From out of a collection of ghosts stories, both of fiction and of oral history, come these three accounts of Banshee sightings.

Mr. T.J. Westropp, M.A., has furnished the following story: "My maternal grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother, one of the Miss Ross-Lewins, who witnessed the occurrence.

Their father, Mr. Harrison Ross-Lewin, was away in Dublin on law business, and in his absence the young people went off to spend the evening with a friend who lived some miles away. The night was fine and lightsome as they were returning, save at one point where the road ran between trees or high hedges not far to the west of the old church of Kilchrist. The latter, like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building, with long side-walls and high gables, and at that time it and its graveyard were unenclosed, and lay in the open fields.

As the party passed down the long dark lane they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and clapping of hands, as the country-people were accustomed to do when lamenting the dead. The Ross-Lewins hurried on, and came in sight of the church, on the side wall of which a little gray-haired old woman, clad in a dark cloak, was running to and fro, chanting and wailing, and throwing up her arms.

The girls were very frightened, but the young men ran forward and surrounded the ruin, and two of them went into the church, the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They searched every nook, and found no one, nor did any one pass out.

All were now well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching their home their mother opened the door, and at once told them that she was in terror about their father, for, as she sat looking out the window in the moonlight, a huge raven with fiery eyes lit on the sill, and tapped three times on the glass.

They told her their story, which only added to their anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came to the nearest window, and they saw the bird again. A few days later news reached them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This occurred about 1776."

Mr. Westropp also writes that the sister of a former Roman Catholic Bishop told his sisters that when she was a little girl she went out one evening with some other children for a walk.

Going down the road, they passed the gate of the principal demesne near the town. There was a rock, or large stone, beside the road, on which they saw something. Going nearer, they perceived it to be a little dark, old woman, who began crying and clapping her hands. Some of them attempted to speak to her, but got frightened, and all finally ran home as quickly as they could.

Next day the news came that the gentleman near whose gate the Banshee had cried, was dead, and it was found on inquiry that he had died at the very hour at which the children had seen the specter.

 A lady who is a relation of one of the compilers, and a member of a Co. Cork family of English descent, sends the two following experiences of a Banshee in her family.

"My mother, when a young girl, was standing looking out of the window in their house at Blackrock, near Cork. She suddenly saw a white figure standing on a bridge which was easily visible from the house. The figure waved her arms towards the house, and my mother heard the bitter wailing of the Banshee. It lasted some seconds, and then the figure disappeared.

Next morning my grandfather was walking as usual into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell, hit his head against the curbstone, and never recovered consciousness.

"In March, 1900, my mother was very ill, and one evening the nurse and I were with her arranging her bed. We suddenly heard the most extraordinary wailing, which seemed to come in waves round and under her bed. We naturally looked everywhere to try and find the cause, but in vain. The nurse and I looked at one another, but made no remark, as my mother did not seem to hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting with my father. She heard it, and thought some terrible thing had happened to her little boy, who was in bed upstairs. She rushed up, and found him sleeping quietly.

My father did not hear it. In the house next door they heard it, and ran downstairs, thinking something had happened to the servant; but the latter at once said to them, 'Did you hear the Banshee? Mrs. P---- must be dying.'"

Hunting for the ghost gave purpose to our play for most of that year. Mrs. L. gave us leave to investigate the spooky attic rooms of that brick Gothic Revival of theirs, perhaps hoping that in so doing we might also clean it. We were about five of us - Dougy and Teddy, the C. brothers, sometimes my little brother as well. The ghost never reappeared in that time.

It was years later, I was 18. My grandfather died, and on that night he came to my bed side and awakened me. We spoke, or - that is, he did - and I cannot remember what he said. But, when the phone rang next day and I heard that it was my uncle, and my father's voice to him turned grave, I knew enough to leave the house before Mom came to the phone. Tears for the dead are embarrassing to me. I don't abide others' grief at all well.

Until relatively recently - that is, within the last 20-25 years, since the beginning of my exile - I could not comprehend the grief felt by a child upon discovering that there is no Santa Claus. It is grief, although it is usually expressed in irritation. My own children are not like me, at least in several notable particulars. Observing them is teaching me a great deal. 

I have never been challenged to 'believe in' something I cannot see or otherwise experience. Belief in the saints requires no faith on my part. They are as real to me as this keyboard is real, just not material as this keyboard is material. Of course Santa Claus exists. I've seen him. I've spoken with him. I never came to a point of disillusionment. My parents knew him too. They didn't tell me fairy stories about a fat man dressed in red coming down the chimney. They told me the truth. But there is nothing wrong with stories.

In that haunted house there was a picture above the fireplace which I carry with me depicting the interior of a castle, and there are several princely figures gathered standing by a table, one of them with his hand on the hilt of his sword as if threatened. Perhaps he is swearing an oath. At around that time I must have been reading H.P. Lovecraft, whose story, The Picture in the House, had made a deep impression on me. Of course, in the story the picture is not hanging on a wall but exists in a book which is lying open in an upstairs rooms, and as a result blood is coming through the ceiling.

