Sir George Villiers' Ghost warning his Son of
Danger--Warnings Neglected--Duke of Buckingham
Murdered--Apparitions do not lie--Lord Lyttelton and
others profaning Christmas--A Troubled
Mind--Apparition of a Suicide--Neglected
Warning--Deception of Friends--Accusing a Ghost of
Falsehood--Approach of the Ominous Hour--Alarm--Lord
Lyttelton found Dead at the dreaded time--Death of an
old Roman King--Alarming Prodigies--Tales from the
_Eddas_--A Scandinavian Warrior's Ghost--An Icelandic
Lady's Ghost--Spectral Appearance--Mysterious Death of
a Herdsman--Fear of approaching Calamities--Man beaten
to Death by a Ghost--Association of Ghosts--Demon in
the shape of a Seal--Apparitions of Drowned
Men--Christians not disturbed by Spectres--A Band of
Demons thirty strong--Priest exorcising Evil
Spirits--Spirits frightened away.
An officer in the king's service at Windsor Castle, in the beginning
of the seventeenth century, when a boy, was taken much notice of by
Sir George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's father. The officer,
after he had reached manhood, was lying in bed one night, awake and in
good health, when he perceived a venerable form draw near his bed. The
apparition (for so it turned out to be) asked him if he knew who he
was. The frightened gentleman told the apparition that the figure of
the deceased Sir George Villiers stood before him. The apparition
replied that he was right, and that he (the gentleman) must go and
acquaint Sir George's son, that unless he ingratiated himself into the
good opinion of the people, he would soon be cut off. Next morning the
gentleman began to think his senses had deceived him, and therefore he
did not deliver the message. Next night the apparition appeared in a
terrible aspect, and told him that, unless he complied with his
commands, he could not expect peace of mind. A promise to obey was
promptly made. Again the gentleman tried to persuade himself that he
had been dreaming, and a second time broke his word. A third night the
spectre appeared, reproaching him with breach of promise, and, after
again requesting him to deliver the message to the duke, uttered
threats of fearful punishment in case of non-compliance. Delay seemed
dangerous, so the gentleman hastened to London, where the Court then
was, and entrusted Sir Ralph Freeman, who was married to a lady nearly
allied to the duke, with the message. Sir Ralph communicated with the
duke, who, however, could not receive the messenger, but sent him word
that next day he was going to hunt with the king, and that he would
meet him at Lambeth Bridge at five o'clock in the morning, where, if
the gentleman attended, he would speak to him. Sir Ralph, being
satisfied of the importance of having the message correctly delivered,
accompanied the gentleman to the appointed place of meeting. The
messenger and the duke spoke privately for nearly an hour. Neither Sir
Ralph nor his servants could hear what was said, but they observed
that several times the duke laboured under great emotion. The duke
rode off to meet the king, and the gentleman and Sir Ralph returned
together. The man told Sir Ralph that when he mentioned certain facts
to the duke, he swore that he could not have come to the knowledge of
them except through the devil, for the particulars he disclosed, as a
token of him being sent by his deceased father, were profound secrets.
The duke returned from the hunting-field before the morning was past,
and retired with his mother to her private apartments for two or three
hours. On coming out his countenance was troubled. He received other
warnings, which were disregarded. The result may be anticipated. His
Grace was stabbed on the 23d August 1628 by John Felton, a
discontented lieutenant, at Portsmouth. When the news of the duke's
murder was brought to his mother, she received it with grief, but
without surprise. She had long foreseen what would happen.
"Apparitions," she said, "did not lie."
Lord Lyttelton, in the winter of 1778, left the metropolis with a
party of loose and dissipated companions to profane the Christmas by
riotous debaucheries, at his country house, near Epsom. They had not
long abandoned themselves to their desperate orgies, before a sudden
gloom came over the party by their host becoming extraordinarily
depressed in spirits and dejected of countenance. All his vivacity
departed, and he fled from his guests. Urged to make known the cause
of his uneasiness, he revealed the secret. He told them, that the
previous night, after retiring to bed, and his light extinguished, he
heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a bird at his window.
Looking to the window, he saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he
had betrayed, and who in consequence had committed suicide, standing
in the window recess. The form approached the foot of his bed, and,
pointing her finger to a dial which stood on the mantel-piece,
announced that if he did not take warning and repent, his life and
sins would be concluded at the same hour of the third day after the
visitation. By a preternatural light in the chamber he observed
distinctly everything around him. While the warning spirit was
speaking, he saw the time was twelve o'clock. Darkness came, and the
apparition disappeared. Lord Lyttelton's companions laughed at his
superstitious fears, and endeavoured to convince him that he must have
mistaken a dream for a real spiritual visitation. He felt somewhat
relieved by what they said, but was not altogether convinced or
reassured. The fatal night approached, and, with the connivance of
Lord Lyttelton's attendants, the guests put all the clocks in the
house an hour and a half too fast. They kept his lordship as lively as
possible, but when ten o'clock struck he was silent and depressed;
eleven struck, the depression deepened; twelve struck: "Thank God; I
am safe!" exclaimed the nobleman: "the ghost was a liar, after
all!--some wine--what a fool I was to be cast down by such a
circumstance! But," continued he, "it is time for bed; we shall be up
early, and out with the hounds to-morrow. By my faith, it is half-past
twelve; so good night." He went to his chamber, ignorant that the
ominous hour was not yet past. His guests, notwithstanding their
avowed unbelief, remained together in fearful dread. They heard the
valet descending from his master's room; it was just twelve o'clock.
