Ahrensburg is the German name for Kuressaare, and Ösel another name for the Estonian island of Saaremaa.
The world of mystery. A series of papers on uncanny subjects. By the Editor.
Series 1 – Apparitions (Continued).
The Ghost Eccentric.
The Ghost Eccentric at least justified his name in the two examples which I have just cited, viz., in the narrative of Dr Glanvil, of the Drummer of Tedworth, and John Wesley’s story of the disturbances at his father’s parsonage. But elsewhere he has figured in an even more mysterious fashion still. Witness the commotion he created in the peaceful cemetery of Ahrensburg, in the Island of Oesel, in the Baltic Sea.
The fifty years which have elapsed since the occurrences about to be narrated have failed to supply a clue to the phenomena which undoubtedly took place, and which fairly nonplussed the intelligence of the Commission of Enquiry which attempted at the time to elucidate the mystery which still hangs around one of the ancient chapels in the cemetery on that sea-washed strand: –
Disturbances in a chapel in the Island of Oesel. 1844.
In the immediate vicinity of Ahrensburg, the only town in the island of Oesel, is the public cemetery. Tastefully laid out and carefully kept, planted with trees and partly surrounded by a grove dotted with evergreens, it is a favourite promenade of the inhabitants. Besides its tombs – in every variety, from the humblest to the most elaborate – it contains several private chapels, each the burying-place of some family of distinction. Underneath each of these is a vault, paved with wood, to which the descent is by a stairway from inside the chapel, and closed by a door. The coffins of the members of the family more recently deceased usually remain for a time in the chapel. They are afterwards transferred to the vaults, and there placed side by side, elevated on iron bars. These coffins it is the custom to make of massive oak, very heavy, and strongly put together.
The public highway passes in front of the cemetery and at a short distance therefrom. Conspicuous, and to be seen by the traveller as he rides by, are three chapels, facing the highway. Of these the most spacious, adorned with pillars in front, is that belonging to the family of Buxhoewden, of patrician decent, and originally from the city of Bremen. It has been their place of interment for several generations.
It was the habit of the country people, coming in on horseback or with carts on a visit to the cemetery, to fasten their horses, usually with very stout halters, immediately in front of this chapel, and close to the pillars that adorned it. This practice continued, notwithstanding that, for some eight or ten years previous to the incidents about to be narrated, there had been from time to time vague rumours of a mysterious kind connected with the chapel in question as being haunted – rumours which, however, as they could not be traced to any reliable source, were little credited, and were treated by its owners with derision.
The chief season of resort to the cemetery by persons from all parts of the island whose relatives lay buried there was on Pentecost Sunday and the succeeding days – these being there observed much in the same manner as in most Catholic countries All Souls’ Day usually is.
On the second day of Pentecost, Monday, the 22nd of June (new style), in the year 1844, the wife of a certain tailor named Dalmann, living in Ahrensburg, had come with a horse and small cart to visit, with her children, the tomb of her mother, situated behind the Buxhoewden family chapel, and had fastened her horse, as usual, in front of it, without unharnessing him, proposing, as soon as she had completed her devotions, to visit a friend in the country.
While kneeling in silent prayer by the grave, she had an indistinct perception, as she afterwards remembered, that she heard some noises in the direction of the chapel; but, absorbed in other thoughts, she paid at the time no attention to it. Her prayers completed, and returning to prosecute her journey, she found her horse – usually a quiet animal – in an inexplicable state of excitement. Covered with sweat and foam, its limbs trembling, it appeared to be in mortal terror. When she led it off, it seemed scarcely able to walk; and, instead of proceeding on her intended excursion, she found herself obliged to return to town and to call a veterinary surgeon. He declared that the horse must have been excessively terrified from some cause or other, bled it, administered a remedy, and the animal recovered.
A day or two afterwards, this woman, coming to the chateau of one of the oldest noble families of Livonia, the Baron de Guldenstubbe, near Ahrensburg, as was her wont, to do needlework for the family, related to the baron the strange incident which had occurred to her. He treated it lightly, imagining that the woman had exaggerated, and that her horse might have been accidentally frightened.
The circumstance would have been soon forgotten had it not been followed by others of a similar character. The following Sunday several persons, who had attached their horses in front of the same chapel, reported that they had found them covered in sweat, trembling, and in the utmost terror; and some among them added thatthey had themselves heard, seeming to proceed from the vaults of the chapel, rumbling sounds which occasionally (but this might have been the effect of imagination) assumed the character of groans.
