by Bob Curran
At the hinder end, he got a clearness in his mind, sat up in his ark on the bed-side an’ fell thinkin’ ance mair o’ the black man an’ Janet. He couldna’ weel tell how—maybe it was the cauld to his feet—but it cam’ in upon him wi’ a’ spate that there was some connection between the twa an’ that either or baith o’ them were bogles. An’ just at that moment, in Janet’s room, which was neist to his, there came a stamp o’ feet, an’ then a loud bang, an’ then a wund gaed reishing round the fower quarters o’ the house; an’ then a’ was ance mair as seelent as the grave.
Mr. Soulis was feared for neither man nor de’il. He got his tinder-box an’ lit a can’le, an’ made three steps ower to Janet’s door. It was on the hasp an’ he pushed it open an’ keeked bauldly in. It was a big room, as big as the minister’s ain, an’ plenished [Editor’s Note: furnished] wi’ grand auld solid gear, for he had naething else. There was a fower-posted bed wi’ auld tapestry; a braw cabinet o’ aik [Editor’s Note: oak], that was fu’ o’ the minister’s divinity books and put there to be out o’ the gate [Editor’s Note: out of the way]; an’ a wheen o’ duds [Editor’s Note: a few belongings] o’ Janet’s, lyin’ here an’ there about the floor. But nae Janet could Mr. Soulis see nor any sign o’ a contention [Editor’s Note: argument, fight]. In he gaed (an’ there’s few that wud hae followed him) an’ lookit a’round an’ listened. But there was naething to be heard, neither inside the manse or in a’ Ba’weary parish, an’ naething to be seen but the muckle shadows turnin’ round the can’le. An’ then, a’ at aince, the minister’s heart played dunt an’ stood stock-still, an’ a cauld wund blew amang the hairs o’ his heid. Whaten a weary sicht was that for the puir man’s e’en! For there was Janet hangin’ frae a nail beside the auld aik cabinet, her heid aye lay on her shoulther, her e’en were steerkit [Editor’s Note: blank], the tongue projected frae her mouth, an her heels were twa feet clear abune the floor.
“God forgive us all!” thoct Mr. Soulis, “poor Janet’s dead.”
He cam’ a step nearer to the corp, an’ then his heart fair whammiled [Editor’s Note: beat furiously] in his inside. For by what cantrip [Editor’s Note: spell] it wad ill beseem a man to judge, she was hangin’ frae a single nail an’ by a single wursted thread for darnin’ hose.
It’s an awfu’ thing to be your lane [Editor’s Note: alone] at nicht wi’ siccan prodigies o’ darkness but Mr. Soulis was strong in the Lord. He turned an’ gaed his ways oot o’ that room and lockit the door ahint him; an’ step by step doun the stairs, as heavy as leed [Editor’s Note: lead], an’ set doun the can’le on the table at the stairfoot. He couldna pray, he couldna think, he was dreepin’ wi’ caul’ sweat an’ naething could he hear but the dunt-dunting o’ his ain heart. He micht maybe hae stood there an hour or maybe twa, he minded sae little; when a’ o’ a sudden he heard a laigh, un canny steer [Editor’s Note: commotion] upstairs; a foot gaed to an’ fro in the chalmer where the corp was hangin’; syne the door opened, though he minded weel that he had lockit it; an’ syne there was a step upon the landin’, an’ it seemed to him as if the corp was lookin’ ower the rail an’ doun upon him whaur he stood.
He took up the can’le again (for he couldna want the licht); an’ as saftly as ever he could, gaed straucht out o’ the manse an ‘ to the far end o’ the causeway. It was aye pit-mirk [Editor’s Note: very dark], the flame o’ the can’le when he set it on the grund, burnt steedy and clear as in a room; naethin’ moved but the Dule water seepin’ an’ sabbin’ doun the glen, an’ yon unhaly footstep that cam’ ploddin’ doun the stairs inside the manse. He kenned the foot ower weel, for it was Janet’s, an’ at ilka step it cam’ a wee thing nearer, the cauld got deeper in his vitals. He commended his soul to Him that made an keepit him, “and Oh Lord”, said he, “give me strength this night to war against the powers of evil.”
