The Ghost World

In his amusing account of the art of 'laying' ghosts, published in the last century, Grose tells us 'a ghost may be laid for any term less than a hundred years, and in any place...

The deceptiveness of sound in olden times was very little understood, and hence originated, in most countries, a host of traditionary tales descriptive of sundry mysterious nois...

It is the rule rather than the exception for ghosts to take the form of animals. A striking feature of this form of animism is its universality, an argument, it is said, in favo...

A variety of strange causes, such as secret murder, acts of treachery, unatoned crime, buried treasures, and such-like incidents belonging to the seamy side of family history, h...

It is commonly supposed that the spirits of those who have suffered a violent or untimely death are baneful and malicious beings; for, as Meiners conjectures in his 'History of...

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 t...

The romance of the sea has always attracted interest, and, as Buckle once remarked, 'the credulity of sailors is notorious, and every literature contains evidence of the multipl...

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...

It has from time immemorial been a widely recognised belief among mankind that the soul after death bears the likeness of its fleshly body, although opinions have differed large...

Stories of mysterious lights suddenly illuminating the nocturnal darkness of unfrequented spots have long been current throughout the world. In the 'Odyssey,' when Athene was my...

One of the forms which the soul is said occasionally to assume at death is that of a bird--a pretty belief which, under one form or another, exists all over the world. An early...

In the Iliad,[1] after the spirit of Patroclus has visited Achilles in his dream, it is described as taking its departure, and entering the ground like smoke. In long after year...

The trade of raising spirits has probably existed at all times in which superstition has been sufficiently prevalent to make such a practice a source of power or of profit, and...

Mines have long been supposed to be haunted, a fact which is no cause of wonderment, considering the many unearthly sounds--such as 'the dripping of water down the shafts, the t...

Localities where any fatal accident has happened, or murder been committed, are frequently supposed to be haunted by that uncanny apparition known as 'the headless ghost.' Many...

Many of those weird melodious sounds which romance and legendary lore have connected with the enchanted strains of invisible music have originated in the moaning of the winds, a...

The belief in death-omens peculiar to certain families has long been a fruitful source of superstition, and has been embodied in many a strange legendary romance. Such family fo...

A variety of causes have been supposed to prevent the dead resting in the grave, for persons 'dying with something on their mind,' to use the popular phrase, cannot enjoy the pe...

The presence of troubled phantoms in certain localities has long been attributed to their being interested in the whereabouts of certain secreted treasures, the disposal of whic...

Sometimes ghosts appear in consequence of an agreement made before death with some particular friend, that he or she who first died should appear to the survivor. Numerous tales...

The power of seeing things invisible to others is commonly known as 'second sight,' a peculiarity which the ancient Gaels called 'shadow sight.' The subject has, for many years...

One of the grandest and wildest legends of Ireland is that relating to the Banshee--a mysterious personage, generally supposed to be the harbinger of some approaching misfortune...

Shakespeare, quoting from an early legend, has reminded us that at Christmastide 'no spirit dares stir abroad.' And yet, in spite of this time-honoured belief, Christmas would s...

Amongst the qualities ascribed to the cock was the time-honoured belief that by its crow it dispelled all kinds of ghostly beings--a notion alluded to by the poet Prudentius, wh...

On the coast of Brittany there is the 'Bay of the Departed,' where, it is said, in the dead hour of night the boatmen are summoned by some unseen power to launch their boats and...

The Greeks believed that such as had not received funeral rites would be excluded from Elysium. The younger Pliny tells the tale of a haunted house at Athens, in which a ghost p...

According to a popular ghost doctrine, the spirits of the departed 'generally come in their habits as they lived,' and as George Cruikshank once remarked,[258] 'there is no diff...

Many of the conceptions of the human soul formed by savage races arose from the phenomena of everyday life. According to one of the most popular dream theories prevalent among t...

According to Empedocles 'there are two destinies for the souls of highest virtue--to pass into trees or into the bodies of lions,' this conception of plants as the habitation of...

According to the popular creed, some persons have the peculiar faculty of seeing ghosts, a privilege which, it would seem, is denied to others. It has been urged, however, that...

Departed souls, according to a Cornish piece of folk-lore, are occasionally said to take the form of moths, and in Yorkshire, writes a correspondent of 'Notes and Queries,' 'the...