And this was but the prelude to further disturbances, gradually increasing in frequency. One day in the course of the next month (July) it happened that eleven horses were fastened close to the columns of the chapel. Some persons passing near by, and hearing, as they alleged, loud noises*, as if issuing from beneath the building, raised the alarm, and when the owners reached the spot they found the poor animals in a pitiable condition. Several of them in their frantic efforts to escape had thrown themselves on the ground and lay struggling there; others were scarcely able to walk or stand; and all were violently affected, so that it became necessary immediately to resort to bleeding and other means of relief. In the case of three or four of them these means proved unavailing. They died within a day or two. This was serious. And it was the cause of a formal complaint being made by some of the sufferers to the Consistory – a court holding its sittings at Ahrensburg, and having charge of ecclesiastical affairs.
* Getose was the German word employed by the narrator in speaking to me of these sounds. It is the term often used to designate the rolling of distant thunder. Schiller says, in his “Taucher” – “Und wie mit des fernen Donner’s Getose.”
About the same time a member of the Buxhoewden family died. At his funeral, during the reading in the chapel of the service for the dead, what seemed groans and other strange noises were heard from beneath, to the great terror of some of the assistants, the servants especially. The horses attached to the hearse and to the mourning coaches were sensibly affected, but not so violently as some of the others had been. After the interment three or four of those who had been present, bolder than their neighbours, descended to the vault. While there they heard nothing; but they found to their infinite surprise that, of the numerous coffins which had been deposited there in due order side by side, almost all had been displaced and lay in a confused pile. They sought in vain for any cause that might account for this. The doors were always kept carefully fastened, and the locks showed no signs of having been tampered with. The coffins were replaced in due order.
This incident caused much talk, and of course, attracted additional attention to the chapel and the alleged disturbances. Children were left to watch the horses when any were fastened in its vicinity; but they were usually too much frightened to remain; and some of them even alleged that they had seen some dark-looking spectres hovering in the vicinity. The stories, however, related by them on this latter head were set down – reasonably enough, perhaps – to account for their excited fears. But parents began to scruple about taking their children to the cemetery at all.
The excitement increasing, renewed complaints on the subject reached the Consistory, and an inquiry into the matter was proposed. The owners of the chapel at first objected to this, treating the matter as a trick or a scandal set on foot by their enemies. But though they carefully examined the floor of the vault, to make sure that no one entered from beneath, they could find nothing to confirm their suspicions. And the Baron de Guldenstubbe, who was president of the Consistory, having visited the vaults privately in company with two members of the family, and having found the coffins again in the same disorder, they finally, after restoring the coffins to their places, assented to an official investigation of the affair. The persons charged with this investigation were the Barron de Guldenstubbe, as president, and the bishop of the province, as vice-president, of the Consistory; two other members of the same body; a physician, named Luce; and on the part of the magistracy of the town, the burgomeister, named Schmidt, one of the syndics, and a secretary.
They proceeded, in a body, to institute a careful examination of the vault. All the coffins there deposited, with the exception of three, were found this time, as before, displaced. Of the three coffins forming the exception, one contained the remains of a granmother of the then representative of the family, who had died about five years previous; and the two others were of young children. The grandmother had been, in life, revered almost as a saint, for her great piety and constant deeds of charity and benevolence.
The first suggestion which presented itself, on discovering this state of things, was that robbers might have broken in for the sake of plunder. The vault of an adjoining chapel had been forcibly entered some time before, and the rich velvet and gold fringe which adorned the coffins had been cut off and stolen. But the most careful examination failed to furnish any grounds for such a supposition in the present case. The ornaments of the coffins were found untouched. The commission caused several to be opened, in order to ascertain whether the rings or other articles of jewellery which it was customary to bury with the corpses, and some of which were of considerable value, had been taken. No indication of this kind, however, appeared. One or two of the bodies had mouldered almost to dust, bu the trinkets known to have formed part of the funeral apparel still lay there, at the bottom of the coffins.
It next occured, as a possibility, to the commission, that some enemies of the Buxhoewden family, wealthy, perhaps, and determined to bring upon them annoyance and reproach, might have caused to be excavated a subterranean passage, its entrance at a distance concealed so as to avoid observation, adn the passage itself passing under the foundation of the building and opening into the vault. This might furnish sufficient explanation of the disarray of the coffins and of the noises heard from without.
