The Ceremony on Clonmillan Hill

Maximilian Pirner, "Funeral of a Fairy"

The following tale comes from Dermot MacManus’ 1973 book, “The Middle Kingdom: The Faerie World of Ireland.”  Whether the narrator encountered ghosts, fairies, or, well, something else, it is certainly one of the more unusual alleged encounters with supernatural beings.

The next account I have is of a very different kind of being. One might be tempted to classify it as a ghost rather than an elemental, but taking everything into consideration I feel that it never was a human being but is truly of the fairy world. My informant is Mr Gowran, who is today a prosperous owner of shops in Dublin, but who hails from Offaly. The incident happened in 1901 when he was a boy of ten.

Mr Gowran's family lived at that time in the small county town of Edenderry. One day in May, when the cowslips were out and everything was bright and cheerful with the promise of coming summer, he and a school friend, eight-year-old Jack Gooley, set off for a stroll about four in the afternoon. With two nine-year-old girls, Mary Gooley, Jack's elder sister, and her friend Maggie Grehan, they wandered along the road running north towards Mullingar. After going about a mile the girls, who were behind, turned to the right along a lane which led fairly steeply upwards to Clonmillan Hill. There was a farmhouse there, where they were certain of refreshment from an aunt and uncle of Mary's. They had been told to collect some buttermilk from them to take home for baking bread.

Clonmillan Hill has always had a reputation for being connected with the fairies, including the great Shee as well the lesser Shee-og. A number of years before, some man had ploughed up a small fairy ring or fort there, causing a good deal of discussion in the neighbourhood, most people deprecating the act as a trouble-making piece of vandalism. I have heard that he died unexpectedly a few years later. The farm lay halfway up the hill but to the far side of it, and the lane, after going straight for some distance, turned to the left so as to reach the house.

The two girls had not got halfway up when the boys, who had only gone on a short distance down the Mullingar road, heard them call out. When the lads looked back they saw that the girls had stopped and were looking earnestly into the field on their right. After a few moments, they saw the girls turn back and run down the lane on to the main road again. On reaching the road, the girls went over to a gate opposite the lane and stared into the field beyond it. Then they began urgently beckoning to the boys to join them there. The boys, who were thirty or forty yards away, ran up at once, little dreaming what an extraordinary thing they were about to see.

When they joined the girls at the gate and looked through it, to their utter astonishment they saw, some forty yards away, a group of dark figures of human size standing in a circle about ten yards in diameter. Black capes or shawls were draped over their heads and hung across their shoulders and from there dropped straight down to or into the ground, but with no crease or bend where they reached it. The figures stood so close together that their draperies touched from their shoulders down, making it impossible to see past them. They were quite motionless, even to the folds and pleats of their draperies, as if carved out of some black stone, and their heads were erect. Mr Gowran says emphatically that these black cloaks were not woollen but were made of some very fine cloth that was not shiny, and could not have been silken either.

Another remarkable feature was that the whole centre of the circle of figures appeared to be covered by a black cloth at the height of their shoulders. From it rose what seemed to be a chest--or, though the children did not think of it at the time, a coffin--and it, too, was covered by the same black material, which lay snugly on the chest and showed its shape clearly. The top of the chest was a foot or a little more above the heads of the surrounding figures. And on the top of this chest lay a set of old Irish bagpipes. Mr Gowran can still describe them in detail and can remember just how they lay. There were three drones, each about three feet long, one of which lay towards him and the other two away from him. The bag and the mouthpiece hung down over the side of the box. The drones were of unusual shape and were as thick as a big man's wrist.

The children had stood looking at this curious sight for a considerable time, probably two or three minutes, when they saw Dan Jackson, the owner of the field, and his eighteen-year-old son approaching from the field beyond it, which was divided from it by a small ditch. The two men took long steps across the ditch and strolled unconcernedly on. It seemed as if they were going to walk up to the figures, but it was soon clear that neither of them saw anything unusual, and after passing within six feet of the dark, silent figures, they approached the gate.

Afraid of being asked awkward questions, and being rather alarmed at what they saw, the four children ran off towards the town just before the two men reached the gate. But the two boys, being bolder than the girls, stopped after they had gone a short distance and peered through the hedge again. They were now alongside the next field and so had to look through the side hedge as well, but they found a gap and saw that the mysterious figures were still quietly standing, but the circle had moved some ten yards farther away and was now close to the ditch of the next field, covering the track along which the two men had just passed.

