Strange Survivals. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

stubborn prejudice which still exists in all parts against a first burial in a new cemetery or churchyard is due to the fact that in Pagan times the first to be buried was the victim, and in mediæval times was held to be the perquisite of the devil, who stepped into the place of the Pagan deity.

      Every so-called Devil’s Bridge has some story associated with it pointing to sacrifice, and sometimes to the substitution of an animal for the human victim. The almost invariable story is that the devil had been invoked and promised his aid, if given the first life that passed over the bridge. On the completion of the structure a goat, or a dog, or a rabbit is driven over, and is torn to pieces by the devil. At Pont-la-Ville, near Courbières, is a four-arched Devil’s Bridge, where six mice, then six rats, and lastly six cats, were driven across, according to the popular story, in place of the eighteen human souls demanded by the Evil One.

      At Cahors, in Ouercy, is a singularly fine bridge over the Lot, with three towers on it. The lower side of the middle tower could never be finished, it always gave way at one angle. The story goes that the devil was defrauded of his due—the soul of the architect—when he helped to build the bridge, and so declared that the bridge never should be finished. Of late years the tower has been completed, and in token that modern skill has triumphed, the Evil One has been represented on the angle, carved in stone. The legend shows that the vulgar thought that the bridge should have been laid in blood, and as it was not so, concluded that the faulty tower was due to the neglect of the Pagan usage.

      The black dog that haunts Peel Castle, and the bloodhound of Launceston Castle, are the spectres of the animals buried under their walls, and so the White Ladies and luminous children, who are rumoured to appear in certain old mansions, are the faded recollections of the unfortunate sacrifices offered when these houses were first reared, not, perhaps, the present buildings, but the original manor-halls before the Conquest.

      At Coatham, in Yorkshire, is a house where a little child is seen occasionally—it vanishes when pursued. In some German castles the apparition of a child is called the “Still child;” it is deadly pale, white-clothed, with a wreath on the head. At Falkenstein, near Erfurth, the appearance is that of a little maiden of ten, white as a sheet, with long double plaits of hair. A white baby haunts Lünisberg, near Aerzen. I have heard of a house in the West of England, where on a pane of glass, every cold morning, is found the scribbling of little fingers. However often the glass be cleaned, the marks of the ghostly fingers return. The Cauld Lad of Hilton Castle in the valley of Wear is well known. He is said to wail at night:

      “Wae’s me, wae’s me,

      The acorn’s not yet

      Fallen from the tree

      That’s to grow the wood,

      That’s to make the cradle,

      That’s to rock the bairn,

      That’s to grow to a man,

      That’s to lay me.”

      At Guilsland, in Cumberland, is another Cauld Lad; he is deadly white, and appears ever shivering with cold, and his teeth chattering.

      An allied apparition is that of the Radiant Boy. Lord Castlereagh is said to have seen one, a spectre, which the owner of the castle where he saw it admitted had been visible to many others. Dr. Kerner mentions a very similar story, wherein an advocate and his wife were awakened by a noise and a light, and saw a beautiful child enveloped in a sort of glory. I have heard of a similar appearance in a Lincolnshire house. A story was told me, second-hand, the other day, of a house where such a child was seen, which always disappeared at the hearth, and sometimes, instead of the child, little white hands were observed held up appealingly above the hearthstone. The stone was taken up, quite recently, and some bones found under it, which were submitted to an eminent comparative anatomist, who pronounced them to be those of a child.

      Mrs. Crowe, in her “Night Side of Nature,” gives an account of such an apparition from an eye-witness, dated 1824. “Soon after we went to bed, we fell asleep: it might be between one and two in the morning when I awoke. I observed that the fire was totally extinguished; but, although that was the case, and we had no light, I saw a glimmer in the centre of the room, which suddenly increased to a bright flame. I looked out, apprehending that something had caught fire, when, to my amazement, I beheld a beautiful boy standing by my bedside, in which position he remained some minutes, fixing his eyes upon me with a mild and benevolent expression. He then glided gently away towards the side of the chimney, where it is obvious there is no possible egress, and entirely disappeared. I found myself in total darkness, and all remained quiet until the usual hour of rising. I declare this to be a true account of what I saw at C—— Castle, upon my word as a clergyman.”

      When we consider that the hearth is the centre and sacred spot of a house, and that the chimney above it is the highest portion built, and the most difficult to rear, it is by no means improbable that the victim was buried under the hearthstone or jamb of the chimney. The case already mentioned of a child’s bones having been found in this position is by no means an isolated one.

      It would be impossible to give a tithe of the stories of White Ladies and Black Ladies and Brown Ladies who haunt old houses and castles.

      The latest instance of a human being having been immured alive, of which a record remains and which is well authenticated, is that of Geronimo of Oran, in the wall of the fort near the gate Bab-el-oved, of Algiers, in 1569. The fort is composed of blocks of pise, a concrete made of stones, lime, and sand, mixed in certain proportions, trodden down and rammed hard into a mould, and exposed to dry in the sun. When thoroughly baked and solid it is turned out of the mould, and is then ready for use. Geronimo was a Christian, who had served in a Spanish regiment; he was taken by pirates and made over to the Dey of Algiers. When the fort was in construction, Geronimo was put into one of the moulds, and the concrete rammed round him (18th Sept., 1569), and then the block was put into the walls. Don Diego de Haedo, the contemporary author of the “Topography of Algiers,” says, “On examining with attention the blocks of pise which form the walls of the fort, a block will be observed in the north wall of which the surface has sunk in, and looks as if it had been disturbed; for the body in decaying left a hollow in the block, which has caused the sinkage.”

      On December 27, 1853, the block was extracted. The old fort was demolished to make room for the modern “Fort des vingt-quatre-heures,” under the direction of Captain Susoni, when a petard which had been placed beneath two or three courses of pise near the ground, exploded, and exposed a cavity containing a human skeleton, the whole of which was visible, from the neck to the knees, in a perfect state of preservation. The remains, the cast of the head, and the broken block of pise, are now in the Cathedral of Algiers.

      The walls of Scutari are said also to contain the body of a victim; in this case of a woman, who was built in, but an opening was left through which her infant might be passed in to be suckled by her as long as life remained in the poor creature, after which the hole was closed.

      At Arta also, in the vilajet of Janina, a woman was walled into the foundation of the bridge. The gravelly soil gave way, and it was decided that the only means by which the substructure could be solidified was by a human life. One of the mason’s wives brought her husband a bowl with his dinner, when he dropped his ring into the hole dug for the pier, and asked her to search for it. When she descended into the pit, the masons threw in lime and stones upon her, and buried her.

      The following story is told of several churches in Europe. The masons could not get the walls to stand, and they resolved among themselves to bury under them the first woman or child that came to their works. They took oath to this effect. The first to arrive was the wife of the master-mason, who came with the dinner. The men at once fell on her and walled her into the foundations. One version of the story is less gruesome. The masons had provided meat for their work, and the wife of the master had dealt so carelessly with the provision, that it ran out before the building was much advanced. She accordingly put the remaining bones into a cauldron, and made a soup of vegetables. When she brought it to the mason, he flew into a rage, and built the cauldron and bones into the wall, as a perpetual caution to improvident wives. This is the story told of the church of Notre Dame at Bruges, where the cauldron