(First Article.)
We have met and conversed with every possible representative of the
various classes that compose general society, from the sweep to the peer,
and we feel ourselves bound to say that in no instance have we ever met
any individual, no matter what his class or rank in life, who was really
indifferent to the subject of dreams, fairies, and apparitions. They are
topics that interest the imagination in all; and the hoary head of age is
inclined with as much interest to a ghost-story, as the young and eager
ear of youth, wrought up by all the nimble and apprehensive powers of
early fancy. It is true the belief in ghosts is fast disappearing, and
that of fairies is already almost gone; but with what new wonders they
shall be replaced, it is difficult to say. The physical and natural we
suppose will give us enough of the marvellous, without having recourse
to the spiritual and supernatural. Steam and gas, if Science advance for
another half century at the same rate as she has done in the last, will
give sufficient exercise to all our faculties for wondering. We know a
man who travelled eighty miles to see whether or not it was a fact that
light could be conveyed for miles in a pipe under ground; and this man to
our own knowledge possessed the organ of marvellousness to a surprising
degree. It is singular, too, that his fear of ghosts was in proportion to
this capacious propensity to wonder, as was his disposition when snug in
a chimney corner to talk incessantly of such topics as were calculated to
excite it.
In our opinion, ghosts and fairies will be seen wherever they are much
talked of, and a belief in their existence cultivated and nourished.
So long as the powers of the imagination are kept warm and active by
exercise, they will create for themselves such images as they are in the
habit of conceiving or dwelling upon; and these, when the individual
happens to be in the appropriate position, will even by the mere force of
association engender the particular Eidolon which is predominant in the
mind. As an illustration of this I shall mention two cases of apparition
which occurred in my native parish, one of which was that of a ghost, and
the other of the fairies. To those who have read my “Traits and Stories
of the Irish Peasantry,” the first which I shall narrate may possess some
interest, as being that upon which I founded the tale of the “Midnight
Mass.” The circumstances are simply these:--
There lived a man named M’Kenna at the hip of one of the mountainous
hills which divide the county of Tyrone from that of Monaghan. This
M’Kenna had two sons, one of whom was in the habit of tracing hares of
a Sunday, whenever there happened to be a fall of snow. His father it
seems had frequently remonstrated with him upon what he considered to
be a violation of the Lord’s day, as well as for his general neglect of
mass. The young man, however, though otherwise harmless and inoffensive,
was in this matter quite insensible to paternal reproof, and continued to
trace whenever the avocations of labour would allow him. It so happened
that upon a Christmas morning, I think in the year 1814, there was a
deep fall of snow, and young M’Kenna, instead of going to mass, got down
his cock-stick--which is a staff much heavier at one end than at the
other--and prepared to set out on his favourite amusement. His father
seeing this, reproved him seriously, and insisted that he should attend
prayers. His enthusiasm for the sport, however, was stronger than his
love of religion, for he refused to be guided by his father’s advice.
The old man during the altercation got warm; and on finding that the son
obstinately scorned his authority, he knelt down and prayed that if the
boy persisted in following his own will, he might never return from
the mountains unless as a corpse. The imprecation, which was certainly
as harsh as it was impious and senseless, might have startled many a
mind from a purpose which was, to say the least of it, at variance with
religion and the respect due to a father. It had no effect, however, upon
the son, who is said to have replied, that whether he ever returned or
not, he was determined on going; and go accordingly he did. He was not,
however, alone, for it appears that three or four of the neighbouring
young men accompanied him. Whether their sport was good or otherwise, is
not to the purpose, neither am I able to say; but the story goes that
towards the latter part of the day they started a larger and darker hare
than any they had ever seen, and that she kept dodging on before them
bit by bit, leading them to suppose that every succeeding cast of the
cock-stick would bring her down. It was observed afterwards that she
also led them into the recesses of the mountains, and that although they
tried to turn her course homewards, they could not succeed in doing so.
As evening advanced, the companions of M’Kenna began to feel the folly of
pursuing her farther, and to perceive the danger of losing their way in
the mountains should night or a snow-storm come upon them. They therefore
proposed to give over the chase and return home; but M’Kenna would not
hear of it. “If you wish to go home, you may,” said he; “as for me, I’ll
never leave the hills till I have her with me.” They begged and entreated
him to desist and return, but all to no purpose: he appeared to be what
the Scotch call _fey_--that is, to act as if he were moved by some
impulse that leads to death, and from the influence of which a man cannot
withdraw himself. At length, on finding him invincibly obstinate, they
left him pursuing the hare directly into the heart of the mountains, and
returned to their respective homes.
