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BEING TALES FROM THE BYWAYS OF GHOSTS AND FOLK-LORE
LONDON WILLIAM RIDER & SON LTD. 164 ALDERSGATE STREET, E.C. 1911
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON
I have to thank the Editor of the _Occult Review_ for his kindness in allowing me to reprint here many stories which have appeared at different times in his magazine.
And I am most grateful to the friends who have helped to swell the contents of this little volume, by permitting me to record their interesting experiences of the supernatural, or by furnishing me with details concerning local beliefs and superstitions, which would otherwise have been difficult to obtain.
VI. CORPSE-CANDLES AND THE TOILI (_continued_)
VIII. WISE MEN, WITCHES, AND FAMILY CURSES
"Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the Road, Which to discover we must travel too."
If we may judge by the assertion contained in the above quatrain, Omar Khayyám was no believer in ghosts. In which respect the Persian poet must have differed from the general opinion of his times. For until a very few centuries ago, it was only a small minority of those who considered themselves wise above their fellows, who ventured to deny the possibility of the spirit's return to earth. Even amongst the Romans during the Antonine Age (A.D. 98-180), when scepticism on religious matters had become almost universal among the learned, and the worship of the gods had sunk to mere outward observance of ceremony, Gibbon says, "I do not pretend to assert that in this irreligious age, the natural terrors of superstitions, dreams, omens, apparitions, &c., had lost their efficacy." The younger Pliny, in a letter to his friend Sura, writes: "I am extremely desirous to know whether you believe in the existence of ghosts, and that they have a real form, and are a sort of divinities, or only the visionary impression of a terrified imagination." He also relates a really exciting tale of a haunted house at Athens, but it is too long to quote here.