Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
DREAMS.
F dreams which convey an intimation, either of what is actually taking place at a great distance or of future events, many instances have been recorded, and many are treasured in the memory of different families through this as well as other countries. Where such dreams and their fulfilment are well accredited we cannot disbelieve them; nor can I see why we should be desirous to do so, since we know from Scripture that dreams have been used as the vehicle of intercourse between the visible and the invisible worlds. Some dreams worthy of note are scattered through these pages; a few others, chiefly warnings of death, remain to be recorded.
The first was related to me by a clerical friend, who knew the persons concerned in it and heard it from them. Three brothers, whom we will call Charles, James, and Edward, lived in different parts of one of the northern counties of England. Edward, on awaking one morning, was surprised to find his wife still in bed, and asked why she was not getting up as usual. She said that she was quite unnerved by a terrblie dream, and must wait a little to recover herself. At first he laughed at her fears, but, seeing that she was really in distress, inquired what the dream had been. His wife told him that she had seen him with his two brothers, Charles and James, standing in earnest conversation on a grass-plot. Meanwhile, a young man then dead, but formerly in the employment of Edward, came towards them with a paper in his hand, much crossed and blotted over. The ground suddenly opened, James fell into the chasm and disappeared. “You and Charles,” said the poor wife, “would press to the margin of the dangerous pit to see what had become of him, and I was endeavouring to keep you back.” While she was uttering these words the sound of a horse galloping into the courtyard roused her husband. He went to the window, threw it up, and asked what was the matter. The reply was, “Come over directly to ———. Your brother, Mr. James B———, is just dead.” It appeared afterwards that Mr. James B——— had been in his usual health till about three o’clock that morning, when he was seized with violent internal pains and died in a few minutes.
The wife, who related this to my informant, dwelt a good deal on the appearance in her dream of the young man lately in her husband’s employ, saying he had once before appeared to her in a dream which had been duly fulfilled. During an absence of her husband, she had been much alarmed by a report that the vessel in which he had sailed for London was lost, but she had been reassured by a dream in which this young man had told her he was safe and would write to her within three days, which came to pass accordingly.
A very touching dream, also a portent of death, has been thus reported to me on credible authority. It is said to have occurred some years ago in the family of an Irish bishop. A little boy came downstairs one morning, saying, “Oh, mamma, I have had such a nice dream; somebody gave me such a pretty box, and I am sure it was for me, for there was my name on it. Look, it was just like this,” and taking up a slate and pencil the child drew the shape of a coffin. The parents gazed at one another in alarm, not lessened by the gambols of the child, who frolicked about in high health and spirits. The father was obliged to go out that morning, but he begged the mother to keep the child in her sight through the day. She did so, till on dressing to go out in her carriage the little boy slipped away to the stables, where he begged the coachman to take him by his side while he drove to the house-door, a thing he had often done before. On this occasion, however, the horses were restive, the driver lost control over them, and the child was flung off and killed on the spot.
Another dream, which has always appeared to me very remarkable, I give in the words of the late Rev. Dawson Warren, vicar of Edmonton, a clergyman with whose family I am closely connected. He recorded it on the authority of his mother, a lady of considerable sense and talents, who had seen the documents upon which its truth was substantiated, and who fully believed it. The dreamer, the Rev. Jacob Duché, a chaplain in America at the time of the Revolutionary War, was compelled to take refuge in England, but returned to his home and family on the re-establishment of peace. When Mr. Duché was returning to America to rejoin his family, and was about halfway across the Atlantic, he dreamed one night that he had landed, arrived in Philadelphia, and was hastening to his home. His house-door appeared to be open; he thought that he ran into his study, and that he found sitting in his own chair his wife, wringing her hands and lamenting the death of their favourite son. She seemed to tell him the painful particulars, and then his grief awakened him. He related his dream to his fellow-passengers and to the captain of the ship, and was so deeply impressed by the circumstance that he wrote out a full account of it, and got it attested by their signatures. On his arrival at Philadelphia he hastened to his house; he found the door open, he flew to his study, he found his wife sitting in his chair, and in an agony of grief she told him of the death of their beloved son, which had taken place at the very time of the dream.