In the mean time, one of the most terrible snow-storms ever remembered
in that part of the country came on, and the consequence was, that the
self-willed young man, who had equally trampled on the sanctions of
religion and parental authority, was given over for lost. As soon as the
tempest became still, the neighbours assembled in a body and proceeded
to look for him. The snow, however, had fallen so heavily that not a
single mark of a footstep could be seen. Nothing but one wide waste of
white undulating hills met the eye wherever it turned, and of M’Kenna no
trace whatever was visible or could be found. His father now remembering
the unnatural character of his imprecation, was nearly distracted;
for although the body had not yet been found, still by every one who
witnessed the sudden rage of the storm and who knew the mountains, escape
or survival was felt to be impossible. Every day for about a week large
parties were out among the hill-ranges seeking him, but to no purpose.
At length there came a thaw, and his body was found on a snow-wreath,
lying in a supine posture within a circle which he had drawn around him
with his cock-stick. His prayer-book lay opened upon his mouth, and his
hat was pulled down so as to cover it and his face. It is unnecessary to
say that the rumour of his death, and of the circumstances under which
he left home, created a most extraordinary sensation in the country--a
sensation that was the greater in proportion to the uncertainty
occasioned by his not having been found either alive or dead. Some
affirmed that he had crossed the mountains, and was seen in Monaghan;
others, that he had been seen in Clones, in Emyvale, in Fivemiletown;
but despite of all these agreeable reports, the melancholy truth was at
length made clear by the appearance of the body as just stated.
Now, it so happened that the house nearest the spot where he lay
was inhabited by a man named Daly, I think--but of the name I am
not certain--who was a herd or care-taker to Dr Porter, then Bishop
of Clogher. The situation of this house was the most lonely and
desolate-looking that could be imagined. It was at least two miles
distant from any human habitation, being surrounded by one wide and
dreary waste of dark moor. By this house lay the route of those who had
found the corpse, and I believe the door was borrowed for the purpose of
conveying it home. Be this as it may, the family witnessed the melancholy
procession as it passed slowly through the mountains, and when the place
and circumstances are all considered, we may admit that to ignorant and
superstitious people, whose minds even under ordinary occasions were
strongly affected by such matters, it was a sight calculated to leave
behind it a deep, if not a terrible impression. Time soon proved that it
did so.
An incident is said to have occurred at the funeral which I have alluded
to in the “Midnight Mass,” and which is certainly in fine keeping with
the wild spirit of the whole melancholy event. When the procession had
advanced to a place called Mullaghtinny, a large dark-coloured hare,
which was instantly recognised, by those who had been out with him on the
hills, as the identical one that led him to his fate, is said to have
crossed the road about twenty yards or so before the coffin. The story
goes, that a man struck it on the side with a stone, and that the blow,
which would have killed any ordinary hare, not only did it no injury, but
occasioned a sound to proceed from the body resembling the hollow one
emitted by an empty barrel when struck.
In the meantime the interment took place, and the sensation began like
every other to die away in the natural progress of time, when, behold,
a report ran about like wildfire that, to use the language of the
people, “Frank M’Kenna was _appearing_!” Seldom indeed was the rumour
of an apparition composed of materials so strongly calculated to win
popular assent or to baffle rational investigation. As every man is not
a Hibbert or a Nicolai, so will many, until such circumstances are made
properly intelligible, continue to yield credence to testimony which
would convince the judgment on any other subject. The case in question
furnished as fine a specimen of a true ghost-story, freed from any
suspicion of imposture or design, as could be submitted to a philosopher;
and yet, notwithstanding the array of apparent facts connected with it,
nothing in the world is simpler or of easier solution.
