rose,[174] Sergeant Munro, on being asked by the Dean of Faculty
a question as to the disappearance of the murdered man's boots, replied
that he believed they had been buried on the beach at Corne, below
high-water mark. This curious ceremony seems to have been adopted by
the Highland police, with the intention of laying Mr. Rose's ghost--an
object which, according to tradition, might be attained by burying his
boots under water. The expedient resorted to by the Highland police
was founded not upon any inadequate estimate of the powers of ghosts,
but upon an intimate knowledge of their likes and dislikes. They are
known to entertain a strong objection to water, an antipathy which is
sufficiently strong to make them shun a spot on which water is to be
found; in fact, as Mr. Hunt writes,[175] spirits are supposed to be
unable to cross water.
A story is told of 'Dary Pit,' Shropshire, a dismal pool, which was
a much dreaded spot, because it was said spirits were laid under the
water, and might, it seems, in spite of being so laid, walk abroad.
This belief may be traced in various parts of the world, and 'one of
the most striking ways,' writes Mr. James G. Frazer,[176] 'of keeping
down the dead man is to divert the course of a river, bury him in its
bed, and then allow the river to resume its course. It was thus that
Alaric was buried, and Commander Cameron found the same mode of burial
in vogue amongst a tribe in Central Africa.'
Among the Tipperahs of Chittagong, if a man dies away from home, his
friends stretch a thread over all the intermediate streams, so that
the spirit of the dead man may return to his own village; 'it being
supposed that,[177] without assistance, spirits are unable to cross
running water,' and hence streams are occasionally bridged over in the
manner afore-said.[178] A somewhat similar idea prevails among the
Fijians, and we are told how those who have reason to suspect others of
plotting against them occasionally 'build themselves a small house, and
surround it with a moat, believing that a little water will neutralise
the charms which are directed' to hurt them.[179]
The idea of water as a barrier against ghosts has given rise to many
strange customs, some of which Mr. Frazer quotes in his paper on 'The
Primitive Ghost.'[180] Among the Metamba negroes, a woman is bound hand
and foot by the priest, who flings her into the water several times
over with the intention of drowning her husband's ghost, who may be
supposed to be clinging to his unfeeling spouse. A similar practice
exists in Angola, and in New Zealand those who have attended a funeral
plunge several times into the nearest stream. In Tahiti, all who
assisted at a burial plunged into the sea; and in some parts of West
Africa, after the corpse has been deposited in the grave, 'all the
bearers rush to the waterside and undergo a thorough ablution before
they are permitted to return to the town.'
According to Mr. Ralston, the Lusatian Wends place water between
themselves and the dead as they return from a burial, even, if
necessary, breaking ice for the purpose. And 'in many parts of Germany,
in modern Greece, and in Cyprus, water is poured out behind the corpse
when it is carried from the house, in the belief that if the ghost
returns he will not be able to cross it.'[181] A Danish tradition says,
'If a person dies who, it is feared, will reappear, as a preventive
let a basinful of water be thrown after the corpse when it is carried
out'[182] and there will be no further cause of alarm. In Bohemia,
after a death, the water-butt is turned upside down, for if the ghost
bathe in it, and anyone should happen to drink of it afterwards, he
would be a dead man within the year. In Pomerania, after a funeral, no
washing is done for some time, lest the dead man should be wet in his
grave.
Drake, in his legends of New England, alludes to a story of a wreck at
Ipswich, and says that, when the storms come, the howling of the wind
is 'Harry Main'--a legend which has thus been versified by A. Morgan:
He blasphemed God, so they put him down,
With his iron shovel at Ipswich Bar,
They chained him there for a thousand years,
And the sea rolls up, to shovel it back.
So when the sea cries, the good wives say,
'Harry Main growls at his work to-day.'
Similarly the Chibchas in their mythology had a great river that souls
had to pass over on floats made of cobwebs. On this account they never
killed spiders. The Araucanian soul is borne across the Stygian flood
by a whale, and the Potawatomis think 'the souls of the dead cross a
large stream over a log, which rolls so that many slip off into the
water. One of their ancestors went to the edge of the stream, but, not
liking to venture on the log, he came back two days after his death. He
reported that he heard the sounds of the drum on the other side of the
river, to the beat of which the souls of the dead were dancing.'[183]
The Ojibways speak of a similar stream, across which lies a serpent,
over whose body the soul must cross.
