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 121
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
But sometimes, when the candles burn out their time, it is an indication that none of the party can lay the ghost, as happened in the case of a certain Dartmoor vicar's unquiet spirit described by 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
Source text · mention onlyBut sometimes, when the candles burn out their time, it is an indication that none of the party can lay the ghost, as happened in the case of a certain Dartmoor vicar's unquiet spirit described by Mr. Henderson.[190] 'A jury of seven parsons was convoked to lay it, and each sat for half an hour with a candle in his hand, but it burned out its time with each. The spirit could afford to defy them; it was not worth his while to blow their candles out. But the seventh parson was a stranger and a scholar fresh from Oxford. In his hand the light went out at once. He was clearly the man to lay the ghost; he laid it at once, and in a beer-barrel.'
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.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.