Great Australian Stories

by Graham Seal

  In homely beauty lies,

  And o’er the left the mighty walls

  Of Mount Victoria rise.

  And there’s a spot above the bridge,

  Just where the track is steep,

  From which poor Convict Govett rode

  To christen Govett’s Leap;

  And here a teamster killed his wife—

  For those old days were rough—

  And here a dozen others had

  Been murdered, right enough.

  The lonely moon was over all

  And she was shining well,

  At angles from the sandstone wall

  The shifting moonbeams fell.

  In short, the shifting moonbeams beamed,

  The air was still as death,

  Save when the listening silence seemed

  To speak beneath its breath.

  The tangled bushes were not stirred

  Because there was no wind,

  But now and then I thought I heard

  A startling noise behind.

  Then Johnny Jones began to quake;

  His face was like the dead.

  ‘Don’t look behind, for heaven’s sake!

  The ghost is there!’ he said.

  He stared ahead—his eyes were fixed;

  He whipped the horse like mad.

  ‘You fool!’ I cried, ‘you’re only mixed;

  A drop too much you’ve had.

  I’ll never see a ghost, I swear,

  But I will find the cause.’

  I turned to see if it was there,

  And sure enough it was!

  Its look appeared to plead for aid

  (As far as I could see),

  Its hands were on the tailboard laid,

  Its eyes were fixed on me.

  The face, it cannot be denied

  Was white, a dull dead white,

  The great black eyes were opened wide

  And glistened in the light.

  I stared at Jack; he stared ahead

  And madly plied the lash.

  To show I wasn’t scared, I said—

  ‘Why, Jack, we’ve made a mash.’

  I tried to laugh; ’twas vain to try.

  The try was very lame;

  And, tho’ I wouldn’t show it, I

  Was frightened, all the same.

  ‘She’s mashed,’ said Jack, ‘I do not doubt,

  But ’tis a lonely place;

  And then you see it might turn out

  A breach of promise case.’

  He flogged the horse until it jibbed

  And stood as one resigned,

  And then he struck the road and ran

  And left the cart behind.

  Now, Jack and I since infancy

  Had shared our joys and cares,

  And so I was resolved that we

  Should share each other’s scares.

  We raced each other all the way

  And never slept that night,

  And when we told the tale next day

  They said that we were—intoxicated.

  The Murdering Sandhill

  A perhaps now worn-out legend from the gold-rush days is known by the chilling title of ‘The Murdering Sandhill’. It is said that during the 1860s two brothers named Pohlman or Pollman were murdered in the sandhills near Narandera—as the name of the town was spelt in those days—in New South Wales. The victims were carrying a large amount of money, perhaps from gold-mining activities, and were robbed and killed by a number of men who were hawking goods in the area.

  In the Town and Country Journal of 23 April 1881, a correspondent named ‘The Raven’ described his journey by Cobb & Co coach from Narandera to the town of Hay, which was located about one hundred and eighty kilometres to the west.

  Narandera being on the high road from Sydney to the Mount Brown diggings via Hay, I took the precaution to give in my name for a seat in the coach two or three days beforehand, as every train to Narandera brings in numbers of eager travelers, whose first words on stepping on to the platform are, ’Where is Cobb and Co’s booking office?’ and although the coach leaves for Hay three times a week, the proprietors have had occasion once or twice to put on an extra vehicle.

  At 1.30 p.m. we were being slowly dragged through the Narandera sand by four fine greys. With the exception of myself, the passengers were diggers, off for Mount Brown, regardless of warning, most of them having come away from Temora in disgust, and having left tons weight of unwashed dirt behind, which, however, they did not leave without registering. By-the-bye, going from Temora to Mount Brown, seems to me very like the proverbial jumping from the frying pan into the fire, as reports from the latter are, up to the present, anything but cheerful, the water being exhausted, and not much prospect of any more just yet; but the Australian digger is, and always will be, a roving kind of investigator, who would rather do anything than sit still and wait.

