Observations placeholder
The ghost who was disturbed about a debt of twenty-eight shillings which had not been paid
Identifier
023492
Type of Spiritual Experience
Inter composer communication
Hallucination
Background
A description of the experience
Andrew Lang's Cock Lane and Common Sense (Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., 1894):
David Hunter, "neat-herd at the house of the Bishop of Down and Connor, at Portmore, in 1663" was haunted by the ghost of an elderly woman who was disturbed about a debt of twenty-eight shillings which had not been paid.
Mr. Hunter did not even know the ghost when she was alive; but she made herself so much at home in his dwelling that "his little dog would follow her as well as his master." The ghost, however, was invisible to Mrs. Hunter.
When Hunter had at last executed her commission she asked him to lift her up in his arms. She 'felt just like a bag of feathers; so she vanished and he heard most delicate music as she went off over his head." Sceptics attributed the phenomena to potheen, but how could potheen tell Hunter about the ghost's debt and reveal that the money to discharge it was hidden under her hearthstone?