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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 144
Rights
public_domain
Language
English
Record updated
2026-08-24

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Record summary

Such family forewarnings of death are of a most varied description, and are still said to be of frequent occurrence

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 only

Such family forewarnings of death are of a most varied description, and are still said to be of frequent occurrence. An ancient Roman Catholic family in Yorkshire, of the name of Middleton, is supposed to be apprised of the death of any one of its members by the apparition of a Benedictine nun; and Sir Walter Scott, in his 'Peveril of the Peak,' tells us how a certain spirit is commonly believed to attend on the Stanley family, warning them by uttering a loud shriek of some approaching calamity, and especially 'weeping and bemoaning herself before the death of any person of distinction belonging to the family.' In his 'Waverley,' too, towards the end of Fergus MacIvor's history, he alludes to the Bodach Glas, or dark grey man. Mr. Henderson says,[208] 'Its appearance foretold death in the Clan of ----, and I have been informed on the most credible testimony of its appearance in our own day. The Earl of E----, a nobleman alike beloved and respected in Scotland, was playing on the day of his decease on the links of St. Andrews at golf. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the game, saying, "I can play no longer, there is the Bodach Glas.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This 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 only

Lattice 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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