Thomas Dyer - The Ghost World

The Siamese ‘fear as unkindly spirits the souls of such as died a violent death, or were not buried with the proper rites, and who, desiring expiation, invisibly terrify their descendants.’ 76 76 Primitive Culture , ii. p. 28. In the same way, the Karens say that the ghosts of those who wander on the earth are the spirits of such as died by violence; and in Australia we hear of the souls of departed natives walking about because their death has not been expiated by the avenger of blood.

The Hurons of America, lest the spirits of the victims of their torture should remain around the huts of their murderers from a thirst of vengeance, strike every place with a staff in order to oblige them to depart. An old traveller mentions the same custom among the Iroquois: ‘At night we heard a great noise, as if the houses had all fallen; but it was only the inhabitants driving away the ghosts of the murdered;’ with which we may compare the belief of the Ottawas: On one occasion, when noises of the loudest and most inharmonious kind were heard in a certain village, it was ascertained that a battle had been lately fought between the Ottawas and Kickapoos, and that the object of all this noise was to prevent the ghosts of the dead combatants from entering the village. 77 77 See Dorman’s Primitive Superstitions , 1880, pp. 19, 20.

European folk-lore still clings to this old belief, and, according to the current opinion in Norway, 78 78 Thorpe’s Northern Mythology , ii, p. 19. the soul of a murdered person willingly hovers around the spot where his body is buried, and makes its appearance for the purpose of calling forth vengeance on the murderer.

The idea that, in cases of hidden murder, the buried dead cannot rest in their graves is often spoken in our old ballad folk-lore. Thus, in the ballad of the ‘Jew’s Daughter,’ in Motherwell’s collection, a youth was murdered, and his body thrown into a draw-well, and he speaks to his mother from the well:

The eye of superstition, we are told, sees such ghosts sometimes as white spectres in the churchyard, where they stop horses, terrify people, and make a disturbance; and occasionally as executed criminals, who, in the moonlight, wander round the place of execution, with their heads under their arms. At times they are said to pinch persons while asleep both black and blue, such spots being designated ghost-spots, or ghost-pinches. It is also supposed in some parts of Norway that certain spirits cry like children, and entice people to them, such being thought to derive their origin from murdered infants. A similar belief exists in Sweden, where the spirits of little children that have been murdered are said to wander about wailing, within an assigned time, so long as their lives would have lasted on earth, had they been allowed to live. As a terror for unnatural mothers who destroy their offspring, their sad cry is said to be ‘Mama! Mama!’ If travellers at night pass by them, they will hang on the vehicle, when the most spirited horses will sweat as if they were dragging too heavy a load, and at length come to a dead stop. The peasant then knows that a ghost or pysling has attached itself to his vehicle. 79 79 Thorpe’s Northern Mythology , ii. pp. 94, 95.

The nautical ghost is often a malevolent spirit, as in Shelley’s ‘Revolt of Islam’; and Captain Marryat tells a sailor story of a murdered man’s ghost appearing every night, and calling hands to witness a piratical scene of murder, formerly committed on board the ship in which he appeared. A celebrated ghost is that of the ‘Shrieking Woman,’ long supposed to haunt the shores of Oakum Bay, near Marblehead. She was a Spanish lady murdered by pirates in the eighteenth century, and the apparition is thus described by Whittier in his ‘Legends of New England’:

Many West Indian quays were thought to be the haunts of ghosts of murdered men; and Sir Walter Scott tells how the Buccaneers occasionally killed a Spaniard or a slave, and buried him with their spirits, under the impression that his ghost would haunt the spot, and keep away treasure hunters. He quotes another incident of a captain who killed a man in a fit of anger, and, on his threatening to haunt him, he cooked his body in the stove kettle. The crew believed that the murdered man took his place at the wheel, and on the yards. The captain, troubled by his conscience and the man’s ghost, finally jumped overboard, when, as he sank, he threw up his arms and exclaimed, ‘Bill is with me now!’

In most parts of the world similar tales are recorded, and are as readily believed as when they were first told centuries ago. A certain island on the Japanese coast is traditionally haunted by the ghosts of Japanese slain in a naval battle. Even ‘to-day the Chousen peasant fancies he sees the ghostly armies baling out the sea with bottomless dippers, condemned thus to cleanse the ocean of the slain of centuries ago.’ 80 80 Griffis, The Mikado’s Kingdom . According to an old Chinese legend the ghost of a captain of a man-of-war junk, who had been murdered, reappeared and directed how the ship was to be steered to avoid a nest of pirates. 81 81 Denny’s Folk-lore of China ; see Bassett’s Legends and Superstitions of the Sea , p. 296.

In this country, many an old mansion has its haunted room, in which the unhappy spirit of the murdered person is supposed, on certain occasions, to appear. Generation after generation do such troubled spirits return to the scene of their life, and persistently wait till some one is bold enough to stay in the haunted room, and to question them as to the cause of their making such periodical visits. Accordingly, when a murder has been committed and not discovered, often, it is said, has the spirit of the murdered one continued to come back and torment the neighbourhood till a confession of the crime has been made, and justice satisfied. Mr. Walter Gregor, 82 82 Folk-lore of North-East of Scotland , 1881, p. 68. detailing instances in Scotland of haunted houses, tells how ‘in one room a lady had been murdered, and her body buried in a vault below it. Her spirit could find no rest till she had told who the murderer was, and pointed out where the body lay. In another, a baby heir had its little life stifled by the hand of an assassin hired by the next heir. The estate was obtained, but the deed followed the villain beyond the grave, and his spirit could find no peace. Night by night the ghost had to return at the hour of midnight to the room in which the murder was committed, and in agony spend in it the hours till cock-crowing, when everything of the supernatural had to disappear.’

The ghost of Lady Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, who always appears in white, carrying her child in her arms, has long been, as Mr. Ingram says, 83 83 Haunted Homes of England , 1881, p. 286. ‘an enduring monument of the bloodthirsty spirit of the age in which she lived.’ Whilst her husband was away from home, a favourite of the Regent, Murray seized his house, turned his wife, on a cold night, naked, into the open fields, where, before morning, she was found raving mad; her infant perishing either by cold or murder. The ruins of the mansion of Woodhouslee, ‘whence Lady Bothwell was expelled in the brutal manner which occasioned her insanity and death,’ have long been tenanted with the unfortunate lady’s ghost; ‘and so tenacious is this spectre of its rights, that a part of the stones belonging to the ancient edifice having been employed in building or repairing the new Woodhouslee, the apparition has deemed it one of her privileges to haunt that house also.’