By this time, the foot was comin’ through the passage for the door; he could hear a hand skirt alang the wa’ [Editor’s Note: wall] as if the fearsome thing was feelin’ for its way. The saughs tossed and mained thegither [Editor’s Note: the tree branches tossed and blew together], a long sigh cam’ ower the hills, the flame o’ the can’le was blawn aboot; an there stood the corp of Thrawn Janet wi’ her grogram goun an’ her black mutch [Editor’s Note: nightdress and comforter], wi’ the heid aye upon the shoulther, an’ the girn [Editor’s Note: leer] still upon the face o’t—leevin’ ye wad hae said—died, as Mr. Soulis weel kenned—upon the threshold o’ the manse.
It’s a strange thing that the soul of man should be that thirled [Editor’s Note: driven] into his perishable body, but the minister saw that an’ his heart didna break.
She didna stand there lang; she began to move again an’ cam’ slowly towards Mr. Soulis where he stood under the saughs [Editor’s Note: branches]. A’ the life o’ his body, the strength o’ his speerit, were glowerin’ frae his e’en. It seemed she was gaun to speak, but wanted words, an’ made a sign wi’ the left hand. There cam’ a clap o’ wund, like a cat’s fuff, oot gaed the can’le, the saughs skreighed like folk [Editor’s Note: the branches screeched together like people] an’ Mr. Soulis kenned, live or die, this was the end o’t.
“Witch, beldame [Editor’s Note: hag], devil!” he cried. “I charge you, by the power of God, begone—if you be dead, to the grave—if you be damned, to hell!”
An’ at that moment the Lord’s ain hand out o’ the Heevens struck the Horror whaur it stood, the auld, deid, desecrated corp o’ the witch-wife, sae lang keepit frae the grave an’ hirtled round’ by de’ils [Editor’s Note: tormented by devils] lowed up like a braunstane spunk [Editor’s Note: blazed like tinder] an’ fell in ashes to the grund, the thunder followed, peal on dirlin’ peal, the rairin’ rain upon the back o’ that, an’ Mr. Soulis lowped [Editor’s Note: leapt] through the garden hedge, an’ ran, skelloch upon skelloch (yell upon yell) for the clachan.
That same mornin’, John Christie saw the Black Man pass the Muckle Cairn as it was chappin’ [Editor’s Note: striking] six; afore eicht, he ged by the change-house at Knockdow; an’ no lang after, Sandy McLellan saw him gaun linkin’ down the braes frae Kilmackerlie. There is little doubt but that it was him that dwalled sae lang in Janet’s body, but he was awa’ at last an’ sinsyne the de’il has never fashed [Editor’s Note: troubled] us in Ba’weary.
But it was a sair dispensation for the minister; lang, lang, he lay ravin’ in his bed an’ frae that hour tae this, he was the man ye ken the day.
The Botathen Ghost
Many of us today consider the idea of ghosts in an almost stereotypical fashion. For us, the phantoms are those of grand lords and ladies (sometimes with their heads under their arms) or of ethereal monks, drifting aimlessly in some crumbling mansion or fallen abbey, their sole purpose seeming simply to terrify the unwary. These are of Victorian English origin and bear little resemblance to the phantoms of Celtic antiquity. Here, the phantoms were not necessarily those of spectral aristocracy or disembodied clergymen who wailed and acted in an eerie fashion; rather they were the recognizable revenants of their friends and relatives returned from the Otherworld for a period and behaving very much as they had done when alive. In a famous tale from County Tyrone in Ireland, the ghost of a local “character,” Frank McKenna, becomes something of an even greater character itself, appearing at midnight to tell jokes and stories to an assembled company pretty much in the style of a nightclub entertainer. In some cases, ghosts were not necessarily to be feared.