  On leaving Narandera the coach track takes a parallel course midway between the river and the railway, until we get to a place known as ’The Murdering Sandhill’, where the terrible tragedy of the Pohlmann Brothers’ murder took place some 12 or 13 years back; it will be remembered that after the murder the bodies were burnt, and only a few ashes were recovered; the spot is marked by an enclosure. Here the coach road diverges from the railway line.

  Although ‘The Raven’ reported no sounds, the rumoured hauntings were mainly auditory in nature, consisting of the creaking and rumbling sounds of the ghostly hawker’s wagon used by the murderers to transport their victims, whose bodies were then burned to ashes.

  Another auditory haunting—known as ‘the ghost cattle of Yallourn’—still occurs in the Gippsland Hills in Victoria. During the middle of the nineteenth century, a cattle stampede almost destroyed the town of Moe. Since then, many have heard the sounds of cattle moving around but no cows can be seen. Local explanations of these sounds include earth movements associated with the open cut coal mines at Yallourn, adjacent to Moe.

  The rabbi and the roseate pearl

  Broome, in Western Australia’s north, has a history that is romantic but violent and which is one of greed, exploitation and oppression. The pearling trade was established there from the 1860s and governed the growth of the town and its restless multicultural population for decades.

  With such an exotic history it is not surprising that Broome also has a rich tradition of lore and legend, including ghost stories. One of these is known as ‘the pearler’s light’. According to the tale there is a beacon on the Broome foreshore that dims unaccountably from time to time. No cause of this mysterious phenomenon has ever been found, despite the light having been overhauled on many occasions. No natural occurrence, such as mist, appears to be the reason behind the light’s dimming and it is said that the ghosts of drowned pearlers creeping around the beacon on certain nights of the year cause the light to fade.

  Broome has an even more romantic tradition about a possibly mythical but highly valuable yet cursed red pearl, going by the name of ‘the roseate pearl’, and the ghost of a rabbi. Abraham Davis was a prominent Jewish entrepreneur in the pearling industry around the turn of the nineteenth century with a substantial home in Broome. He was drowned off Port Hedland, along with all other passengers and crew in the wreck of the Koombana, on 20 March 1912. His fine house later became the grand residence of the first Anglican Bishop of the northwest, Bishop Gerard Trower (1860–1928).

  One night, Bishop Trower awoke to see a ghostly figure standing in a pool of light. The figure was dressed in the garments of a rabbi. When the Bishop called to the figure it promptly vanished. The same figure was seen by others on numerous occasions, usually late in the afternoon or early in the evening. In 1957 t
he house was demolished, and there have been no sightings reported since.

  A link between this particular haunting and another item of pearling folklore was suggested by the writer Ion Idriess. In his book Forty Fathoms Deep (1937), Idriess puts forward the possibility that the ill-fated Davis was carrying with him the allegedly priceless ‘roseate pearl’. According to the legend, this pearl had been secured in Broome by Davis for the enormous sum of twenty thousand pounds. It is said to be still with his bones at the bottom of the sea in the wreck of the Koombana.

  As with many other precious stones and minerals, as well as priceless treasures of antiquity and lost gold mines, it is believed that this pearl has a curse upon it that brings ill-luck to its possessor and there are stories that it has been implicated in several deaths. Ion Idriess made an excellent living for many years as the writer of romantic adventure stories. He had a vivid imagination.

  It is often the case with supernatural traditions that the number of ghosts present at any haunted site seems to increase over the years, along with the details of the legend. This is very much in accordance with the growth of folk traditions generally, and even a casual reader of ghost tales and hauntings will have noticed the similarities between them. In the case of the Davis house at Broome, there is also a tradition that it was haunted by the ghost of a Portuguese sea captain.

