mill. The noises were dreadful, sometimes sounding like a galloping

donkey, at others like falling fire-irons. Doors creaked and sticks crackled as though burning, and the rapping became almost incessant. Sometimes the lavender-gowned lady appeared, and at another time several of the inmates of the mill saw a bald-headed old man in a flowing robe like a surplice. Spectral animals always formed an important feature of the haunting.

In November, 1841, a gentleman paid a visit to the place and was confronted by the figure of an animal about two feet high, which appeared in a window. After careful search nothing was found, though the animal was seen in the window by others from the grounds for half an hour, after which it slowly faded away. A two-year-old child saw a ghost kitten, while Davidson's aunt thought the spectre looked like a white pocket handkerchief, knotted at four corners, which danced up and down, leaping as high as the first floor window. This lady was one day standing by the kitchen table when she was startled by the bark of a dog, and two paws were laid heavily on her shoulders, so that she had to lean against the table for support. No dog, however, was found in the house. On several occasions the children, though nothing had been said to them about ghosts, found amusement in chasing up and down the stairs some animal they described either as a "funny cat or a bonny monkey."

In 1853, an attempt was made to discover the secret of the mystery of the mill by a clairvoyante, who in her trance distinctly saw, the "lady like a shadow, with eyes but no sight in them," as she described her, as well as a number of animals. When questioned about these, she answered, "One is like a monkey and another like a dog. Had the lady dogs and monkeys? They all go about the house. What is that other one? It is not a pussy, it runs very fast and gets amongst feet. It is a rabbit but a very quick one." When asked whether the animals were real, the medium replied in her quaint way, "We don't touch them to see, we would not like a bite."

Beyond this there appears to have been no solution as to the mystery of the haunted mill, although the medium declared that the trouble "came from the cellar."[162]

A writer in "Notes and Queries,"[163] H. Wedgewood by name, visited Mr. Proctor in 1873-4 to ask him the truth about the Willington Mill ghost, and he told her that he had seen a tabby cat in the furnace room. There was nothing unusual in the animal's appearance, and it would not have caught his attention particularly had it not begun to move. But then instead of walking like an ordinary cat it wriggled along like a snake. He went close to it and followed it across the room, holding his hand about a foot above it, until it passed straight into the solid wall.

The well-known Cornish tradition says that if a young woman dies neglected after being betrayed by her lover, she haunts him after her death in the form of a white hare. The false lover is continuously pursued by the phantom. At times it may rescue him from danger, but in the end it is the cause of his death.

The following story of a phantom hare pursuing a false lover to his death is told by Robert Hunt in "Popular Romances of the West of England."[164]

A young farmer settled at a fine new farmhouse and a peasant's daughter was placed there in charge of the dairy. The young farmer fell deeply in love with her and she with him, and he betrayed her under a promise of marriage, but his family refused to agree to the alliance taking place, and provided a bride for him suitable to his station. The dairymaid was sent away ignominiously when it was known she was about to become a mother. One morning the corpse of a newly-born infant was found in the farmer's field and the dairymaid was accused of strangling her child, and was finally convicted of murder and executed.

But ever after that day ill-fortune pursued the young farmer who had behaved in such a cowardly way, and though he removed to another part of the country, none of his projects prospered. Gradually he took to drink to drown his secret sorrows. He generally went out at dusk and it was noticed that a white hare constantly crossed his path. The animal was seen by many of the villagers to dart under the hoofs of his horse, and the terrified steed rushed madly forward whenever this phantom appeared.

A day came when the young farmer was found drowned in a pool at the bottom of a forsaken mine, and the frightened horse was still grazing near the mouth of the pit into which his master had fallen.

The woman he had betrayed and left to die a shameful death, having assumed the shape of a white hare, had haunted the perjured and false-hearted farmer to his death.

It is said that fatal accidents in mines are often foreshadowed by the appearance of a white hare or rabbit. At Wheal Vor, writes Mr. Hunt, in "Popular Romances of the West of England," it has always been and is now believed that a white rabbit appears in one of the engine houses when an accident may be looked for in the mine. The men say that they have chased the phantom animals without being able to catch them, and on one occasion the rabbit ran into a "windbore" which lay on the ground and escaped. Similarly in a French mine one of the miners saw a white object run into an iron pipe and hide there. He hastened forward and stopped up both ends of the tube, calling to a companion to examine the pipe. But the animal ghost had disappeared and nothing remained to explain what had taken place.

The devil appeared in the form of a hare at the hanging of two men on Warminster Down in 1813, it was said. At Longbridge the devil appeared in the form of a dog one Palm Sunday, according to the account of a labourer, who when questioned as to how this was proved, exclaimed, "_Sum'at_ was there anyhow, and we all fled!"

