Research source

I am still near, Watching the smiles I prized on earth, Your converse mild, your blameless mirth.[64

Date of account: Late nineteenth-century compilation
Source: The Ghost World
Reference: The Ghost World · selected passage 93
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

It is much the same in this country, and Mr

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

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It is much the same in this country, and Mr. Henderson[156] has given several amusing anecdotes. At Dalton, near Thirsk, there was an old barn, said to be haunted by a headless woman. One night a tramp went into it to sleep; at midnight he was awakened by a light, and, sitting up, he saw a woman coming towards him from the end of the barn, holding her head in her hands like a lantern, with light streaming out of the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. Hunt, too, in his 'Popular Romances,' notices this superstition as existing in the West of England; and Mrs. Latham, in her 'Sussex Superstitions,' tells us how spirits are reported to walk about without their heads; others carry them under their arms; and one haunting a dark lane is said to have 'a ball of fire upon its shoulders in lieu of the natural finial.' At Haddington, Worcestershire, there is an avenue of trees locally known as 'Lady Winter's Walk,' where, it is said, the lady of Thomas Winter, who was obliged to conceal himself on account of his share in the Gunpowder Plot, was in the habit of awaiting her husband's further visits, and here the headless spectr

Historical context

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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