A favourite mode of capturing a ghost in days gone by was to entice it
into something small, such as a bottle, and as a decoy, to doubt its
power to do so--a mode of exorcism which would seem to have suggested
our 'bottle-imps.' An amusing story of laying a ghost by this means,
and which illustrates the popular belief, is recorded in the 'Folk-lore
Record' (ii. 176), on the authority of the late Thomas Wright. 'There
lived in the town of ----, in that part of England which lies towards
the borders of Wales, a very curious simple kind of a man, though all
said he knew a good deal more than other people did not know. There
was in the same town a very old house, one of the rooms of which was
haunted by a ghost, which prevented people making use of it. The man
above mentioned was reported to be very clever at dealing with ghosts,
and so the owner of the haunted house sent for him, and asked him if
he could undertake to make the ghost quit the house. Tommy, for that
was the name he generally went by, agreed to do this, on condition that
three things were provided him--an empty bottle, a bottle of brandy
with a tumbler, and a pitcher of water. So Tommy locked the door safely
inside, and sat down to pass the night drinking brandy and water.
'Just as the clock struck twelve, he was roused by a slight noise, and
lo! there was the ghost standing before him. Says the ghost, "Well,
Tommy, how are ye?" "Pretty well, thank ye," says he, "but pray, how do
you know my name?" "Oh, very well indeed," said the ghost. "And how did
you get in?" "Oh, very easily." "Not through the door, I'm sure." "No,
not at all, but through the keyhole." "D'ye say so? None of your tricks
upon me; I won't believe you came through the keyhole." "Won't ye? but
I did." "Well, then," says Tommy, pointing to the empty bottle, which
he pretended to have emptied, "if you can come through the keyhole you
can get into this bottle, but I won't believe you can do either." Now
the ghost began to be very angry that Tommy should doubt his power of
getting into the bottle, so he asserted most confidently that the thing
was easy to be done. "No," said Tommy, "I won't believe it till I have
seen you get in." "Here goes then," said the ghost, and sure enough
into the bottle he went, and Tommy corked him up quite tight, so that
he could not get out, and he took the bottle to the bridge where the
river was wide and deep, and he threw the bottle exactly over the
keystone of the middle arch into the river, and the ghost was never
heard after.'
This cunning mode of laying a ghost is very old, and reminds us of the
amusing story of the fisherman and the genie in the Arabian Nights.
The tale tells how, one day, a fisherman drew a brazen bottle out of
the sea, sealed with the magic seal of Suleyman Ben Daood, out of
which there issued an enormous genie, who threatened the fisherman
with death. The latter, feeling his life was at stake, bethought him
of doubting the genie's ability to enter so small a vessel, whereupon
the affronted genie returned thither to vindicate his character, and so
placed himself in the fisherman's power. In the same way a Bulgarian
sorcerer armed with a saint's picture will hunt a vampire into a bottle
containing some of the food that the demon loves; as soon as he is
fairly inside, he is corked down, the bottle is thrown into the fire,
and the vampire disappears for ever.
Miss Jackson[184] quotes a story from Montgomeryshire, of how the
spirit of Lady Jeffreys, who for some reason could not rest in peace,
and 'troubled people dreadfully,' was 'persuaded to contract her
dimensions and enter a bottle. She did so, after appearing in a good
many hideous forms; but when once in the bottle it was corked down
securely, and the bottle was thrown into the pool underneath the
Short Bridge, over the Severn, in Llanidloes; and in the bottle she
was to remain until the ivy that crept along the buttresses overgrew
the sides of the bridge and reached the top of the parapet; then when
this took place she should be released from her bottle prison.' In
the 'Collectanea Archæologica' (vol. i. part 1) we are told on the
authority of one Sarah Mason, of Baschurch, that 'there was a woman
hanged on a tree at Cutberry, and she came again so badly that nine
clergymen had to be fetched to lay her. So they read and read until
they got her into a bottle, and they buried it under a flat sandstone
in the road. We used to go past the stone every time we went to church,
and I've often wondered if she was still there, and what would happen
if anyone was to pull the stone up.' And as a further safeguard a
correspondent of 'Notes and Queries,' writing from Ecclesfield, says it
is best in laying ghosts to cheat them to consent to being laid while
hollies are green, for hollies being evergreen, the ghost can reappear
no more.
