An officer in the king's service at Windsor Castle, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a boy, was taken much notice of by Sir George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's father. The officer, after he had reached manhood, was lying in bed one night, awake and in good health, when he perceived a venerable form draw near his bed. The apparition (for so it turned out to be) asked him if he knew who he was. The frightened gentleman told the apparition that the figure of the deceased Sir George Villiers stood before him. The apparition replied that he was right, and that he (the gentleman) must go and acquaint Sir George's son, that unless he ingratiated himself into the good opinion of the people, he would soon be cut off. Next morning the gentleman began to think his senses had deceived him, and therefore he did not deliver the message. Next night the apparition appeared in a terrible aspect, and told him that, unless he complied with his commands, he could not expect peace of mind. A promise to obey was promptly made. Again the gentleman tried to persuade himself that he had been dreaming, and a second time broke his word. A third night the spectre appeared, reproaching him with breach of promise, and, after again requesting him to deliver the message to the duke, uttered threats of fearful punishment in case of non-compliance. Delay seemed dangerous, so the gentleman hastened to London, where the Court then was, and entrusted Sir Ralph Freeman, who was married to a lady nearly allied to the duke, with the message. Sir Ralph communicated with the duke, who, however, could not receive the messenger, but sent him word that next day he was going to hunt with the king, and that he would meet him at Lambeth Bridge at five o'clock in the morning, where, if the gentleman attended, he would speak to him. Sir Ralph, being satisfied of the importance of having the message correctly delivered, accompanied the gentleman to the appointed place of meeting. The messenger and the duke spoke privately for nearly an hour. Neither Sir Ralph nor his servants could hear what was said, but they observed that several times the duke laboured under great emotion. The duke rode off to meet the king, and the gentleman and Sir Ralph returned together. The man told Sir Ralph that when he mentioned certain facts to the duke, he swore that he could not have come to the knowledge of them except through the devil, for the particulars he disclosed, as a token of him being sent by his deceased father, were profound secrets. The duke returned from the hunting-field before the morning was past, and retired with his mother to her private apartments for two or three hours. On coming out his countenance was troubled. He received other warnings, which were disregarded. The result may be anticipated. His Grace was stabbed on the 23d August 1628 by John Felton, a discontented lieutenant, at Portsmouth. When the news of the duke's murder was brought to his mother, she received it with grief, but without surprise. She had long foreseen what would happen. "Apparitions," she said, "did not lie."

Lord Lyttelton, in the winter of 1778, left the metropolis with a party of loose and dissipated companions to profane the Christmas by riotous debaucheries, at his country house, near Epsom. They had not long abandoned themselves to their desperate orgies, before a sudden gloom came over the party by their host becoming extraordinarily depressed in spirits and dejected of countenance. All his vivacity departed, and he fled from his guests. Urged to make known the cause of his uneasiness, he revealed the secret. He told them, that the previous night, after retiring to bed, and his light extinguished, he heard a noise resembling the fluttering of a bird at his window. Looking to the window, he saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he had betrayed, and who in consequence had committed suicide, standing in the window recess. The form approached the foot of his bed, and, pointing her finger to a dial which stood on the mantel-piece, announced that if he did not take warning and repent, his life and sins would be concluded at the same hour of the third day after the visitation. By a preternatural light in the chamber he observed distinctly everything around him. While the warning spirit was speaking, he saw the time was twelve o'clock. Darkness came, and the apparition disappeared. Lord Lyttelton's companions laughed at his superstitious fears, and endeavoured to convince him that he must have mistaken a dream for a real spiritual visitation. He felt somewhat relieved by what they said, but was not altogether convinced or reassured. The fatal night approached, and, with the connivance of Lord Lyttelton's attendants, the guests put all the clocks in the house an hour and a half too fast. They kept his lordship as lively as possible, but when ten o'clock struck he was silent and depressed; eleven struck, the depression deepened; twelve struck: "Thank God; I am safe!" exclaimed the nobleman: "the ghost was a liar, after all!—some wine—what a fool I was to be cast down by such a circumstance! But," continued he, "it is time for bed; we shall be up early, and out with the hounds to-morrow. By my faith, it is half-past twelve; so good night." He went to his chamber, ignorant that the ominous hour was not yet past. His guests, notwithstanding their avowed unbelief, remained together in fearful dread. They heard the valet descending from his master's room; it was just twelve o'clock. Lord Lyttelton's bell rang violently; the company ran to his apartment, and found the unhappy nobleman lying in bed lifeless, with his countenance terribly convulsed.

