Troubles at Szegedin.
In the third volume of Magikon, pp. 210 and 236, we have the detailed particulars of the haunting of a large old house at Szegedin, in Hungary. Dr. Von Stantzky, who attended the family, drew up the account, which was sent by another gentleman, also attesting its truthfulness from his own knowledge, to Kerner.
The occurrences took place in 1836. This house was taken by Captain Lauber, who came a stranger to the place. Himself, his wife, two daughters and the servants made up the family. The gentleman who furnished the story to Kerner, says that he informed Captain Lauber, that various people had been compelled to leave it, from mysterious disturbances. The captain scouted the idea of such nonsense, but very soon he was obliged to confess to this gentleman that he and the family were continually disturbed in the night by noises as of people sawing wood in the court, or flinging down loads of wood; by figures as of a woman in white, and a Franciscan monk, not more than four feet in height, and wearing a moustache, which though strange to them, it appears that monks formerly did wear in Hungary and other places.
These ghosts pulled the clothes from their beds, sate down on the beds as they slept, and awoke them, seized their hands, and pressed them vehemently, &c. That globular lights came out of the walls, wandered about and went in again, with many other phenomena; but the part of the hauntings which conerns us were these.
Different members of the family, at six o’clock of the evening of the 3rd of July, in different rooms, complained of coarse sand being flung at them, and mortar dropping on them from the ceiling, and of heavy stones being thrown through the window although the shutters were closed, and one fell as it seemed on a chair, yet nothing of the kind could be found when carefully sought for.
‘Throwing of Stones and other Substances by Spirits.‘ Part 2. By William Howitt. In ‘The Spiritual Magazine’ Vol. 6, No. 2, February 1865.