To determine the point, the procured workmen, who took u pthe pavement of the vault, and carefully examined the foundations of the chapel; but without any result. The most careful scrutiny detected no secret entrance. Nothing remained but to replace everything in due order, taking exact note of the position of the coffins, and to adopt especial precautions for the detection of any future intrusion. This, accordingly, was done. Both doors, the inner and the outer, after being carefully locked, were doubly sealed – first with the official seal of the Consistory, then with that bearing the arms of the city. Fine wood-ashes were strewed all over the wooden pavement of the vault, the stairs leading down to it from the chapel, and the floor of the chapel itself. Finally, guards selected from the garrison of the town, and relieved at short intervals, were set for three days and nights to watch the building and prevent anyone from approaching it.
At the end of that time the commission of inquiry returned to ascertain the result. Both doors were found securely locked and the seals inviolate. They entered. The coating of ashes still presented a smooth, unbroken surface. Neither in the chapel nor on the stairway leading to the vault was there the trace of a footstep of man or animal. The vault was sufficiently lighted from the chapel to make every object distinctly visible. They descended. With beating hearts they gazed on the spectacle before them. Not only was every coffin, with the same three exceptions as before, displaced, and the whole scattered in confusion over the place, but many of them, weighty as they were, had been set on end, so that the head of the corpose was downward. Nor was even this all. The lid of one coffin had been partially forced open, and there projected the shrivelled right arm of the corpse it contained, showing beyond the elbow, the lower arm being turned up toward the ceiling of the vault!
The first shock over, which this astounding sight produced, the commission proceeded carefully to take note in detail of the condition of things as they found them. No trace of human footstep was discovered in the vault, any more than on the stairs or in the chapel. Nor was there detected the slightest indication of any felonious violation. A second search verified the fact that neither the external ornaments of the coffins nor the articles of jewellery with which some of the corpses had been decorated were abstracted. Everything was disarranged; nothing was taken. They approached with some trepidation the coffin from one side of which the arm projected; and with a shudder, they recognised it as that in which had been placed the remains of a member of the Buxhoewden family who had committed suicide. The matter had been hushed up at the time, through the influence of the family, and the self-destroyer had been buried with the usual ceremonies; but the fact transpired, and was known all over the island, that he was found with his throat cut, and the bloody razor still grasped in his right hand – the same hand that was now thrust forth to view from under the coffin lid – a ghastly memorial, it seemed, of the rash deed which had ushered the unhappy man uncalled into another world!
An official report, setting forth the state of the vault and of the chapel at the time when the commission set seals upon the doors, verifying the fact that the seals were afterwards found unbroken and the coating of ashes intact, and, finally, detailing the condition of things as they appeared when the commission revisited the chapel at the end of the three days, was made out by the Baron de Guldenstubbe, as president, and signed by himself, the bishop, the burgomeister, the physician, and the other members of the commission, as witnesses. This document, placed on record with the other proceedings of the Consistory, is to be found among its archives, and may be examined by any travellers respectably recommended on application to its secretary.
Never having visited the island of Oesel, I had no opportunity of personally inspecting this paper. But the facts above narrated were detailed to me by Mademoiselle de Guldenstubbe (at Paris, on the 8th of May, 1859), daughter of the baron, who was residing in her father’s house at the time, and was cognizant of each minute particular. They were confirmed to me also, on the same occasion, by her brother, the present baron. This lady informed me that the circumstances produced so great an excitement in the whole island that there could not have been found, among its 50,000 inhabitants, a cottage inmate to whom they were not familiar. She added that the effect upon the physician, M. Luce, a witness of these marvels, was such as to produce a radical change in his creed. An able man, distinguished in his profession, familiar, too, with the sciences of botany, mineralogy, and geology, and the author of several works of repute on these subjects, he had imbibed the materialistic doctrines that were prevalent, especially among scientific men, throughout continental Europe, in his college days; and these he retained until the hour when, in the Buxhoewden vault, he became convinced that there are ultra-mundane as well as earthly powers, and that this is not our final state of existence.
It remains to be stated that, as the disturbances continued for several months after this investigation, the family, in order to get rid of the annoyance, resolved to try the effect of burying the coffins. This they did, covering them up, to a considerable depth, with earth. The expedient succeeded. From that time forth no noises were heard to proceed from the chapel; horses could be fastened with impunity before it; and the inhabitants, recovering from their alarm, frequented with their children, as usual, their favourite resort. Nothing remained but the memory of the past occurrences – to fade away as the present generation dies out, and perhaps to be regarded by the next as an idle legend of the incredible.
Halifax Comet, 10th March 1894.