What were these eerie black figures that stood so still, and what was the meaning of the bagpipes lying upon the draped chest? The girls had first seen this silent group in the field halfway up the lane and had called out. They had then run back to the main road in fear, only to see exactly the same sight again, for there were apparently the same figures standing before them in this other field.

This sight has been seen by others round about, but only at rare intervals of years, and the story of it persists throughout the neighbourhood. However, it was not till a number of years later, when Mr Gowran was a young man, that his uncle told him that he also had seen the figures, a few years before the children had encountered them.

Locally, these apparitions are looked upon as fairies and not as ghosts, and rightly so, I think. It has been suggested that they were members of the fairy hosts, perhaps even the people of Bel, the great Celtic God who is honoured with fires on May Eve--Beltane, as it should be called--and that they lamented the passing of some special Celtic piper who had learned the fairy tunes to play to them. However that may be, I feel they fit in much more reasonably as fairy folk than as ghosts.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

However, I'm not sure I like what the Strange Company HQ staffers are planning for today's menu.

What the hell was the Dover Demon?

An archaeological mystery near Yellowstone.

A fatal obsession with an actress.

The "f word" goes a long way back.

In 1900, these were women's favorite weapons.

A look at the latest book about Poe.  It sounds a bit pretentious, but whatever.

How do we talk to aliens?  Assuming we want to.

Witchcraft has become a big business.

The "Black Bird" of Chernobyl.

Borley Rectory, our most controversial haunted house.

The Royal Navy versus pirates.

The man who went from reporting on Parliament to becoming an MP.

Pasteur and the "accidental vaccine."

Why some witches were hanged and some were burned.

Elephants are darn good doctors.

Octopuses are darn smart.  Probably good doctors, too, who knows?

Over 700 years ago, a man died from being hit by a car.  Well, all right, maybe it was a trebuchet.  

The end of the Bronze Age.

Plants are turning themselves into fairy circles.

An "ancient underwater city" and Noah's Ark.

The Normandy invasion and "Operation Sparrow."

The Black Death really didn't know when to leave.

Selling coffins isn't always fun and games.

Brahms and "Madame Composer."

Several young women who were abducted from their cars.

The secretaries who made Elizabeth I sound angrier.

The legends of a haunted Alaskan island.

More talking dogs than you can shake a stick at.

A brief history of London Freemasonry.

A brief history of bedpans.

The doors of Old London.

The burials at Gobekli Tepe.

An influential Admiral.

A small town with a lot of ghosts.

What disease did the Elephant Man have?  (Short scientific answer: "Dunno.")

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at an encounter with...fairies? Ghosts? God knows what?  In the meantime, here's Handel.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Sit back and enjoy what is probably the weirdest "letter to the editor" in history.  “The Guardian,” November 30, 1976:

Recent reports of peculiar events have reminded me of a mysterious experience I had in East Anglia a few years ago. I was teaching in a small village school and the caretaker's husband declared that he had seen strange orange lights in the school field as he walked the dog home at about 10.30 pm. Cynics suggested that he had seen more light ale than anything else. I thought little of it. 

The next day a little lad brought me a small plastic toy pistol which he had found near the school.  I popped it into my drawer until such time as some-one claimed it. Near the end of the afternoon of hectic activities I felt that I could not tolerate the compulsive and ceaseless chatter of one Sandra and on an impulse pointed the pistol at her saying mentally, “Gottya!” 

To my astonishment she immediately vanished. The other children, conditioned to ignore her perpetual trivialities, didn't even notice. At the end of the session I dismissed the class and sat down in the ill-lit room to ponder over the unprecedented situation. I was suddenly aware of the figure of a man standing by me dressed in some kind of boiler-suit protective clothing.  I assumed he was a parent on the way home from work. He extended his hand, lying in the palm of which was another toy pistol. Wordlessly I passed the first one over to him. He examined it briefly, clicked a small ratchet at the side, pointed it toward a corner of the room and pulled the trigger. To my utter amazement Sandra reappeared immediately in full spate, breaking off only to observe that it was time to go home.  And as I sat there, Sandra and the stranger independently disappeared into the evening gloom. 

A Wiltshire Teacher.

