Now had Mayhewe not heard of these two cases, he might have concluded, in spite of feeling sure that he had…
- Date of account
- Published 1917
- Source
- Haunted Places in England
- Reference
- Haunted Places in England · selected passage 44
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Now had Mayhewe not heard of these two cases, he might have concluded, in spite of feeling sure that he had been in a normal state of mind upon entering the room, that what he had gone through was due merely to an over-excited imagination; but since he now knew that others had witnessed the same phenomena, he saw no re…
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 onlyNow had Mayhewe not heard of these two cases, he might have concluded, in spite of feeling sure that he had been in a normal state of mind upon entering the room, that what he had gone through was due merely to an over-excited imagination; but since he now knew that others had witnessed the same phenomena, he saw no reason to doubt that there was some peculiarly sinister influence attached to the room. As to the cause of the haunting, he could elicit nothing more authentic or definite than the somewhat vague recollections of a very old actor. According to this rather doubtful authority, shortly after the opening of the theatre, one of the performers had suddenly developed madness and had been confined in room 25 till a suitable escort had been found to take him to an asylum. It was the only tragic occurrence, he asserted, that had ever taken place in that theatre. Now, supposing this to be true--that a madman really had been conducted from the stage to room 25 and temporarily confined there--might one not reasonably believe that in this incident lay the origin of the hauntings?
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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