A remarkable discovery of a dead body by a dream took place in my own county in the year 1848, and was narrated in the papers of the day. Mr. Smith, gardener to Sir Clifford Constable, was supposed to have fallen into the Tees, his hat and stick having been found near the waterside, and the river was dragged for some time but without success. A person named Awde, from Little Newsham, a small village four miles from Wycliffe, then dreamt that poor Smith was lying under the ledge of a certain rock about 300 yards below Whorlton Bridge, and that his right arm was broken. The dream so affected this man that he got up early and set out at once to search the river. He went to the boat-house, told his story to the person in charge there, and asked for the boat. He rowed to the spot he had seen in his dream, and on the first trial he made with the boat-hook he drew up the body of the drowned man, and found the right arm actually broken.
The late Canon Humble paralleled this history with one from Cornwall, which came to his own knowledge. A lady of Truro dreamt the night before a boating-party that the boat was upset, and she herself drowned. She therefore determined not to join it, and sent an excuse. The party returned safely, however, and the lady, after telling a friend what had passed, and describing where she had dreamt the body would be found, ceased to think of the matter. A month or two later the lady had occasion to cross the Truro river at King Harry’s Passage the boat was upset she was drowned, and they sought for the body in vain. Then the friend to whom she had told her dream came forward and pointed out the spot marked out in that dream as the body’s resting-place, and there it was found.
It is remarkable that dreams are dwelt on a good deal in the Talmud and fast enjoined on persons who have been unfortunate in this respect. Among prescribed dreams are those in which the teeth seem to be falling out, or the ceiling of the room coming down.
Of visions or waking-dreams, two very interesting ones have been communicated to me by the gentleman to whom these pages are so largely indebted, the Rev. S. Baring-Gould. I give them in his own words: “An old woman, Widow Freeman, lived at Horbury some years ago, and is there buried. She was a most devout and earnest Churchwoman, a frequent communicant, and regular at daily matins. She often had visions, one of which was as follows: The old woman was sitting in her cottage, reading her Bible or prayer-book, when a sudden blaze of light filled the room, and on looking up the whole chamber was illuminated with dazzling white glory. Numerous white doves were flitting about, flashing in the light, winnowing the air with their wings, and encircling the window. She observed that their beaks (nibbs she called them) were steeped in blood, and they dropped the blood upon her. In another moment they vanished, but the light became painfully dazzling, and in the midst of it stood Our Lord displaying His five wounds. She was left in a state of overwhelming joy, and could not restrain herself from relating what she had seen to some of her neighbours and to the parish priest; but she had a strong aversion to relating it to any one who did not believe in the supernatural, lest, as she termed it, she should be ‘giving that which is holy unto dogs, and casting pearls before swine.’
“Another Horbury woman, of a different character from Widow Freeman, and by no means so attentive to her religious duties, had a vision whilst engaged in her work this month (November, 1865). She saw suddenly before her a monstrous and very terrible beast ‘summat like a padfoit,’ and she was ‘right fleyed to see’t; it had great goggle e’en and a mouth ravening for blood.’ It seemed about to rush upon her and rend her in pieces, when a hand appeared marked with blood, and this hand smote the beast, and it fled with a bellow that shook the house.”
The following dream recorded by the same hand is very remarkable: “A man at ———, in Lincolnshire, known for his drunken and disorderly life, had a dream. He thought that he was driving down a winding lane on a dark night. He heard footsteps behind him and turned to look, but could only discern a dark figure approaching, without being able to see the face. The stranger came up with the cart, and the driver saw that he was dressed in a long dark cloak. Suddenly the foot-traveller threw open the cloak, and asked to be received into the cart, and by the wounds in His hands the poor man recognised ‘his dear Saviour.’ Before he answered the man awoke. For some time he lived a better life, but gradually relapsed, and before the year was out had become worse than ever. Then he dreamt again. He was driving down the same dark lane, but no footstep sounded behind him. He looked round. At that moment the cart was upset, he fell into a ditch full of fire, and awoke with a scream, wafting the flames from his mouth. A few nights after the wretched man left a public-house drunk in his cart, and was found next morning lying under his cart with his neck broken.”
