Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, With Additions by W.c. Hazlitt - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1877. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... unused for many years in a chest, but which, "when he lay dying at eleven o'clock, of itself, in that chest, struck eleven in the hearing of many." In the Memoirs of Duncan Campbel, Defoe ridicules the idea of people being in the most terrible palpitations for months together, expecting every hour the approach of some calamity, simply because a little worm which breeds in old wainscot, in endeavouring to eat its way out, "makes a noise like the movement of a watch." The clicking of a death-watch, according to Grose, is an omen of the death of some one in the house in which it is heard. DEATH OMENS PECULIAR TO FAMILIES. Grose tells us that many families have, besides general notices of death, particular warnings or notices; some by the appearance of a bird, and others by the figure of a tall woman dressed in white, who goes shrieking about the house. This apparition is common in Ireland, where it is called Benshea, and the shrieking woman. According to Pennant, many of the great families in Scotland had their Daemon or Genius, who gave them monitions of future events. Thus the family of Rothmurchas had the Bodack au dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kincardines, the spectre of the bloody hand; Gartinbeg House was haunted by Bodach Gartin; and Tulloch Gorms by Maug Monlack, or the girl with the hairy left hand. The Synod gave frequent orders that inquiry should be made into the truth of this apparition; and one or two declared that they had seen one that answered the description. In the Living Librarie (1621) we read: "There bee some Princes of Germanie that have particular and apparent presages and tokens, full of noise, before or about the Day of their death, as extraordinarie roaring of Lions, and barking of Dogs, fearful noises and bustlings by Night in Castl...