Oddly enough, that same year I had another experience of a similar nature, whilst staying with some relatives of mine in a town many miles remote from Dublin.
My bedroom on this occasion, however, was a cheerful contrast to the one in which I witnessed the phenomenon in Dublin, and from the fact that the colour of its wallpaper, carpet, curtains, bed-hangings, and furniture was emerald, was appropriately termed the Green Room. Its windows, large and low down, overlooked a garden that had been at one time, so I was told, a morass, and this garden, which was even now, at certain seasons of the year, excessively damp, was, in my opinion, the only drawback to an otherwise charming place. The first time I saw it, which was in my early childhood, I felt a cold, apprehensive chill steal over me, nor did I, subsequently, ever pass by it without experiencing a sensation of extreme horror and aversion. Consequently, much as I liked the Green Room itself, I would have infinitely preferred sleeping on the other side of the house. For the first few nights, however, I slept well, and the room was so warm and sunny that I was even beginning to get over my antipathy to its prospect, when I received a rude shock. I had gone to bed at about eleven o’clock as usual, and, being unable to sleep, was formulating in my brain plans for the morrow, when I suddenly felt the bed violently agitated. My first thought was that some one was playing a practical joke on me, but I quickly pooh-poohed that idea, since, with the exception of one of the servants, I was by far the youngest person in the house, and my relatives were much too staid and sensible even to think of doing such a stupid thing. I next thought of burglars, and being a great deal younger and, I admit, pluckier than I am now, I struck a light, and, jumping out of bed, looked under it. There was nothing there. Greatly relieved, I hastily got into bed again, and, blowing out the candle, lay down. For some minutes all was still, and then the foot of the bed rose several inches from the ground, and, falling down with a dull crash, was shaken furiously. I was now very much frightened, for I knew the disturbance was due to nothing purely physical. Just at that very moment, too, a strong gust of air blowing in through the window transported the atmosphere of the garden, and simultaneously I was seized with a sense of utter loneliness and despair. Lying back on my pillow, I now perceived the glistening white figure, quite nude, of what looked like an abnormally tall, thin man, with a cylindrical-shaped head, crawl from beneath my bed, and, suddenly assuming an erect position, bound to the window, through which he vanished to the darkness beyond.
The following day I made some excuse, and returned to Dublin; nor have I ever slept in the Green Room since. From the general appearance of the phenomenon, though I did not see its face, I have no hesitation in saying that it was a Vagrarian, and that the primitive nature of the garden attracted it thither.
That the famous Irish Banshee, like the Drummer and Pipers of Scotland, the Death Candles of Wales, and the various English Family Ghosts, is the work of a species of Elemental, to which I have given the name, “Clanogrian,” I have no doubt. The Celtic word Banshee, meaning the woman of the barrow, may in all probability account for the popular idea that whenever a member of one of the old Irish clans dies, their doom is foretold (to any or every member of the family but themselves) by a series of wails, in a woman’s voice, the phantasm of the woman herself being sometimes seen. But as a matter of fact there is a great variety of form in these death-warnings peculiar to the Irish, and each historic family has its own particular banshee. I have experienced the O’Donnell Banshee (that Banshee that has ofttimes been heard in Spain, Italy, France, and Austria, wherever, in fact, a member of the clan lives) on one occasion. I was living at the seaside at the time, and had been in bed about an hour, when I heard, as I thought, outside my door, not a series, but just one wail, which, beginning in a low key, ended withal in a scream so loud and agonising that my blood froze. Instinctively I knew it was the Banshee. Scrambling out of bed, I opened the door, and the moment I did so, several other doors opened, and a troup of terrified figures, in night attire, came timidly out on to the landing. One and all had heard the sound, which they, too, recognised as the Banshee, but we saw nothing. That night a near relative of mine died!
As I have already hinted, our clan is numerous, and as many of its members are now scattered throughout Europe, it is not often I come in touch with them. Last year, however, I met one of my kinsmen, who was at that time M.P. for a London constituency, and in the course of a long conversation with him, I was interested to hear that on the eve of his father’s death both he and his brother had heard the single wail of the Banshee (just as I had done) outside the door of the room in which they were sitting. They both rushed out, as one naturally does on hearing it, but saw nothing. Their father, it is needless to say, had been quite unconscious of the Banshee, though he was keenly sensible of every other sound.
I think any one, who is acquainted with the history of Ireland, in which my clan figures so prominently, will not be at all astonished that I have been visited by so many psychic phenomena.
The last experience, in connection with Elementals, to which I will allude here, happened to me some years ago, when I was renting a house in the extreme West of England. The house, though new—I was the first occupant—was not only close to a ridge of rocks, where it was alleged that wreckers used to carry on their nefarious work until quite recently, but was within walking distance of an ancient Celtic settlement. Furthermore, from comparatively close at hand, several skeletons, supposed to belong to the Neolithic Age, had recently been disinterred.