The Invisible Intruders and the Strange Death of Sigrid Barginde

"The Olympian," July 27, 1981, via Newspapers.com

In the movie “Wait Until Dark,” Audrey Hepburn played a blind woman terrorized by sinister strangers searching her apartment.  The film showed that there is a unique psychological horror in knowing danger lurks around you, but you are unable to see it.  That same fear is central to the following crime case--only in this real-life story, justice, let alone any answers, never made an appearance in the last act.

Retired bookkeeper Sigrid Barginde was 87 years old, hard of hearing, and nearly blind, but she still managed to take care of herself in the small brick home on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, where she lived alone.  As far as is known, her life was quiet and unremarkable until April 1981.  One night, she fell asleep on her living room couch while watching television.  She was suddenly awakened by noises in her room.  Through her thick glasses, she was able to make out three shadowy figures moving through the house towards her bedroom.  When she screamed, the intruders threw a sheet over her, struck her on the head, and shut her in a closet.

When Sigrid called police the next morning, the arriving officers, Bill Melmine and Larry Viles, had a hard time believing her story.  Despite her black eye and bloodied sheet, the men found it unlikely that three people would commit a seemingly senseless break-in against a woman who seemed to have little worth stealing--especially since nothing was taken from her home and there were no signs of forced entry.  When she expressed her fears that her house was bugged and the phone tapped, the policemen began muttering to themselves about fanciful, paranoid old ladies who had overly vivid nightmares.

Not long afterwards, Sigrid again went to the police.  She complained that she had to use a neighbor’s phone because her own wasn’t working.  When Melmine and Viles took her phone to a repair shop, they were told that pieces of the receiver had been torn out.

It was then that the officers began to think that perhaps Miss Barginde wasn’t so paranoid, after all.  They got her a new phone, with the receiver screwed on very tightly.  A week later, Sigrid called the police from her neighbor’s house.  The receiver had been vandalized again.  The officers then stuck the receiver cover back on with super glue.  After that, someone pulled the receiver and the cord out of the phone.  Later, a construction horse was found under the only window in Sigrid’s house that could not be locked.  The police removed the horse, but it was soon replaced by a garbage can placed under that same window.  

A locksmith changed her locks for a nominal fee.  Neighbors removed weeds that obscured her house from the street.  And everyone waited for the phantom attacker’s next move.

On June 18, Sigrid was mugged while walking home from the bank.  She held on to her purse and screamed until her attacker ran off.  The perpetrator was never caught.

Melmine and Viles were still not sure just what was going on, but they realized that this poor woman was genuinely going through hell.  The officers began visiting her several times a week, and would often cruise past her address, shining the rays from a spotlight across the house.  “It started to get to her,” Viles later recalled.  “She would be sitting there talking and happy, and then she would sit down and cry.  She was just scared to death.  She was living in terror all the time.  But she wouldn’t move.”  Melmine added darkly, “We told her, ‘If you don’t get out of here, you’re going to die here.’”  (Such an obvious solution was, unfortunately, easier said than done.  Sigrid pointed out that if she put the house up for sale, she would be obligated to warn potential buyers that she was leaving because of repeated burglaries.)

Tragically, Melmine was a prophet.  The day of the mugging proved to be the next-to-last act in our tragedy. After several days of no one being able to get into contact with Sigrid, the police were called in on June 26.  When they entered her home, her body was found face-down on her bed, hands tied behind her back with a scarf.  Her telephone’s cord and receiver were--for the final time--ripped out.  The Cook County medical examiner determined that Sigrid had died of a heart attack.  He stated that it was unknown what brought it on. "It's possible that it came as a result of a shock, but there is no way to verify it one way or another."

This conclusion hardly seems definitive, but it was good enough for Police Commander Milton Deas, who announced that the medical examiner’s decision “closes the case unless something else pops up.”

This was apparently law enforcement’s final word on the matter.  In September 1981, Sigrid’s sister, Ingvelde Barginde Evans, who lived in Colorado, sent a letter to the Chicago Police Department demanding that they reopen the investigation into Sigrid’s death.  The dead woman’s family felt that the Chicago PD had not exactly covered themselves with glory.  Startlingly, Ingvelde wrote that when her daughter, the administrator of Sigrid’s estate, was finally allowed into Sigrid’s house on August 30, she "found and photographed my sister's bloodstained bed, a small pillow at the lower end of the bed, soaked through with blood, and a great blood stain at the head of the bed…”

After the police repeatedly refused to turn over their investigative reports regarding Sigrid’s death, Ingevelde and her relatives obtained a judge’s order demanding that they do so.  Unfortunately, the newspapers carried no further information regarding the case.

