Stone Throwing Ghosts.
People living at Coray, near Quimper, in Brittany, are in a state of great perturbation at present, caused (says a Paris correspondent) by the extraordinary proceedings of invisible beings in a farmhouse said to be haunted. The regular occupants of the place, and whoever approaches it, are in continual danger of being killed or wounded from showers of bricks and rubbish. Some persons have even asserted that chairs and tables were thrown at them by unseen hands. The acme of agitation has been reached owing to the fact that the statue of a saint, which was put over the door to conjure the devils away, has been broken to bits, and that a local gendarme, who was making observations near the dwelling, had his pipe smashed in his mouth. The ghosts or spirits are believed to be some young fellows of the locality who are amusing themselves at the expense of other people.
Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 15th November 1890.
…There has already been much circumstantial evidence given about the other [French] ghost story. Gendarmes have been sent out to “shadow” the phantoms, but it turns out that the old soldiers were not only “shadowed” themselves but two of them had practical and painful proof of the presence and contiguity of the bogeys. The affair happened at Coray near Quimper, in Brittany, which is the classic land of ghost lore and mystical legend, the inhabitants of nearly every other part of France being less inclined to believe in the weird.
Coray boasts for a considerable time past of a haunted house to which slight reference has already been made. The further information supplied about the matter shows that the building is occupied by the Kerlaz family, whose shepherd boy Youennic was one night thrown violently out of his bed in the stable by unseen hands. Had Youennic been a full-grown man, it would be feasible to suppose that he had retired to slumber, stupefied by an overdose of the bad eau-de-vie drunk in such large quantities by the Breton farming and fishing folk,and that he had unceremoniously rolled out of his nocturnal resting-place.
Youennic, however, is but thirteen years old, and has probably not yet been taught to imbibe potations of cheap spirit; moreover, a female domestic who went to his assistance when he was flung on the floor was belaboured with a big stick, also by invisible hands. This thrashing was followed by a shower of stones, some of which fell through the roof of the stable.
As usual, the gendarmes were summoned to the spot next day, and the Kerlaz family, being devout Catholics, requisitioned the services of the local parish priest and his holy water. It was in vain, however, that the gendarmes took official stock of the house and of its inmates, and that the Cure sprinkled his eau benite. Night after night stones were thrown, and the shepherd was k nocked about – nay more, a brigadier of gendarmes, who was on the watch, had his pipe broken in his mouth by a missile flung at him, and one of his subordinates received a blow from an invisible fist in the face.
After a careful investigation the gendarmes have testified officially to the presence of ghosts, and the members of the Kerlaz family have been exonerated from all suspicions of connivance at the nocturnal scandal, for it was supposed that they had raised the spirits on their own account, in order to save themselves from a threatened eviction, and to prevent their farm from passing into the hands of strangers.
Thus the Coray case remains a mystery, and the only people who may be able to explain it are the Spiritualists. After the gendarmes have given evidence on the subject, there is no doubt in the minds of the inhabitants of the district about the presence of ghosts.
Daily Telegraph and Courier (London), 25th December 1890.
Turbulent ghosts.
Ghost stories are terribly hard to digest, and ghosts themselves, however circumstantially their freaks may be related, fail to make much impression on the majority of people. In France, says the Standard, accounts have been published, of a whole commune that was tormented by the nocturnal exploits of “ghosts”; and now we read that a similar experience has been made by the inhabitants in a certain district in Brittany. The ghosts in this case have been behaving ina very noisy, turbulent fashion – smashing up beds, breaking furniture, loosening bricks and stones, and bringing them down upon the heads of unhappy mortals, without it being possible to discover the authors, ghostly or otherwise, of these abominable tricks.
The sensible course of applying to the police was taken, and in one particular house, where the annoyance was said to be greatest, two or three members of the force determined to pass the night. They were not, from all accounts, treated better than others. Showers of stones, bricks, and tiles came rattling down the chimneys; doors and windows were banged open – in a word, the pranks of these invisible disturbers of the peace continued until daybreak. The police, it appears – naturally convinced that the offenders existed in the flesh, and were not impalpable shades – drew up a proces verbal, and a sharp look-out is being kept in the hope of catching them.
Eddowes’s Shrewsbury Journal, 25th November 1891 (sic.)
A ghostly mystery is exciting the superstitious Bretons in a rural village near Quimper. A certain farm is haunted by a host of spirits, who pelt the inhabitants or any passers-by with stones, apples, potatoes, &c., move the furniture, make a terrific noise, and play all sorts of tricks upon the inmates. Sometimes a sleeper awakes to find himself on the ground with his bed smashed, or a servant discovers a knife under her pillow which she never put there, yet no one ever sees the malicious apparitions. Two gendarmes were posted in the house one night to unravel the mystery, but they got nothing for their pains but a smart box on the ear, delivered by some invisible hand.
(Curiously this is exactly a year later)
The Graphic, 26th December 1891.