A farmer in South Wilts who died about 1860, threatened to revisit his farm on a lonely moor and run about in the shape of a rat. The story does not say what he expected to gain by choosing this particular animal for transformation purposes.

Superstition gives to white birds a particular power of conveying omens.

A small white bird plays a part in warning an old harper in Wales of the destruction of a prince's palace, whither the bard had been invited to perform at festivities held on the occasion of the birth of an heir.

Tradition relates that Bala Lake was formed as a means of submerging a palace where lived a cruel and wicked prince, who practised oppression and injustice upon poor farmers of the district. The tyrant often heard a ghostly voice urging him to desist from his evil ways and saying, "Vengeance will come," but he treated the warning with contempt.

On the occasion of his son's birth, there was great rejoicing at the palace, and the poor harper was called in to play to the guests. Mirth, wine, feasting, and dancing continued till a late hour, and during the interval in which the harper was allowed to rest, he retired into a quiet corner, where, to his astonishment, he heard a whisper in his ear, "Vengeance, vengeance!" Turning to discover whence the sound came, he observed a tiny white bird hovering about him, urging him, as it were, to follow. He fell in with the creature's wishes without stopping to fetch his harp, and the bird led him beyond the palace walls, still singing in a plaintive note the word "Vengeance, vengeance!" Over marshland, through thickets, across streams and up ravines this strange pair wandered, the bird seemingly choosing the safest path for her companion, and growing ever more insistent in her cries of "Vengeance, vengeance!" At last they came to the summit of a hill some distance from the palace. Utterly weary the harper ventured to stop and rest, and the bird's voice was heard no more, but as he listened he could distinguish the loud murmur of a brook.

Suddenly he awoke to the fact that he had allowed himself to be led away foolishly, and he attempted to retrace his steps. In the dark, however, he missed his way and was forced to await daylight. Then to his surprise he turned his eyes upon the valley in which the palace had stood and discovered that it was no longer to be seen, for the waters had flooded the face of the land, and on the placid lake that lay in the valley his harp was floating.

Another story of birds that foreshadowed a calamity is told about Yorkshire. A writer in "Notes and Queries"[165] passed through the district of Kettering on September 6, and noticed an immense flock of birds which flew round and round, uttering dismal cries. He spoke of the matter to his servant, who told him the birds were called the "Seven Whistlers," and that whenever they were heard a great calamity might be expected. The last time he had heard them was the night before the great Hartley Colliery explosion. Curiously enough the writer, on taking up the newspaper the following morning, saw an announcement of a terrible colliery explosion at Wigan.

On the Bosphorus the boatmen say, with reference to certain flocks of birds which fly ceaselessly up and down the channel, never resting on land or water, that they are the souls of the damned, doomed to perpetual motion.

A strange bird-ghost is connected with the lake and house of Glasfryn. On a certain evening, Grassi, which is the phantom's name, forgot to close the well and the waters overflowed and formed a lake. There she wanders at night bemoaning her carelessness. She also visits the house as a tall lady with well-marked features, large, bright eyes and dressed all in white. Another version of the story is that when the water overflowed and the lake was formed, the fairies seized Grassi and changed her into a swan and she continued to live by the waters for more than a century and died still lamenting her lot. Another version runs that the lady was changed into a swan as a punishment for haunting the house.

Holt Castle, in Worcestershire, is said to have been haunted by a mysterious lady in black who walked through a passage which led to the attics, while the cellar was in the possession of a phantom bird, not unlike a raven, which occasionally pounced upon the servants who went to draw beer or cider from the casks there. By flapping his wings, the unholy bird extinguished the candle of the adventuresome human being who invaded his domain, and then vanished, leaving his victim prostrated with fear.

York Castle was the scene in which an extraordinary ghost took animal shape. The story is told in the Memoirs of Sir John Reresby.

"One of my soldiers being on guard about eleven in the night at the gate of Clifford Tower, the very night after a witch had been arraigned, he heard a great noise in the castle; and going to the porch there saw a scroll of paper creep from under the floor, which, as he imagined by moonshine, turned first into the shape of a monkey, and thence assumed the form of a turkeycock, which passed to and fro by him. Surprised at this, he went to the prison and called the under-keeper, who came and saw the 'scroll' dance up and down, and creep under the door, where there was scarce an opening of the thickness of half a crown. This extraordinary story I had from the mouth of both one and the other."

Among the curiously shaped phantoms are those which have an important part of their anatomy lacking, and most common of all are the ghosts, human and animal, that are seen without a head. Indeed the belief in headless spectres, both of equine and canine beings, is remarkably widespread throughout England.

