More Ghosts

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21938, 12 November 1936, Page 7 (Supplement)

More Ghosts

(By Antoinette Pocock)

I have never been visited by any Other ghosts than the Warwick one I told you of a fortnight ago, but I have come across some strange stories connected either with places or people well known to me.

1 once went to visit a friend who lived at the Abbey House, Glastonbury. Her father had returned the abbey ruins to the church, but they were in fml view of the house, and actually w.thin the grounds. Many romantic legends surround this ancient building. One says that Jesus himself came there, but the belter-known is that Joseph of Arimethea, in whose garden-tomb Christ was buried, came as a missionary to Britain and lived at Glastonbury. An old thorn tree planted near the old abbey is named after him. It is here also that the Holy Grail or Chalice, containing the Blood of Christ, supposed to have been brought by Joseph of Arimethea in a jewel, was thought to have been housed. The ruins have the appeal of the past. You are conscious of the atmosphere in which the monks had spent their lives, some of them saints full of holy peace, others men full of human frailty who had chosen the wrong calling. The surrounding meadows and marshes are green and quiet but for the sounds of the countryside. My friend told me that the ruins were said to be haunted by Joseph’s ghost, and so on warm, moonlit, summer nights we used to go through the arches and up the old broken-down nave to watch for him. But he never came.

Something very strange, however, has happened at Glastonbury. Learned men, known as archaeologists, who study antiquity, turned their attention to these ruins. They knew from old documents and manuscripts that there had once been a chapel added to the monastery buildings, called after S. Edgar, a great Saxon King, who was surnamed “The Peaceable.” The whole abbey had been destroyed by order of Henry VIII. at the dissolution of the monasteries, leaving nothing but broken arches and walls; but not a trace of S. Edgar’s chapel had remained. Extensive digging operations were carried out to find the foundations, but they had proved unsuccessful. A new director of excavations, Mr Bligh Bond, was about to be appointed to further the search. Before his actual nomination, he began to study all the evidences in existence, but discovered nothing. He had always been interested in the supernatural, and was the great friend of a Mr John Alleyn, who was endowed with a strange power. This power is known as “automatic writing.’ - Those possessed of this gift are able to produce writing which contains thoughts and ideas not actively controlled by the writers. They sit down with pencil in hand and allow their minds to become as blank as possible, or to be occupied with some matter outside themselves, and their hands begin to write words which they have not willed of themselves. Spiritualists think this is a gateway between the brain of man and the Great Spirit of the Universe. Those who do not like spiritualism declare that hidden deep in a man’s subconscious mind or buried memory, are these ideas which appear in automatic writing. It is all rather difficult to underhand, but it is of great interest in

this story of Glastonbury, because Mr Bond asked Mr Alleyn to put his powers to the test. They had “sittings,” during which Mr Alleyn held a pencil over paper, and Mr Bond rested his fingers on the back of his friend’s hand. They then began to ask questions of the empty air as to where the foundation of S. Edgar’s chapel were to be sought. Mr Bond then read a book aloud, and after a time Mr Alleyn began his unconscious writing. After a great number of these “sittings,’ they had collected full directions for finding the foundations. The spirit, who sent these instructions, was not always the same, but more often than not it was one who called himself Johannes. He said he had been a monk at Glastonbury, and was alive, during the reign of Henry VIII. We learn quite a lot about him in addition to the facts about the buildings. He seems to

have been an endearing person, full of disapproval of himself. “Soe 1 remember those stayres (stairs) for my fatness. But it availed me not, tho’ my father Prior recommended it oft. Alas! I waxed more fat,” he says, and adds “I was ever soe: of a merry heart, when like to melte in tears. So was I made. ... I was never meant to be a monk. They placed me here in choro, when I would have drawn the sword.” He was passionately devoted to the abbey and to the beauty of the surrounding country, loving it as some of us love a human being. This explains why, though now dead to this world, and occupied in another, a part of him still remained attached to Glastonbury, and for that reason he could give the information desired. The language of the writings varies, sometimes it is rather poor Latin, sometimes the English of Chaucer’s day, sometimes that of our modern times. The incredible, startling truth, however, is that this automatic writing enabled the excavators to discover the Jong sought foundation of S. Edgar’s chapel. Another friend of mine, who is a lecturer at Cambridge University, told me a queer story. She knew

