riverside london 3

Eland road 2

 The poltergeist continued to overturn heavy furniture, 

and break objects , including several window panes, 

and drop or throw objects like coal, stones, and

potatoes, as the days went by. Harry Price and the reporter 

found evidence of the damage, and had near misses,

 as when a gas lighter, weighing a couple of ounces 

apparently landed on the floor behind their backs.

A little while later young Fred, was taken to hospital

for examination, as it was believed that he was responsible.

Despite his absence, the poltergeist's behaviour remained.

Mrs Perkins said that whilst she tried to prepare dinner, 

chairs began to line up and march down the hall.

This particular trick has become somewhat famous in 

poltergeist literature.

It even got a cartoon to itself in an issue of Punch.

A policeman was called in and he didn't believe her, 

but  once he was gone an attache case flew across the room, 

 an umbrella jumped from its stand, and the table fell over.....

riverside london 2

Eland Road

In Poltenrgeist over London Harry Price devoted a chapter 

 to Eland Road. Lavender Hill...the Robinson House.

This is the one, where the property backed onto a mental

health institution, so ... of course... they got blamed for the

 stone throwing. The house was a typical suburban house

 of a working class family, two floors and gardens back and front.

 Its occupants were the elderly Henry, 86, Frederick(27) 

and his three daughters, Lillah, Kate and the widowed 

Mrs George Perkins, and her son Peter.

This house was to come to be dubbed "the mystery house"

bY the press. It appears to have come to Harry's attention

 at Christmas 1927. He visited in January, at the same time 

as a "garrulous female journalist"

The house had been reduced to mayhem by the poltergeist

already, Windows and furniture was smashed, and ornaments broken.

They had lived there 25 years without incident. Then on November 29th

in true Fortean style, lumps of coal, pieces of soda, 

and pennies began to fall on the conservatory behind the house.

Red hot cinders formed in a pile in the outhouse.

When the old man's bedroom window was smashed they decided

to move him out

Even as they did, a heavy chest of drawers crashed to the floor

of the bedroom......

....to be continued.....

putney and battersea 1

Putney heath

Abershaw the highwayman was tracked down 

 after several highway robberies to his favourite haunt, 

 The Green Man pub in Putney, and,

in a desperate attempt to escape, he shot at the two 

 officers, and one was killed.and the other seriously injured.

When he was caught he was tried for murder and on 

3rd August 1795, he was taken to Kennington to be executed.

But some say that he was gibbetted on Jerry's Hill

On Putney Heath, and that is where he is said to haunt. 

The story goes that his gang retrieved the body,

 as it mysteriously disappeared.

  He's said to trail people who wander the Heath at night.

Apparently his body is interred in a highway man's cemetery up there.

"And still of a winter’s night, they say,
when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon
tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight
over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding…
up to the old inn-door."
​Extract from The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

I do like tales about ghosts of highwaymen... maybe it's the involvement of gibbets.

I wanted to go on to talk about the Eland Rd haunting...

Next....

riverside London 1

Beside the Thames.....

 

 I've been out of things for a few days. 

Anyway, i'm up in London today, 

at the London wetlands, in Barnes.

I once lived in Shepherd's Bush.

I also had a time in Hounslow, and worked in Richmond Surrey,

and worked just up the road from Wandsworth Bridge station.

So, in preparation for the sitting down to watch

 the London Marathon, which i believe is tomorrow.. 

I thought i'd return to where my heart really resides.

SO .... let's look at ghosts here about, shall we?

There's a poltergeist case...

I recently bought a copy of a story told by a participant called

"The Poltergeist Prince". Wycliffe Rd,

The Eland Rd ghost investigated by Harry Price.

Highwaymen on Putney Heath.

I love this part of the Thameside.

My ancestors were involved in collecting dark age artefacts

from the river, and this collection now is housed

In the Museum of London.

Honestly.....

That then is of which i speak next week on these pages....

A short distance beyond ponds on Putney heath

is a forgotten burial ground, where several of the highwaymen, 

who terrorised the area, were buried.......

tomb ghosts

Barrows etc

I  have an idea that shadow people are somehow 

connected to the demon phenomenon.

