Mr. Earp and the Boggart

In 1981, the journal of the Northern Earth Mysteries Group (now known simply as “Northern Earth,”) published an article by Frank E. Earp where he described a fairly indescribable “close encounter” he and some friends had years before.  It is a notable story, as it is one that blurs the lines between standard UFO sightings and traditional fairy lore.

In the mid 1960’s Britain was in the grip of UFO fever. Up and down the country there were reports of lights in the sky and other unidentified objects. For several weeks the media reported strange goings-on in the town of Warminster, in Wiltshire. Nottingham too had its fair share of UFO activity. This was a fascination to a boy in his early teens and together with a group of around 10 school friends, we started a UFO Club. Well, at least it kept us out of mischief--but it led to many a strange adventure. The adventure related here happened with two of my fellow club members--whom I will call W. and M.

On a fine autumn afternoon my friend W. and I walked the mile or so up Chalbury Road to meet with fellow club member M. It was our intention to carry out what is known as a "sky watch"--looking for UFOs. From M’s house, the three of us crossed Woodyard Lane walk along the north bank of the disused Wollaton canal to the site of the Wollaton Colliery. Here the old “slag-heaps” line the canal bank and we thought it would be a good vantage point for our activity.

We spent the next couple of hours scaling and sliding down the heaps and swinging out over the canal on a rope tied to the branch of a tree--always with an eye on the sky. At about 4 o’clock as daylight gave way to twilight, we decided--as we had seen no “flying saucers”--to head back to M’s house and perhaps play some records.

At this site, the canal opens into a wide oval basin--a former passing place for the coal barges. Although the canal had been drained the old bed was still marshy with a small channel of water running down the centre. As we crossed the basin to the opposite south bank, we were aware of a slight ground mist starting to rise within the basin.

Climbing up the wall and bank onto the tow-path, we stood watching the mist as it began to thicken. As we watched a “cloud” of mist--doughnut shaped, around the size of a fair ground dodgem car--formed and rose above the bed to the height of around 4 feet. The remaining body of mist, which now covered most of the basin, stayed within inches of the ground.

The cloud began to sparkle with a myriad of tiny pearl coloured lights which blinked on and off with an incandescent glow. At this point I suggested this was the natural phenomenon known as “corpse candles” or “will o’ the wisp”--the spontaneous combustion of methane gas.

Suddenly, the cloud began to slowly move towards the bank and two balls of light--the size of water melons and around two and 3 feet apart--formed at its centre. In a controlled way, the cloud came to a halt on the tow-path around 30 feet away.

All around, afternoon was giving-way to evening. In the growing darkness the spheres became more obvious, seeming to “bob” up and down like corks on water. No malevolence appeared to emanate from the cloud, just curiosity. It seemed that we, as observers, were in-turn being observed. However, discretion got the better of valour and turning in unison we walked away. After a few paces curiosity got the better of us and we stopped to look back. To our horror, the cloud had followed us and was now just 20 feet away. Panic now set in and we retreated, this time at a jogging pace.

The canal now took a gentle turn and then a straight course to a point where Old Coach Road once crossed via a stone bridge. The bridge had long since disappeared and the road was now carried over the canal on a high bank, which the tow-path climbed over on either side.

I had the sudden feeling that the “thing” would not follow us across the road and voiced this fact to my friends. Frequent glances over our shoulders told us that the cloud was keeping pace behind--in fact it was gaining with every step.

Reaching the bank, we turned to see our pursuer was now just a few feet behind us. Seconds later, we mounted the bank and found ourselves looking down on the cloud, which had moved to the foot of the bank.

It seemed that the cloud would not follow us further. With relief, we crossed the road and descended onto the path. Now, with the bank between us, we felt safe to stand and look back. For a few seconds the road above was clear and then slowly the cloud came into view. Now hovering over the road at the top of the bank, “it” was looking down at us!

We took-off in full retreat, running in terror, the cloud still gliding effortlessly behind. At the pace we were travelling, it was not long before we reached Wood Yard Lane and the end of this part of the canal.

Here we turned to face our pursuer—now only 6 feet away—safe in the knowledge that just across the lane was M’s house. With me in the middle, we stood in silence, like gunfighters waiting for the next move. I broke the spell, as tacking a step forward I said, “If you are a friend come forward”.

