Sometimes the ghost of a human being has the power of taking animal shape, as in the case of the eccentric Miss Beswick of Birchen Bower, Hollinwood.
Birchen Bower was a quaint four-gabled mansion built in the form of a cross, and attached to it was a large barn, where many uncanny incidents happened.
"On the 22nd of July," says the "Manchester Guardian" of August 15, 1868, "the remains of Miss Beswick were committed to the earth in the Harpurhey Cemetery. There is a tradition that this lady, who is supposed to have died about one hundred years ago, had acquired so strong a fear of being buried alive that she left certain property to her medical attendant, so long as her body should be kept above ground. The doctor seems to have embalmed her body with tar, and then swathed it with a strong bandage, leaving the face exposed, and to have kept 'her' out of the grave as long as he could. For many years past the mummy has been lodged in the rooms of the Manchester Natural History Society (Peter Street), where it has been an object of much popular interest. It seems that the commissioners, who are charged with the rearrangement of the Society's collections, have deemed this specimen undesirable, and have at last buried it."
A curious bargain appears to have been made by Miss Beswick, namely, that every twenty-one years her body was to be taken back to Birchen Bower and be left there for one week, and the more elderly inhabitants declared that this was done at the stated times, and the body laid in the granary of the old farmstead. On the morning when the corpse was fetched away, the horses and cows were invariably found to have been let loose, and sometimes a cow would be found up in the hayloft, although how it came there was a mystery, as there was no passage large enough to admit the animal. The last prank of this description played by Miss Beswick, as far as information goes, was a few years ago when a cow belonging to the farmer then tenanting the place was found in the hayloft. Naturally enough the neighbours believed that supernatural agency had been employed to place it there. This occurred at the fourteenth anniversary of seven years after Miss Beswick died, and it was a recognised fact that some apparition was usually seen at Birchen Bower at the expiration of every seven years. No one could explain how the cow could get into the loft, and blocks had to be borrowed from Bower Mill to get her down again through the hay-hole outside the barn.
After Miss Beswick's death her house was divided up into several cottages, and she seems to have haunted the spot. To one family she appeared as an old lady in a silken gown, and her arrival was invariably announced to them as they were seated at supper by a rustling of silk which was heard at the entrance. Soon after the lady, arrayed in black silk, glided into the room, walked straight into the parlour and disappeared at one particular flagstone. As she annoyed no one her appearance never drew forth any further remark than "Hush! Here's the old lady again."
Tradition said that Miss Beswick had hidden vast sums of money and other articles of value in the time of Prince Charlie (1745), and a weaver who lived in a part of the haunted house found a tin vessel full of gold pieces under the floor of the haunted parlour. It was thought after this discovery that the phantom lady would rest in her grave, but this was not the case, and she recently appeared near an old well by the brook-side. A rustic going to fetch water, saw a tall lady standing by the well, wearing a black silk gown and a white cap with a frilled border. She stood there in the dusk in a defiant or threatening attitude, streams of blue light appearing to dart from her eyes and flash on the horror-stricken spectator. This appearance of the phantom was said to mean that Miss Beswick could get no rest until certain members of her family regained their property, a result which does not appear to be yet achieved, for the phantom still haunts the neighbourhood, on clear moonlight nights, walking in a headless state between the old barn and the horse-pool, and at other times assuming the forms of different animals which, however, are always lost sight of near the horse-pool. Some people think that Miss Beswick concealed something on this spot in 1745, and is now anxious to point out her treasure to anyone brave enough to address her. On dreary winter nights the barn where the phantom cow was found is said to appear as though on fire, a red glow being observed through the loopholes and crevices of the loft, and loud noises proceeding from the building as though the evil one and his demons were holding revels there. But if an alarm of fire is raised by a frightened neighbour and the farmer has the premises searched, all is found to be in order, and the terror-stricken inhabitants of the village declare that Madame Beswick is up to her ghostly pranks again.[151]
The popular belief in transformation is at the root of a strange family story about Callaly Castle, which is beautifully situated at the foot of the wooded slopes of Callaly Castle Hill, whose highest peaks are some 800 feet above sea level. In the modern building are incorporated the remains of an ancient border tower, the stronghold of the Claverings. The Survey of 1541 says, "At Callalye ys a toure of th'inheritaunce of Claverynge in measurable good repac'ons."
This was probably the tower which owed its erection on its present site—the "Shepherd's Shaw," to a difference in opinion between the Lord and Lady of Callaly in olden days.
The following account of the legend was given by Mr. George Tate, F.G.S., in an article on "Whittingham Vale," contributed to the "Alnwick Mercury," in 1862: "A lord of Callaly in the days of yore, commenced erecting a castle on the hill: his lady preferred a low, sheltering situation in the vale. She remonstrated, but her lord was wilful, and the building continued to progress. What she could not obtain by persuasion she sought to achieve by stratagem, and availed herself of the superstitious opinions of the age. One of her servants who was devoted to her interests, entered into her scheme: he was dressed up like a boar, and nightly he ascended the hill and pulled down all that had been built during the day. It was soon whispered that the spiritual powers were opposed to the erection of a castle on the hill; the lord himself became alarmed, and he sent some of his retainers to watch the building during the night and discover the cause of the destruction. Under the influence of the superstitions of the times those retainers magnified appearances, and when the boar issued from the wood and commenced overthrowing the work of the day, they beheld a monstrous animal of enormous power. Their terror was complete when the boar, standing among the overturned stones, cried out in a loud voice:
"Callaly Castle built on the height,
Up in the day and down in the night;
Builded down in the Shepherd's Shaw,
It shall stand for aye and never fa'."