Shortly before the death of an old Roman king, several prodigies of an alarming nature appeared. When he first became sick there arose a violent tempest of wind, which blew down the cross from one of the churches. After this followed a terrible earthquake, which shook the whole city. Moreover an old eagle, a domestic of the royal palace, that had lived there many years, took wing the day before the king's sickness began, and flew away no one knew whither; then the bells of the imperial chapel rang thrice of their own accord in the space of twelve hours. Strange apparitions were seen at midnight, some of them hovering in the air, and others of them lurking about the palace court. In particular, a funeral procession, consisting of unearthly beings, was observed one night going along the principal thoroughfare from the palace to the place of sepulchre, where the royal remains were soon afterwards laid.

From the Eddas we learn that when these singular works were written or compiled, a belief must have prevailed of the existence of ghosts, spirits, and demons in various forms. We therefore propose giving a few examples of ghost stories from the Eddas:—After the death of Helge (a Scandinavian warrior), a maid witnessed, in the evening, his ghost, with a numerous train, riding into the cairn where Helge's remains were deposited. The brave damsel inquired whether it was an illusion she saw, to which the ghost replied that it was not. When the maid told Sigrum, Helge's widow, what she had seen, the faithful mourning wife hastened to the cairn, and, on searching it, sure enough there was the shade of her dead husband. It addressed her thus: "Thou, Sigrum, art the cause of Helge lying here, slain by the dew of sorrow. Thou weepest burning tears, maid of the sun-glowing south; but we will drink the precious mead together, though we have lost gladness and lands. Now are the brides closed in the cairns, and the princely maidens laid beside us." Sigrum made a couch in the cairn, and invited the spirit to rest there from all trouble, saying, "Son of the Ylfinga, I will sleep in thy arms as formerly, when my hero lived." To this the ghost replied, "No longer will I say thou art unfaithful, since thou consentest to sleep in the embrace of the dead. And yet thou livest, offspring of kings. Let the pale steed tramp the steeps of the air. In the west must we be, by the bridge Vindhjalen, ere the cock in Walhalla wakes the sons of victory."

Far back in the history of time, the ghost of a lady that died in Iceland, whose deathbed commands were disregarded, returned to punish the living for disregarding her injunctions. The lady's corpse was conveyed to a distant place of sepulchre. As the interment could not take place the first day, the bearers, with their dead burden, reposed in a house over night. At midnight an apparition of the lady glided through the kitchen, and, on the night when the conductors of the funeral returned home, a spectral appearance, resembling a half moon, moved round the mansion in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and continued its revolution until the domestics retired to rest. This apparition appeared every night for a week, and was pronounced by certain wise sages as a presage of pestilence and death. A herdsman at the mansion was, shortly after the lady's death, persecuted by demons, and one morning he was found dead in bed. One Thorer, who himself had predicted that the apparitions were come to give warning of approaching calamities, was the next victim. One evening he was set upon by the shepherd's ghost, and so fearfully beaten that he died in consequence thereof. Evils continued to multiply: Thorer and the herdman's ghost associated themselves together in persecuting the inhabitants, several of whom fell victims to their rage. At times unseen agents upset tables and chairs, flung kitchen utensils about in all directions, and on other occasions a demon in the shape of a seal rose from the earth, to the dismay of a whole household. Thorodd, the master of the family, in crossing a river in a boat, was, along with two of his servants, drowned. Apparitions of the drowned men walked about Thorodd's old residence, but the appearances did not much disturb the people, who were Christians, as they believed that the spectres of such persons as had been favourably received by the goddess Rana were accustomed to show themselves after death. So fast did the demons increase in number that they became a great band of thirty, the exact number of people supposed to have had a period put to their existence by demons. Many fled from the neighbourhood, fearing that, if they remained, they would ere long be dead men, and their spirits infernal demons. Possibly their fears would have been realized, had not a pious priest exorcised the evil spirits. By a plentiful application of holy water and celebration of a solemn mass, they were frightened away, to return no more.