A few seconds silence followed as I paused for a response. With my eyes fixed on the swaying orbs I began to say “If you are an enemy ….”My words were cut short as B. tapped me on the shoulder and saying in my ear, “When I say run, run!!” My eyes followed his pointing finger to the hedge on my left.

There only feet in front of M.—silhouetted by the light from the orbs—was the black shape of a hairy figure. Around 6ft. tall, its head appeared to be directly on its shoulders, whilst its arms—which seemed to be long—tapered to a single finger. Each of these “fingers” curved inward around a glowing red rod the size of a pencil. The legs seemed to disappear from around the mid calve and something of the mist from the cloud swirled around where the feet should have been.

I had absorbed all of this information in seconds, for in an instant B. had shouted the word “run” and like an Olympic athlete taken off. I followed with the same turn of speed, leaving M. alone calling out repeatedly, “Can you see it lads? Can you see it?”

M. must have quickly realised he was alone and soon caught us up. The other two began to blurt-out their experience. I silenced them saying that we should independently draw what we had seen. It turned out that the three of us drew identical pictures of the cloud, whilst B. and I drew almost identical pictures of the figure. Because his attention had been entirely on the cloud M. hadn’t seen the figure.

Years later I was to discover that our encounter had not been with some alien being. The "hairy creature” fitted the classic description of a class of “fairy” known as a “Boggart.”

Pro tip:  Never go looking for The Weird.  You just might find it.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Just watch out for the Strange Company HQ bouncer.  He doesn't play games.

Disaster hits HMS Queen Charlotte.

A shipwreck that is a "monument to 19th century diplomacy."

The "golden age of languages."

The ancient Greeks sure liked to put curses on each other.

Scientists come up with a lot of really, really, bad ideas.

The fight to keep a murderer behind bars.

The link between amusement parks and graveyards.

A good argument for making your own ice cream.

The theory that Henry Carey was the son of Henry VIII.

A possible explanation for the "Great Dying."

The fad of "white mourning."

How Carrie Brown went from "happy bride" to possible Jack the Ripper victim.

The serial killer who's been compared to Hannibal Lecter.  This is a particularly strange and dark story.

I have to admit, even I never dreamed the phrase "uterine exorcism" would turn up on this blog.  Never underestimate me, I guess.

Medieval views of food could be...interesting.

A brief history of boredom.

A visit to Herne Bay.

A shape-shifting monster in Tucson.

The world of 16th century theaters.

Why we talk about an "elephant in the room."

Examining "Foreign Accent Syndrome."

The life of Empress Matilda.

The inspiration behind "Jaws."

A very bad fiance.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll meet a boggart!  In the meantime, here's Hoyt Axton.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of a particularly lively poltergeist appeared in the “Edmonton Journal,” August 15, 1939:

The Germans have a word for it; so have the Africans of the West Indies. The disciples of Herr Hitler call it "poltergeist"; the children of Mother Africa speak of it in awesome breath as "duppy" or "duppy 'pon de 'ouse.' The German word "poltergeist" is made up of the words "polter" meaning noisy and "geiste" meaning spirits. A "duppy." to the West Indian negro, is the ghost or spirit of one who has departed this life which returns to earth to avenge the wrongs to its corporeal master, But as to whether such uncanny events as are ascribed to "duppy 'pon de 'ouse" or poltergeist are occult, psychic or plain human prankstering, who can tell? Certainly, His Honor the Acting Magistrate who presided over the court in that weird and mysterious case in Grenada on a day in January in 1935 was as frankly mystified as anyone else who had listened to the two days' hearing of evidence. One witness after another including a police detective detailed to the case had corroborated a macabre story of ghostly goings on. The case was typical of many others of its kind in the West Indies.

