Medieval Ghost Stories

by Andrew Joynes

  The Chronicle of Lanercost Priory

  Lanercost Priory, near Carlisle, was an Augustinian community which was founded in c.1166, and at some later date this strange little legend about a meeting between the bishop of Winchester and the spirit of King Arthur was recorded in its chronicle. The entry date in the chronicle giving the year 1216 as the time of the meeting corresponds to a particularly chaotic year during the period when Peter des Roches held the see of Winchester. This bishop played a key role as an adviser to King John during the civil war which followed the king’s alienation from his barons. As we have seen in ‘The Dark Hunters of Peterborough’, supernatural incidents of this kind were often recorded as a means of highlighting the portentous implications of turbulent political events. Quite why the chronicle of a monastery near the Scottish border should record a legend about a churchman from the south of England is unclear, although both the border country and the district around Winchester itself had legendary associations with Arthur (there is a hilltop called Sleepers’ Hill near Winchester where the recumbent king supposedly lies awaiting the call of destiny). There are themes in this story – the palace in the woods, the attentive servants, the powerful monarch from another time who lives on in a dimension close to our own – which are reminiscent of Walter Map’s accounts of apparitions and the wandering of King Herla. The folk-tales connecting Bishop Peter des Roches with butterflies may have arisen from the tendency of ‘this kind of fluttering creature’ to hatch out from the crevices in his tomb when the winter sunlight fell on his effigy in Winchester Cathedral.

  King Arthur and the Butterfly Bishop

  AD MCCXVI

  At this point I will record the stories told to me by older men about Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, to whom I have referred from time to time. He was a proud man, overly attached to secular affairs, in the manner of many of our churchmen. As he enjoyed pleasurable pastimes rather than the healing of souls, it is said that on one occasion he went off with some huntsmen on one of his frequent forays to pursue game in a nearby forest which was owned by his bishopric.

  When the huntsmen had been disposed at various points around the woodland to move the quarry through it, and were at some distance from him, the bishop was moving across a flat piece of ground when he caught sight of an elegant new mansion which he had never noticed before. He was full of admiration for its grace and proportion, and, astonished that anyone should come up with such a design, moved nearer to see it better. As he approached, a number of servants dressed in splendid apparel ran towards him, and immediately pressed him to attend the banquet of the king, who was waiting for him. He was reluctant to do so, and sent his regrets with the excuse that he had no clothes which would be suitable for a bishop to wear to a banquet. But then the servants dressed him in a suitable cloak and led him into the court before the king, who welcomed him as a guest. He was placed on the right hand of the monarch, and food and drink of the highest quality was set before him.

  During the meal he made so bold as to ask the king who he was, and where he came from. The king replied that he was Arthur, who was once the supreme ruler of the whole kingdom of Britain. Bishop Peter made as if to honour him and asked after his health. ‘Truly,’ said the king, ‘I wait upon the mercy of God.’ The bishop then asked: ‘My lord, who is there who will believe me when I tell them that today I saw and spoke with King Arthur?’

  ‘Close your right hand,’ said the king, and when the bishop did so, the king said, ‘Now open it.’ When the bishop opened his hand, out flew a butterfly.

  ‘For the rest of your life,’ said the king, ‘you will have this to remember me by. Whatever the season of the year, if you wish to see this kind of fluttering creature, do as I have told you and your wish will be granted.’

  This portent later became so well known that people often asked Bishop Peter for a blessing in the form of a butterfly, and he became known as the Butterfly Bishop. Let men reflect on what the spirit of King Arthur intended to tell us by this gesture: its relevance to the present day can only be guessed at …

  Source: Re-told from the Latin Chronicon de Lanercost, ed. J. Stevenson, Edinburgh 1839, p. 23. For a detailed article about this legend, see the Winchester Cathedral Record 62, published by Friends of Winchester Cathedral 1993.