One night, about a fortnight after his funeral, the daughter of Daly,
the herd, a girl about fourteen, while lying in bed saw what appeared
to be the likeness of M’Kenna, who had been lost. She screamed out, and
covering her head with the bed-clothes, told her father and mother that
Frank M’Kenna was in the house. This alarming intelligence naturally
produced great terror; still, Daly, who notwithstanding his belief in
such matters possessed a good deal of moral courage, was cool enough to
rise and examine the house, which consisted of only one apartment. This
gave the daughter some courage, who, on finding that her father could
not see him, ventured to look out, and she _then_ could see nothing of
him herself. She very soon fell asleep, and her father attributed what
she saw to fear, or some accidental combination of shadows proceeding
from the furniture, for it was a clear moonlight night. The light of
the following day dispelled a great deal of their apprehensions, and
comparatively little was thought of it until evening again advanced, when
the fears of the daughter began to return. They appeared to be prophetic,
for she said when night came that she knew he would appear again; and
accordingly at the same hour he did so. This was repeated for several
successive nights, until the girl, from the very hardihood of terror,
began to become so far familiarised to the spectre as to venture to
address it.
“In the name of God,” she asked, “what is troubling you, or why do you
appear to me instead of to some of your own family or relations?”
The ghost’s answer alone might settle the question involved in the
authenticity of its appearance, being, as it was, an account of one of
the most ludicrous missions that ever a spirit was dispatched upon.
“I’m not allowed,” said he, “to spake to any of my friends, for I parted
wid them in anger; but I’m come to tell you that they are quarrellin’
about my breeches--a new pair that I got made for Christmas day; an’ as
I was comin’ up to thrace in the mountains, I thought the ould ones ’ud
do betther, an’ of coorse I didn’t put the new pair an me. My raison for
appearin’,” he added, “is, that you may tell my friends that none of them
is to wear them--they must be given in charity.”
This serious and solemn intimation from the ghost was duly communicated
to the family, and it was found that the circumstances were exactly as it
had represented them. This of course was considered as sufficient proof
of the truth of its mission. Their conversations now became not only
frequent, but quite friendly and familiar. The girl became a favourite
with the spectre, and the spectre on the other hand soon lost all his
terrors in her eyes. He told her that whilst his friends were bearing
home his body, the handspikes or poles on which they carried him had
cut his back, and _occasioned him great pain_! The cutting of the back
also was found to be true, and strengthened of course the truth and
authenticity of their dialogues. The whole neighbourhood was now in a
commotion with this story of the apparition, and persons incited by
curiosity began to visit the girl in order to satisfy themselves of the
truth of what they had heard. Every thing, however, was corroborated,
and the child herself, without any symptoms of anxiety or terror,
artlessly related her conversations with the spirit. Hitherto their
interviews had been all nocturnal, but now that the ghost found his
footing made good, he put a hardy face on, and ventured to appear by
daylight. The girl also fell into states of syncope, and while the
fits lasted, long conversations with him upon the subject of God, the
blessed Virgin, and Heaven, took place between them. He was certainly
an excellent moralist, and gave the best advice. Swearing, drunkenness,
theft, and every evil propensity of our nature, were declaimed against
with a degree of spectral eloquence quite surprising. Common fame had
now a topic dear to her heart, and, never was a ghost made more of
by his best friends, than she made of him. The whole country was in
a tumult, and I well remember the crowds which flocked to the lonely
little cabin in the mountains, now the scene of matters so interesting
and important. Not a single day passed in which I should think from ten
to twenty, thirty, or fifty persons, were not present at these singular
interviews. Nothing else was talked of, thought of, and, as I can well
testify, dreamt of. I would myself have gone to Daly’s were it not for
a confounded misgiving I had, that perhaps the ghost might take such a
fancy of appearing to me, as he had taken to cultivate an intimacy with
the girl; and it so happens, that when I see the face of an individual
nailed down in the coffin--chilling and gloomy operation!--I experience
no particular wish ever to look upon it again.
Many persons might imagine that the herd’s daughter was acting the part
of an impostor, by first originating and then sustaining such a delusion.
If any one, however, was an impostor, it was the ghost, and not the girl,
as her ill health and wasted cheek might well testify. The appearance of
M’Kenna continued to haunt her for months. The reader is aware that he
was lost on Christmas day, or rather on the night of it, and I remember
seeing her in the early part of the following summer, during which time
she was still the victim of a diseased imagination. Every thing in fact
that could be done for her was done. They brought her to a priest named
Donnelly, who lived down at Ballynasaggart, for the purpose of getting
her cured, as he had the reputation of performing cures of that kind.