The belief in death-omens peculiar to certain families is purely Celtic, and does not, therefore, fall within the province of Border Folk-Lore. Mr. Wilkie indeed mentions the Maug or May Moulach, but calls it a spirit akin to the Killmoulis, whereas it is “the girl with the hairy left-hand” which haunts Tulloch Gorms, and gives warning of a death in the Grant family, like the Banshee in many old houses in Ireland, the Bodca-an-Dun in the family of Rothmarchas, or the spectre of the bloody hand in that of Kinchardines. Such a prophet of death was the Bodach Glas, or dark grey man, of which Sir Walter Scott makes such effective use in Waverley towards the end of Fergus Mac Ivor’s history. Its appearance foretold death in the clan of ——, and I have been informed on the most credible testimony of its appearance in our own day. The Earl of E——, a nobleman alike beloved and respected in Scotland, and whose death was truly felt as a national loss, was playing on the day of his decease on the links of St. Andrews at the national game of golf. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a game, saying, “I can play no longer, there is the Bodach Glas. I have seen it for the third time; something fearful is going to befall me.” He died that night at M. M——, as he was handing a candlestick to a lady who was retiring to her room. The clergyman from whom I received this story endorses it as authentic, and names the gentleman to whom Lord E—— spoke.
I learn from another friend the particulars of one of the other two presages of impending doom vouchsafed to this nobleman. It was a warning of his wife’s death, and was thus given: Shortly after her confinement, which she had passed through safely, he went from home to attend a wedding, and during his absence dreamt that he read in The Times newspaper an announcement of Lady E——’s death on a day not far distant. The dream affected him a good deal, and his dejection the next day was apparent to every one. He returned home, found the Countess doing well, but soon after she caught cold from being moved into a damp room; illness came on, and her husband was roused up one night with tidings of her being in a dangerous state. It was the morning indicated by the dream. The Earl remembered it, and rose up (as he afterwards expressed it) with a yell of agony. Before nightfall she had expired.
Second-sight, again, belongs properly to the Highlands, and accordingly lies beyond the limits I have laid down for myself in this work. Mr. Wilkie says little respecting it, except that the seventh sons of seventh sons are persons marked out to be the possessors of the mysterious gift. He calls the seer an Elleree, a name I only know in his manuscript, but which doubtless means a person skilled in the affairs of Elle or Fairydom, and says that, if he sees sparks of fire falling on a person, that person’s death is near at hand. But the more common presage of death is for the Elleree to see the man wrapped in his shroud, and, according as the shroud covers more or less of the figure, will the death be near or remote. Again, should the Elleree see a funeral, and distinguish the persons of any of the attendants, those men are marked for an early grave.
It is to be regretted that this subject of second-sight—which, as Sir Walter Scott asserts, is attested by evidence which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson were able to resist,—has not arrested the attention of some philosophical thinker qualified to inquire into the matter, and give what explanation may be possible. For myself, I will only relate one incident which has always appeared to me very remarkable, and, professing myself wholly unable to offer any explanation, I will simply detail the circumstances, which for five-and-twenty years have been clearly imprinted on my memory.
About a quarter of a century has passed away since I started from D—— to join a party of tourists near Glasgow. We met, and determined that the gentlemen should take a walking and fishing ramble through Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, while the ladies should remain at the country-house of a friend, who had already gathered round her a merry group of young people, lately set free from the restraints of school, and bent on enjoying the beauty and freedom of the Western Highlands. The walking tour over, all were to spend a few days there together before the party broke up.