However, as the Church began to take an interest in such phantoms they took on a slightly more menacing aspect in light of religious teaching. Churchmen found themselves in an awkward position: they couldn’t really deny the existence of ghosts, because that would be to deny the supernatural upon which their basic beliefs were founded, but they couldn’t really approve of them either, as this challenged the finality of death and the cessation of involvement in the world, in which the Church also believed. Ghosts, therefore, became in the eyes of
the righteous threatening and terrifying things, ready to do harm. And yet, in a sense, the Christian churchmen themselves were not all that far removed from the early Celtic druids in that they were interpreters of supernatural phenomena and that they were often called upon to deal with it. This perspective entered Celtic-based folklore and writing, particularly in Cornwall, where tales of the “parsons” (local churchmen) either calling up or combating ghosts and spirits are numerous.
The Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker (1803–1875) was vicar of Morwenstow in Cornwall and is credited for penning what is widely regarded as the Cornish National Anthem: “Men of the West.” He was also an antiquarian and folklorist with an interest in collecting traditional Cornish ghost and fairy stories. Occasionally Hawker also wrote fictional stories based around folktales and ghostlore. “The Botathen Ghost” is one of them, and it reflects the struggles of the Cornish Church against the ghosts of the past, during the 17th century. Much of the writing, one suspects, is derived from folktales that Hawker himself collected throughout Cornwall.
“The Botathen Ghost”
by R.S. Hawker
There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the clergy in the West of England throughout the seventeenth century. The Church of those days was in a transitory state, and her ministers, like her formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief with the new interpretation. [Editor’s Note: In certain parts of Cornwall, some pagan Celtic practices lingered on into the 16th and 17th centuries and beyond, some even being incorporated into the ritual of the Christian Church. The Celtic Church had been particularly strong in Cornwall, and it is not surprising therefore that ancient ways lingered on there. However about the mid-1600s, attempts were made to do away with any religious practice that might have pagan connotations, and so the Cornish Church found itself in a state of transition.] Their wide severance also from the great metropolis of life and manners, the city of London (which in those times was civilised England, much as the Paris of our own day is France) divested the Cornish clergy in particular of all personal access to the masterminds of their age and body. Then, too, the barrier interposed by the rude, rough roads of their country, and by their abode in the wilds that were almost inaccessible, rendered the existence of a bishop rather a doctrine suggested to their belief than a fact revealed to the actual vision of each in his generation. Hence it came to pass that the Cornish clergyman, insulated within his own limited sphere, often without even the presence of a country squire (and unchecked by the influence of the Fourth Estate—for until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Flindell’s Weekly Miscellany distributed from house to house from the pannier of a mule, was the only light of the West), became developed about middle life into an original mind and man, sole and absolute within the parish boundary, eccentric when compared to his brethren within civilised regions, and yet, in German phrase, “a whole and seldom man” in his dominion of souls. He was “the parson” in canonical phrase—that is to say, The Parson, somebody of consequence among his own people. These men were not, however, smoothed down into a monotonous aspect of life and manners by this remote and secluded existence. They imbibed, each in his own particular circle, the hue of surrounding objects and were tinged into a distinctive colouring and character by many a contrast of scenery and people. There was “the light of other days”, the curate by the sea-shore, who professed to check the turbulence of the “smugglers landing” by his presence on the sands, and who “held the lantern” for the guidance of his flock when the nights were dark, as the only proper ecclesiastical part he could take in the proceedings. He was soothed and silenced by the gift of a keg of hollands or a chest of tea. There was the merry minister of the mines, whose cure was honeycombed by the underground men. He must needs have been artist and poet in his way, for he had to enliven his people three or four times a year, by mastering the arrangements of a “guary” or religious mystery which was performed in the topmost hollow of a green barrow or hill of which many survive, scooped out into vast amphitheatres and surrounded by benches of turf which held two thousand spectators. Such were the historic plays “The Creation” or “Noe’s Flood” which still exist in the original Celtic as well as the English text and suggest what critics and antiquaries these Cornish curates, masters of such revels, must have been—for the native language of Cornwall did not lapse into silence until the end of the seventeenth century. [Editor’s Note: This may not be strictly true, as the last Cornish speaker is traditionally given as Dolly Pentreath, the fish-wife of Mousehole, the date of whose death is given as 1777. Dolly may not actually be the last such speaker, because, at the time of her death, mention is made of another native Cornish speaker, John Nancarrow of Marazion, then aged 45. However, he may also have only spoken Cornish as a secondary language to English. The Cornish language therefore survived past the end of the 17th century.] Then, moreover, here and there, would be one parson more learned than his kind in the mysteries of a deep and thrilling lore of peculiar fascination. He was a man so highly honoured at college for natural gifts and knowledge of learned books which nobody else could read, that when he took his “second orders”, the bishop gave him a mantle of scarlet silk to wear upon his shoulders in church, and his lordship put such power into that when the parson had it rightly on, he could “govern any ghost or evil spirit” and even “stop an earthquake”.