From what we know, there are two possible solutions to this remarkably disturbing mystery:  

1. Some monsters, for no clear reason other than sheer sadism, decided to literally torment a helpless old woman to death.  And they got away with it.

2. Sigrid began falling prey to dementia, and her elusive home invaders were nothing but a figment of her imagination.  This theory works to some extent--it may be that in April, she merely dreamed the three shadowy figures in her home, and her black eye was the result of a fall.  Perhaps the June “mugging” was another delusion.  It is also conceivable that she herself took her phone apart searching for planted listening devices.  However, even if her mind was going, it is hard to picture why Sigrid would rip her phone out of the wall, then lie down on her bed and somehow manage to tie her own hands behind her back.  And what to make of Ingevelde Evans’ claims that her sister’s bed was left covered in blood?

Whatever the truth may have been, all one can say for sure is that poor Sigrid Barginde certainly suffered a terrible fate.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!  There are no strangers here; only cat friends you haven't met yet.

Feeling melancholy?  Try ostrich liver!

In 2024, something left a very weird crater on the Moon.

More deadly amusement parks.

A very unsuccessful hermit.

A new cat species has been discovered.  A darn cute one, too.

Europe's first treatise on cheese.

A sorcerer's magical diary.

Why some funerals were not rushed.

The latest in the search for Noah's Ark.

The folklore of Harvest Moons.

An aristocratic philosopher.  And warmonger.

The city that spent one day as America's capital.

The possibility of hidden chambers in King Tut's tomb.

A social worker turned mass kidnapper.

The Witch of York.

A bunch of disappearing priests.

The ultimate "I'm not saying it's aliens, but..." theory.  (Follow-up question: "OK, so who created the aliens, smartypants?")

Did Vikings really burn funeral boats?  Well...maybe.

Crime and punishment in 1787 England.

Benedict Arnold is spending eternity in a kindergarten classroom, which is as good a definition of "Hell on Earth" as any.

The General known as the "Black Devil."

When London lived in fear of being garrotted.

The art of Regency letter writing.

The birth of "Johnny Appleseed."

A ballad about a classic murder mystery.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at the very creepy last weeks of an elderly woman.  In the meantime, here's Tom Petty.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of your basic friendly neighborhood monster appeared in the “Mexico Weekly Ledger,” December 13, 1883:

MEXICO, Mo., December 8.--The neighborhood of Hopewell Church, near this city, is much excited over the appearance in the locality of a strange creature, which is thought by the credulous to be a ghost, and which is a puzzle at least to the most skeptical. The apparition is simply that of a lean monster man, between eight and ten feet in height, wearing a long cloak, and going about with head bowed in an abstracted way, but occasionally glaring at those it meets with small ,glittering eyes, said to resemble those of a cat or some wild beast. The negroes believe the apparition to be ghost, the white people do not know what to say.

There appears little doubt, whatever the creature may be, that it has actually been seen a number of times. The school at Hopewell Church is about abandoned because of fear of the monster, and even sturdy farmers go about armed, in apprehension of it. John Creasy, a well-known old resident, declares that yesterday afternoon as he was returning from Mexico to his home he had a good view of the queer being, who was about fifty yards ahead of him, walking in a leisurely way along the middle of the big road, in mud almost knee-deep, his head still lowered and his long black cloak flowing in the breeze, All at once, and in the twinkling of an eye, he disappeared in the thick woods as mysteriously as he came upon the scene. Mr. Creasy says for the first time in his life, although a soldier under Gen. Grant, he was really frightened, and it was all he could do to control the horse he was riding, so great seemed its fear of the object. Mr. Cyrus Haggert and wife, who were returning from church thanksgiving eve, were surprised by the monster's peering with its cat-like eyes into their buggy and leaning against it, almost crushing the vehicle. The lady has not yet, it is said, recovered from the shock. Mr. and Mrs. H. both claim on this occasion a white cloak was worn. A large number of others have seen the strange creature, and to-night a large party is scouring the neighborhood of Hopewell Church, hoping to capture it. The newspapers of the city are represented in the searching party, which includes one or two St. Lousians, and a report from the expedition is awaited with much interest. The creature is thought to be located in the hills in the rear of one Philip Brown's residence. The Mexico party is under the leadership of Bob White and Jake. Merkell. No services will be held in the Hopewell Church tomorrow.