In Wales, the objectionable spectre must be conjured in the name of
Heaven to depart, and return no more, the strength of the exorcism
being doubled by employing the Latin language to deliver it, which, to
be perfectly effectual, must be done by three clergymen. The exorcism
is usually for a stated time, seven years is the favourite period,
and one hundred years the limit. Instances are recorded where a ghost
which had been laid a hundred years returned at the end of the time
to its old haunts. According to Mr. Wirt Sikes,[185] '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. In such cases the terrors of
Heaven must be rigorously invoked, but the result is only temporary.
Properly constituted family ghosts, however, will lend a reasonable ear
to entreaty backed by prayer.'
Candles have generally played an important part in the ceremony of
ghost laying, one popular idea being that ghosts have no power by
candlelight. Thus, in many tales, the ghost is cheated into a promise
not to return till the candle is burnt out, whereupon the crafty parson
immediately blows it out, throwing it into a pond, or burying it in
the earth. The belief is an old one, for, in one of the Sagas quoted
by Mr. Baring-Gould,[186] the tomb-breaking hero finds an old Viking
sitting in his dragon-ship, with his five hundred comrades motionless
about him. He is about to depart, after possessing himself of the dead
man's treasures, when the taper goes out, whereupon they all rise and
attack the intruder, who barely escapes by invoking St. Olaf's aid. In
all Shropshire stories, we are told that the great point is to keep
the candles lighted in spite of the ghost's utmost efforts to blow
them out; an amusing instance being that of the Bagbury ghost, which
appeared in the shape of a bull, and was so troublesome that twelve
parsons were required to lay it. The story goes that they got him into
Hyssington Church; 'they all had candles, and one blind old parson,
who knowed him, and knowed what a rush he would make, he carried his
candle in his top-boot. And he made a great rush, and all the candles
went out, all but the blind parson's, and he said, "You light your
candles by mine."'
Miss Jackson also tells[187] how 'Squire Blount's ghost' long haunted
Kinlet Hall, because his daughter had married a page-boy. At last it
was found necessary to pull down Kinlet Old Hall, and to build it again
on a fresh site, 'for he would even come into the room where they were
at dinner, and drive his coach and four white horses across the dinner
table.' But 'at last they got a number of parsons together and lighted
candles, and read and read till all the candles were burnt out but one,
and so they quieted him, and laid him in the sea. There was, it is
reported, a little bottle under his monument in Kinlet Church, and if
that were broken he would come again. It is a little flat bottle seven
or eight inches long, with a glass stopper in it, which nobody could
get out; and if anyone got hold of it, the remark was made, "Take care
as you dunna let that fall, for if it breaks, old Blount will come
again."'
According to Mr. Henderson[188] there was a house in a village of
Arkingarthdale which had long been haunted by a bogle. At last the
owner adopted the following plan for expelling it. Opening the Bible,
he placed it on a table with a lighted candle, and said aloud to the
bogle, 'Noo thoo can read or dance, or dea as ta likes.' He then turned
round and walked upstairs, when the bogle, in the form of a grey cat,
flew past and vanished in the air. Years passed without its being seen
again, but one day he met it on the stairs, and he was that day killed
in the mines.
At Leigh, Worcestershire, a spectre known as 'Old Coles' formerly
appeared, and would drive a coach and four over the great barn at Leigh
Court, and then cool the fiery nostrils of his steeds in the waters of
the Teme. This perturbed spirit was at length laid in a neighbouring
pool by twelve parsons at midnight, by the light of an inch of candle;
and as he was not to rise again until the candle was quite burnt out,
it was thrown into the pool, and to make all sure, the pool was filled
up,
And peaceful ever after slept
Old Coles's shade.[189]
But sometimes, when the candles burn out their time, it is an
indication that none of the party can lay the ghost, as happened in
the case of a certain Dartmoor vicar's unquiet spirit described by Mr.
Henderson.[190] 'A jury of seven parsons was convoked to lay it, and
each sat for half an hour with a candle in his hand, but it burned out
its time with each. The spirit could afford to defy them; it was not
worth his while to blow their candles out. But the seventh parson was
a stranger and a scholar fresh from Oxford. In his hand the light went
out at once. He was clearly the man to lay the ghost; he laid it at
once, and in a beer-barrel.'
