WRAITH-SEEING
Closely allied to 'second sight' is the doctrine of 'wraiths' or
'fetches,' sometimes designated 'doubles'--an apparition exactly
like a living person, its appearance, whether to that person or
to another, being considered an omen of death. The 'Fetch' is a
well-known superstition in Ireland, and is supposed to be a mere
shadow, 'resembling in stature, features, and dress, a living person,
and often mysteriously or suddenly seen by a very particular friend.'
Spiritlike, it flits before the sight, seeming to walk leisurely
through the fields, often disappearing through a gap or lane. The
person it resembles is usually known at the time to be labouring under
some mortal illness, and unable to leave his or her bed. When the
'fetch' appears agitated, or eccentric in its motions, a violent or
painful death is indicated for the doomed prototype. Such a phantom,
too, is said to make its appearance at the same time, and in the same
place, to more than one person.[306] Should it be seen in the morning,
a happy longevity for the original is confidently expected; but if it
be seen in the evening, immediate dissolution of the living prototype
is anticipated. It is thought, too, that individuals may behold their
own 'fetches.' Queen Elizabeth is said to have been warned of her death
by the apparition of her own double, and Miss Strickland thus describes
her last illness: 'As her mortal illness drew towards a close, the
superstitious fears of her simple ladies were excited almost to mania,
even to conjuring up a spectral apparition of the Queen while she
was yet alive. Lady Guilford, who was then in waiting on the Queen,
leaving her in an almost breathless sleep in her privy chamber, went
out to take a little air, and met her Majesty, as she thought, three or
four chambers off. Alarmed at the thought of being discovered in the
act of leaving the royal patient alone, she hurried forward in some
trepidation in order to excuse herself, when the apparition vanished
away. She returned terrified to the chamber, but there lay the Queen in
the same lethargic slumber in which she left her.'
Shelley, shortly before his death, believed he had seen his wraith.
'On June 23,' says one of his biographers, 'he was heard screaming at
midnight in the saloon. The Williamses ran in and found him staring
on vacancy. He had had a vision of a cloaked figure which came to
his bedside and beckoned him to follow. He did so, and when they had
reached the sitting-room, the figure lifted the hood of his cloak and
disclosed Shelley's own features, and saying "Siete soddisfatto?"
vanished. This vision is accounted for on the ground that Shelley had
been reading a drama attributed to Calderon, named 'El Embozado, ó el
Encapotado,' in which a mysterious personage who had been haunting
and thwarting the hero all his life, and is at last about to give
him satisfaction in a duel, unmasks and proves to be the hero's own
wraith. He also asks, "Art thou satisfied?" and the haunted man dies of
horror.' Sir Robert Napier is supposed to have seen his double, and
Aubrey quaintly relates how 'the beautiful Lady Diana Rich, daughter
to the Earl of Holland, as she was walking in her father's garden at
Kensington to take the air before dinner, about 11 o'clock, being
then very well, met her own apparition, habit and everything, as in a
looking-glass. About a month after, she died of small-pox. And it is
said that her sister, the Lady Isabella Thynne, saw the like of herself
also before she died. This account I had from a person of honour. A
third sister, Mary, was married to the Earl of Breadalbane, and it has
been recorded that she also, not long after her marriage, had some such
warning of her approaching dissolution.'
The Irish novelist, John Banim, has written both a novel and a ballad
on this subject, one which has also largely entered into many a
tradition and folk-tale.[307] In Cumberland this apparition is known by
the peasantry as a 'swarth,' and in Yorkshire by the name of a 'waff.'
The gift of wraith-seeing still flourishes on the Continent, and
examples abound in Silesia and the Tyrol.
'With regard to bilocation, or double personality,' writes a Catholic
priest,[308] 'there is a great deal of very interesting matter in
St. Thomas of Aquin, and also in Cardinal Cajetan's "Commentaries of
St. Thomas." The substance of the principles is this: Bilocation,
properly so called, is defined by the scholastics as the perfect and
simultaneous existence of one and the same individual in two distinct
places at the same time. This _never_ does and never can happen. But
bilocation, improperly so called, and which St. Thomas terms _raptus_,
does occur, and is identical with the double, as you call it, in the
cases of St. Gennadius, St. Ignatius, &c.