Lord Lyttelton's bell rang violently; the company ran to his
apartment, and found the unhappy nobleman lying in bed lifeless, with
his countenance terribly convulsed.
Shortly before the death of an old Roman king, several prodigies of an
alarming nature appeared. When he first became sick there arose a
violent tempest of wind, which blew down the cross from one of the
churches. After this followed a terrible earthquake, which shook the
whole city. Moreover an old eagle, a domestic of the royal palace,
that had lived there many years, took wing the day before the king's
sickness began, and flew away no one knew whither; then the bells of
the imperial chapel rang thrice of their own accord in the space of
twelve hours. Strange apparitions were seen at midnight, some of them
hovering in the air, and others of them lurking about the palace
court. In particular, a funeral procession, consisting of unearthly
beings, was observed one night going along the principal thoroughfare
from the palace to the place of sepulchre, where the royal remains
were soon afterwards laid.
From the _Eddas_ we learn that when these singular works were written
or compiled, a belief must have prevailed of the existence of ghosts,
spirits, and demons in various forms. We therefore propose giving a
few examples of ghost stories from the _Eddas_:--After the death of
Helge (a Scandinavian warrior), a maid witnessed, in the evening, his
ghost, with a numerous train, riding into the cairn where Helge's
remains were deposited. The brave damsel inquired whether it was an
illusion she saw, to which the ghost replied that it was not. When the
maid told Sigrum, Helge's widow, what she had seen, the faithful
mourning wife hastened to the cairn, and, on searching it, sure enough
there was the shade of her dead husband. It addressed her thus: "Thou,
Sigrum, art the cause of Helge lying here, slain by the dew of sorrow.
Thou weepest burning tears, maid of the sun-glowing south; but we will
drink the precious mead together, though we have lost gladness and
lands. Now are the brides closed in the cairns, and the princely
maidens laid beside us." Sigrum made a couch in the cairn, and invited
the spirit to rest there from all trouble, saying, "Son of the
Ylfinga, I will sleep in thy arms as formerly, when my hero lived." To
this the ghost replied, "No longer will I say thou art unfaithful,
since thou consentest to sleep in the embrace of the dead. And yet
thou livest, offspring of kings. Let the pale steed tramp the steeps
of the air. In the west must we be, by the bridge Vindhjalen, ere the
cock in Walhalla wakes the sons of victory."
Far back in the history of time, the ghost of a lady that died in
Iceland, whose deathbed commands were disregarded, returned to punish
the living for disregarding her injunctions. The lady's corpse was
conveyed to a distant place of sepulchre. As the interment could not
take place the first day, the bearers, with their dead burden, reposed
in a house over night. At midnight an apparition of the lady glided
through the kitchen, and, on the night when the conductors of the
funeral returned home, a spectral appearance, resembling a half moon,
moved round the mansion in a direction opposite to that of the sun,
and continued its revolution until the domestics retired to rest.
This apparition appeared every night for a week, and was pronounced by
certain wise sages as a presage of pestilence and death. A herdsman at
the mansion was, shortly after the lady's death, persecuted by demons,
and one morning he was found dead in bed. One Thorer, who himself had
predicted that the apparitions were come to give warning of
approaching calamities, was the next victim. One evening he was set
upon by the shepherd's ghost, and so fearfully beaten that he died in
consequence thereof. Evils continued to multiply: Thorer and the
herdman's ghost associated themselves together in persecuting the
inhabitants, several of whom fell victims to their rage. At times
unseen agents upset tables and chairs, flung kitchen utensils about in
all directions, and on other occasions a demon in the shape of a seal
rose from the earth, to the dismay of a whole household. Thorodd, the
master of the family, in crossing a river in a boat, was, along with
two of his servants, drowned. Apparitions of the drowned men walked
about Thorodd's old residence, but the appearances did not much
disturb the people, who were Christians, as they believed that the
spectres of such persons as had been favourably received by the
goddess Rana were accustomed to show themselves after death. So fast
did the demons increase in number that they became a great band of
thirty, the exact number of people supposed to have had a period put
to their existence by demons. Many fled from the neighbourhood,
fearing that, if they remained, they would ere long be dead men, and
their spirits infernal demons. Possibly their fears would have been
realized, had not a pious priest exorcised the evil spirits. By a
plentiful application of holy water and celebration of a solemn mass,
they were frightened away, to return no more.