(Knackersnowle = now Crownhill)
The Knackersnowle Ghost.
A ghost there is at Knackersknowle, / Which frightens nearly every soul, / Who, in that very village, / Live by labour, toil, and tillage.
It has seldom fallen to our let to notice a “ghost story” which has gained greater ground in the belief of the deluded peasantry than the one we are about to record. A little girl, about 12 years of age, the victim of a designing woman, it would seem, slept apart from her parents, and hearing, upon various occasions, frightful noises, as if proceeding from under the bed on which she lay, suffered so much agitation and alarm, that her mental faculties have become impaired, and she refuses both meat and drink. Hence the tale told by the credulous and vulgar – “The child’s both witch’d and watch’d.”
As usual, the Clergyman has been called, with the parish constable, to “lay the ghost,” which proves (by her own confession) to be a woman, whose diabolical spirit could frighten an innocent child for the sake of punishing its parents. She is about to be brought up for examination before Ralph Franco, Esq., when we hope she will meet with a punishment commensurate with her deserts. – From a Correspondent of the Plymouth Journal.
Morning Herald (London), 2nd February 1831.