It had started one night at around seven o'clock when the mother, two daughters and grandchild who lived together in a little house had been startled out of their wits by hearing stones falling on the roof of their home. Surprised and puzzled they had gone to the windows and looked out to see if by chance it had been a joke or the act of some mischievous person. In the meanwhile, queer things were happening inside the house. Entering one of the rooms one of the women was petrified with fear when a table suddenly advanced by itself towards her; as it did so, a chair following suit made two or three jumps in her direction. Elsewhere in the house a heavy iron moved itself along a shelf and a picture or two just left the wall and fell on the floor. All the while the stones continued to fall on the roof until at midnight they stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

The women cowered in fear in the darkness until daylight, the girl claiming to see strange people moving around in the house, who, however, were not visible to the others. The next morning they reported the matter to the police and that night several detectives were sent to investigate. Secreting themselves in the surroundings they waited and watched. They did not have to wait long. Suddenly the quiet of the night was broken with the steady thud of stones falling on the roof of the house.

Evidence was given that the detectives searched the grounds and surroundings but could find no one around. Again the little girl claimed to see the mysterious figure in white. The detectives went to the spot she pointed but could find no one although she claimed the figure was still standing there. The detective relates that one morning he went to the house and removed the stones from the roof and just as he had finished doing so the girl pointed to the roof and said she saw a man sitting there holding a parcel. Looking in the direction he could see no one but going to the spot which, by the way, he had just cleared off, he picked up a parcel which he found contained a script, a bottle containing some liquid and some loose powder which he turned over to the Chief Police.

The detective also states that while was in the house a stone came through the roof without leaving a hole and fell at his feet. The evidence of the detective corroborated practically in every detail that given by the mother, her daughters and grandchild and some of the crowd who had been attracted to the scene by curiosity. To cut a long story short these weird happenings continued nightly for several weeks. The mother relates that to propitiate the spirits she made a 'sacrifice.' This probably was in the form of a salacca, a mixture feast and 'burnt offering' practised by the more primitive and superstitious among the natives of this island. Apparently the spirits refused to be bought off so easily and the stone pelting and other queer doings continued.

Terrified, the occupants took refuge elsewhere visiting their home only in daylight. And then one night the house mysteriously took fire and dissolved away in flames. It was at the ensuing court of enquiry to investigate the source and origin of the fire that the amazing evidence recorded above was produced; and it was no wonder, indeed, that presiding magistrate decided that "no evidence could be found as to the cause or origin of fire."

The Troubles At Euston Square

"Illustrated Police News," June 7, 1879, via Newspapers.com

Evil and depravity can have a certain fascination if they are cloaked in a benign or attractive exterior.  It is doubtful that true-crime researchers would still be talking about Ted Bundy if not for the fact that those who knew him thought he was perfectly normal.  And there is a reason why the Devil is often depicted as a handsome man.  Similarly, the following Victorian-era scandal would probably be long-forgotten if it had not happened in a seemingly respectable middle-class household blighted by one or two small oddities, like corpses turning up when least expected.

Matilda Hacker of Canterbury, England, embodied a classic Victorian stereotype:  a rich but miserly, highly eccentric spinster.  In August 1877, Miss Hacker took affront at the rates Canterbury charged her.  In protest, she split town--leaving the rates unpaid--took on the surname of “Huish,” (presumably to avoid the tax authorities,) and engaged a room in a lodging house owned by Mr. and Mrs. Severin Bastindoff at No. 4 Euston Square, London.

So far as is known, life at No. 4 went on quietly enough until Sunday, October 14.  The Bastindoffs were away for the day, leaving Matilda alone in the house with the maid, 24-year-old Hannah Dobbs.  That day, something very terrible happened within the walls of the lodging house, although we are fated to never know exactly what that was.  The following morning, Severin sent Hannah to Matilda’s room to collect her rent.  The maid returned with a five-pound note that she said “Miss Huish” had just given her.  Two days later, Hannah informed the Bastindoffs that their lodger had moved out.

Well, people do abruptly come and go out of rooming houses.  Mrs. Bastindoff dismissed the old lady from her mind and went to clean the room for their next tenant.  She noticed there was a large stain on the carpet that someone had done an inexpert job of trying to wash away.  It looked a bit like blood.  Odd, that.  (Before you ask, much later in our story, when life began getting pretty interesting for the Bastindoffs, it was proven that the stain was blood.)

