HAUNTED LOCALITIES
Spirits in most countries are supposed to haunt all kinds of places,
and not to confine themselves to any one locality. Local traditions
show how the most unlikely spots, which can boast of little or no
romance, are supposed to be frequented by ghosts; the wayfarer along
some country road having oftentimes been confronted by an uncanny
apparition.
Indeed, the superstitious fear of places being haunted by ghosts
not only led to the abandonment but even destruction of many a
dwelling-place, a practice which, amongst uncultured tribes, not only
'served as a check to material prosperity, but became an obstacle to
progress.'[276] But even in civilised countries the same antipathy
to a haunted house is often found, and the ghostly tenant is allowed
uninterrupted possession owing to the dread his presence inspires. The
Hottentots deserted the house after a decease,[277] and the Seminoles
at once removed from the dwelling where death had occurred, and from
the neighbourhood where the body was buried. Among the South Slavonians
and Bohemians, the bereaved family, returning from the grave, pelted
the ghost of their deceased relative with sticks, stones, and hot
coals. And the Tschuwasche, a tribe in Finland, opened fire on it as
soon as the coffin was outside the house. In Old Calabar, it was usual
for a son to leave his father's house for two years, after which time
it was considered safe to return. If a Kaffir or Maori died before he
could be carried out, the house was tabooed and deserted.[278] The
Ojibways pulled down the house in which anyone had died, and chose
another one to live in as far off as possible. Even with the death of
an infant the same fear was manifested. One day, when a friend visited
a neighbour whose child was sick, he was not a little surprised to
find, on his return in the evening, that the house had disappeared
and all its inhabitants gone. Among the Abipones of Paraguay, when
anyone's life is despaired of, the house is immediately forsaken by his
fellow inmates, and the New England tribes would never live in a wigwam
in which any person had died, but would immediately pull it down.
If a deceased Creek Indian 'has been a man of eminent character, the
family immediately remove from the house in which he is buried, and
erect a new one, with a belief that where the bones of their dead
are deposited, the place is always attended by goblins.'[279] The
Kamtchadales frequently remove from their dwelling when anyone has
died, and among the Lepchas the house where there has been a death 'is
almost always forsaken by the surviving inmates.'[280] Occasionally,
it would seem, the desertion is more complete. After a death, for
instance, the Boobies of Fernando Po forsake the village in which it
occurred, and of the Bechuanas we read that 'on the death of Mallahawan
... the town [Lattakoo] was removed, according to the custom of the
country.'[281]
Ghosts are supposed to find pleasure in revisiting the places where
they have experienced joy, or sorrow and pain, and to wander round
the spot where they died, and hence all kinds of precautions have
been adopted to prevent their returning. In Europe, sometimes, 'steps
were taken to barricade the house against him. Thus, in some parts of
Russia and East Prussia, an axe or a lock is laid on the threshold, or
a knife is hung over the door, and in Germany as soon as the coffin is
carried out of the house all the doors and windows are shut.'[282] And
conversely, it is a common custom in many parts of England to unfasten
every bolt and lock in the house that the spirit of the dying man may
freely escape.
But, as Mr. Frazer shows in his interesting paper on the 'Primitive
Ghost,' our ancestors knew how to outwit the ghost in its endeavour to
find its way back to the house it left at death. Thus the practice of
closing the eyes of the dead, he suggests, originated in 'blindfolding
the dead that he might not see the way by which he was carried to his
last home. At the grave, where he was to rest for ever, there was no
motive for concealment; hence the Romans, and apparently the Siamese,
opened the eyes of the dead man at the funeral pyre. And the idea that
if the eyes of the dead be not closed, his ghost will return to fetch
away another of the household, still exists in Germany, Bohemia, and
England.' With the same object the coffin was carried out of the house
by a hole purposely made in the wall, which was stopped up as soon as
the body had passed through, so that, when the ghost strolled back from
the grave, he found there was no thoroughfare--a device shared equally
by Greenlanders, Hottentots, Bechuanas, Samoieds, Ojibways, Algonquins,
Laosians, Hindoos, Tibetans, Siamese, Chinese, and Fijians. These
'doors of the dead' are still to be seen in a village near Amsterdam,
and they were common in some towns of Central Italy. A trace of the
same custom survives in Thüringen, where there is a belief that the
ghost of a man who has been hanged will return to the house if not
taken out by a window instead of a door. Similarly, for the purpose of
misleading the dead, the Bohemians put on masks, that the dead might
not know and therefore might not follow them, and it is a matter of
conjecture whether mourning customs may not have sprung from 'the
desire to disguise and therefore to protect the living from the dead.'
