In Cornwall, and in other corners of the country, the crowing of a cock
at midnight was formerly regarded as indicating the passage of death
over the house; also if a cock crew at a certain hour for two or three
nights in succession, it was thought to be a sure sign of early death to
some member of the household. In _Notes and Queries_ a correspondent
remarks that crowing hens are not uncommon, that their crow is very
similar to the crow of a very young cock, and must be taken as a certain
presagement of some dire calamity. It was generally held that in all haunted localities the ghosts would at
once vanish--not to appear again till the following night--at the first
crowing of the cock after midnight. I believe there is a certain amount
of truth in this--at all events cocks, as I myself have proved, are
invariably sensitive to the presence of the superphysical. The whistler is also a very psychic bird. Spenser, in his _Faerie
Queene_ (Book II, canto xii, st. 31), alludes to it thus:--

     "The whistler shrill, that whoso hears doth die";

whilst Sir Walter Scott refers to it in a similar sense in his _Lady of
the Lake_. The yellow-hammer was formerly the object of much persecution, since it
was believed that it received three drops of the devil's blood on its
feather every May morning, and never appeared without presaging ill
luck. Parrots do not appear to be very susceptible to the influence of
the Unknown, and indicate little or no dread of superphysical
demonstrations. Doves, wrens, and robins are birds of good omen, and the many
superstitions regarding them are all associated with good luck. Doves, I
have found in particular, are very safe psychic barometers in haunted
houses. It is almost universally held to be unlucky to kill a robin. A
correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ (Fourth Series, vol. viii, p. 505)
remarks:

"I took the following down from the mouth of a young miner:

"'My father killed a robin and had terrible bad luck after it. He had at
that time a pig which was ready for pipping; she had a litter of seven,
and they all died. When the pig was killed the two hams went bad;
presently three of the family had a fever, and my father himself died of
it. The neighbours said it was all through killing the robin.'" George Smith, in his _Six Pastorals_ (1770), says:

     "I found a robin's nest within our shed,
     And in the barn a wren has young ones bred;
     I never take away their nest, nor try
     To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die. Dick took a wren's nest from the cottage side,
     And ere a twelvemonth pass'd his mother dy'd!" In Yorkshire it was once firmly believed that if a robin were killed,
the cows belonging to the family of the destroyer of the bird would,
for some time, only give bloody milk. At one time--and, perhaps, even
now--the robin and wren, out of sheer pity, used to cover the bodies of
those that died in the woods with leaves. Webster, in his _Tragedy of Vittoria Corombona_ (1612), refers to this
touching habit of these birds thus:

     "Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,
     Since o'er the shady groves they hover,
     And with leaves and flowers do cover
     The friendless bodies of unburied men." Not so harmless is the stormy petrel, whose advent is looked upon by
sailors as a sure sign of an impending storm, accompanied by much loss
of life. The vulture and eagle, obviously on account of their ferocious
dispositions, often remain earth-bound after death, and usually select
as their haunts, spots little frequented by man. From what I have heard
they are by far the most malignant of all bird ghosts, and have even
been known to inflict physical injury on those who have had the
misfortune to pass the night within their allotted precincts. CHAPTER VIII

A BRIEF RETROSPECT


If I have failed to convince my readers as to the reality of a future
existence for all species of mammalia, I trust I have at least suggested
to them the idea of probability in such a theory; for did the belief
that all animals possess imperishable spirits similar to mankind only
become general, I feel quite sure that a marked improvement in our
treatment of all the so-called "brute" creation--and God alone knows how
much such an improvement is needed--would speedily result. It is still
only the comparative few who are kind to animals--the majority are
either wholly indifferent or absolutely cruel. But if children were made
to realize that even insects have spirits, they, at least, let us hope,
would cease to take delight in pulling off the wings and legs of flies. Man has hitherto entertained the ridiculously unjustifiable idea that
all the animal and insect world has been created solely for his benefit,
to be killed or to be kept alive entirely at his discretion. Such an
absurd and presumptuous belief ought to be exploded once and for all. The animal world, so all sane people must agree, was undoubtedly created
to lead the same, free, untrammelled life as does man himself. Man--save
in cunning--is nothing superior either to the dog, horse, or other
mammalia; indeed, he is not infrequently so inferior that one cannot
help thinking that possibly the higher spiritual planes are not for him
at all, but for those who--misnamed the lower creation--have surpassed
man in spirituality. Let those who doubt this study the superphysical
all around them. Let them carefully watch animals, and observe their
propensities, their psychic faculties of scent, sight, and hearing. They
can easily test them in any house or locality which has a
well-established reputation for being haunted. They will then see how
close a relationship there really is between the animal and
superphysical worlds. And if they want further proof,--proof of a more
material nature,--let them search around for some spot stated to be
haunted by a ghostly phenomenon in the form of a dog, horse, cat, or
other animal,--and investigate there themselves. Such investigations have convinced me, and surely, by using these same
methods with patience and perseverance, other people might also be
convinced. At all events, let them try. For, a conviction like mine--a
conviction that an eternity exists for our canine pets and dumb
friends--is certainly worth a lot of striving after. At least so I
think. PRINTED BY

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.

PLYMOUTH




STRANGER THAN FICTION

Being Tales from the Byways of Ghost and Folk-lore

By MARY L. LEWES

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