Life went on.  Miss Huish/Hacker was completely forgotten by the world until May 9, 1879, when  the cellar at No. 4 was cleared so a lodger could store coal there.  The workmen were surprised to find that the cellar contained something more than the usual junk and debris:  a human body, with a rope around the neck.  Police soon determined that the corpse was that of the former lodger, Matilda Hacker.

It did not take Hercule Poirot to immediately focus on Hannah Dobbs as the chief suspect, and she was swiftly arrested and charged with murder.  She was the last person known to have seen the victim alive.  Soon after Hacker “moved out,” (which, in the spiritual sense, I suppose she did,) Hannah gave one of the Bastindoff children the former lodger’s now-empty cash-box.  The maid began wearing a watch and some jewelry her employers had never seen before.  She said they had been bequeathed to her by an uncle who had recently died.

Investigators easily determined that Hannah had no uncle, alive or dead.  The same watch and jewelry were later found in a pawn shop.  The shop’s owner identified Hannah as the person who had pledged the items.  All in all, it was looking like as pretty a case of circumstantial, but conclusive, evidence as any detective would like to see.

Hannah stood trial at the Old Bailey in July 1879.  Her defense relied almost solely on the unlikelihood that a slender young woman could single-handedly, in a relatively brief time, kill a grown adult, hide the body in the cellar, and tidy up the crime scene.  (The implication was that some unknown stranger had sneaked into the house, murdered Hacker, carried the corpse to the cellar, and exited without Hannah having a clue that anything was amiss.  Very Lizzie-Bordenish.)  As a side note, the proceedings were considerably enlivened by testimony suggesting that Severin and Hannah’s relationship had been much more than mere master and servant--something, naturally, that Mr. Bastindoff stoutly denied.

At the end of the trial, the judge, perhaps surprisingly, summed up for acquittal, and the jury obliged.  Hannah was given her freedom, and it looked like Matilda Hacker’s murder was destined to become a mystery that would be quickly forgotten.

Well, not forgotten by everyone.  George Purkiss, proprietor of the “Illustrated Police News,” published a pamphlet about the case that was a defamation lawyer’s dream.  Not only was Hannah Dobbs described as a murderer who had, no doubt, committed other crimes, but Purkiss alleged that she had been Severin’s mistress both before and after becoming his household’s maid.  Severin wasted no time applying for an injunction against further distribution of the pamphlet and suing Purkiss for libel.  Just to show that life is full of odd coincidences, the libel suit took place in the same courtroom, and before the same judge, that Hannah Dobbs had recently faced.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bastindoff, his experience at the Old Bailey was not as fortunate as his maid’s had been.  When Hannah was cross-examined, she was forced to admit that she had previous convictions for theft, as well as other peccadillos that caused the judge to call her “a most infamous person.”  She also confessed to having been Severin’s mistress.  It was demonstrated in court that Severin and Hannah had stayed together at a Redill, Surrey, inn, posing as man and wife.  (Severin argued unconvincingly that the man who had been with Hannah was actually his brother Peter.)  Insinuations were made that Severin was the real murderer, with Hannah being merely his accessory.  In short, Bastindoff came off as such a sordid figure that not only was Purkiss acquitted, Severin was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to a year of hard labor.  

Sadly for the ghost of Matilda Hacker, this was the last word on her murder, but you could say she at least got some small measure of revenge.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Featuring music from the Strange Company Orchestra!

The forgotten Fifth Crusade.

The gangs of 1970s Brooklyn.

A visit to Waltham Abbey.

A memorial to a murdered postmaster.

How ancient humans regarded eclipses.

How new technology is finding old cities.

U-Boat action off the coast of Gaza, 1917.

Ancient Egyptian princesses were probably damn good archers.

The rise and fall of Salisbury steak.

The legend of a Roman legion in China.

The difficulties of getting a decent photo of a funeral procession.

800 million years ago, our solar system may have seen one damn big kaboom.

Because I know you can't get enough of Viking hygiene.

A mysterious ancient culture.

The Witch of Great Paxton.

The strange case of the "Beast of Gevaudan,"

Researching the survivors of Pompeii.

The hotel that was born from a family feud.

The Indian maharaja who saved Polish orphans. 

The electricity of moss.

Tales of phantom airplanes.

A "tell-tale skull."