Among further methods in use for frustrating the return of the dead,
may be noticed the objection to utter the names of deceased persons--a
superstition which Mr. Frazer shows has modified whole languages.
Thus, 'among the Australians, Tasmanians, and Abipones, if the name of
a deceased person happened to be a common name, e.g. the name of an
animal or plant, this name was abolished, and a new one substituted for
it. During the residence of the Jesuit Missionary Dobritzhoffer amongst
the Abipones, the name for tiger was thus changed three times. Amongst
the Indians of Columbia, near relatives of a deceased person often
change their names, under the impression that the ghost will return if
he hears the familiar names.'[283]
The Sandwich Islanders say the spirit of the departed hovers about the
place of its former resort, and in the country north of the Zambesi
'all believe that the souls of the departed still mingle among the
living, and partake in some way of the food they consume.' In the
Aleutian Islands, it is said that 'the invisible souls or shades of the
departed wander about among their children.'
But one of the most favourite haunts of departed spirits is said to be
burial-grounds, and especially their own graves, reminding us of Puck's
words in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (Act v. sc. 2):
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves all gaping wide,
Everyone lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide.
'The belief in ghosts,' writes Thorpe,[284] 'was deeply impressed
on the minds of the heathen Northmen, a belief closely connected
with their ideas of the state after death. The soul, they believed,
returned to the place whence it sprang, while the body, and the grosser
life bound to it, passed to the abode of Hel or Death. Herewith was
naturally combined the belief that the soul of the departed might, from
its heavenly home, revisit the earth, there at night-time to unite
itself in the grave-mound with the corporeal shadow released from Hel.
Thus the dead could show themselves in the open grave-mounds in the
same form which they had in life.'
Indeed, it has been the current opinion for centuries that places of
burial are haunted with spectres and apparitions. Ovid speaks of ghosts
coming out of their sepulchres and wandering about, and Virgil,[285]
too, quoting the popular opinion of his day, tells us how 'Moeris
could call the ghosts out of their tombs.' In short, the idea of the
ghost remaining near the corpse is of world-wide prevalence, and, as
Dr. Tylor remarks,[286] 'through all the changes of religious thought
from first to last in the course of human history, the hovering ghosts
of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place where man's flesh
creeps with terror.' We may further compare Hamlet's words (Act iii.
sc. 2):
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When church-yards yawn.
And Puck also tells how, at the approach of Aurora, 'ghosts, wandering
here and there, troop home to churchyards.' Tracing this superstition
amongst uncultured tribes, we find the soul of the North American
hovering about its burial-place, and among the Costa Ricans the spirits
of the dead are believed to remain near their bodies for a year. The
Dayak's burial-place is frequented by ghosts, and the explorer Swan
tells us that when he was with the North-Western Indians, he was not
allowed to attend a funeral for fear of his offending the spirits
hovering about. From the same authority we learn how at Stony Point,
on the north-west coast of America, a burial-place of the Indians was
considered to be haunted by spirits, and on this account no Indian
ever ventured there.[287] This dread of burial-grounds still retains
a persistent hold, and is one of those survivals of primitive belief
which has given rise to a host of strange superstitious practices.
Keppel, in his 'Visit to the Indian Archipelago,' says that in Northern
Australia the natives will not willingly approach graves at night,
alone, 'but when they are obliged to pass them, they carry a firestick
to keep off the spirit of darkness.'
There is still a belief that the ghost of the last person watches
round the churchyard till another is buried, to whom he delivers his
charge. Crofton Croker says that in Ireland it is the general opinion
among the lower orders that 'the last buried corpse has to perform an
office like that of "fag" in our public schools by the junior boy, and
that the attendance on his churchyard companions is duly relieved by
the interment of some other person.' Serious disturbances have resulted
from this superstition, and terrific fights have at times taken place
to decide which corpse should be buried first. The ancient churchyard
of Truagh, county Monaghan, is said to be haunted by an evil spirit,
whose appearance generally forebodes death. The legend runs, writes
Lady Wilde,[288] 'that at funerals the spirit watches for the person
who remains last in the graveyard. If it be a young man who is there
alone, the spirit takes the form of a beautiful young girl, inspires
him with an ardent passion, and exacts from him a promise that he will
meet her that day month in the churchyard. The promise is then sealed
by a kiss, which sends a fatal fire through his veins, so that he is
unable to resist her caresses, and makes the promise required. Then
she disappears, and the young man proceeds homewards; but no sooner
has he passed the boundary wall of the churchyard than the whole story
of the evil rushes on his mind, and he knows that he has sold himself,
soul and body, for a demon's kiss. Then terror and dismay take hold of
him, till despair becomes insanity, and on the very day month fixed for
the meeting with the demon bride, the victim dies the death of a raving
lunatic, and is laid in the fatal graveyard of Truagh.'