'St. Thomas quotes as illustrations or instances, St. Paul being taken
up to the Third Heaven. Ezekiel, the prophet, was taken by God and
shown Jerusalem, whilst at the same time he was sitting in the room
with the ancients of the tribe of Judah before him (Ezekiel viii.),
&c. In which the soul of man is not wholly detached from the body,
being necessary for the purpose of giving life, but is detached from
the _senses_ of the body. St. Thomas gives three causes for this
phenomenon: (1) Divine power; (2) the power of the Devil; and (3),
disease of the body when very violent sometimes.' Bardinus tells how
Marsilius Ficinus appeared at the hour of his death on a white horse to
Michael Mercatus, and rode away crying, 'O Michael, Michael, vera, vera
sunt illa,' that is, the doctrine of a future life is true. Instances
of this kind of phenomenon have been common in all ages of the world,
and Lucretius suggested the strange fancy that the superficial surfaces
of all bodies were continually flying off like the coats of an onion,
which accounted for the appearance of apparitions; whilst Jacques
Gaffarel suggested that corrupting bodies send forth vapours which,
being compressed by the cold night air, appear visible to the eye in
the forms of men.[309]
In one of the notes to 'Les Imaginations Extravagantes de Monsieur
Oufle,' by the Abbé Bordélon, it is said that the monks and nuns, a
short time before their death, have seen the images of themselves
seated in their chairs or stalls. Catharine of Russia, after retiring
to her bedroom, was told that she had been seen just before to enter
the State Chamber. On hearing this she went thither, and saw the exact
similitude of herself seated upon the throne. She ordered her guards to
fire upon it.
In Scotland and the northern counties of England it was formerly said
that the apparition of the person that was doomed to die within a
short time was seen wrapped in a winding-sheet, and the higher the
winding-sheet reached up towards the head the nearer was death. This
apparition was seen during day, and it might show itself to anyone, but
only to one, who generally fell into a faint a short time afterwards.
If the person who saw the apparition was alone at the time, the
fainting fit did not come on till after meeting with others.
In the 'Statistical Account of Scotland' (xxi. 148), the writer,
speaking of the parish of Monquhitter, says, the 'fye gave due warning
by certain signs of approaching mortality'; and, again (149), 'the
fye has withdrawn his warning.' Some friends observing to an old
woman, when in the ninety-ninth year of her age, that, in the course
of nature, she could not long survive, she remarked, with pointed
indignation, 'What fye-token do you see about me?'
In the same work (iii. 380) the minister of Applecross, county of
Ross, speaking of the superstitions of that parish, says: 'The ghosts
of the dying, called "tasks," are said to be heard, their cry being
a repetition of the moans of the sick. Some assume the sagacity of
distinguishing the voice of their departed friends. The corpse follows
the track led by the "tasks" to the place of interment, and the early
or late completion of the prediction is made to depend on the period of
the night at which the "task" is heard.'
The Scotch wraith and Irish fetch have their parallel in Wales in
the Lledrith, or spectre of a person seen before his death. It never
speaks, and vanishes if spoken to. It has been seen by miners previous
to a fatal accident in the mine. The story is told of a miner who saw
himself lying dead and horribly maimed in a phantom tram-car, led by
a phantom horse, and surrounded by phantom miners. As he watched this
dreadful group of spectres they passed on, looking neither to the
right nor the left, and faded away. The miner's dog was as frightened
as its master, and ran away howling. The miner continued to work in the
pit, and as the days passed on and no harm came to him he grew more
cheerful, and was so bold as to laugh at the superstition. But the
day he did this a stone fell from the roof and broke his arm. As soon
as he recovered he resumed work in the pit; but a stone crushed him,
and he was borne maimed and dead in the tram along the road where his
'lledrith' had appeared.[310]
'Examining,' says Dr. Tylor,[311] 'the position of the doctrine of
wraiths among the higher races, we find it specially prominent in three
intellectual districts: Christian hagiology, popular folk-lore, and
modern spiritualism. St. Anthony saw the soul of St. Ammonius carried
to heaven in the midst of choirs of angels, the same day that the
holy hermit died five days' journey off in the desert of Nitria. When
St. Ambrose died on Easter Eve, several newly-baptized children saw
the holy bishop and pointed him out to their parents; but these, with
their less pure eyes, could not behold him.' Numerous instances of
wraith-seeing have been chronicled from time to time, some of which
are noteworthy. It is related how Ben Jonson, when staying at Sir
Robert Cotton's house, was visited by the apparition of his eldest son,
with a mark of a bloody cross upon his forehead, at the moment of his
death by the plague. Lord Balcarres, it is said, when in confinement
in Edinburgh Castle under suspicion of Jacobitism, was one morning
lying in bed when the curtains were drawn aside by his friend Viscount
Dundee, who looked upon him steadfastly, and then left the room.
Shortly afterwards the news came that he had fallen about the same
hour at Killiecrankie. Lord Mohun, who was killed in a duel in Chelsea
Fields, is reported to have appeared at the moment of his death, in the
year 1642, to a lady in James Street, Covent Garden, and also to the
sister of Glanvill, famous as the author of 'Sadducismus Triumphatus.'