I entered the house with a perfectly unbiassed mind; indeed, the thought that it might be haunted never for one moment entered my mind. Being at that time unmarried, I had a housekeeper, who soon complained to me of heavy, queer noises. Not wishing to lose her, I pooh-poohed the idea of there being anything wrong with the place, and suggested that the sounds were produced by the wind. It was a big, oddly-constructed place, full of long, dark passages and gloomy nooks and cupboards. I occupied a room on the top landing, separated from my housekeeper’s by a sepulchral-looking corridor. Facing my door was that of a room connected by means of a low doorway with a big loft, the furthest extremities of which were totally obscured from view by a perpetual shroud of darkness, a darkness that the feeble rays of sunlight, filtering through the tiny skylight in the slanting roof, entirely failed to dissipate. This loft certainly did suggest the superphysical, and I felt that if any ghostly presence walked the house, it had its headquarters in that spot.
Still, I heard nothing, nothing beyond the occasional banging of a door and loud creakings on the staircase. My housekeeper, however, left me, and her successor, who, to all appearances, was a practical, matter-of-fact sort of woman, had not been with me many days before she, too, gave notice.
“I never believed in ghosts till I came here,” she told me, “but I am certain there are such things now. For every night I hear not only the strangest noises in my room, but the pattering of stealthy footsteps in the passage—sounds which I feel certain could neither be produced by rats nor the wind. Indeed, sir, I can’t bear being left alone in the basement of the house after dusk, as I have the feeling that something uncanny walks about the house.”
The housekeeper, who succeeded her, speedily gave notice for precisely the same reason, and every one, who subsequently slept in the house, complained that they had the most unpleasant sensations as soon as it was dark, and heard the most extraordinary and harrowing noises.
One woman, an ex-Salvation Army officer, whom I left in charge of the house during my temporary absence, told me she had been awakened in the night by the sounds of shuffling footsteps that had stopped outside her door, the handle of which was then slowly turned.
“I was awfully frightened,” she said, “for I knew at once it was a devil; but screwing up courage, I sang as loud as my parched throat would allow me, ‘Washed in the blood of the Lamb,’ when the evil spirit ceased its disturbances and I heard the sound
of its steps in full retreat up the staircase.”
When the summer season was at its height, the manageress of one of the adjacent hotels asked me if I would mind letting her have a room for the night, in my house, as she really did not know where to put all her visitors; there was no accommodation left for them in the town. I consented, and the visitor, who happened to be a middle-aged lady, told my housekeeper the following morning that she was sure the house was haunted, as she had been awakened about two o’clock from the most revolting dreams to hear the most curious footsteps—like those of some big animal—approach her door. She then heard the sound of heavy breathing, and watched the door handle gradually turn. “I then crossed myself and prayed with all my might,” she said, “when the thing retired, and I heard its soft footsteps die away in the distance.”
One morning, between three and four o’clock, I awoke from a very nasty dream, in which I had seen a tall figure with a grey, evil face come bounding up the stairs, three steps at a time, and along the passages to my bedroom. I was so shocked at the appearance of this thing in my dreams, that for several minutes after recovering conscious my heart palpitated violently. I then heard the sound of stealthy footsteps coming along the passage parallel with my bed. Nearer and nearer they came, until they halted outside my door, on the top panels of which there suddenly came a crash so tremendous that every article in the room quivered. I jumped out of bed, threw open the door, and saw—nothing. The passage was silent and empty.
The following night, taking various precautions to satisfy myself and others that the noises were due to superphysical agencies, I covered the floor of the passage outside my room with alternate layers of chalk, flour, and sand, fastened wires across it, and blocked it up at one end with a table, on the edge of which I carefully balanced a bottle of ink.
At the same time in the morning, however, the footsteps again came. First of all they came to the table, when I distinctly heard the ink-bottle hurled to the ground with a crash; then, passing through the wires and over the chalk, flour, and sand, they drew up to my door. Sick with suspense I awaited the crash, and the moment it came, sprang out on the landing. There was nothing there, save an almost preternatural hush and the cold grey of dawn, but the instant I withdrew into my room, every wall and beam throughout the house shook with Satanical laughter! I was now so horrified that I never kept vigil in the place again, but left it shortly afterwards.