The dead, too, particularly object to persons treading carelessly on
their graves, an allusion to which occurs in one of the songs of Greek
outlawry:[289]
All Saturday we held carouse, and far through Sunday night,
And on the Monday morn we found our wine expended quite.
To seek for more, without delay, the captain made me go;
I ne'er had seen nor known the way, nor had a guide to show.
And so through solitary roads and secret paths I sped,
Which to a little ivied church long time deserted led.
This church was full of tombs, and all by gallant men possest;
One sepulchre stood all alone, apart from all the rest.
I did not see it, and I trod above the dead man's bones,
And as from out the nether world came up a sound of groans.
'What ails thee, sepulchre? Why thus so deeply groan and sigh?
Doth the earth press, or the black stone weigh on thee heavily?'
'Neither the earth doth press me down, nor black stone do me scath,
But I with bitter grief am wrung, and full of shame and wrath,
That thou dost trample on my head, and I am scorned in death.
Perhaps I was not also young, nor brave and stout in fight,
Nor wont, as thou, beneath the moon, to wander through the night.'
According to the Guiana Indians, 'every place is haunted where any have
died;' and in Madagascar the ghosts of ancestors are said to hover
about their tombs. The East Africans 'appear to imagine the souls to be
always near the place of sepulture,' and on the Gold Coast 'the spirit
is supposed to remain near the spot where the body has been buried.'
The souls of warriors slain on the field of battle are considered by
the Mangaians to wander for a while amongst the rocks and trees of
the neighbourhood in which their bodies were thrown. At length 'the
first slain on each battlefield would collect his brothers' ghosts,
and lead them to the summit of a mountain, whence they leap into the
blue expanse, thus becoming the peculiar clouds of the winter.'[290]
And the Mayas of Yucatan think the souls of the dead return to the
earth if they choose, and, in order that they may not lose the way to
the domestic hearth, they mark the path from the hut to the tomb with
chalk.[291]
The primitive doctrine of souls obliges the savage, says Mr.
Dorman,[292] 'to think of the spirit of the dead as close at hand. Most
uncultured tribes, on this account, regard the spot where death has
taken place as haunted. A superstitious fear soon instigates worship,
and this worship, beginning at the tombs and burial-places, develops
into the temple ritual of higher culture.'
The Iroquois believe the space between the earth and sky is full of
spirits, usually invisible, but occasionally seen, and the Ojibways
affirm that innumerable spirits are ever near, and dwell in all kinds
of places. European folk-lore has similar beliefs, it having been a
Scandinavian idea that the souls of the departed dwell in the interior
of mountains, a phase of superstition which frequently presents
itself in the Icelandic sagas, and exists in Germany at the present
day. 'Of some German mountains,' writes Thorpe, 'it is believed that
they are the abodes of the damned. One of these is the Horselberg,
near Eisenach, which is the habitation of Frau Holle; another is the
fabulous Venusberg, in which the Tannhäuser sojourns, and before which
the trusty Eckhart sits as a warning guardian.'[293]
Departed souls were also supposed to dwell in the bottom of wells and
ponds, with which may be compared the many tales current throughout
Germany and elsewhere of towns and castles that have been sunk in the
water, and are at times visible. But, as few subjects have afforded
greater scope for the imagination than the hereafter of the human soul,
numerous myths and legendary stories have been invented to account for
its mysterious departure in the hour of death. Shakespeare has alluded
to the numerous destinations of the disembodied spirit, enumerating
the many ideas prevalent, in his day, on the subject. In 'Measure for
Measure' (Act iii. sc. 1) Claudio pathetically says:
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world.[294]
Indeed, it would be a long task to enter into the mass of mystic
details respecting 'the soul's dread journey by caverns and rocky paths
and weary plains, over steep and slippery mountains, by frail bank or
giddy bridge, across gulfs or rushing rivers,' to its destined home.
According to the Mazovians the soul remains with the coffin, sitting
upon the upper part of it until the burial is over, when it flies
away. Such traditions, writes Mr. Ralston,[295] 'vary in different
localities, but everywhere, among all the Slavonic people, there seems
always to have prevailed an idea that death does not finally sever the
ties between the living and the dead. This idea has taken various
forms, and settled into several widely differing superstitions, lurking
in the secrecy of the cottage, and there keeping alive the cultus of
the domestic spirit, and showing itself openly in the village church,
where on a certain day it calls for a service in remembrance of the
dead. The spirits of those who are thus remembered, say the peasants,
attend the service, taking their place behind the altar. But those who
are left unremembered weep bitterly all through the day.'
