Ghosts That Walk At Christmas.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18946, 17 December 1929, Page 2

Ghosts That Walk At Christmas.

(BY

J. B. BROOKS.)

'(Copyright.) The ghost that turns up, annually, on the stroke of midnight, on Christmas Eve, is largely the invention of Charles Dickens, and his imitators in fiction. But ghosts do prefer to visit their familiar haunts on dark winter nights, and, for some, Christmas appears to be the favourite season. Lord Castletown, among moderns, believes firmly in these eerie Christmas visitors. When he was fourteen, he went, at 11.30 on Christmas Eve, to a churchyard near his Irish home which was said to be haunted, especially at Christmas time. All his folk were safely in bed. It was about a mile to the old ruin of a church, and he walked along an old boreen, or sunken lane, past a great pillar of stone known as the “ White Lady,’* where some old warrior was buried long ago. Up a slope he went, and past a great stone erected to one of his ancestors, John Macgilla-Patrick, and then, more slowly and cautiously, into the churchyard itself.

Curious Shapes Among the Tombs. The boundary wall was quietly climbed, the boy gripping tightly a big stick, and, in a moment, he was ensconced amid the ivy which hung from the ruined walls of the church. The gravestones glittered in the moonlight and soon curious shapes flitted among the tombs. There was a dead silence, and the boy prayed fervently to the family’s patron saint, St Kieran, whose holy tree and well were near by. It was nearly one o’clock when something seemed to obscure the moon, and a grey mist floated over the graveyardStrange noises sounded all around,,and a dim light shone from a window of the church. Weird figures sprang up, and pointed and gibbered at the boy, and, with a wild cry, he dashed from the uncanny place, and reached hopie panting and horrified. There was an old haunted manor house, too, not far from where Lord Castletown lived, that had belonged to the family. It had been occupied by an uncle, but then was only inhabited by a caretaker. One Christmas, a party from Lord Castletown’s home drove over to the manor house, resolved to spend the night. They had a pleasant day in the old place. In the evening, after dinner, presents were distributed to everyone, games were indulged in, and dancing was kept up to the fiddling of an old keeper, until all were tired, and they went off sleepily tobed. A Female Apparition. Lord Castletown had not been long asleep when he awoke with a jump, banging his head against a rail. Looking around- he saw a face. There seemed to be no Tower limbs—just a sweet face and a bust and arms. The ghost, for such it undoubtedly was, beckoned the boy to follow, and moved off along a passage, the white dress—for it was a female ghost—swaying from side to side as she moved. Castletown followed the apparition a long way and they came, at last, to a room hardly ever used. The ghost circled through the room, -past the bed, to the wall at the other side. She pointed to this wall, and then disappeared through it. The boy stumbled back in the dark to his bedroom, finding it with difficulty, and, in the morning, he told his experience to his father. A mason was called in, and the wall opened at the place where the ghost had pointed, and there, in a sort of recess were found a lot of family jewels and plate that had been lost for many years. A Haunted Mountain. Ben Macahui, the highest mountain of the Cairngorm Range in Scotland, has the reputation of being haunted. Three members of a Christmas fellowship had reason to testify to the startling eccentricities of a huge grey figure, a giant of a man some ten feet high, who followed behind them with a crunching sound, as they scrambled and fled from the summit of the mountain. An old man who lived on the edge of the R o thiemurchas Forest was familiar with the appearances of “ ferla mhor," as he called the ghost, which, being interpreted, is “ the big grey man ”! Professor J. Norman Collie, lecturer in organic chemistry at London University, and honorary president of the Cairngorm Club, told, at an annual meeting of the club at Aberdeen, of his own personal experience of this ghost, one Christmas time. He was returning from the Cairn upon the summit, in a mist, when he heard footsteps. There was a crunch, and then another, as of someone following, but taking much longer steps than his own. The professor admitted that he was seized with terror, and took to his heels, staggering blindly among the boulders; but he never stopped until he reached Rothiemurchas Forest, three or four miles away. Professor Collie found, when relating the story to the late Dr Kellas, that the latter and his brother had had a similar weird experience on the mountain. Foreshadowing Death. A curious type of Christmas ghost is vouched for by several local gentlemen of unquestioned repute, as occurring in the vicinity of the churchyard, in the little village of Burton. These gentlemen, being newcomers, were very critical of the story firmly believed by the natives, that at midnight on Christmas Eve there appeared the shadowy form of the resident vicar emerging from the church. Following him, wrapped in a winding sheet, and pale as death would be the figure of some local person, whose death was certain to occur during the following year. This occurred again and again, and each time the fated person walked solemnly behind the advancing priest. The thing was incredible, until they put it to the test, and saw and heard for themselves, for there was an accompanying noise as of rattling chains. They saw the grim procession pass, time after time, from church to yard, and there halt among the tombs, whilst the clergyman appeared to read the burial service, and then slowly return to the church, alone. The one failure of the test was that the faces and figures were too indistinct to determine upon whom grim death would lay his hands in the subsequent year. Nun of Newton Abbot.

A noisy and active ghost chasing a noiseless nun may be encountered by one one who is invited for the Christmas festive season to be a guest at Ford House, Newton Abbot. The house was in being in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and there is a legend that a nun was walled in alive by some foul criminal.

The house is owned by the Earl of Devon, and tenanted by his sister, Lady Amy Bertie, and her husband, the Hon Reginald Bertie. Mrs Saunders, a descendant of Sir Richard Reynell, who built the house, herself experienced the ghost’s nocturnal visits, when the rush of unmistakable footsteps of a heavily-booted man was heard, and her bedroom door was repeatedly thrown open. At first she thought her son was unwell, though she could not account for him wearing heavy boots in