According to another way of ejecting or laying ghosts, there must be
two or three clergymen, and the ceremony must be performed in the Latin
language, which, it is said, will strike the most audacious ghost with
terror. Allan Ramsay mentions, as common in Scotland, the vulgar
notion that a ghost cannot be laid till some priest speaks to it, and
ascertains what prevents it from resting.
For well we wat it is his ghaist
Wow, wad some folk that can do't best,
Speak tol't, and hear what it confest.
To send a wand'ring saul to rest
'Tis a good deed
Amang the dead.
And in the 'Statistical Account of Scotland' (xiii. 557) the writer,
speaking of the parish of Locharron, county of Ross, alludes to the
same idea: 'There is one opinion which many of them entertain, and
which, indeed, is not peculiar to this parish alone, that a Popish
priest can cast out devils and cure madness, and that the Presbyterian
clergy have no such power. A person might as well advise a mob to pay
no attention to a merry Andrew, as to desire many ignorant people to
stay from the priest.'
On a small island off Scotland, called Ledge's Holm, writes Mr.
Bassett, there is a quarry called 'The Crier of Claife.' According to a
local tradition, a ferryman was hailed on a dark night from the island,
and went over. After a long absence he returned, having witnessed
many horrible sights which he refused to relate. Soon afterwards he
became a monk. After a time the same cry was heard, and he went over
and succeeded in laying the ghost where it now rests. But Bourne, who
has preserved a form for exorcising a haunted house, ridicules the
fancy that 'none can lay spirits but Popish priests,' and says that
'our own clergy know just as much of the black art as the others do'--a
statement which is amply confirmed. Thus, a ghost known as 'Benjie
Gear' long troubled the good people of Okehampton to such an extent
that, 'at last,' writes Mr. James Spry, in 'The Western Antiquary,'
'the aid of the archdeacon was called in, and the clergy were assembled
in order that the troubled spirit might be laid and cease to trouble
them. There were twenty-three of the clergy who invoked him in various
classic languages, but the insubordinate spirit refused to listen to
their request. At length, one more learned than the rest addressed him
in Arabic, to which he was forced to succumb, saying, "Now thou art
come, I must be gone!" He was then compelled to take the form of a
colt; a new bridle and bit, which had never been used, were produced,
with a rider, to whom the Sacrament was administered. The man was
directed to ride the colt to Cranmere Pool, on Dartmoor, the following
instructions being given him. He was to prevent the colt from turning
its head towards the town until they were out of the park, and then
make straight for the pool, and when he got to the slope, to slip
from the colt's back, pull the bridle off, and let him go. All this
was dexterously performed, and the impetus thus gained by the animal
with the intention of throwing the rider over its head into the Pool,
accomplished its own fate.'
Another curious account of laying a ghost is connected with Spedlin's
Tower, which stands on the south-west bank of the Annan. The story
goes, that one of its owners, Sir Alexander Jardine, confined, in the
dungeon of his tower, a miller named Porteous, on suspicion of having
wilfully set fire to his own premises. Being suddenly called away to
Edinburgh, he forgot the existence of his captive until he had died
of hunger. But no sooner was the man dead, than his ghost began so
persistently to disturb Spedlin's Tower, that Sir Alexander Jardine
summoned 'a whole legion of ministers to his aid, and by their efforts
Porteous was at length confined to the scene of his mortal agonies,
where, at times, he was heard screaming, "Let me out, let me out,
for I'm deein' o' hunger!"' The spell which compelled his spirit to
remain in bondage was attached to a large black-lettered Bible used
by the exorcists, and afterwards deposited in a stone niche, which
still remains in the wall of the staircase. On one occasion the Bible,
requiring to be re-bound, was sent to Edinburgh, whereupon the ghost
of Porteous recommenced its annoyances, so that the Bible was recalled
before reaching Edinburgh, and was replaced in its former situation.
But, it would seem, the ghost is at last at rest, for the Bible is now
kept at Jardine Hall.
Then there is the ghost of 'Madam Pigott,' once the terror of Chetwynd
and Edgmond. Twelve of the neighbouring clergy were summoned to lay
her by incessantly reading psalms till they had succeeded in making
her obedient to their power. 'Mr. Foy, curate of Edgmond,' says Miss
Jackson,[191] 'has the credit of having accomplished this, for he
continued reading after all the others were exhausted.' But, 'ten
or twelve years after his death, some fresh alarm of Madam Pigott
arose, and a party went in haste to beg a neighbouring rector to come
and lay the ghost; and to this day Chetwynd Hall has the reputation
of being haunted.' It is evident that 'laying a ghost' was far from
an easy task. A humorous anecdote is told[192] of a haunted house
at Homersfield, in Suffolk, where an unquiet spirit so worried and
harassed the inmates that they sent for a parson. On his arrival he
commenced reading a prayer, but instantly the ghost got a line ahead
of him. Happily one of the family hit on this device: the next time,
as soon as the parson began his exorcism, two pigeons were let loose;
the spirit stopped to look at them, the priest got before him in his
prayer, and the ghost was laid.
