Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than the "Bay of the Departed," where, in the…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Byways of Ghost-Land
- Reference
- Byways of Ghost-Land · selected passage 97
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than the "Bay of the Departed," where, in the dead of night, wails and cries, presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctly heard by the terrified peasantry on shore
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 onlyAlong the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than the "Bay of the Departed," where, in the dead of night, wails and cries, presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctly heard by the terrified peasantry on shore. I can the more readily believe this, because I myself have heard similar sounds off the Irish, Scottish, and Cornish coasts, where shrieks, and wails, and groans as of the drowning have been borne to me from the inky blackness of the foaming and tossing sea. According to Mr Hunt in his _Romances of the West of England_, the sands of Porth Towan were haunted, a fisherman declaring that one night when he was walking on them alone, he suddenly heard a voice from the sea cry out, "The hour is come, but not the man." This was repeated three times, when a black figure, like that of a man, appeared on the crest of an adjacent hill, and, dashing down the steep side, rushed over the sands and vanished in the waves.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis 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 onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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