Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/348

326 had been seen, but she believed always by strangers, not by members of the family.

I believe that there is firm faith in ghosts, and their power of revisiting the earth, throughout the entire county of Durham; and it is thought that a Romish priest is the proper person to lay them. The great season for their appearance is St. Thomas’s eve and day, and they haunt the earth till Christmas eve, when the approaching festival, of course, puts them to flight. We of the North believe firmly in the benign influences of Christmas-tide as described by Shakespeare:—

It was on one of the unlucky days (between St. Thomas’s and Christmas eve), which happened also to be a Friday, that one of the waits disappeared at the foot of Elvet Bridge, Durham, not to be seen again; since which event the waits have never played in that city on Friday nights. On St. Thomas’s eve and day, too, have carriers and waggoners been most alarmed by the ghost of the murdered woman, who was wont to haunt the path or lane between the Cradle Well and Neville’s Cross. With her child dangling at her side, she used to join parties coming in or going out of Durham in carriers’ carts or waggons, would enter the vehicles, and there seat herself; but would always disappear when they reached the limits of her hopeless pilgrimage.

Night after night, too, when it is sufficiently dark, the Headless Coach whirls along the rough approach to Langley Hall, near Durham, drawn by black and fiery steeds. We hear of this apparition, too, in Northumberland. “When the death-hearse, drawn by headless horses, and driven by a headless driver, is seen about midnight, proceeding rapidly, but without noise, towards the churchyard, the death of some considerable person