Clegg Hall, Lancashire, was the scene of a terrible tragedy, for
tradition tells how a wicked uncle destroyed the lawful heirs--two
orphans that were left to his care--by throwing them over a balcony
into the moat, in order that he might seize on their inheritance. Ever
afterwards the house was the reputed haunt of a troubled and angry
spirit, until means were taken for its expulsion. Mr. William Nuttall,
in a ballad entitled 'Sir Roland and Clegg Hall Boggart,' makes Sir
Roland murder the children in bed with a dagger. Remorse eventually
drove him mad, and he died raving during a violent storm. The hall was
ever after haunted by the children's ghosts, and also by demons, till
St. Anthony, with a relic from the Virgin's shrine, exorcised and laid
the evil spirits. According to Mr. Nuttall there were two boggarts of
Clegg Hall, and it is related how the country people 'importuned a
pious monk to exorcise or lay the ghost.' Having provided himself with
a variety of charms and spells, he quickly brought the ghosts to a
parley. They demanded as a condition of future quiet the sacrifice of
a body and a soul. Thereupon the cunning monk said, 'Bring me the body
of a cock and the sole of a shoe.' This being done, the spirits were
forbidden to appear till the whole of the sacrifice was consumed, and
so ended the laying of the Clegg Hall boggarts. But, for some reason or
other, the plan of this wily priest did not prove successful, and these
two ghosts have continued to walk.[193]
With this idea of sacrifice as necessary for laying ghosts may be
mentioned the apparition of a servant at Waddow Hall, known as 'Peg o'
Nell.' On one occasion, the story goes, she had a quarrel with the lord
or lady of Waddow Hall, who, in a fit of anger, wished that she 'might
fall and break her neck.' In some way or other Peggy did fall and break
her neck, and to be revenged on her evil wisher she haunted the Hall,
and made things very uncomfortable. In addition to these perpetual
annoyances, 'every seven years Peg required a life, and it is said that
"Peg's night," as the time of sacrifice at each anniversary was called,
was duly observed; and if no living animal were ready as a septennial
offering to her manes, a human being became inexorably the victim.
Consequently, it grew to be the custom on "Peg's night" to drown a
bird, or a cat, or a dog in the river; and a life being thus given, Peg
was appeased for another seven years.'[194]
At Beoley, Worcestershire, at the commencement of the present
century, the ghost of a reputed murderer managed to keep undisputed
possession of a certain house, until a conclave of clergymen chained
him to the Red Sea for fifty years. At the expiration of this term
of imprisonment, the released ghost reappeared, and more than ever
frightened the inmates of the said house, slamming the doors, and
racing through the ceilings. At last, however, they took heart and
chased the restless spirit, by stamping on the floor from one room to
another, under the impression that could they once drive him to a trap
door opening in the cheese-room, he would disappear for a season.[195]
A curious case of laying a ghost occurs in 'An account of an apparition
attested by the Rev. W. Ruddell, minister at Launceston, in Cornwall,'
1665, quoted in Gilbert's 'Historical Survey of Cornwall.' A schoolboy
was haunted by Dorothy Dingley, and he pined. He was thought to be in
love, and when, at the wishes of his friends, the parson questioned
him, he told him of his ghostly visitor, and showed him the spectral
Dorothy. Then comes the story of the ghost-laying.
'The next morning being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and
walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field
adjoining to the Quartills. Soon after five I stepped over the stile
into the disturbed field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces
when the ghost appeared at the further stile. I spoke to it with a loud
voice in some such sentences as the way of these dealings directed me;
thereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near it, it moved
not. I spoke again, and it answered again in a voice which was neither
very audible nor intelligible. I was not the least terrified, therefore
I persisted till it spoke again, and gave me satisfaction. But the work
could not be finished this time, wherefore the same evening, an hour
after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few
words on each side it quietly vanished, and neither doth appear since,
nor ever will more to any man's disturbance.'