an old don or tutor at Cambridge, who happened to be living in the rooms at Peterhouse College formerly inhabited by the Poet Gray. This old man was obsessed by a fear of fire [as so many people are, notably James 1., hence the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot]. One night, he awoke in an agony of fear, aware of a blaze of fire outside. Rushing to the window, he could hardly believe his eyes on finding nothing there. The quadrangle was dark and still; nobody was about. Afterwards he discovered that the Poet Gray also had a great terror of fire, and that on one occasion some undergraduates had lit a bonfire under his windows as a practical joke. Gray kept a rope in his room, so hastily climbing down this, he fell into a bucket of water placed there for him by his tormenters. Angry and ashamed before the jeers of his fellow-students, he left Peterhouse and went to Pembroke College. Eventually the elderly don found out that his own episode had occurred on the anniversary of the original joke played on Gray. Those who think there is some explanation

of these strange occurrences declare that people who are sensitive of spiritualistic influences can become aware of a former experience because the atmosphere of places, where intense misery or great joy has been felt, can become saturated or impregnated with these feelings, and the sensitive ones live through those same emotions again. The most dramatic story of an event of this kind has been told in a book called “An Adventure,” written by Miss Moberley and Miss Jourdain. The first was the principal, the second the vice-principal of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford. I once stayed at St. Hugh’s and met Miss Jourdain, and I have also read the book. She discussed the strange happenings recorded in it, and told me of the great pains they took afterwards to discover an explanation of the mystery. They had decided one summer to spend their holidays in Paris, and one day. while there, took the train to Versailles, which is II miles out,rhe . Most People know that Versailles is a vast palace built by f f «*V°us French King. Louis SX; Late l on there came to the throne of France Louis XVI., who

married Marie Antoinette; his reign is famous for the French Revoiution. Before the revolution broke out, when Versailles was still the scene of great splendour and extrava- . gance, Marie Antoinette used to go sometimes to a smaller building la the grounds of the palace. It was a favourite residence of hers and die used to play at being dairy-maid there, little thinking of the wretched people living outside her life who would someday claim a dreadful revenge. This house was called *ld Petit Trianon.”

Miss Jourdain and her friend, thought it would be interesting to see this place, and so set off. OB reaching the drive leading up to the house, they saw a lodge. From >* one of the windows there was leaning r a young girl dressed in eighteenth century clothes. She spoke in a . French dialect unfamiliar lo them. Further along the drive they noticed a plough of a rather old-fashioned pattern, and on passing through » wood, they saw a band, also dressed in eighteenth century clothes, play- *■ ing a time which sounded unUn our modem music. Crossing a bridge, they came upon the "Petit < Trianon,” and there, on a tertaco before the house, was sitting a ana- * looking lady, dressed in black. denly a door opened, and a servant rushed along the terrace, obviously - in great agitation. He spoke bar* < riedly to the lady, who started up and moved away rapidly in Use « direction of the Versailles palace. £ On returning home. Miss Moberky ' said to Miss Jourdain, “Did you & think there was anything queer i about our visit to-day?" She an- : swered that she thought there ting - and so they decided to return tba next day. On reaching the placn ; they found it completely altered- .5 There was no lodge, no plough, , band, no wood, and, of course* UP •/ lady. Something urged them to ip*--' vestigate the matter. They fttal - discovered that the band-tune, which „ Miss Jourdain had remembered, was one out of an opera popular in tbs year 1789. After further research, they discovered that they had visited the Petit Trianon on the very day when Queen Marie Antoinette was awaiting the result cf ha husband’s trial. Louis XVL you will remember, was tried as a traitor by revolutionaries under Robespierre. The explanation of their experience was* that as the Queen sat in the hot anteebambsr of the court, awaiting what she knew would be Louis' death-sen-tence, she went over her past Mr in her mind, and remembered that her last happy day had beer the one on.which the Paris mob had com* to Versailles demanding bread. That was the news brought to her hy - her map-savant. That night had been one of terror when the moo searched the palace and had stabbed her empty bed, thinking she lay » it. The next day they had b«m forced by the people to go to and later on “The Terror” had hagun and the wholesale guillotining of the aristocrats. And so these two ladies were thought to have been present at the very spot which was charged with her great misery and to have lived through some of Dm memories of former happy days. You may not choose to believe these stories, but there are m*Oj >-• things we don’t understand, anft they are undeniably interesting.

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