Border Ghost Stories

Certain places, said Stevenson, cry out for a story, and Scott, in any new surroundings, straightway invented an appropriate tale, if there were not already a story or tradition in existence. One might even believe that the place itself tells its own tale to the sympathetic imagination. Thus Mr. Bligh Bond in his book, The Gate of Remembrance, implies that the whisperings of the genius loci enabled him to make his astonishing discovery of the lost Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey....
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Certain places, said Stevenson, cry out for a story, and Scott, in any new surroundings, straightway invented an appropriate tale, if there were not already a story or tradition in existence. One might even believe that the place itself tells its own tale to the sympathetic imagination. Thus Mr. Bligh Bond in his book, The Gate of Remembrance, implies that the whisperings of the genius loci enabled him to make his astonishing discovery of the lost Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey. 'Multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris, Et varias audit voces, fruiturque Deorum Colloquio, atque imis Acheronta affatur Avernis.' The scene of the following ghost stories usually becomes manifest in the text, but it might be mentioned that 'Castle Ichabod' stands for Seaton Delaval, that the 'Lord Warden's Tomb' is a reminiscence of Kirkby Stephen, and that 'The Cry of the Peacock' is a suggestion from the Vale of Mallerstang.