  The ghosts of Garth

  On the banks of the River Esk, near Fingal, are the ruins of Tasmania’s most haunted house: a mid-nineteenth century residence named Garth. In and around the remains of the house many claim to have heard the moans of troubled spirits, and the place has a number of well-documented, if confused, hauntings. One concerns a spurned lover, the other a terrified child.

  The sad history of Garth is one of early hope, and eventual tragedy and decay. The house was constructed by Charles Peters, who had been the tenant of a small farm in Scotland of the same name. Peters arrived in Tasmania in 1823 and began to make a new life for himself. He married Susan Wilson in Launceston and in 1830 was granted 320 acres of land near Fingal. They named the property and began to build a large stone house. In 1840, the couple’s two-year-old daughter Ann died and was buried on the property, where her grave can still be seen. By 1843, Garth was a substantial landholding with eight workers and their families. In later years the property suffered a number of fires that severely damaged the house. Today, only suitably spooky ruins remain, attracting ghost hunters and tourists.

  The earliest ghost is said to be that of a young settler who purchased the still-unfinished house at Garth for his intended bride waiting in England. When he returned from the antipodes to marry his fiancée he found she had jilted him for another. Desolate, the man returned to the house and hanged himself in the courtyard. Ever since then, the disappointed young man’s shade has wandered through the remains of the courtyard crying out for his inconstant love.

  Some years after the settler hanged himself, a young girl died in a well near the abandoned house. The girl was in the care of a convict woman who had apparently threatened her with being thrown into the well if she misbehaved. On this occasion the girl did something wrong and, fleeing from her convict nanny in unreasoning fear of the threatened punishment, fell into the well. Trying to save her, the convict woman was drowned along with the child. Both lie buried at Garth and the cries of the girl and her would-be saviour can still be heard on dark nights.

  Over the years, the details of what were different characters and separate events have twined together. What remains is a bush gothic tradition of lost love, tragedy and destruction.

  ‘Mad Dog’ Morgan’s ghost

  Stories of headless apparitions are usually associated with British hauntings, but Australia has adapted the tradition to the bush experience. A headless horseman who rides through the ranges around Woodend in Victoria is said to be the ghost of the notorious bushranger ‘Mad Dog’ Morgan.

  Daniel Morgan (thought to be Jack Fuller c. 1830–1865) carried out robberies and murder along the Victorian–New South Wales border between 1863 and 1865. His wildly unpredictable behaviour careened between extreme violence and tender care for his victims, leading to the unenviable nickname of ‘Mad Dog’. His more considerate acts also earned him the contradictory title of ‘the traveller’s friend’ as he would occasionally stand workers a drink of their boss’s grog and inquire whether they were being properly treated. He was also considerate to women and was said to have occasionally returned part of the money he had stolen from his victims to help them complete their journey.

  Morgan met his end at Peechelba station, north of Wangaratta, on 9 April 1865 when he was gunned down from behind by John Wendlan. The body was publicly displayed, photographed, shaved and then beheaded. At that time, medical interest in the shape of a criminal’s head—the new ‘science’ of phrenology—meant that many were decapitated for study after their execution, as occurred with Ned Kelly. The treatment of Morgan’s corpse, though, was an act of savagery that led to heavy censure of the police involved and also helped establish the legend of Morgan’s headless rides through the bush.

  Most bushrangers who have entered our folklore have a range of standard stories associated with their lives and afterlives. These include their buried loot, places where they allegedly hid out from pursuers and even the belief that they were not really killed or executed but somehow managed to elude these fates and escape to a faraway region or country to live out their lives in respectable obscurity. ‘Mad Dog’ Morgan is the subject of similar local speculation.

  At the anniversary of Morgan’s death, a woman dressed in black placed flowers on the bushranger’s grave in Wangaratta cemetery. After her supposed death, the tradition was kept up by two local women, though now using plastic flowers. His stolen treasure is believed to have been buried at the bottom of Glenholm Hill. As far as anyone knows, it has never been found. It is said that Morgan’s hideout was at Hanging Rock in Victoria, where a rust red underground stream runs. The water from the stream is known as ‘Morgan’s blood’.