The book is, of course, The Necrominicon, Lovecraft's celebrated "Book of the Dead," which serves as a frequently revisited plot device of his, and which to this day is actually believed in by conspiracy theorists and other dysfunctional persons.

Ah - talk about myth making! If I were to write a tale of pure fancy that was years later embraced as a great secret truth - well, that would be something.

Well, I never had any difficulty acknowledging the existence of the spiritual. It's impossible for me to imagine going through life on the basis of what seems substantial alone, for the firmament is swimming perpetually with insubstantial things. And thoughts themselves - those syllables that arrange my thoughts, and that constant music which accompanies them - are insubstantial too. Yet it never occurs to me to declare I do not think!

When my grandfather came to see me on the night he died he was no ghost, though his body lay in Florida and I was in New York. He was simply Grandpa, same as ever. When my Mom is present with me it is not an occasion for spine-tingling, no more than when I converse with any other saint. I'm not using hyperbole here. In the spirit a thing is either true or it isn't. There is no ego, no modesty, no concern for the acceptable appearance.

But I love living in wonder, and I love wondering about things that I know deep within me are not real. Things like ghosts. I guess we knew that Mr. L. would appear only the one time in the white sheet and fright mask. We would never speak of it for it would upset the game if we did, and no one likes to be a party pooper. The truth is always much more awesome and amazing than such stories, but the truth is true and therefore offers no escape from itself.

The people who see Our Lady in apparition immediately kneel - as one would before his mother - not in deference to the fact that she is supernatural; so indeed is the greater aspect of us all - but in respect for who she is, rather than amazed incredulity about what what she is.

Do you see? Deep down, the skeptic has no doubt. When confronted by reality he accepts it immediately. Perhaps he tells himself that it was his idea all along it should be so. People are daffy. If you think it is Mr. L. in a sheet and fright mask - or, if there is any possibility that may be the case - then you have your answer: that is precisely what it is. When something comes that is truly supernatural it is so real, more real in fact than the world, that there would be no cause for doubt. If it's wonder that you want - entertainments - well, that's what ghost stories are for.

Years later I would come upon a black and white engraving of that picture in the house in an antiquarian book shop, and there I saw, according to the caption that it bore, the oath which was being sworn was an oath of fealty to God, and that it was the depiction of a famous conversion story.  

Should I tell the Kirby salesman when and if he returns that I have already seen a demonstration of his product in a dream? That would be the truth. It is from such a dream that I have only recently awakened.

The poor fellow, who was gesticulating wildly at my doorstep yesterday afternoon, informed me that the police had been called at least four times during his visit to my town to check that he and his crew had the necessary permits to solicit. My town is... I am searching for the word, it is at the tips of my fingers - anal.

Ah, but it's a pretty place.

I've written before about the Kirby vacuum cleaner, the one so powerful that it can actually swallow its own cord.

This is the one cartoons are sucked into. It is a gorgeous machine. I don't hide it in a closet. I display it as art, the beautiful stainless steel thing. I despise plastic. Even the children's toys had to be made of wood if I had them in my yard. Splinters build character, dammit.

The Kirby machine reminds me of the technology available to the people of Ridley Scott's movie Blade Runner, which I enjoyed. I haven't seen it since its theatrical release. Terry Gilliam's Brazil exaggerated a similar style of gee-whizz technology as it might have been envisioned a century ago. The more recent A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the book series by Daniel Handler, featured one of the most appealingly anachronistic design motifs I have ever seen. The cars were of a late 30's-40's vintage with phones of the same period built into the dashboards, reel-to-reel tape players as car stereo - that kind of thing. In the dialogue fax machines and other wonders were referenced as being commonplace, but you know that they are not as ugly in the world of the movie as they are in life.

It's the ugliness of modern appliances I eschew, not their convenience.

That's an ugly word - eschew. It means to avoid, to shun.

Geshundheit.

Well, in my dream the Kirby salesman cleaned my rug and my sofa. I hate telling him that I am not going to buy his product after he has done that. You may say that dreams are not real. Of course, if you have been reading this for any length of time you know that they are - in their dream context - as real as anything else.

I gather the word for the style I like is now retro. Something which gives the appearance of being old, but is not old. I have seen various ill-mannered attempts at achieving this look in automobile design, but since these vehicles are still made of plastic the result is bile-inspiring.

An interesting tidbit of information came up in conversation yesterday. It seems that buyers of 'hybrid' vehicles eschew all makes except the Toyota Prius, because it is only the Prius that looks like a hybrid. When one of these distinctively ridiculous sat-upon plastic bubbles drives by one recognizes immediately that its driver is a person who cares about green matters, and is a better person than most therefore. So-called hybrid vehicles - or those that combine gas and electric power - that do not look like they are hybrids are eschewed.

Human nature. Be the first on your block to own the new ______

I am remembering now the residents of my old neighborhood standing around to watch the first-ever automatic garage door opener be put through its paces - up and down, and up and down again. There were applause in between.

But the biggest thrill of that same year came when Mr. L. put on a white sheet and skull-like fright mask and 'glided' out onto the screened-in porch of his brick Gothic Revival house in the view of several of us ghost-hunting kids.