It's about how our minds leave a trail behind them, 

when negative emotion takes shape...

Or having spiritual phenomenon feeding on the shadows

of our course through life, perhaps. 

Evil times breed evil beings.

I sometimes wonder in my own darkest moments, if life isn't a sick joke, 

and some spiritual parasite doesn't feed off our suffering.

But then our darkness, our depression, our anger and hatred

could be said to be the parasite.

Do we leave our negative emotions behind us in some form 

when we die? Is that something like what ghosts are, actually?

There are tales about dark shadows running around or standing like 

  gravestones in cemeteries, and at least one of the early series of

"A Haunted" tells of ghost hunters in a cemetery, where a boy 

is possessed by a demon. (There were some good ones, very well

produced, in the first 4 series, but it's dropped in quality since.)

The idea of shadow-people-like presences mimicking

 gravestones  in cemeteries ties in, I think, to the dark

presences, of ancient English lore, connected to barrows.

 What i mean is that the spectral beings, which we reportedly

see today, were seen historically as well. 

The human mind works in the same way now, as it did then.

Does the old debate, whether consciousness survives 

really relate to whether dark emotions survive in some way?

The protective angel which returns from sleep,

like King Arthur, to save the English people,

being one side, the other being the dark emotional side 

protecting the burial from bejng disturbed.

the earth hall

 The earth hall

 Inside a barrow, there is a cavern, or a great hall, 

in which sleeps a knight until he is needed to protect his people, 

or else a dragon, curled up and waiting to arise and terrorise

 the community, or the spirits of the dead, which return

 like vampires to inflict revenge on the living.

Obviously if it is a tomb, then it would stand to reason that 

something incredibly precious is hidden there.

The tale of Grendel and Beowulf's battle with the spirit, and its mother,

 of course is in line with these stories. 

Exactly what kind of spirit the Grendels were is hard to define,

 and they are often interpreted as being dragons, 

but they seem bloodthirsty.

Iron Age hill forts are often shaped with dragon-like rings 

or embankments surrounding them, which may have something 

to do with why serpentine  monstrous worms are supposed to live there.

Such serpents are alleged to have driven away treasure seekers,

for instance, at Cissbury Ring.

There is alleged to be a tunnel leading from Offington Hall (demolished in 1960s)

to Cissbury,  and in the nineteenth century, 

 a blocked tunnel entrance was found behind pannelling in its library,

and explorers trying to open the tunnel,(about 2 miles)

were chased away by ghostly serpents.

As serpents are  tunnel dweller, of course, 

The manorial hall joining to the earthly hall, 

The corporeal power to the spiritual in the community.

 

barrows

Barrows

Of course, barrows are mysterious places.

Eerie by their very nature, as the tors and hillforts are.

 There is one other thing which adds to the mix.

Burial. Naturally the interred dead in such places are 

buried with ancient artefacts, and hence treasure.

Wherever you have treasure, you have treasure hunters,

whether there is any treasure there or not.

 Try to convince a treasure hunter that it isn't there!

 The fact is that hidden treasure and the occult

 or hidden lore are inextricably linked.

 There will always be an association between treasure and magic.

 Between the supposed wealth of the dead and the supernatural.

 Both are discussing the possibility of hidden secrets.

 Naturally you will bury your wealthy dead, and their "source of power"

 with a defender... something to protect it from tomb raiders...

A curse, or a being, which represents the curse made manifest.

 Where there is the possibility of treasure 

there must be treasure, and secrets to be discovered,

 and tasks to be performed to reach that treasure.

This series of interconnected motifs run all of the way back

to myth, such as the tale of the minotaur, 

like Orpheus travelling to Hades  to recover his lost love. 

 To the mysteries of Ephesus.  Rituals have been performed

for centuries in magical initiations, depicting mystic journeys.

The shaman took narcotics to travel to the land of the spirits, 

 and gain his precognition of events and occult knowledge.

There is a whole history of human being's association with 

the dead, and the buried treasure, material or magical, which they guard.