  The headless drover

  Another headless horseman is the shape of a drover named Doyle who died of unknown causes at the Black Swamp in the Deniliquin–Moulamein–Bourke region of New South Wales sometime in the 1850s. Since then, overlanders camping there reported seeing his ghost, wrapped in a cloak but without a head, mounted on a short-legged horse. The phantom rode through the drovers’ camp at night, terrifying dogs, men and cattle, usually causing a stampede. As well as the inconvenience caused by the stampedes, the belief grew that a sighting of the headless drover foretold their own fates and so the overlanders stopped camping in the area.

  A further element of the story is that a Moulamein butcher, in cahoots with local publicans, sensed a business opportunity in these strange tales. Whenever the butcher heard that a mob of cattle was on the way through the area he would kit himself out to look like the ghostly drover, complete with a light wooden frame, cloak and concealed head. Wearing this contraption, he would ride into the cattle camp at night and cause a stampede. Disappearing into the darkness and confusion, he would dispose of his disguise, pick out a few choice beasts from the scattered herd and drive them to a secure location to be butchered for future sale. So well connected was the butcher that his duffing operation was never troubled by the police. It could, perhaps, be said that he had a head for business.

  WHAT WE NOW call fairy tales did not exist until the seventeenth century, when French writers invented the form for the entertainment of an increasingly literate middle class. Many fairy tales were based on more down-to-earth folk tales, which had generally been told aloud rather than written down.

  In an 1852 issue of Charles Dickens’ magazine Household Words, a writer—clearly of middle-class background—reflected on his experiences as a convict in Australia, including the way he and fellow inmates whiled away the hours after lock-up each night:

  It was a strange thing
, and full of matter for reflection, to hear men, in whose rough tones I sometimes recognized the most stolid and hardened of the prisoners, gravely narrating an imperfect version of such childish stories as ‘Jack the Giant-Killer’, for the amusement of their companions, who with equal gravity, would correct him from their own recollections, or enter into a ridiculous discussion on some of the facts.

  By the start of the twentieth century, Australia had its own tales of fairies flitting, often rather unconvincingly, through the bush. More successful were works that invested the country’s native plants and animals with magical qualities, such as Ethel Pedley’s Dot and the Kangaroo and the lovable gumnut babies of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, by May Gibbs, in which the villians were big, bad Banksia Men.

  Henny-Penny

  Children have always delighted in word play, in stories propelled by repetition and rhyme. The fable of Henny-Penny is a perennial favourite. Australian folklorist Joseph Jacobs transcribed this version he’d heard in Australia during the 1860s. It is still popular today.

  One day Henny-penny was picking up corn in the cornyard when—whack!—something hit her upon the head. ‘Goodness gracious me!’ said Henny-penny; ‘the sky’s a-going to fall; I must go and tell the king.’

  So she went along, and she went along and she went along, till she met Cocky-locky. ‘Where are you going, Henny-penny?’ says Cocky-locky. ‘Oh! I’m going to tell the king the sky’s a-falling,’ says Henny-penny. ‘May I come with you?’ says Cocky-locky. ‘Certainly,’ says Henny-penny. So Henny-penny and Cocky-locky went to tell the king the sky was falling.

  They went along, and they went along, and they went along, till they met Ducky-daddles. ‘Where are you going to, Henny-penny and Cocky-locky?’ says Ducky-daddles. ‘Oh! we’re going to tell the king the sky’s a-falling,’ said Henny-penny and Cocky-locky. ‘May I come with you?’ says Ducky-daddles. ‘Certainly,’ said Henny-penny and Cocky-locky. So Henny-penny, Cocky-locky, and Ducky-daddles went to tell the king the sky was a-falling.