Special Dispatch to the Globe-Democrat 

MEXICO, MISSOURI, December 9.--The party who went out to the neighborhood of Hopewell Church last night to look for the mysterious creature which has created so much excitement in the vicinity, returned to the city this morning, tired and mystified. It was supposed that the habitation of the monster was pretty definitely known, and little doubt existed that the wild man, or whatever the thing may be, had a home in a cave in the hills but recently discovered, but this proved a mistake. The cave was searched thoroughly, but no evidence found that it had been made a home by anything save the wild animals, which are plentiful in the woods of the region. The searching party passed the night in the woods, and around the fires built new stories were told of the peculiarities of the apparition.

All agree that it is a man between 8 and 10 feet in height, but some of those who have seen the thing, the colored people especially, declare it to be headless, and assert that it wears a white instead of a black cloak. Of course these are the more superstitious, and those who, unconsciously, perhaps, exaggerate what they have seen. Farmers of known veracity who have seen the strange object are numerous. Anton Bradshaw, as he was returning from town late, saw it sitting bolt upright on the fence in front of the church, with its head bowed, apparently meditating, in the same manner as heretofore described.

Thinking discretion the better part of valor in this particular case, he turned his horse's head quickly, and repaired to a neighbor's friendly shelter, where he staid until the next morning. All these and many similar stories were last night told of the queer antics indulged by the mysterious monster. The search will be continued and, until the mystery is entirely cleared up, will be unceasing, day and night, and not even a living "varmint" in that vicinity will be given a minute's rest. That there is really something which alarms the neighborhood is assured. The above is no joke.

How much truth there is in it, we don't know. Of course the matter is greatly exaggerated, but we have interviewed several prominent men and find that much of the reported matter is true. We also learn that a couple of insane persons have escaped from the Fulton asylum. These unfortunates may be roaming around in the woods near Mexico, and be the cause of this excitement. The following persons have seen the Hopewell church spectre: Cyrus Haggert and lady, Jay Bennett, Burney Hooton, John Creasy, Cyrus, Harding and Ellis Scott, Phillip Brown, Willis Terrell, Captain Clem, and others.

Some pronounce it to be from eight to sixteen feet high, dressed in black, without any head, while others say it is about the size of Tom Thumb, has feet like a camel, three heads and is dressed in white. We breathlessly await further developments.

As far as I can tell, no “further developments” ever appeared in print.

The Tall Man

There is something about the transitory, enigmatic nature of the following little story that charms me.  I always enjoy those moments when The Weird suddenly appears, slaps you in the face with a dead fish, and just as quickly and inexplicably vanishes for good.

Our tale takes place on a pleasant English Sunday, May 5, 1924.  A young woman named Betty Bone went on the bicycle ride of 15 miles or so from her lodgings in Breamore, Hampshire to visit her family in Southampton.  However, along the way she had been bothered by “gipsies” demanding money, so her brother Alf and a friend, Ewart Pole, volunteered to accompany her back home.  The roads were virtually empty, and it was a clear, sunny day.

The trio was cycling along what is now the B3078 when, near the entrance to the Bramshaw golf course, they observed something odd.  Walking along the side of the road in the same direction was a man.  They were a bit surprised to suddenly see him--as one of them later put it, “He just appeared.”  Normally, this would hardly merit notice, except that the man was wearing a curiously old-fashioned long frock coat and wide-brimmed top hat.  And he was tall--very tall.  At least seven feet tall.  Betty and her companions noted the strange fellow, shrugged, and continued on.

A quarter of a mile later, the three were a bit disconcerted to see ahead of them the same freakishly tall man walking briskly towards Fordingbridge.  They soon cycled past him--perhaps pedaling just a bit faster than they had before.

It was as they neared the junction with the Fritham-Nomansland road that their emotions went from bemusement to genuine fear.   They saw the tall man 20 yards ahead of them, walking with the same purposeful, yet unhurried gait.  The trio blew past him as quickly as they could, not slowing down until they reached Betty’s home.

As one can imagine, the two young men did not enjoy their return journey, but there was no sign of the tall man in the frock coat, and, as far as is recorded, he was never seen by anyone again.