In Ireland, as in other countries, family ghosts are varied and distinct, and consequently there are many and varying forms of the banshee. To a member of our clan, a single wail signifies the advent of the banshee, which, when materialised, is not beautiful to look upon. The banshee does not necessarily signify its advent by one wail—that of a clan allied to us wails three times. Another banshee does not wail at all, but moans, and yet another heralds its approach with music. When materialised, to quote only a few instances, one banshee is in the form of a beautiful girl, another is in the form of a hideous prehistoric hag, and another in the form of a head—only a head with rough matted hair and malevolent, bestial eyes.
Scottish Ghosts
When it is remembered that the ancestors of the Highlanders, i.e., the Picts and Scots, originally came from Ireland and are of Formosian and Milesian descent, it will be readily understood that their proud old clans—and rightly proud, for who but a
grovelling money grubber would not sooner be descended from a warrior, elected chief, on account of his all-round prowess, than from some measly hireling whose instincts were all mercenary?—possess ghosts that are nearly allied to the banshee.
The Airlie family, whose headquarters are at Cortachy Castle, is haunted by the phantasm of a drummer that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, but it is extremely doubtful if any of them approach the truth. Other families have pipers that pipe a dismal dirge, and skaters that are seen skating even when there is no ice, and always before a death or great calamity.
English Family Ghosts
There are a few old English families, too, families who, in all probability, can point to Celtic blood at some distant period in their history, that possess family ghosts. I have, for example, stayed in one house where, prior to a death, a boat is seen gliding noiselessly along a stream that flows through the grounds. The rower is invariably the person doomed to die. A friend of mine, who was very sceptical in such matters, was fishing in this stream late one evening when he suddenly saw a boat shoot round the bend. Much astonished—for he knew it could be no one from the house—he threw down his rod and watched. Nearer and
nearer it came, but not a sound; the oars stirred and splashed the rippling, foaming water in absolute silence. Convinced now that what he beheld was nothing physical, my friend was greatly frightened, and, as the boat shot past him, he perceived in the rower his host's youngest son, who was then fighting in South Africa. He did not mention the incident to his friends, but he was scarcely surprised when, in the course of the next few days, a cablegram was received with the tidings that the material counterpart of his vision had been killed in action.
A white dove is the harbinger of death to the Arundels of Wardour; a white hare to an equally well-known family in Cornwall. Corby Castle in Cumberland has its "Radiant Boy"; whilst Mrs E. M. Ward has stated, in her reminiscences, that a certain room at Knebworth was once haunted by the phantasm of a boy with long yellow hair, called "The Yellow Boy," who never appeared to anyone in it, unless they were to die a violent death, the manner of which death he indicated by a series of ghastly pantomimics.
Other families, I am told, lay claim to phantom coaches, clocks, beds, ladies in white, and a variety of ghostly phenomena whose manifestations are always a sinister omen.