I have only once come upon the case of a father who returns to take care of his offspring. Mr Chu, a worthy Chinese gentleman, revisited this earth as a disembodied spirit to guard and teach his little boy Wei. When Wei reached the age of twenty-two, and took his doctor's degree, his father, Mr Chu, finally vanished. As a general rule, the Chinese consider the sight of his former surroundings to be the worst penalty that can befall a soul. Mr Herbert Giles, in his fascinating work on the Liao-Chai of P'u Sing-Ling, gives a full account of the terrible See-one's-home terrace as represented in the fifth court of Purgatory in the Taoist Temples. Good souls, or even those who have done partly good and partly evil, will never stand thereon. The souls of the wicked only see their homes as if they were near them: they see their last wishes disregarded, everything upside down, their substance squandered, the husband prepares to take a new wife, strangers possess the old estate, in their misery the dead man's family curse him, his children become corrupt, lands are gone, the house is burnt, the wife sees her husband tortured, the husband sees his wife stricken down with mortal disease; friends forget: "some perhaps for the sake of bygone times may stroke the coffin and let fall a tear, departing with a cold smile." In the West, this gloomy creed is perhaps hinted at in the French proverb, "Les morts sont bien mort." But Western thought at its best, at its highest, imagines differently. It imagines that the most gracious privilege of immortal spirits is that of beholding those beloved of them in mortal life—
I am still near,
Watching the smiles I prized on earth,
Your converse mild, your blameless mirth.
Happy and serene optimism!
The ghosts of folk-lore return not only to succour the innocent, they come back also to convict the guilty. The avenging ghost shows himself in all kinds of strange and uncanny ways rather than in his habit as he lived. He comes in animal or vegetable shape; or perhaps he uses the agency of some inanimate object. In the Faroe Isles there is a story of a girl whose sister pushed her into the sea out of jealousy. The blue waves cast ashore her body, which was found by two pilgrims, who made the arms into a harp, and the flaxen locks into strings. Then they went and played the harp at the wedding feast of the murderess and the dead girl's betrothed. The first string said, "The bride is my sister." The second string said, "The bride caused my death." The third string said, "The bridegroom is my betrothed." The harp's notes swelled louder and louder, and the guilty bride fell sick unto death; before the pilgrims had done playing, her heart broke. This is much the same story as the "Twa Sisters of Binnorie." A Slovack legend describes two musicians who, as they were travelling together, noticed a fine plane tree; and one said to the other, "Let us cut it down, it is just the thing to make a violin of; the violin will be equally yours and mine; we will play on it by turn." At the first blow the tree sighed; at the second blow blood spurted out; at the third blow the tree began to talk. It said: "Musicians, fair youths, do not cut me down; I am not a tree, I am made of flesh and blood; I am a lovely girl of the neighbouring town; my mother cursed me while I drew water—while I drew water and chatted with my friend. 'Mayst thou change into a plane tree with broad leaves,' said she. Go ye, musicians, and play before my mother." So they betook themselves to the mother's door and played a dirge over her child. "Play not, musicians, fair youths," she entreated. "Rend not my heart by your playing. I have enough of woe in having lost my daughter. Hapless the mother who curses her children!" The well-known German tale of the juniper tree belongs to the same class. A beautiful little boy is killed by his step-mother, who serves him up as a dish of meat to his father. The father eats in ignorance, and throws away the bones, which are gathered up by the little half-sister, who puts them into her best silk handkerchief and buries them under a juniper tree. Presently a bird of gay plumage perches on the tree, and whistles as it flits from branch to branch—
Min moder de mi slach't,
Min fader de mi att,
Min swester de Marleenken