Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/87

Rh no one knew how; and after her death she often came to the spring, and was seen walking in all parts of the farm. One place where she was often seen was the footpath leading from the farm to Stow Wood. Mrs. Drewitt (widow of the late Joseph Drewitt, of Barton, Headington) says that a man called Green (of Horton, now dead), had her company several times as far as the last field on the footpath belonging to the farm, and then she disappeared. James Bannister, of Beckley, says that Green, when going late one night from Barton to Horton through the farm, found he had Nanny's company, and that being beery he tried to kiss her, but she vanished. Joseph Drewitt remembered some of his mates going to steal apples from the orchard at the farm. When they got there the orchard gate opened of its own accord, and the apple-tree shook so violently that nearly all the apples fell off the tree. They got some of these and ran off, the gate slamming loudly as it shut.

James Bannister says that one of the labourers on the farm was very fond of russet apples. One night he climbed a tree in the orchard to get a few, when there was Nanny Martin sitting in the tree by him! He fell out of the tree and ran away. James Morris says that his father was a carter at the Wick Farm, and that often when he returned with his horses in the twilight the yard gate would open of its own accord, and he would hear the noise as of the rustling of a silk dress brush past him. An old man, called William Girl, living in Headington, says that he and a mate were coming from Stow Wood to Barton one night, and were near the brook that runs by the farm, when he said to his mate, "We shall see old Nanny to-night." Almost as soon as he had spoken, she appeared. The ghost was that of a tall woman dressed in silk, for they heard the rustling of the dress. As they got near to it, it vanished through a hedge with a deafening noise. Girl was ill for some time afterwards. The ghost is said to be laid in a pond near the farm called "Nanny Martin's Pond."—(June, 1894.)

Samuel Jeffries, of Enstone, was an eye-witness of many of the following events:—Thomas Hall, blacksmith, and Ann his wife, lived at Little Tew about fifty years ago. While there, they were troubled with supernatural visits. No ghosts were seen, but noises of different kinds were heard. Sometimes they would be sitting at meals, when there would be a sound as of a cock crow-