  The ‘Conquest of Ireland’ of Giraldus Cambrensis

  Like Walter Map, Giraldus Cambrensis (c.1146–1223) drew heavily upon the Celtic traditions and folklore in which, through a cultural development linked with the extension of Norman and Angevin military power in Wales and Ireland, there was increasing interest to the court of Henry II. Giraldus was himself of Norman–Welsh descent, one of an extended family who formed a patronage network, styling themselves the ‘race of Nesta’ after one of their forebears, a Welsh princess who took a series of Norman lovers and husbands in the early twelfth century. The best-known works of Giraldus Cambrensis are a brace of topographies of Wales and Ireland as well as the Expugnatio Hibernica, an historical account of the invasion of Ireland in 1170–71 in which a number of his Norman–Welsh relatives played a prominent part. As a travel-writer Giraldus had a predilection for reporting upon the fantastic and outlandish. His topography of Ireland has an entire section devoted to the wonders and miracles of the country, which includes such chapters as ‘Of a fish which had three golden teeth’, ‘Of a woman who had a hairy crest on her back’, ‘Of the fleas which were got rid of by St Nannan’. Surprisingly, however, he tells very few anecdotes which could be categorised as ghost stories as such. In the following extracts from the Expugnatio, the first deals with an episode which reportedly occurred during the military campaign in Ireland itself: it has overtones of the Wild Hunt narrative motif which we have already encountered. The second extract is from a chapter in which Giraldus digresses briefly from his account of the military campaign to assess the validity or otherwise of premonitory apparitions, and does so by drawing heavily on allusions to antiquity and classical literature.

  The Fight with the Ghostly Army

  Book I, Chap. IV

  It happened, while the army was in Ossory, that they encamped one night on a certain old fortification, and these two young men [the cousins Robert de Barri and Meyler Fitz-Henry] were lying, as was their custom, in the same tent. Suddenly there was a great noise, as though many thousand men were rushing in upon them from all sides, with a great rattling of arms and clashing of battle-axes. Such spectral appearances frequently occur in Ireland to those who are engaged in hostile excursions. The alarm was so general that the greatest part of the army took flight and hid themselves in the woods and marshes; but the two cousins, snatching up their arms, ran to the tents of their leader Robert Fitz-Stephen, loudly calling on their scattered comrades to rally for the defence of the camp. Amidst the general confusion, Robert de Barri exerted himself bravely, to the admiration as well as the envy of many, and for the safety of any of his retainers who might happen to be there … In no attack, however unexpected, in no sudden surprise, was he ever known to fear or despair, or to flee shamefully, or to exhibit any consternation of mind …

  Dreams and Portents

  Book I, Chap. XLI

  As there are many different opinions concerning visions, it may be relevant on this occasion to introduce some true and authentic accounts of them which have been handed down to us. Valerius Maximus relates that two Arcadians were on a journey together, and when they came to a certain town, one of them lodged with a friend and the other went to a common inn. The one who lodged in his friend’s house dreamed that his fellow-traveller came to him and begged help against his host who was violently assaulting him. He woke up at this, but fell asleep again, and dreamed that his companion appeared to him a second time, and implored him that, although he would not come and help him while he was living, he might at least have him buried. He added that his host was then taking his corpse in a cart outside the town gate, to conceal it in a dunghill. The man’s friend woke up, and having searched around and found th
is account to be true, he caused the innkeeper to be arrested, condemned and executed.

  Arcerius Rufus dreamed that he was killed by a gladiator, a dream which came true the following day. The poet Simonides buried the corpse of a man which he found lying on the sea-shore, and was warned by the dead man in a dream the same night not to go to sea the next day. Accordingly he remained on shore, where he saw the sailors in the ship on which he was to have embarked set sail and then be overwhelmed by the waves. Calpurnia, Julius Caesar’s wife, dreamed the night before he was assassinated that he lay in her arms covered with mortal wounds: she was so terrified at this that she woke up and begged him not to go to the senate-house the next morning. But he put her off with excuses, not wanting to have it said that he put faith in any woman’s dream.

