It is not every one who is acquainted with the precise meaning of the expression "laying a ghost," which Brand…
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
- Reference
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 20
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It is not every one who is acquainted with the precise meaning of the expression "laying a ghost," which Brand in his "Antiquities" advises as the best remedy for cases of troublesome hauntings
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 onlyIt is not every one who is acquainted with the precise meaning of the expression "laying a ghost," which Brand in his "Antiquities" advises as the best remedy for cases of troublesome hauntings. "Sometimes," he says, "Ghosts appear and disturb a house without deigning to give a reason for so doing; with these the shortest way is to lay them. For this purpose there must be two or three clergymen and the ceremony must be performed in Latin.... A Ghost may be laid for any time less than a hundred years and in any place or body, as a solid oak, the point of a sword, or a barrel of beer, or a pipe of wine.... But of all places the most common and what a ghost least likes is the Red Sea." From another authority we learn that seven parsons are necessary to this weird performance. They must all sit in a row, each holding a lighted candle, and should all seven candles continue to burn steadily, it shows that not one of the reverend gentlemen is capable of wrestling with the uneasy spirit. But if one of the lights suddenly goes out, it is a sign that its holder may read the prayers of exorcism, though in so doing he must be careful that the ghost (who will mockingly repeat the words) does not get a line ahead of him.
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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