They brought her also to the doctors, who also did what they could for
her; but all to no purpose. Her fits were longer and of more frequent
occurrence; her appetite left her; and ere four months had elapsed, she
herself looked as like a spectre as the ghost himself could do for the
life of him.
Now, this was a pure case of spectral illusion, and precisely similar to
that detailed so philosophically by Nicolai the German bookseller, and to
others mentioned by Hibbert. The image of M’Kenna not only appeared to
her in daylight at her own house, but subsequently followed her wherever
she went; and what proved this to have been the result of diseased
organization, produced at first by a heated and excited imagination, was,
that, as the story went, she could see him with her eyes shut. Whilst
this state of mental and physical feeling lasted, she was the subject of
the most intense curiosity. No matter where she went, whether to chapel,
to fair, or to market, she was followed by crowds, every one feeling
eager to get a glimpse of the girl who had actually seen, and what was
more, spoken to a ghost--a live ghost.
Now, here was a young girl of an excitable temperament and large
imagination, leading an almost solitary life amidst scenery of a lonely
and desolate character, who, happening to be strongly impressed with
an image of horror--for surely such was the body of a dead man seen
in association with such peculiarly frightful circumstances as filial
disobedience and a father’s curse were calculated to give it--cannot
shake it off, but on the contrary becomes a victim to the disease which
it generates. There is not an image which we see in a fever, or a face
whether of angel or devil, or an uncouth shape of any kind, that is
not occasioned by cerebral excitement, or derangement of the nervous
system, analogous to that under which Daly’s daughter laboured. I saw
her several times, and remember clearly that her pale face, dark eye,
and very intellectual forehead, gave indications of such a temperament
as under her circumstances would be apt to receive strong and fearful
impressions from images calculated to excite terror, especially of the
supernatural. It only now remains for me to mention the simple method of
her cure, which was effected without either priest or doctor. It depended
upon a word or two of advice given to her father by a very sensible man,
who was in the habit of thinking on these matters somewhat above the
superstitious absurdities of the people.
“If you wish your daughter to be cured,” said he to her father, “leave
the house you are now living in. Take her to some part of the country
where she can have companions of her own class and state of life to
mingle with; bring her away from the place altogether; for you may rest
assured that so long as there are objects before her eyes to remind her
of what happened, she will not mend on your hands.”
The father, although he sat rent free, took this excellent advice, even
at a sacrifice of some comfort: for nothing short of the temptation of
easy circumstances could have induced any man to reside in so wild and
remote a solitude. In the course of a few days he removed from it with
his family, and came to reside amidst the cheerful aspect and enlivening
intercourse of human life. The consequences were precisely as the man
had told him. In the course of a few weeks the little girl began to find
that the visits of the spectre were like those of angels, few and far
between. She was sent to school, and what with the confidence derived
from human society, and the substitution of new objects and images, she
soon perfectly recovered, and ere long was thoroughly set free from the
fearful creation of her own brain.
Now, there is scarcely one of the people in my native parish who does
not believe that the spirit of this man came back to the world, and
actually appeared to this little girl. The time, however, is fast coming
when these empty bugbears will altogether disappear, and we shall
entertain more reverend and becoming notions of God than to suppose such
senseless pranks could be played by the soul of a departed being under
his permission. We might as well assert that the imaginary beings which
surround the couch of the madman or hypochondriac have a real existence,
as those that are conjured up by terror, weak nerves, or impure blood.
The spot where the body of M’Kenna was found is now marked by a little
heap of stones, which has been collected since the melancholy event of
his death. Every person who passes it throws a stone upon the heap; but
why this old custom is practised, or what it means, I do not know, unless
it be simply to mark the spot as a visible means of preserving the memory
of the occurrence.
Daly’s house, the scene of the supposed apparition, is now a shapeless
ruin, which could scarcely be seen were it not for the green spot that
was once a garden, and which now shines at a distance like an emerald,
but with no agreeable or pleasing associations. It is a spot which no
solitary schoolboy will ever visit, nor indeed would the unflinching
believer in the popular nonsense of ghosts wish to pass it without a
companion. It is under any circumstances a gloomy and barren place, but
when looked upon in connection with what we have just recited, it is
lonely, desolate, and awful.