Our kind hostess was the widow of a Highland chief, and was descended from a family long celebrated for possessing a more than usual portion of second-sight. She firmly believed that the prophetic mantle had fallen upon her, but her disposition was cheerful and lively, and being herself still young she had a decided preference for the society of young people.
Her residence was situated on the slope of a steep hill, about half-a-mile from the side of a beautiful lake, which it overlooked. The lake was at this point a mile at least in breadth, and on its opposite shore stood a small farmhouse, with a few inclosed fields around it. The lake was several miles long, and had its egress into a river, which in winter, or when swollen by the heavy rains which are common in hilly countries, was of considerable size. The only means of crossing this river was by a stone bridge about half-a-mile from the end of the lake. When I have added, that in the garden of our friend was an inclosure which had for centuries been the burying-place of her husband’s clan, and in which his remains were laid, I shall have given every particular necessary for the elucidation of the rest of the tale.
A month quickly passed among the rivers and lakes of Scotland, and we found ourselves at the widow’s hospitable residence. Our welcome there was kind; but before an hour had passed we could not help noticing that a gloom hung over the party lately so merry. The conversation was evidently forced. The younger ladies looked anxious and distressed; their hostess sad, almost stern, as they sat apart, speaking little and evidently wrapped in thought. Something unusual had plainly occurred, and we eagerly sought an evening walk with some of the younger ladies, that we might learn what had so completely transformed our hitherto cheerful hostess.
The tale we were told was, in brief, as follows: About a week previously, Mrs. F—— (as we will designate the widow) had appeared at the breakfast table deadly pale, and with bloodshot eyes. She was reluctant to speak, and would not allow that anything was the matter, till towards evening a flood of tears relieved her, and she owned that she was distressed by a dream of the night before, so remarkable and so vivid that she felt convinced it would be realised. She described it thus:—
Looking from the windows of her house she had seen a long funeral procession come up the opposite side of the lake, from the direction of the river-bridge. When they reached the small farmhouse, the horses were taken out of the carriages and turned into an inclosure to graze; the coffin was brought down to the lake-side and placed in one of the boats, while the funeral party crossed in the large ferry-boat, commonly used for conveying cattle. On reaching the shore in front of Mrs. F——’s house, the procession again formed, and proceeded to the graveyard, where the funeral took place; the earth was heaped on the grave, and the mourners departed. Without calling at the house, they recrossed the lake, harnessed their animals, and disappeared by the same road by which they had come.
On hearing this narration, the young people ridiculed the notion of attending to the fancies of a dream, and by their bright cheerful conversation had succeeded at last in restoring Mrs. F—— to something like cheerfulness. But towards evening on the following day a horseman rode up to the door, and delivered a note from the undertaker of an adjacent town. This note announced that Mrs. F——’s mother-in-law had died suddenly at her residence, twenty miles off, and requested that a grave should be prepared for her in the family burying-ground. On inquiry, the messenger stated that the old lady had died at an hour coincident with the remarkable dream of her daughter-in-law, after a very slight indisposition, of which, in consequence of a family disagreement, Mrs. F—— had not heard.
The whole party was struck with awe. The widow quietly observed, “You see it is true,” and retired to her own room for the rest of the day. On the fifth day the funeral took place, actually fulfilling, contrary to all likelihood, every circumstance connected with the dream. The old lady had died at her residence, the road from which ran by the same side of the river and lake with Mrs. F——’s house; it was therefore most improbable that the funeral procession should cross the lake. But all was to be accomplished. On the night preceding the burial a dreadful thunderstorm swept away the stone bridge which spanned one of the mountain streams that flowed into the lake about a mile from Mrs. F——’s house. The result was that the funeral party was unable to proceed by the road. They could not pass the stream, now a raging torrent, so they retraced their steps, and crossing the river, continued their journey on the opposite side of the lake. The lady of the house saw all from her windows—the horses turned loose to graze, the boats occupied exactly as foretold, the funeral completed, the last sod heaped on the grave, and the party turning to depart without even calling at the house of the nearest connection of the deceased. For the second time she saw it all; but with what feelings who shall dare to say?