MIDNIGHT GHOST STORY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21772, 11 October 1932, Page 5

MIDNIGHT GHOST STORY

LEGEND OF A CURSE THE MONK OP BATTLE ABBEY. In order to show their contempt for the “ Monk’s Curse ” on the owners of Battle Abbey, Sussex, and their descendants, Miss Vanessa Vane Pennell, and her brother, Mr John Vane Pennell, whose grand aunt, the Duchess of Cleveland, was an owner of the abbey, slept on the night of July 12 in the ruined crypt. They were both performers in the Battle Abbey Pageant. They told a strange story the following day. Mr Vane Pennell said: “About 11.30 I thought I smelled incense and so did my sister. But we w6nt to sleep. It must have been a little after midnight when in the pathway of moonlight thrown by one of the arches I saw the shadow of what I am prepared to swear was a cowled monk. There was the shadow on the stone floor of the crypt as plain as possible, and not the sound of a footstep. “ My sister and I then heard distinctly a man’s voice chanting. We could distinguish the words of 1 Gloria in Exeelsis.’ Then the sound came from overhead, from the monks’ dormitory. We could hear the creaking of wooden boards—though there has been no timber here for years —and the shuffle of steps, and then silence.

“ After it was all over my nerves went to pieces, and we were both glad to get out at once.” The story of the “ Curse,” which forms one of the episodes of the Battle Abbey Pageant, is that a ghostly monk appeared at a banquet and cursed Sir Anthony Browne, a sixteenth century owner, who had razed the church and cloisters and turned the abbots’ quarters into a dwelling house. It has since become traditional that misfortune has attended all subsequent owners of the abbey.