At least, I think it was him. We never did learn that it was, for certain, and he never did admit to it. Through the screens the apparition looked quite genuine, and even if we suspected a prank-pulling cause we submerged that suspicion. The real thing is always superior to its imitations.

LeFanu's dream of the crumbling house resembles a recurring dream of my own, and this dream is really the origin of the White Lodge.

I do most of my writing in the morning, particularly the early morning. I am predisposed to awaken in the Hour of the Wolf - been that way since a lad. Often, when I have something to post on this blog it is the result, or immediate aftermath, of a dream. This very same morning - several hours ago - I awoke speaking the words "Bluebeard's Castle," which I took as guidance from the Squabbler as to what my subject may be.

As usual, I'm not as interested in crafting an essay on a 1911 opera in two acts by Bela Bartok which would only repeat the volumes already written on this most popular piece as I am in making reference to it in the context of my personal experience. I should say I have enjoyed listening to the opera for many years, first discovering it as a boy with a record player and nothing yet to play on it, and at that time its odd minor seconds and its vocal intensities were like an intriguing puzzle to be solved. I would not be defeated by music, and so I pressed on in my self-education until the languages of music were as intimately familiar to my subconscious ear as my own patter of thoughts.

Regular readers may already have gleaned as much.

As the story of the libretto, based upon an old folktale, features a damp castle of great antiquity into which its chief inhabitant Bluebeard brings his new young wife, it seems to closely resemble a setting from one of LeFanu's fictions. Elements of Gothic romance are certainly there - the castle; a secret door, etc. - but the opera is quite modern, quite intentionally metaphorical in the Symbolist manner, (overmannered), with an obvious psychological, even psychoanalytical, plot. Ripping fun!

One of the things that attracted me to this opera had to be its castle, for in my recurring youthful (and present) dream I seem to reside in a very large house, the dimensions of which I seem to require a lifetime to fully explore. I have referred to this dream house as the 'Grey Lodge' on several occasions. It obviously represents the interior of my own mind, and some of its multitude of doors open into chambers as large as planets, with mountains and seas, different people. But it is mine; it has always been mine, the things of it commanded by me, and not strange to me, even when they are strange.

Lately I have found a park within a quadrangle not previously known which I have been exploring with much interest. Last year, or the year before, it was a very wide staircase which consumed my interest, with chambers underneath it, and accessible by surmounting it, which defy physical laws governing the relative size of space, or dimension.

When I envisioned - consciously this time - the ideal house for me, I christened my dream house the "White Lodge" in order to differentiate it from the one which must remain obscured by the wall of sleep. I also fancied that my childhood nightmares, and occasional ones to this day, must occur in a "Black Lodge," anticipating by many years the Twin Peaks television program, the first three episodes of which turning out to be the only ones worthwhile.

I don't remember why I chose to use the word 'lodge' rather than 'house,' except that I was writing an epic mythological tale at around this time which I called Nefar and Fenrocia. It was a story about a place called Fenrocia in which the people are either indigenous to it, or descended from the ancient race of the land of Nefar, lost forever behind a wall of sea mist far away. They are frequently at war, and the various leaders of the native Hucks - Gastonaaga, Rumineetahuck the Usurper, et al. - are obviously drawn from American Indian and ancient Celtic legend intermixed in just the sort of way a teenage mind is wont to do with the influences that are coming into it. The story opens with Prince Josepis Greane's campaign against the Legion of Harle at the White Terrace, where the 300 year-old Saint Abanon resides at a place called the Terrace Lodge.

Nefar and Fenrocia consumed me from precisely 1974 (when I had the first dream of it) through the mid-1980's. As a s'matter of fact, I brought a story from it to a college creative writing workshop where I was immediately given the title of myth-maker by the professor who was most impressed. My contemporaries were less impressed, finding my themes rather 'nerdish.' Well, they are, or - were. So what?

This is just prior to a period I liken today to entering the Black Lodge for a very long time. Even then I had one foot in the door. Alcohol and drugs took complete possession of my consciousness for many years, interrupting what I was persistently told were the high expectations on my literary future.

Emerging from that, at age 39, having completely abandoned any hope of successfully pursuing that possible future, with two ex-wives running around and two children I hardly remembered having, I resolved never to return to the place I call the Black Lodge. Again my thoughts returned to writing - the possibility of writing. Poetry, which I had had little patience for as a youngster - (loved to read it, hated to write it) - turned out to be the arch through which I passed back into the life of the mind.

So that's my Gothic castle story, and a description of what resides behind several of its secret doors. Not exactly Lord Dunblane, as I haven't lopped off the hands of any young wives, but occasionally every bit as creepy.

What I haven't yet acknowledged, but have dealt with on many occasions separately, is the Church contained within this dream house of changeable hues. Even during my years in the Black Lodge I was a man of faith - that is, try as I may, I could not deny that it was in me. It's by Grace that I've been able to imagine anything, once I chose to leave Fenrocia for more worldly territories.

But, in the context of my recent posts, which seem to indicate a revival of interest in several themes running concurrently within my memory, it seems that Duke Squabbler's Castle is most aptly suited to the task of tying it all together, so I am grateful that I woke up with this particular dream as company.