It is related how the second Earl of Chesterfield, in 1652, saw, when
walking, a spectre with long white robes and black face. Regarding it
as an intimation of some illness of his wife, then visiting her father
at Networth, he set off early to inquire, and met a servant from Lady
Chesterfield, describing the same apparition. Anna Maria Porter, when
living at Esher, was visited by an old gentleman, a neighbour, who
frequently came in to tea. On this occasion, the story goes, he left
the room without speaking; and, fearing that something had happened,
she sent to inquire, and found that he had died at the moment of his
appearance. Similarly Maria Edgeworth, when waiting with her family for
an expected guest, saw in a vacant chair the apparition of a sailor
cousin, who suddenly stated that his ship had been wrecked and he
himself the only one saved. The event proved the contrary--he alone was
drowned.[312]
One of the most striking and best authenticated cases on record is
known as the Birkbeck Ghost, and is thus related in the 'Proceedings
of the Psychical Research Society': 'In 1789, Mrs. Birkbeck, wife of
William Birkbeck, banker, of Settle, and a member of the Society of
Friends, was taken ill and died at Cockermouth while returning from
a journey to Scotland, which she had undertaken alone--her husband
and three children, aged seven, five, and four years respectively,
remaining at Settle. The friends at whose house the death occurred
made notes of every circumstance attending Mrs. Birkbeck's last hours,
so that the accuracy of the several statements as to time as well as
place was beyond the doubtfulness of man's memory, or of any even
unconscious attempt to bring them into agreement with each other. One
morning, between seven and eight o'clock, the relation to whom the care
of the children had been entrusted, and who kept a minute journal of
all that concerned them, went into their bedroom, as usual, and found
them all sitting up in bed in great excitement and delight. "Mamma has
been here," they cried; and the little one said, "She called, 'Come,
Esther!'" Nothing could make them doubt the fact, and it was carefully
noted down to entertain the mother when she came home. That same
morning, as their mother lay on her dying bed at Cockermouth, she said,
"I should be ready to go if I could but see my children." She then
closed her eyes, to reopen them, as they thought, no more. But after
ten minutes of perfect stillness she looked up brightly, and said,
"I am ready now; I have been with my children;" and at once passed
peacefully away. When the notes taken at the two places were compared,
the day, hour, and minutes were the same.'
Baxter, in his 'World of Spirits,' records a very similar case of a
dying woman visiting her children in Rochester, and in a paper on
'Ghosts and Goblins,' which appeared in the 'Cornhill' (1873, xxvii.
457), the writer relates how, in a house in Ireland, a girl lay dying.
Her mother and father were with her, and her five sisters were praying
for her in a neighbouring room. This room was well lit, but overhead
was a skylight, and the dark sky beyond. One of the sisters, looking
towards this skylight, saw there the face of her dying sister looking
sorrowfully down upon them. She seized another sister and pointed to
the skylight; one after another the sisters looked where she pointed.
They spoke no word; and in a few moments their father and mother called
them to the room where their sister had just died. But when afterwards
they talked together about what had happened that night, it was found
that they had all seen the vision and the sorrowful face. But, as the
writer observes, 'in stories where a ghost appears for some useful
purpose, the mind does not reject the event as altogether unreasonable,
though the circumstances may be sufficiently preposterous;' but one can
conceive no reason why the vision of a dying sister should look down
through a skylight.
According to a Lancashire belief, the spirits of persons about to die,
especially if the persons be in distant lands, are supposed to return
to their friends, and thus predict the event. While the spirit is thus
away, the person is supposed to be in a swoon, and unaware of what is
passing. But his desire to see his friends is necessary; and he must
have been thinking of them.[313]
It is related from Devonshire, of the well-known Dr. Hawker, that, when
walking one night, he observed an old woman pass by him, to whom he was
in the habit of giving a weekly charity. As soon as she had passed, he
felt somebody pull his coat, and on looking round he recognised her,
and put his hand in his pocket to seek for a sixpence, but on turning
to give it to her she was gone. On his return home he heard she was
dead, but his family had forgotten to mention the circumstance.[314]
A correspondent of 'Notes and Queries' (3rd S. vi. 182) tells how a
judge of the Staffordshire County Courts, being on one occasion in the
North, went with his sisters into the church of the place to inspect
its monuments. While there they were surprised to see a lady, whom they
knew to be in Bath, walk in at one door and out through another. They
immediately followed, but could neither see nor hear anything further
of her. On writing to her friends, it was found that she was dead, and
a second letter elicited the fact that she had died at the very same
time at which she had been seen by them in the North.