Local tradition still tells us that 'Madam Dudley's ghost did use
to walk in Cumnor Park, and that it walked so obstinately, that it
took no less than nine parsons from Oxford "to lay her." That they at
last laid her in a pond, called "Madam Dudley's Pond," and, moreover,
wonderful to relate, the water in that pond was never known to freeze
afterwards.' Heath Old Hall, near Wakefield, is haunted by the ghost
of Lady Bolles, who is commonly reported to have been conjured down
into a hole of the river, locally known as 'Bolles Pit.' But, as in
many other cases of ghost-laying, 'the spell was not so powerful, but
that she still rises, and makes a fuss now and then.' Various reasons
have been assigned for her 'walking,' such as the non-observance by her
executors of certain clauses in her will, whilst a story current in the
neighbourhood tells us that a certain room in the Hall which had been
walled up for a certain period, owing to large sums of money having
been gambled away in it, was opened before the stipulated time had
expired. Others assert that her unhappy condition is on account of her
father's mysterious death, which was ascribed to demoniacal agency.[196]
But of all places the most common, in years gone by, for laying ghosts
was the Red Sea, and hence, in one of Addison's plays, we read, 'There
must be a power of spirits in that sea.' 'This is a locality,' says
Grose, 'which ghosts least like, it being related in many instances
that ghosts have most earnestly besought the exorcists not to confine
them in that place. It is, nevertheless, considered as an indisputable
fact that there are an infinite number laid there, perhaps from
its being a safer prison than any other nearer at hand.' But when
such exiled ghosts did happen to re-appear, they were thought more
audacious, being seen by day instead of at night.
In an amusing poem entitled 'The Ghost of a Boiled Scrag of Mutton,'
which appeared in the 'Flowers of Literature' many years ago, the
following verse occurs embodying the idea:
The scholar was versed in all magical lore,
Most famous was he throughout college;
To the Red Sea full many an unquiet ghost,
To repose with King Pharaoh and his mighty host,
He had sent through his proverbial knowledge.
Addison tells us in the 'Spectator,' alluding to his London lodgings at
a good-natured widow's house one winter, how on one occasion he entered
the room unexpectedly, where several young ladies, visitors, were
telling stories of spirits and apparitions, when, on being told that it
was only _the gentleman_, the broken conversation was resumed, and 'I
seated myself by the candle that stood at one end of the table, and,
pretending to read a book that I took out of my pocket, heard several
stories of ghosts that, pale as ashes, had stood at the bed's foot,
or walked over a churchyard by moonlight; and others that had been
conjured into the Red Sea for disturbing people's rest.' As it has been
humorously remarked, it is not surprising that many a strange ghost
story has been told by the sea-faring community, when we remember how
many spirits have been banished to the Red Sea.
FOOTNOTES:
[173] _Primitive Culture_, ii. p. 153.
[174] _See Daily Telegraph_, Nov. 17, 1890. Article on 'Ghost Laying.'
Burns's 'Tam o' Shanter' turns on this point, and it is noticed by Sir
Walter Scott in 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel' (Canto III. Stanza 13):
'The running stream dissolv'd the spell.'
[175] _Romances of West of England_, p. 470.
[176] _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 107.
[177] Lewin, _Hill Tracts of Chittagong_, p. 84.
[178] See Sir John Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation and Primitive
Condition of Man_, 1870, p. 145.
[179] _Fiji and the Fijians_, i. p. 248.
[180] _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 113.
[181] _Folk-songs of Russia_, p. 320.
[182] Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, ii. p. 275.
[183] Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 37.
[184] _Shropshire Folk-lore_, pp. 140, 141.
[185] _British Goblins_, p. 165.
[186] _Shropshire Folk-lore_, pp. 138, 139.
[187] _Shropshire Folk-lore_, pp. 122, 123.
[188] _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, p. 247.
[189] Jabez Allies, Worcestershire.
[190] _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, p. 337.
[191] _Shropshire Folk-lore_, p. 125.
[192] Henderson's _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, p. 338.
[193] See Harland and Wilkinson's _Lancashire Legends_, pp. 10-12.
[194] Ingram's _Haunted Homes_, 2nd S. p. 265.
[195] See _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1855, part ii. pp. 58, 59.
[196] See Ingram's _Haunted Homes_, 2nd S. pp. 155-159.