  We do not need to go so far for examples, for we can find them at home and in modern times. My brother, Walter de Barri, a man of status and a gallant soldier, made preparations for an expedition against his enemies. The night before he was due to set out, my own mother, who had died long before, appeared to him in a dream, and earnestly advised him to find some means of avoiding the next day’s expedition – I should add that she was not his mother, but his step-mother; but she loved him as if her were her own son. Walter related what had occurred to his father, who was mine also (we being his sons by different mothers and therefore half-brothers) and our father gave him the same advice [i.e. it is probable that Walter de Barri was the author’s eldest half-brother, and that he was killed before the expedition to Ireland; Giraldus’s mother, who ‘loved Walter as if her were her own son’, was Angharad, daughter of Princess Nesta by Gerald de Windsor]. However, he paid no attention to this advice, having all the arrogance natural to man, and being ashamed of appearing to be frightened by an idle dream. The next morning he went out on the expedition and was killed by the enemy the same day. We find also an example in which the outcome turned out to be otherwise. Valerius relates that on the eve of the battle between Augustus and Brutus, the goddess Minerva appeared in a dream to the emperor’s physician Artorius and urged him to prevent his master engaging in battle because he was sick. But although Augustus was informed of this, he had himself carried to war in a litter, and so won the battle.

  Again, shortly before our own times, it happened in the district called Kemmeis, in the province of Demetia in Wales, that a certain wealthy man, whose house stood on the north side of the mountains of Prescelly, had dreams for three successive nights, in which he was advised that if he went to a fountain in the neighbourhood called St Bernac’s Well and put his hand down to the stone which lay over the spring, he would draw out a collar of gold. On the third day, the man did as he was advised in the dreams, but when he put his hand into the hole it was bitten by a viper, and he died as a consequence. From these and other examples, whatever others may think of dreams, my opinion is that, like rumours, they may sometimes be believed and sometimes treated as idle tales …

  Source: Adapted from The Conquest of Ireland in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. and trans. T. Wright, London 1863, pp. 194–5 and 244–6. An edition of the Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. and trans. A.B. Scott and F.X. Martin, was published in Dublin in 1978; The History and Topography of Ireland, trans. J.J. O’Meara, was published by Penguin in 1982.

  The ‘Imperial Diversions’ of Gervase of Tilbury

  Gervase of Tilbury (c.1155–c.1234), was a widely travelled cleric and lawyer whose career in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries took him to the most glittering courts in Europe. In the 1180s, Gervase was a confidant of Prince Henry, the eldest son of Henry II of England, before moving to southern Italy and the court of William II of Sicily. During the last decade of the twelfth century, he took service with the Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick and was rewarded by being made an honorary marshal of Arles, one of the Emperor’s domains on the river Rhône. There he wrote the Otia Imperialia, the third part of which consists of a collection of legends, marvels and anecdotes which no doubt provided fuel for speculative discussion about theology and philosophy at the imperial court. Like Giraldus Cambrensis, Gervase places his accounts of supernatural events in the context of the fantastic and the exotic. He attempts to divert his imperial patron with chapters devoted to the phoenix arising from the flames, and to women with boars’ tusks and men with eight feet and eyes. In the extracts that follow, all of which relate to events which Gervase heard about in the region of Arles, the accounts of ghosts and the activities of the dead, and of apparitions and fairy creatures from ‘parallel’ worlds, correspond to the definition of Mirabilia which Gervase gives in the preface to his work (see p. 46). The following stories relating to water-sprites, and to the marvellous self-propulsion of the funerary barges approaching the cemetery of Aliscamps, are obviously based on local folklore relating to the river Rhône, while Gervase’s account of the mischievous activity of lamias or the spectres of the night is perhaps linked with Walter Map’s more bloodthirsty tale about the demon at the cradle. The last two stories, about the spirits of the recently deceased, most closely correspond to the modern notion of a ‘ghost story’. The account of the Ghost of Beaucaire, in particular, which attached itself invisibly to a young girl and provided a succession of visiting church dignitaries with insights into the nature of the afterlife, is one of the most celebrated of all medieval reports of returning spirits.