This may be the greatest true-crime case ever.

The ghost of King Tut may well be wishing that archaeologists had never found him.

The world's oldest post office.

Moon landing conspiracies a go-go.

The mystery of the "Baghdad Battery."

A look at the letters of Heloise.

A wooden structure from half-a-million years ago.

A murder mystery is finally solved.  However, since it took place in the 16th century and the culprits were mosquitoes, don't count on an arrest.

A suicide at a Junior High School.

An "asteroid" turns out to be something that's really puzzling astronomers.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll talk Victorian murder.  In the meantime, let's follow the science!

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of a strange figure that seemed to take fashion tips from the Ku Klux Klan appeared in the “Syracuse Post Standard,” December 8, 1901:

CAZENOVIA, Dec. 7.-The usual calm of this quiet village has given way to unwonted excitement.

Strong men do not venture out at night unarmed, and even the most daring urchins have suddenly discovered a new charm in an evening at home. The cause of this state of things is the advent of some apparently unearthly object which wanders at will about the streets frightening men. women and children. The apparition is variously described as ranging in height from five to six feet. By some it is said to have a slight figure, while others, who claim to have good reason to know of what they are talking, declare it to be of much greater dimensions.

It sulks behind hedges, in the shadow of buildings and glides between the lofty elms for which Cazenovia is noted. Its head is described as enclosed in a white hood which terminates in a point which sways backward and forward as the ghost glides over the ground. The figure below the head is robed in a long flowing mantle of snowy whiteness. Several times on its nightly errands it has been seen to display threateningly a long. rusty knife and a revolver which glistens in the moonlight.

Its favorite haunts seem to be about the old skating rink, the Inhigh Valley Station, and Sullivan street. A few nights ago several boys were chased into a house by the strange object, but that same night it also was pursued through a vacant lot by three men, when it suddenly disappeared.

One evening some sash factory hands were wending their way homeward along the railroad tracks, boasting of the heroic deeds they would do if the apparition should appear to them, when on rounding a curve they were surprised by the subject of their conversation.  Without a moment's hesitation they took to their heels and did not once stop for breath until they burst excitedly into their own homes. 

Some insist that it is simply some boy out for a little fun. Others say it is merely a delusion. Still others believe it to be a sick man slightly demented. Another theory is that it is someone having the interest of the village at heart and is trying to do the young lads a service by frightening them off the streets at night.

As far as I can tell, the mystery of this armed-to-the-teeth apparition remained unsolved.

The Great Eater of Kent

Some people make it into the history books by becoming world leaders.  Some do so through acts of daring or heroism.  Some do so by creating immortal works of art.  And some, like the hero of today’s post, do so by eating an entire sheep in one sitting.

It’s a funny old world.

About all we know for sure about Nicholas Wood of Harrietsham, Kent, England, is that he would have been a devil at today’s “all you can eat” buffets.  Virtually all of our information about him comes from a 1630 pamphlet, “The Great Eater of Kent,” written by a poet named John Taylor, who was Wood’s self-appointed impresario.  Taylor was more interested in promoting his protege’s gastronomical feats than providing personal information, with the result that his work is less a biography and more of a 17th century infomercial.

Wood was born circa 1585.  He was a farmer who owned a reasonably large amount of land, and he was said to be a strongly-built man capable of great physical labor.  Some time around 1610, he began marketing his prodigious appetite, taking on a variety of wagers about how much he could eat.  According to Taylor, Wood “did eat a whole sheep, of 16 shillings price, and raw at that, at one meal.  Another time he eat 30 dozen of pigeons.  At Sir William Sedley’s he eat as much as would have sufficed 30 men.  At the Lord Wottons in Kent, he eat at one meal four-score and four rabbits…He made an end of a whole hog at once and after it swallowed three pecks of damsons.”

Impressive, if a bit monotonous.