Patrick Kennedy, in his 'Legendary Fiction of the Irish Celt,' speaking
of the Irish fetch, gives the following tale of 'The Doctor's Fetch,'
based, it is stated, on the most authentic sources: 'In one of our
Irish cities, and in a room where the mild moonbeams were resting on
the carpet and on a table near the window, Mrs. B., wife of a doctor
in good practice and general esteem, looking towards the window from
her pillow, was startled by the appearance of her husband standing
near the table just mentioned, and seeming to look with attention on
the book which was lying open on it. Now, the living and breathing man
was by her side apparently asleep, and, greatly as she was surprised
and affected, she had sufficient command of herself to remain without
moving, lest she should expose him to the terror which she herself
at the moment experienced. After gazing on the apparition for a few
seconds, she bent her eyes upon her husband to ascertain if his looks
were turned in the direction of the window, but his eyes were closed.
She turned round again, although now dreading the sight of what she
believed to be her husband's fetch, but it was no longer there. She
remained sleepless throughout the remainder of the night, but still
bravely refrained from disturbing her partner.
'Next morning, Mr. B., seeing signs of disquiet on his wife's
countenance while at breakfast, made some affectionate inquiries, but
she concealed her trouble, and at his ordinary hour he sallied forth
to make his calls. Meeting Dr. C. in the street, and falling into
conversation with him, he asked his opinion on the subject of fetches.
"I think," was the answer, "and so I am sure do you, that they are mere
illusions produced by a disturbed stomach acting upon the excited brain
of a highly imaginative or superstitious person." "Then," said Dr. B.,
"I am highly imaginative or superstitious, for I distinctly saw my
own outward man last night standing at the table in the bedroom, and
clearly distinguishable in the moonlight. I am afraid my wife saw it
too, but I have been afraid to speak to her on the subject."
'About the same hour on the ensuing night the poor lady was again
roused, but by a more painful circumstance. She felt her husband
moving convulsively, and immediately afterwards he cried to her in
low, interrupted accents, "Ellen, my dear, I am suffocating; send for
Dr. C." She sprang up, huddled on some clothes, and ran to his house.
He came with all speed, but his efforts for his friend were useless.
He had burst a large blood-vessel in the lungs, and was soon beyond
human aid. In her lamentations the bereaved wife frequently cried out,
"Oh! the fetch, the fetch!" and at a later period told the doctor of
the appearance the night before her husband's death.' But, whilst
many stories of this kind are open to explanation, it is a singular
circumstance how even several persons may be deceived by an illusion
such as the following. A gentleman who had lately lost his wife,
looking out of window in the dusk of evening, saw her sitting in a
garden-chair. He called one of his daughters and asked her to look out
into the garden. 'Why,' she said, 'mother is sitting there.' Another
daughter was called, and she experienced the same illusion. Then the
gentleman went out into the garden, and found that a garden-dress of
his wife's had been placed over the seat in such a position as to
produce the illusion which had deceived himself and his daughters.
In 'Phantasms of the Living'[315] very many strange and startling cases
are recorded, in which the mysterious 'double' has appeared, sometimes
speaking, and sometimes without speech, although such manifestations
have not always been omens of death. Thus the late Lord Dorchester[316]
is said to have seen the phantom of his daughter standing at the
window, having his attention aroused by its shadow, which fell across
the book he was reading at the time. She had accompanied a fishing
expedition, was caught in a storm, and was distressed at the thought
that her father would be anxious on her account.
In Fitzroy's 'Cruise of the Beagle' an anecdote is told of a young
Fuegian, Jemmy Button, and his father's ghost. 'While at sea, on board
the "Beagle," about the middle of the year 1842, he said one morning to
Mr. Byno, that in the night some man came to the side of his hammock,
and whispered in his ear that his father was dead. Mr. Byno tried to
laugh him out of the idea, but ineffectually. He fully believed that
such was the case, and maintained his opinion up to the time of finding
his relations in Beagle Channel, when, I regret to say, he found that
his father had died some months previously.' This story is interesting,
especially as Mr. Lang says it is the only one he has encountered among
savages, of a warning conveyed to a man by a ghost as to the death of a
friend.[317]
FOOTNOTES:
[306] _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1865, pt. ii. p. 564.
[307] See _Popular Irish Superstitions_, by W. R. Wilde, p. 109.
[308] _More Ghost Stories_, collected and edited by W. T. Stead, 1892,
p. 22.
[309] See Mrs. Crowe's _Night Side of Nature_, 1854, p. 111.
[310] Wirt Sikes, _British Goblins_, p. 215.
[311] _Primitive Culture_, 1891, i. p. 448.
[312] _Real Ghost Stories_, W. T. Stead, p. 103.
[313] Harland and Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-lore_, p. 105.
[314] Quoted by Mrs. Crowe, _Night Side of Nature_, p. 202.
[315] Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore.
[316] _Phantasms of the Living_, ii. p. 531.
[317] _Nineteenth Century_, April 1865, p. 629.