Many stories of haunted houses are told where the disturbing power has seemed to have a distinct object in…
- 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 32
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Many stories of haunted houses are told where the disturbing power has seemed to have a distinct object in view, and this object attained, all further manifestations have ceased
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 onlyMany stories of haunted houses are told where the disturbing power has seemed to have a distinct object in view, and this object attained, all further manifestations have ceased. Such was the case of a very old farm-house in one of the South Welsh counties. It had long been known that mysterious tappings were constantly heard there, proceeding always from a certain spot in the wall of one particular room. At last this house fell into such bad repair that it had to be partly rebuilt. When the masons were pulling down the wall from whence the tappings came, they found, carefully built into this very wall, an old register-book. It was in a fair state of preservation, and the later entries in it dated from the time of the Commonwealth. They showed that a mason, who could neither read nor write, was then appointed vicar of the parish, and the former incumbent turned out. However, he seems to have remained among his parishioners, performing the offices of the Church in secret, and we may suppose that, taking refuge in the farm-house (which very likely was a place of more importance in those days), the clergyman had the register-book hidden in the wall, to preserve it from falling into the hands of the illiterate mason.
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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