The Rev. Richard Dodge, a Cornish clergyman, who lived near Looe, was an exorcist, and was said to be able "to drive along evil spirits of various shapes, pursuing them with his whip." One day his services were commanded by a Mr. Mills, Rector of Lanreath, who said that labourers had been startled by an apparition of a man in black garb driving a carriage drawn by headless horses. Mr. Dodge met Mr. Mills, but as they saw no apparition, they parted to return to their respective homes. Mr. Dodge's horse grew restive and refused to proceed, so he, thinking something uncanny was about to take place, allowed the animal to return to the spot where he had parted from Mr. Mills, whom, to his distress, he found lying prostrate on the ground with the spectre and his black coach and headless horses beside him.

Jumping down to assist his friend, Dodge uttered a prayer, and the spectre screaming, "Dodge is come, I must be gone," whipped up the ghost horses and vanished into the night.

Spectre horsemen are common and one is said to haunt Wyecoller Hall. The ghost is dressed in the costume of the Stuart period, and the trappings of the horse are of uncouth description. On windy nights the horseman is heard dashing up to the Hall. The rider dismounts, makes his way up the stairs into a room on the first landing, whence presently screams and groans issue. Suddenly the horseman reappears and gallops off, the horse appearing wild with rage, its nostrils streaming fire. The tradition is that one of the Cunliffes of Billington, for long the owners of Wyecoller Hall, near Colne, murdered his wife and reappears every year as a spectre horseman in the home of his victim. She is said to have predicted the extinction of the family, a prediction long since fulfilled.

The midnight hunter and his headless hounds are often to be seen in Cornwall, and the Abbot's Way, on Dartmoor, is said to be a favourite spot for their visitations. Sir Francis Drake was supposed to drive a hearse into Plymouth by night, followed by a pack of headless, but nevertheless howling, hounds. On Cheney Downs in the parish of St. Teath, ghostly hounds said to have belonged to an old squire called Cheney, were often seen and heard, especially in rough weather.

Herne, the ghostly hunter of Windsor Forest, has his counterpart in the _Grand Veneur_ of Fontainebleau. While hunting in his favourite forest, Henry II of France was suddenly startled by the sound of horns, and the cries of huntsmen and the barking of dogs. At first they sounded far away, but soon they came close by. Some of the company in advance of the king "saw a great black man among the bushes," crying in sepulchral tones, "M'attendez-vous?" or "M'entendez-vous?" or "Amendez-vous." The king, startled, inquired of the foresters and peasants what they knew of the apparition. He was informed that they had frequently seen the rider, accompanied by a pack of hounds, which hunted at full cry, but never did any harm.

Dan gives Pierre Matthieu's version of the story and adds, "I know what several authors narrate concerning the hunt of Saint Hubert, which they declare is heard in various parts of the forest. Nor do I ignore what they say of the spectre called the 'Whipper,' which was supposed to appear in the time of Charles IX in the forest of Lyons, and which left the mark of the lash on several people. Nor do I doubt that demons may wander in the forest as well as in the air. But I know well as regards the 'Grand Veneur' nothing is certain, least of all the circumstances in which, according to the reports of the authors, this phantom appears, and the words of which he makes use."[166]

The spectre huntsman chasing the wild doe and the headless hounds in full cry are amongst the many prominent demon superstitions still extant and the chief legends concerning them, with their variants, are mentioned by Charles Hardwick in "Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-lore."[167] The appearance of these and other animal spectres, however, has never been satisfactorily explained, and the question that naturally occurs to the student after reading such stories is whether animals are able to send forth astral or phantasmal doubles in a manner similar to that in which it is believed human beings can project them.

FOOTNOTES:

[155] "Shropshire Folk-lore," pp. 108-9.

[156] "Shropshire Folk-lore," p. 642.

[157] "Notes and Queries," 2nd Series, Vol. X., pp. 192-3.

[158] "Notes and Queries," December 28, 1850, p. 515.

[159] Jackson, G. E., "Shropshire Folk-lore," pp. 108-10.

[160] "Shropshire Folk-lore," pp. 106-7.

[161] "Superstitions et Survivances," 1896, Vol. V, pp. 19-20.

[162] "Real Ghost Stories," pp. 261-75.

[163] Sixth Series, Vol. VII, January 6, 1883, pp. 12-13.

[164] 1881, pp. 377-8.

[165] October 21, 1871.

[166] Dan, "Le Tresor des Merveilles de Fontainebleau."

[167] 1872, pp. 153 _et seq._