Whatever it is, Dan Brown, it's still the holy grail!

None of this explanation of the origin of a tale in any way 

Negates its reality. it isn't a sceptic's dismissal. I believe

  that it strengthens the story.

I'll look at barrow legends more in this light....

wights

WIghts

SEe, it's still doing it! Webmasters never answer your problems....

I am looking into "wights." What are "wights" you ask?

They only appear in one place in literature that i can find,

legendary beings from Norse or Celtic literature.

The place i've seen them is in that segment of

The Fellowship of the Ring dropped out of the 

mega film version of the Lord of the Rings. 

It happens early on, when Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry

meet Tom Bombadil. They ride off into the mist with the 

mysterious tale of the barrow wights in their heads.

 We aren't really told the body of this tale, and fog descends,

 the travellers get separated, and each one of the hobbits is taken prisoner

  and brought near to death by a shadowy form, which isn't 

really described, but Frodo kills with a nearby sword blade.

The word "wight"is middle saxon, really

There is an original  anglo saxon  word 'wiht,'

 which means "a being, something, anything"

I Suspect that this got mixed up with an old norse word 'vigr'

which meant "warlike," which entered saxon as 'wight', as well,

which the dictionaries say had the

meaning "swift, nimble, courageous and strong"

Hence you get a hostile, powerful being of a spiritual nature,

And this came to be a 'spiritual entity'

The creature is a creature of the dead and darkness, and 

probably in some way connected to all of those legends,

like the one telling how King Arthur and the knights 

of the Round Table would emerge from their hill to save

England when its people were in mortal peril.

Obviously there must be something, which will emerge from a hill

as well, to create  mortal peril.

In the Lord of the Rings, the suggestion seems to be that the hobbits

 were nearly drowned.......? And rescued by Tom Bombadil.

It's really vague and a peculiar episode, and 

I can't say that I'm surprised that the film

 makers chose not to include it.

One of my missions is to keep alive tales of spiritual 

beings, which are too good to lose.

And ghosts of the long barrows are so important to English mythology.

highdown hill

HIghdown Hill

THe google peopl still aren't answering my enquiry.

I Am up Highdown Hill Worthing this morning. 

Got a cake and coffee in cafe and a seat.

 It's usually a free for all.

Taking videos and photos. This is a haunted place,

 at least atmospheric. Remember the Miller's tomb?

I Posted about it some time ago.

This hill like most hill forts has an eerie atmosphere, 

espcially first thing in the morning.

It is the sense of history here.

I'll post some of my spooky videos on fbook

the wild hunt

THe wild hunt

I Still haven't had any response to my request from google to  

sort this double capital problem out. 

Anyway, whilst I'm waiting, I'll have a look at the story of

the wild hunt, I think. I had a discussion with a friend about 

Herne the hunter, and she thought he was mythic,

but I was sure that there was a royal keeper of

Royal Parks, who was called Herne, and this related to the

 much older wild hunt stories.

Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles is a possible result

 of the tale of a pack of Dartmoor Wisht hounds, 

led by a dark huntsman, who run on the trail of

 the Dead or damned. 

Here is an account from a version of the

 Anglo Saxon Chronicles:

"Several persons saw and heard many huntsmen hunting. 

The hunters were swarthy and huge, and ugly; 

and their hounds were all black, and wide-eyed and ugly.

And they rode on black horses, and black he-goats.

This was seen in the very deer-park in the town of Peterborough, 

and in all the woods from that same town as far as Stamford.

 And the monks heard their horns blowing in the night. 

Credible men, who saw them in the night, said that

 there might well be about twenty or thirty horn-blowers."

technical issue

I had a few days off to prepare a letter, submission, etc,

 for sending to a literary agent, with a hope

 that I might get a novel published

I am having trouble with this blog as well.
It insists on typing the first two letters of every new line
WIth two capitals, (like this,) and i can't find how to stop it.
THis is very irritating, and I need to sort this out.
IT slows down composing these pireces
ANd is very irritating.

I have requested assistance from the team... besr with me.