One of the few times that Wood lost a bet was, it must be said, a bit of a cheat.  A man named John Dale asserted that he could fill the Great Eater to satiety for the cost of just two shillings.  After Wood took the bet, Dale bought 12 loaves of bread which he soaked in a “mighty ale.”  Halfway through this bibulous meal, Wood fell into a drunken stupor which lasted for nine hours, enabling Dale to win the wager.  Another defeat came at the hands of Sir William Sedley, who had the resources to compile such an enormous feast that it sent Wood toppling to the floor, literally knocked out by food.  His stomach was so distended it looked like it might burst.  Sedley’s alarmed servants, fearing the meal would be Wood’s last, carried him to the fireside and smeared his torso with fat, in the hope that it would make his belly more flexible.

By the next day, Wood had revived, but Sir William decided to add insult to injury by having the poor man dragged outside and put in the stocks as an object of public mockery.  (One hopes that Sedley’s peculiar ideas about hospitality earned him a lot of rejected dinner invitations.)  Happily, Wood afterwards regained his pride through his rabbit feast at the castle of Lord Wotton.

Taylor and Wood first met in 1630, when Taylor was visiting an inn in Kent.  There, Taylor observed Wood polishing off a light breakfast of a leg of mutton, sixty eggs, three pies, and a huge black pudding.  Wood was still hungry afterwards, and as the inn was now swept clean of food, a waiter ran out to grab a live duck from a nearby pond.  Wood devoured the bird, leaving nothing but the beak and quills.

Taylor was deeply impressed by the nauseating display.  He gave Wood twenty shillings to come up to London to perform at the Bankside bear garden.  Taylor pictured an extravaganza where his new friend would devour a wheelbarrow full of tripe, and as an encore, eat “as many puddings as would reach over the Thames.”  In later shows, he would wow the crowds by eating a fat calf and twenty sets of sheeps’ innards.  To entice Londoners to the spectacle, Taylor wrote his pamphlet describing Wood’s “admirable teeth and stomacks exploits.”   Wood’s belly was lyrically extolled as the “rendez-vous or meeting place for the Beasts of the Fields, the Fowles of the Ayre, and Fishes of the Sea.”

Wood did indeed travel to London, but, sadly, right before his debut, the Great Eater came down with a bad case of nerves.  Londoners were a notoriously brutal lot, and he feared dealing with some embarrassing--and dangerous--practical joke, such as the one he had suffered at the hands of John Dale.  Besides, he had recently lost all but one of his teeth, as the result of eating a shoulder of mutton--bones and all.  You might say the thought of facing a London crowd caused Wood to lose his appetite.  Without saying a word to anyone, Wood did a runner.  Taylor never saw him again.  It is said that Wood died in poverty soon afterwards, having sold everything he possessed to satisfy his tragically large appetite.

Taylor--no doubt muttering, “Ah, what might have been!”--had to settle for extolling Wood’s gastronomical feats in verse:

Thou that putst down the Mault below the wheat,

That dost not eate to liue, but liue to eate:

Thou that the Sea-Whale, and Land Wolfe excels:

A foe to Bachus, Champion of god Bels:

I wish if any foreine foes intend

Our famous Ile of Britaine to offend,

That each of them had Stomacks like to thee,

That of each other they deuour'd might bee.

Some haue drunke healths at once (to purchase fames)

As there are letters in their Mistris names,

Others there are, that drinke by rub and square,

And sound round drinkers there aboundance are,

These barely goe with making Barly deare,

And cunningly transforme themselues to Beere,

Or potent Ale, or Iuice of French or Spanish,

Or Smoake, (which Time and Coyne doth banish:)

These are the sleights that halfe the world inchants,

These are the principles of woes and wants:

But thou art free from drinking by the great,

Meat is for men, and thou wer't made to eate.

Though Maximinus, Romes great Emperour,

Did forty pound of flesh each day deuoure,

Albinus th'Emperour did him surpasse,

Fiue hundred Figges by him downe swallow'd was,

Of Peaches he consum'd one hundred more,

Of great Musckmellons also halfe a score,

One hundred Birds, all at one meale he cast

Into his paunch, at breaking of his fast.

Pago surpassed both these two together,

A Bore, a hundred loaues, a Pigge, a Weather,

All this the Rascall swallow'd at a meale,

(If Writers in their writing, true doe deale.)

But sure I am, that what of thee is writ,

Is sure (although not all the truth, or halfe of it:)

Thou dost exceed all that our age e're saw,

Thou potent, high, and mighty men of maw.

FINIS