Such a powerful minister, in combat with supernatural visitations, was one Parson Rudall of Launcetown, whose existence and exploits we gather from the local traditions of the time, from surviving letters and other memorials, and indeed from his own ‘diaurnal’ (diary) which fell by chance into the hands of the present writer. Indeed the legend of Parson Rudall and the Botathen Ghost will be recognised by many Cornish people as a local remembrance of their boyhood.
It appears then, from the diary of this learned master of the grammar school—for such was his office as well as perpetual curate of the parish—‘that a pestilential disease did break forth in our town in the beginning of the year 1665; yea, and it likewise invaded my school, insomuch that therewithal certain of the chief scholars sickened and died’. ‘Among those who yielded to the malign influence was Master John Eliot, the eldest son of the worshipful heir of Edward Eliot, Esquire of Trebursey, a stripling of sixteen years of age, but of uncommon parts and hopeful ingenuity. At his own especial motion and earnest desire, I did consent to preach his funeral sermon’. It should be remembered here that, howsoever strange and singular it may sound to us that a mere lad should formally solicit such a performance at the hands of his master, it was in consonance with the habitual usage of those times. The old services for the dead had been abolished by law, and in the stead of sacrament and ceremony, moth’s mind and year’s mind, the sole substitute which survived was the general desire ‘to partake’ as they called it, of a posthumous discourse, replete with lofty eulogy and flattering remembrance of the living and the dead. The diary proceeds:
“I fulfilled my undertaking and preached over the coffin in the presence of a full assemblage of mourners and lachrymose friends. An ancient gentleman, who was then and there in the church, a Mr. Bligh of Botathen, was very much affected by my discourse, and he was heard to repeat to himself certain parenthesis therefrom, especially a phrase from Maro Vigilius which I had applied to the deceased youth: “Et peur ipse fuit cantari dignus.”
The cause whereby the old gentleman was moved by my applications, was this: He had a firstborn and only son—a child who, but a very few months before, had been not unworthy the character I drew of young Master Eliot but who, by some strange accident, had of late quite fallen away from his parents’ hopes and become moody, and sullen, and distraught. When the funeral obsequies were over, I had no sooner come out of church than I was accosted by this aged parent, and he besought me incontinently, with a singular energy, that I would resort with him forthwith to his abode at Botathen that very night, nor could I have delivered myself from his importunity, had not Mr. Eliot u
rged his claim to enjoy my company at his own house. Hereupon I got loose, but not until I had pledged a fast assurance that I would pay him, faithfully, an early visit the next day”.
“The Place” as it was called, of Botathen, where old Mr. Bligh resided, was a low-roofed gabled manor-house of the fifteenth century, walled and mullioned, with clustered chimneys of dark-grey stone from the neighbouring quarries of Ventor-gan. The manor was flanked by a pleasance or enclosure in one space, of garden and lawn, and it was surrounded by a solemn grove of stag-horned trees. It had the sombre aspect of age and of solitude, and looked the very scene of strange and supernatural events. A legend might well belong to every gloomy glade around, and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere within its walls. Hither, according to his appointment on the morrow, Parson Ruddal betook himself. Another clergyman, as it appeared, had been invited to meet him, who very soon after his arrival, proposed a walk together in the pleasance on the pretext of showing him, as a stranger, the walks, and trees, until the dinner-bell should strike. There, with much prolixity, and with many a solemn pause, his brother minister proceeded to “unfold the mystery”.
