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Title: Animal Ghosts
       Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter

Author: Elliott O'Donnell

Release Date: April 23, 2006 [EBook #18233]

Language: English


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ANIMAL GHOSTS OR, ANIMAL HAUNTINGS AND THE HEREAFTER BY ELLIOTT O'DONNELL

AUTHOR OF

"THE SORCERY CLUB," "WERWOLVES," "BYWAYS OF GHOSTLAND," "SCOTTISH GHOSTS," "HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON," "HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES," "DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS," "FOR SATAN'S SAKE," "THE UNKNOWN DEPTHS," "DINEVAH THE BEAUTIFUL," "JENNIE BARLOWE," "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA," "MRS. E.M. WARD'S REMINISCENCES," ETC. ETC.

LONDON

WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LTD.
CATHEDRAL HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1913

First Published November, 1913.

PREFACE

If human beings, with all their vices, have a future life, assuredly animals, who in character so often equal, nay, excel human beings, have a future life also.

Those who in the Scriptures find a key to all things, can find nothing in them to confute this argument. There is no saying of Christ that justifies one in supposing that man is the only being, whose existence extends beyond the grave.

Granted, however, merely for the sake of argument, that we have some ground for the denial of a future existence for animals, consider the injustice such a denial would involve. Take, for example, the case of the horse. Harming no one, and without thought of reward, it toils for man all its life, and when too old to work it is put to death without even the compensation of a well-earned rest. But if compensation be God's law,—as I, for one, believe it to be—and also the raison d'être of a hereafter, then surely the Creator, whose chief claim to our respect and veneration lies in the fact that He is just and merciful, will take good care that the horse—the gentle, patient, never-complaining horse—is well compensated—compensated in a golden hereafter.

Consider again, the case of another of our four-footed friends—the dog; the faithful, affectionate, obedient and forgiving dog, the dog who is so often called upon to stand all sorts of rough treatment, and is shot or poisoned, if, provoked beyond endurance, he at last rounds on his persecutors, and bites. And the cat—the timid, peaceful cat who is mauled, and all but pulled in two by cruel children, and beaten to a jelly when in sheer agony and fright it scratches. Reflect again, on the cow and the sheep, fed only to supply our wants; shouted at and kicked, if, when nearly scared out of their senses, they wander off the track; and pole-axed, or done to death in some equally atrocious manner when the sickening demand for flesh food is at its height.

And yet, you say, these innocent, unoffending—and, I say, martyred—animals are to have no future, no compensation. Monstrous! Absurd! It is an effrontery to common sense, philosophy—anything, everything. It is a damned lie, damned bigotry, damned nonsense. The whole animal world will live again; and it will be man—spoilt, presumptuous, degenerate man—who will not participate in another life, unless he very much improves.

Think well over this,—you who preach the gospel of man's pre-eminence;—you who prate of God and know nothing whatsoever about Him! The horse, dog, cat,—even the wild animals, whose vices, perchance, pale beside your own, may go to Heaven before you. The Supreme Architect is neither a Nero, nor a Stuart, nor a clown. He will recompense all who deserve recompense, be they great or small—biped or quadruped.

It is to testify to a future existence for animals and to create a wider interest in it that I have undertaken to compile this book; and my object, I think, can best be achieved in my own way, the way of the investigator of haunted places. The mere fact that there are manifestations of "dead" people (pardon the paradox) proves some kind of life after death for human beings; and happily the same proof is available with regard a future life for animals; indeed there are as many animal phantasms as human—perhaps more; hence, if the human being lives again, so do his dumb friends.

Be comforted then, you who love your pets, and have been kind to them. You will see them all again, on the soft undying pasture lands of your Elysium and theirs.

Be warned, you—you who have despised animals, and have been cruel to them. Who knows but that, in your future life, you may be as they are now—in subjection?

My task in writing this book has been considerably lightened by the extreme courtesy and kindness of Mr. Shirley, Mr. Eveleigh Nash, and the Proprietors of the Review of Reviews, in allowing me to make use of extracts and quotations from their most valuable works.

ELLIOTT O'DONNELL.

CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER I CATS

The Black Cat of the Old Manor House, Oxenby—Correspondence re Cat Phantasms—The Headless Cat of No. ——, Lower Seedley Road, Seedley, Manchester—The Cat on the Post—Mystic Properties of Cats

CHAPTER II DOGS

The Case of James Durham—The Grey Dog of —— House, Birmingham—The Dog in the Cupboard—How the Ghost of a Dog saved Life—A Precentor's Adventure—Phantom Dog seen on Souter Fell—The Jumping Ghost—Dogs seen before a Death—A Dog scared by a Canine Ghost—The Phantom Dachshund of W—— Street, London, W.—An ALL Hallow Eve Ghost—The Strange Disappearance of Mr. Jeremiah Dance—Phantasms of Living Dogs—The Yellow Dog of K—— University—National Ghosts in the form of Dogs—The Mauthe Doog—Spectral Hounds

CHAPTER III HORSES AND THE UNKNOWN

A Phantom Cavalcade—The Miller on the Grey Horse—A Phantom Horse and Rider—The White Horse of Eastover—The Afrikander's Story—Heralds of Death—Phantom Coach in U.S.A.—A Story from Marseilles—Summary of Horses—Phantasms of Living Horses—Horses and the Psychic Faculty of Scent—Phantom Policeman and Horse—Phantom Huntsmen and Horses

CHAPTER IV BULLS, COWS, PIGS, ETC.

The Kirk-grim—Phantasm of a Goat—Phantom Hogs of the Moat Grange—Sheep—Spectre Flock of Sheep in Germany

PART II CHAPTER V WILD ANIMALS AND THE UNKNOWN

Animal Phantasms and the Moon—The Case of Martin Tristram—Phantasms of Cat and Ape—Hauntings by a White Rabbit—John Wesley's Ghost—Psychic Faculty in Hares and Rabbits

CHAPTER VI INHABITANTS OF THE JUNGLE

Elephants, Lions, Tigers, etc.—The White Tiger—Jungle Animals and Psychic Faculties

PART III CHAPTER VII BIRDS AND THE UNKNOWN

Case from Occult Review—Bird Hauntings in Russia—Hauntings in the Country Church—Capt. Morgan's Experiences—Addenda—Old Authorities on Bird Omens

CHAPTER VIII A BRIEF RETROSPECT

PART I DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE UNKNOWN ANIMAL GHOSTS CHAPTER I CATS

In opening this volume on Animals and their associations with the unknown, I will commence with a case of hauntings in the Old Manor House, at Oxenby.

My informant was a Mrs. Hartnoll, whom I can see in my mind's eye, as distinctly as if I were looking at her now. Hers was a personality that no lapse of time, nothing could efface; a personality that made itself felt on boys of all temperaments, most of all, of course, on those who—like myself—were highly strung and sensitive.

She was classical mistress at L.'s, the then well-known dame school in Clifton, where for three years—prior to migrating to a Public School—I was well grounded in all the mysticisms of Kennedy's Latin Primer and Smith's First Greek Principia.

I doubt if she got anything more than a very small salary—governesses in those days were shockingly remunerated—and I know,—poor soul, she had to work monstrously hard. Drumming Latin and Greek into heads as thick as ours was no easy task.

But there were times, when the excessive tension on the nerves proving too much, Mrs. Hartnoll stole a little relaxation; when she allowed herself to chat with us, and even to smile—Heavens! those smiles! And when—I can feel the tingling of my pulses at the bare mention of it—she spoke about herself, stated she had once been young—a declaration so astounding, so utterly beyond our comprehension, that we were rendered quite speechless—and told us anecdotes.

Of many of her narratives I have no recollection, but one or two, which interested me more than the rest, are almost as fresh in my mind as when recounted. The one that appealed to me most, and which I have every reason to believe is absolutely true,[1] is as follows:—I give it as nearly as I can in her own somewhat stilted style:—

"Up to the age of nineteen, I resided with my parents in the Manor House, Oxenby. It was an old building, dating back, I believe, to the reign of Edward VI, and had originally served as the residence of noble families. Built, or, rather, faced with split flints, and edged and buttressed with cut grey stone, it had a majestic though very gloomy appearance, and seen from afar resembled nothing so much as a huge and grotesquely decorated sarcophagus. In the centre of its frowning and menacing front was the device of a cat, constructed out of black shingles, and having white shingles for the eyes; the effect being curiously realistic, especially on moonlight nights, when anything more lifelike and sinister could scarcely have been conceived. The artist, whoever he was, had a more than human knowledge of cats—he portrayed not merely their bodies but their souls.