In some parts of Ireland, writes Mr. McAnally, 'there exists a belief
that the spirits of the dead are not taken from earth, nor do they lose
all their former interest in earthly affairs, but enjoy the happiness
of the saved, or suffer the punishment imposed for their sins in the
neighbourhood of the scenes among which they lived while clothed in
flesh and blood. At particular crises in the affairs of mortals these
disenthralled spirits sometimes display joy and grief in such a manner
as to attract the attention of living men and women. At weddings they
are frequently unseen guests; at funerals they are always present; and
sometimes, at both weddings and funerals, their presence is recognised
by aerial voices, or mysterious music, known to be of unearthly origin.
The spirits of the good wander with the living as guardian angels; but
the spirits of the bad are restrained in their action, and compelled to
do penance at, or near, the place where their crimes were committed.
Some are chained at the bottom of lakes, others buried underground,
others confined in mountain gorges, some hang on the sides of
precipices, others are transfixed on the tree-tops, while others haunt
the homes of their ancestors, all waiting till the penance has been
endured and the hour of deliverance arrives.'
Harriet Martineau, speaking of the English lakes, says that Souter or
Soutra Fell is the mountain on which ghosts appeared in myriads at
intervals during ten years of the last century. 'On the Midsummer Eve
of the fearful 1745, twenty-six persons, expressly summoned by the
family, saw all that had been seen before, and more. Carriages were
now interspersed with the troops; and everybody knew that no carriages
had been, or could be, on the summit of Souter Fell. The multitude was
beyond imagination; for the troops filled a space of half a mile, and
marched quickly till night hid them, still marching. There was nothing
vaporous or indistinct about the appearance of these spectres. So real
did they seem, that some of the people went up the next morning to look
for the hoof-marks of the horses; and awful it was to them to find not
one footprint on heather or grass.' This spectral march was similar to
that seen at Edge Hill, in Leicestershire, in 1707, and corresponds
with the tradition of the tramp of armies over Helvellyn, on the eve of
the battle of Marston Moor.
With such phantoms may be compared the mock suns, the various
appearances of halos and wandering lights, and such a phenomenon as
the 'Spectre of the Brocken.' Calmet relates a singular instance at
Milan, where some two thousand persons saw, as they supposed, an angel
hovering in the air: he cites Cardan as an eye-witness, who says that
the populace were only undeceived when it was shown, by a sharp-sighted
lawyer, to be a reflection from one of the statues of a neighbouring
church, the image of which was caught on the surface of a cloud. The
mirage, or water of the desert, owes its appearance to similar laws
of refraction. Mountain districts, we know, abound in these illusions,
and 'the splendid enchantment presented in the Straits of Reggio by
the Fata Morgana' has attracted much notice. At such times, 'minarets,
temples, and palaces, have seemed to rise out of the distant waves;'
and spectral huntsmen, soldiers in battle array, and gay but mute
cavalcades, have appeared under similar circumstances, pictured on
the table of the clouds. It was thus, we are told, that the Duke of
Brunswick and Mrs. Graham saw the image of their balloon distinctly
exhibited on the face of a cumulous cloud, in 1836; and travellers on
Mont Blanc have been startled by their own magnified shadows, floating
among the giant peaks.[296] It is difficult to say how many of the
apparitions which have been supposed to haunt certain spots might be
attributed to similar causes.
FOOTNOTES:
[276] Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 22.
[277] See Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, ii. p. 26.
[278] _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 108.
[279] Schoolcraft's _Indian Tribes_, v. p. 270.
[280] See Herbert Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_, 1885, i. p. 199.
[281] _Ibid._ p. 199.
[282] The _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 109.
[283] The _Contemporary Review_, xlviii. p. 111.
[284] _Northern Mythology_, ii. p. 20.
[285] _Bucolics_, viii. p. 98.
[286] _Primitive Culture_, ii. p. 30.
[287] See Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 21.
[288] _Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland_, p. 84.
[289] _Essay in the Study of Folk-Songs_, pp. 14, 15.
[290] Gill: _Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, pp. 162, 163.
[291] See Dorman's _Primitive Superstitions_, p. 33.
[292] _Ibid._ p. 30.
[293] _Northern Mythology_, i. p. 286.
[294] Cf. _Othello_, Act v. sc. 2.
[295] _Songs of the Russian People_, pp. 115, 116.
[296] _Occult Sciences_, 1855; _Apparitions_, pp. 80, 81.