I subsequently heard from two entirely independent sources that an apparition had been seen on the site of the house some years previously. My first informant, Mrs. T., said: “One night, at about twelve o’clock, as I was coming home from a party, I saw, just about the place where your house now stands, the tall figure of a man with a tiny, rotund head. It seemed to rise out of the ground, and, striding forward with a slightly swaying motion, vanished over the cliff exactly opposite your front door. The night being moonlight, I saw the thing distinctly, and can well recall the horrible expression in its light, round eyes and leering mouth. It had small, bestial features, close-cropped hair, and a very grey complexion. Its arms and legs were abnormally long and thin. I should think it stood fully seven feet. I am sure it was nothing subjective, because when I rubbed my eyes it was still there; neither could it have been any one masquerading, as the cliff at that particular spot is fully forty feet high, and to have jumped, or even dropped over it, could not have been done without incurring serious injury. I did not learn till long afterwards that the cliff has long borne a reputation for being haunted.”
My other informant, who had certainly neither met this lady nor heard her story, gave me an account of a similar experience she had had in the same place. Hence I am inclined to think that the house was haunted by an Elemental, either a Vagrarian or Vice Elemental, that had been attracted thither either by the loneliness of the locality, or the barrow (to which I have alluded), or by the crimes formerly perpetrated on the cliff by wreckers.
It was in this house that I witnessed a manifestation prior to the death of a near relative of mine. As I have seen a similar apparition since, and have heard of a thing answering to the same description being seen separately by members of my family, I am inclined to classify it with Family Elementals, rather than to associate it with the Elemental I have just described.
The incident took place one morning at about four o’clock. My attention being drawn to a bright object in one corner of my room, I sat up in bed and looked at it, when to my horror I saw a spherical mass of vibrating, yellow-green light suddenly materialise into the round head of Something half human, half animal, and wholly evil! The face was longer than that of a human being, whilst the upper part, which was correspondingly wide, gradually narrowed till it terminated in a very pronounced and prominent chin. The head was covered with a mass of tow-coloured, matted hair; the face was entirely clean-shaven. The thin lips, which were wreathed in a wicked leer, displayed very long, pointed teeth. But it was the eyes, which were fixed on mine with a steady stare, that arrested and riveted my attention. In hue they were of a light green, in expression they were hellish, for no other word can so adequately express the unfathomable intensity of their diabolical glee, and, as I gazed at them in helpless fascination, my blood froze. I do not think the manifestation lasted more than a few seconds, though to me, of course, it seemed an eternity. It vanished simultaneously with a loud and utterly inexplicable crash (as if countless crockery was being smashed) in the passage outside my door. In the morning I learned of the death of a near relative who had died just at the time I witnessed the phenomenon.
A striking instance of another kind of phantasm, which I can only conclude is an Elemental of the order of Clanogrians, occurred quite recently. In a work of mine entitled “The Haunted Houses of London,” published last year, I narrated an instance of a lady who, prior to the death of her husband, heard a grandfather clock (there being no clock of that description in the house), first of all, strike thirteen, and then, at intervals, several other numbers, which were subsequently found to denote the exact date of her husband’s death.
Some months after the appearance of this book, I went to see “The Blue Bird,” and found myself seated next but one to the lady who experienced the phenomenon of the clock. In between the acts she leaned forward to speak to me, and said: “Isn’t it odd, I have heard that clock again, Mr. O’Donnell, and it struck thirteen just as before? And what is still more strange, a few days ago, as I was sitting in my drawing-room, I heard a gong—I have no such thing in my house—very solemnly strike a certain number of times, quite close to me. Unfortunately, I did not count the strokes; but what do you think it means?”
I replied that I did not know; possibly, perhaps, the death of some relative. At the same time, I instinctively felt that the sounds foretold her own doom—a presentiment which, alas! was only too true, as Mrs. —— was killed a few days afterwards in a somewhat extraordinary taxi-cab collision in Portman Square. As Mrs. —— was a lady well known in Society, the accident was fully reported in several of the leading London dailies—in fact, that was how I first heard of it.
CHAPTER II.
PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING AND DEAD—DEATH WARNINGS AND DREAMS.
In one of my works I have alluded to the case of Miss D. (a signed account of which appeared in the October number, 1899, of the “Magazine for the Society of Psychical Research”), who unconsciously projected her superphysical body into the presence of four witnesses, including myself, and once when I was staying in Northampton a rather amusing incident with regard to projection happened to me. I went to Castle Street Station to see Mrs. W., a connection of mine, off, and as the train steamed out of the “bay,” I was very much surprised to see her lean out of the window and wave to me. Of course, I waved back, but thinking such a proceeding on her part was most extraordinary, as I knew her to be extremely dignified, and averse to anything “tripperish,” I made a note of the circumstance, and resolved to allude to i
t when next we met. I did so, but although I made use of all the tact I possess, Mrs. W. was intensely annoyed, and, of course, indignantly denied having done such a thing. Now, was this a case of unconscious projection, or merely of suggestion? I am inclined to think the former.
The same thing happened at Temple Mead Station, Bristol, when I was again seeing Mrs. W. off to her home. This time I rubbed my eyes, and still her phantom was at the window, waving vigorously until the train had travelled some distance!
The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack Page 42
