Research source

It was about four inches square, and drawn upon it, with much spirit and a strict adherence to the principles…

Date of account: Published 1920
Source: True Tales of the Weird: a record of personal experiences of the supernatural
Reference: True Tales of the Weird: a record of personal experiences of the supernatural · selected passage 38
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

It was about four inches square, and drawn upon it, with much spirit and a strict adherence to the principles of realism in art, were a skull and crossbones

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

Then I unfolded the paper. It was about four inches square, and drawn upon it, with much spirit and a strict adherence to the principles of realism in art, were a skull and crossbones. These were done in a red medium which at first we thought was blood, but which we finally decided to be ink, since it retained its color for weeks, and did not darken, as blood would have done. There was no writing whatever on the sheet; therefore we had no reason to regard it as an attention from the "Black Hand"--another reason being that we had never heard of the "Black Hand" at that time. We had no red ink in the house, nor any paper like that upon which the design was drawn--and nothing ever occurred to throw any light on the matter.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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