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Border Ghost Stories

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Title: Border Ghost Stories

Author: Howard Pease

 
Release date: December 8, 2008 [eBook #27449]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27449

Credits: Produced by David Clarke, Louise Pattison and the Online
 Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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 by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BORDER GHOST STORIES ***

Produced by David Clarke, Louise Pattison and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

 BORDER GHOST STORIES

 _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

 _Tales of Northumbria_
 _Magnus Sinclair_
 _The Lord Wardens of the Marches_, _etc._

 BORDER GHOST STORIES

 BY

 HOWARD PEASE

 AUTHOR OF
 'TALES OF NORTHUMBRIA,' 'MAGNUS SINCLAIR'
 'THE LORD WARDENS OF THE MARCHES OF
 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND,' ETC.

 ERSKINE MACDONALD LTD. LONDON, W.C. 1

 _First published 1919_

 TO

 THE MEMORY OF

 SIR WALTER SCOTT

 THE TUTELARY GENIUS OF THE BORDERLAND

 THESE TALES ARE INSCRIBED BY A

 LATTER DAY BORDERER

PREFACE

Certain places, said Stevenson, cry out for a story, and Scott, in any
new surroundings, straightway invented an appropriate tale, if there
were not already a story or tradition in existence. One might even
believe that the place itself tells its own tale to the sympathetic
imagination.

Thus Mr. Bligh Bond in his book, _The Gate of Remembrance_, implies that
the whisperings of the _genius loci_ enabled him to make his astonishing
discovery of the lost Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey.

 'Multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris,
 Et varias audit voces, fruiturque Deorum
 Colloquio, atque imis Acheronta affatur Avernis.'

The scene of the following ghost stories usually becomes manifest in the
text, but it might be mentioned that 'Castle Ichabod' stands for Seaton
Delaval, that the 'Lord Warden's Tomb' is a reminiscence of Kirkby
Stephen, and that 'The Cry of the Peacock' is a suggestion from the Vale
of Mallerstang.

If the ghost is not always visible in the tale, it is at least born of
it.

Thus if there be no actual ghost in 'Ill-Steekit Ephraim' or in 'The
Blackfriars Wynd' there are at least sufficiently 'ghostly' occurrences.

Again, in 'Apud Corstopitum' Penchrysa is held to haunt the Roman Wall
beside the limestone crags; Tynemouth Priory is thought to be revisited
by Prior Olaf whenever the wind stays long in the eastern airt, and the
'outbye' moors beside 'The Bower' may now be haunted by the spirit of
'Muckle-Mouthed Meg.'

The stories marked by an asterisk have already been published in the
_Border Magazine_; 'In the Cliff Land of the Danes' appeared originally
in the _Northern Counties Magazine_ under the title of 'An Antiquary's
Letter' (supposed to have been dictated by John Hall Stevenson of
Skelton Castle, author of _Crazy Tales_, to his friend the Reverend
Laurence Sterne at Coxwold), and has been slightly altered, as has also
'The Muniment Room,' which appeared in the _Queen_ and the _Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle_. He desires to thank the various editors concerned and
the Northern Newspaper Syndicate for their courtesy in permitting
republication.

In his _Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft_, written nearly one
hundred years ago, Sir Walter Scott says apologetically at the close of
the book: 'Even the present fashion of the world seems to be ill-suited
for studies of this fantastic nature; and the most ordinary mechanic has
learning sufficient to laugh at the figments which in former times were
believed by persons far advanced in the deepest knowledge of the age.'

But surely the belief in, and love of ghosts will persist 'as long as
the moon endureth,' for fancy, imagination, and conscience combine
against materialism, be it never so scientific, and even if the vision
of the affrighted criminal be subjective it is a terrible reality to
himself.

'_What! not see that little boy with the bloody pantaloons?_' exclaimed
the secret murderer, so much to the horror of his comrade that he
requested him, if he had anything on his mind, to make a clear
conscience as far as confession could do it.[1] And, further, it is but
some seventeen years since the present writer was taken to see a certain
nonagenarian--one Bobby Dawson--for some fifty years, if memory serve,
whipper-in to the Bilsdale hounds, who related in all good faith how he
with his hounds had once hunted a witch in the shape of a hare that
escaped by a cundy, or underground drain, into a barn. When Dawson
entered, there was the witch in the form of an old woman lying panting
on the hay.

Again, the writer has in his possession the copy of an '_Old Charm to
make Brave_,' which was transcribed by Mr. R. Blakeborough, author of
_Yorkshire Wit, Character, Folklore, and Customs_, from the MS. book of
one David Naitby, a Bedale schoolmaster, during the early days of 1800.
It may interest the reader to quote a few lines therefrom:

 '_We hid there (on the mountain top) in the shadow of the moon.
 We left there an acorn yet green in its cup,
 We left also a firchatt upon the great stone hurled by Thor;
 To a fir branch we tied with a fine whang drawn from a bear we slew
 The wing feather of an eagle which span towards us,
 Yet it fell not to the earth, we twain caught it,
 The one by the quill, the other by the feather part._'

After this the tale of 'In the Cliff Land of the Dane' may appear to be
not so very improbable.

Once more, the uprising of the thrawn corpse from the coffin in
'Ill-Steekit Ephraim' was narrated to the writer and his companion by a
bed-ridden but very intelligent moorland 'wife' some years ago when
walking along the Roman Wall beside Hot Bank farm or cottage. Finally,
he can still remember his early thrills over strawberries and cream when
told of the appearances of 'the Silky' or 'little grey lady' at Denton
Hall, which suggested the harsher variant of 'In my Lady's Bedchamber.'

In conclusion, it might perhaps be mentioned that the altar to Sylvanus
alluded to in 'Apud Corstopitum' is preserved at Stanhope Rectory on the
Wear, and that the writer possesses an altar dedicated--Deo (Mithras),
by L. Sentius Castus of the 6th Legion, which was formerly excavated at
Rutchester Camp, North Wylam, and is now at Otterburn.

 * * * * *

Sir Walter Scott once said that no one had made more use of ghosts than
himsel

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