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163 pages

English

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Scottish Renaissance man Andrew Lang made important contributions in a staggering array of academic and creative disciplines. In addition to publishing many works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, he also was instrumental in the formation of the field of study now known as anthropology and was an important collector of folk tales in Europe and the UK. This volume of collected tales and scholarly analysis offers fascinating insight into the role that dreams and supernatural elements play in folklore and myth.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 août 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775418467
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0164€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS
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ANDREW LANG

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The Book of Dreams and Ghosts From an 1899 edition ISBN 978-1-775418-46-7 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface to the New Impression Preface to the First Edition Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII - More Ghosts with a Purpose Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X - Modern Hauntings Chapter XI Chapter XII - The Story of Glam the Foul Fords Chapter XIII - The Marvels at Froda Chapter XIV Endnotes
Preface to the New Impression
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Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerablenumber of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign andColonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds.Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular seriesof such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to thegazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, TheMaking of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on thescene of the story called "The Foul Fords" (p. 269), so that tale islikely to endure in tradition.
July, 1899.
Preface to the First Edition
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The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertainpeople interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For thesake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in differentgrades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniablystartling. At the same time an account of the current theories ofApparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities aspossible. According to modern opinion every "ghost" is a"hallucination," a false perception, the perception of something whichis not present.
It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological andphysiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every"hallucination" is a perception, "as good and true a sensation as ifthere were a real object there. The object happens not to be there,that is all." [1] We are not here concerned with the visions ofinsanity, delirium, drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with"sporadic cases of hallucination, visiting people only once in alifetime, which seems to be by far the most frequent type". "These,"says Mr. James, "are on any theory hard to understand in detail. Theyare often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them arereported as veridical , that is, as coinciding with real events, suchas accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additionalcomplication of the phenomenon." [2] A ghost, if seen, is undeniablyso far a "hallucination" that it gives the impression of the presenceof a real person, in flesh, blood, and usually clothes. No suchperson in flesh, blood, and clothes, is actually there. So far, atleast, every ghost is a hallucination, " that " in the language ofCaptain Cuttle, "you may lay to," without offending science, religion,or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine ofghosts.
The old doctrine of "ghosts" regarded them as actual "spirits" of theliving or the dead, freed from the flesh or from the grave. Thisview, whatever else may be said for it, represents the simplephilosophy of the savage, which may be correct or erroneous. Aboutthe time of the Reformation, writers, especially Protestant writers,preferred to look on apparitions as the work of deceitful devils, whomasqueraded in the aspect of the dead or living, or made up phantasmsout of "compressed air". The common-sense of the eighteenth centurydismissed all apparitions as "dreams" or hoaxes, or illusions causedby real objects misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts,maniacs at large, sleep-walkers, thieves, and so forth. Modernscience, when it admits the possibility of occasional hallucinationsin the sane and healthy, also admits, of course, the existence ofapparitions. These, for our purposes, are hallucinatory appearancesoccurring in the experience of people healthy and sane. Thedifficulty begins when we ask whether these appearances ever have anyprovoking mental cause outside the minds of the people who experiencethem—any cause arising in the minds of others, alive or dead. Thisis a question which orthodox psychology does not approach, standingaside from any evidence which may be produced.
This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely anillustrative collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest tosome readers the desirableness of further inquiry; the authorcertainly does not hope to do more, if as much.
It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come fromremote times, and, as the testimony for these cannot be rigidlystudied, that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogoustales current on better authority in our own day. But these ancientlegends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first,because of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of themare now perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussionof their historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem toshow how the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with suchfacts as are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) theIcelandic ghost stories have peculiar literary merit as simpledramatic narratives. (2) Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, SirGeorge Villiers's spectre, Lord Lyttelton's ghost, the Beresfordghost, Mr. Williams's dream of Mr. Perceval's murder, and so forth.But the original sources have not, as a rule, been examined in theordinary spirit of calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparisonof the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghoststories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact ofhallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, "humandocuments". Now, granting such facts (of imposture, hallucination, orwhat you will), as our dull, modern narratives contain, we can regardthese facts, or things like these, as the nuclei which our lesscritical ancestors elaborated into their extraordinary romances. Inthis way the belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such,from madness and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in thephenomena of alternating personalities in certain patients. Theircharacters, ideas, habits, and even voices change, and the mostobvious solution of the problem, in the past, was to suppose that anew alien personality—a "devil"—had entered into the sufferer.
Again, the phenomena occurring in "haunted houses" (whether caused, ornot, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnifiedinto such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into themonstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucinationof a dead person's appearance in his house demanded an explanation.This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit,escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose.The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich inghost stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, adwindling of the myth-making faculty.
Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature,must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand.This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense ofthe years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who hadexperience of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. Inthis healthy state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kepttheir experience to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested thatthey "were sure it was only a dream". Next, to tell the story was,often, to enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domesticcircumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as amatter of "principle," or of "religious principle," though it isdifficult to see where either principle or religion is concerned, ifthe witness is telling what he believes to be true. Next, somedevotees of science aver that these studies may bring back faith by aside wind, and, with faith, the fires of Smithfield and the torturingof witches. These opponents are what Professor Huxley called"dreadful consequences argufiers," when similar reasons were urgedagainst the doctrine of evolution. Their position is strongest whenthey maintain that these topics have a tendency to befog theintellect. A desire to prove the existence of "new forces" may begetindifference to logic and to the laws of evidence. This is true, andwe have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific. Butall studies have their temptations. Many a historian, to prove theguilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, andcommon honesty far from him. Yet this is no reason for abandoning thestudy of history.
There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomespopular, every inquirer knows what customs he ought to find amongsavages, so, of course, he finds them. In the same way, people maynow know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and maypretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture. The whitesheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic renderingof the ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget wantonfabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, and these areamong the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into thingsghostly. He must adopt the stoical maxim: "Be sober and do notbelieve"—in a hurry.
If there be truth in even one ca