  Eel Pie

  Part III, Chap. LXXXV

  One of the questions relating to the marvels of this world concerns lamias and sprites. Lamias, it is said, are women who at night come into our houses to empty the barrels, peer into the baskets, pots and containers, throw infant children out of their cradles, light the lamps and sometimes importune the sleeping inhabitants.

  As for sprites, it is generally agreed that they can take human form and are often the first to appear in public places, without being recognised by anyone. It is said they have their dwelling-places in the depths of rivers, and that by taking on the appearance of golden rings or goblets floating in the water, they attract women and children bathing on the edge of the rivers who, when they try to grasp these objects, are seized and dragged beneath the surface. It is said this happens most commonly to women who are suckling. They are carried off so that they might act as wet-nurses to the sprites’ miserable progeny, and after seven years they come back into our world, well rewarded, and tell how they have dwelt in vast palaces with the sprites and their wives, in the depths and under the banks of rivers.

  We ourselves have seen a woman who was carried off in this way when she was washing laundry on the banks of the river Rhône. Trying to reach a wooden cup which was floating on the surface, she went into deep water and was carried off by the sprite. She became the wet-nurse of its son beneath the waves, and came back safe and sound at the end of seven years, but her husband and her friends had great difficulty recognising her. She told of truly extraordinary things, of how the sprites looked after the people they had abducted, and of how they transformed themselves into the appearance of human beings. One day, after the sprite had given her a piece of eel pie, the woman inadvertently rubbed her eye and part of her cheek with the grease on her hand, and this enabled her to see clearly through the water. When her time of service as a nurse had ended, and when she came back to her home, early one morning she met the sprite on the market-square at Beaucaire. When she recognised it, she asked after its wife and the child she had nurtured. Whereupon the sprite asked in astonishment: ‘What eye did you recognise me with?,’ and she showed it the eye she had smeared with the grease from the pie. At that the sprite dug its finger into the woman’s eye, and went off knowing that in future it could be neither seen nor recognised …

  The Figure by the River-Pool

  Part III, Chap. LXXXV

  Moreover, on the banks of the Rhône, beneath the castle of the knights, near the northern gate of the city of Arles, there is a river pool … where, on clear nights, sprites often show themselves in human form far below i
n the depths. Some years ago at this place, just outside the gate of the city, many people heard, for three nights on end, a voice calling from the depths of the river. At the same time, it seemed that a human shape ran backwards and forwards along the river-bank, shouting: ‘The hour has passed but no-one has come!’ On the third day, around the time of the service of Nones, as this human shape cried still more bitterly, a young man arrived who, running into the river, was swallowed up in an instant. After that time, the voice was not heard again …

  The Child Tumbled from the Cradle

  Part III, Chap. LXXXVI

  As though to excuse his subsequent recounting of hearsay about nocturnal disturbances, Gervase begins this chapter with a learned preface. He maintains that lamias are thought by physicians to be nocturnal visions which, ‘because of the thickening of the humours, disturb and weigh upon the spirits of sleeping people’. On the other hand, he says, quoting St Augustine, they are thought to be demons which, emanating from the souls of wrongdoers, take on a kind of floating substance. He suggests they are called ‘lamias’ or even ‘lanias’, in a derivation from the Latin verb laniare, ‘to tear to pieces’, because they dismember little children. Sometimes they are called ‘larvas’, which he maintains is a fantastic form of the Roman lares, minor household deities which had the semblance and appearance of humans. Gervase concludes his preface by maintaining that lamias are not in fact human but, through the secrets of divine permission, take on the deceptive appearance of being so. Demons cannot touch the actual body or the spirits or souls of humans, unless it be by divine permission.