“Ghost” juggles with fire-irons
Sleepless nights for Fenny Compton cottagers
From a Gazette correspondent, Leamington, Monday.
The Fenny Compton “ghost” has assumed a new role of activity. Not content with its ramblings on the hills, the apparition now walks the village, much to the chagrin of two cottagers, who have been kept awake for several nights by jingling fire-irons, moving fenders, and creaking chairs.
In addition, the mysterious light, about which so much has been heard, has been seen to flash pas tthe windows of the cottage at the dead of night.
Some time ago a lady, who stored some furniture at this cottage, died at Rugby. No sooner had tidings of her death been received than these strange happenings began to take place. Rumour has it that some discussion had taken place in regard to the division of the furniture among the relatives, and that the ghost was a visitation to be expected under such circumstances.
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 26th February 1924.
Village of Ghosts
Mystery of a light that dances
Crockery juggling spectre
Fenny Compton, the Warwickshire “Village of Visions,” which boasts that it has more ghosts than any other place, has been visited during Easter by record crowds of ghost hunters, says a “Daily Express” correspondent.
The principal attraction is the dancing light of the Burton Dassett hills that shelter the village on the west. This ghostly light is now in full activity, darting with eerie swiftness from crest to crest and hollow to hollow all over the wide expanse of the hills. Each night of the holidays hundreds of ghost hunters were out seeking the dancing light, and scores report having seen it. It appeared to some close at hand, a dull, yellow sphere, rather like a small Chinese lantern. Others saw it as a bright pin-point of light moving with an undulating motion, and with great rapidity across the slopes of the hills.
The dancing light was first noticed three years ago, and has been more popular with ghost hunters year by year. There are three theories of its origin. One is that it is due to marsh gas generated in the lowlands about Fenny Compton and percolating through rock fissures to the hillls. Another is that it is a phosphorescent owl. The third is that it is due to wireless waves from the Birmingham broadcasting station striking sparks from the ironstone of which the hills are formed.
Before Fenny Compton discovered the dancign light it had no ghosts, but recently ghosts have appeared in every dark lane and in every barn that looks deserted. Families have their own private ghosts. There are thirteen reputed spectres. They include ghosts that walk, ghosts that cry aloud, ghosts that clank and moan, and one that is said to juggle with crockery.
Nuneaton Chronicle, 24th April 1925.