Research source

There was no one else in the house, so that ordinary theft was out of the question

Date of account: Published 1911
Source: Byways of Ghost-Land
Reference: Byways of Ghost-Land · selected passage 22
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

There was no one else in the house, so that ordinary theft was out of the question. Yet where did these articles go, and of what use would they be to a poltergeist? On one occasion, only, I caught a glimpse of the miscreant. It was about eight o'clock on a warm evening in June, and I was sitting reading in my study. The room is slightly below the level of the road, and in summer, the trees outside, whilst acting as an effective screen against the sun's rays, cast their shadows somewhat too thickly on the floor and walls, burying the angles in heavy gloom. In the daytime one rather welcomes this darkness; but in the afternoon it becomes a trifle oppressive, and at twilight one sometimes wishes it was not there. It is at twilight that the nature of the shadows usually undergoes a change, and there amalgamates, with them, that Something, that peculiar, indefinable Something that I can only associate with the superphysical.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.