GHOSTWATCH
ALAN MURDIE concludes his examination of Roman ghosts, and wonders where they all are...
As mentioned in the previous column [ FT364:18-20], in 2013 researcher Tony Percy raised with me various critical doubts concerning Harry Martindale’s celebrated sighting of ghostly Roman soldiers beneath the Treasurer’s House in York. It transpired these evidential doubts were shared by some other researchers who had failed to trace pre-1974 versions and records of the haunting. We also discussed the possibility that Martindale’s experience in 1953 was inspired or influenced by images from cinema.
Independently, Jeremy Harte raised the same issue from a folklore perspective. Recorded hauntings attributed to ghostly Romans post-date the wide dissemination of pictorial images in books and popular culture from the 19th century. Thus, until ideas of what Roman soldiers should look like were fixed, such apparitions were not observed; a ‘figure in armour’ might have been the best description.
This absence of historic apparitions was noted by a member of a late 19th century Oxford ghost-hunting group to which Sir Charles Oman belonged. He recalled in 1946: “I never came across an apparition of a woadpainted Briton, of a Roman centurion, or of a mediæval knight, or of an Elizabethan or Jacobean courtier or lady.” (‘The Old Oxford Phasmatological Society’ in Journal of the
SPR vol 33 1946, 213). This raises the question, were they even seen at all?
From the early 20th century, images of Romans became familiar from depictions in cinema, the years 1951-1954 (before and immediately after Martindale’s experience) being vintage ones for Hollywood treatments of Ancient Rome. Films included Quo Vardis (1951) Androcles and the Lion (1952), Julius
Caesar (1953), The Robe (1953), Demetrius and The Gladiators (1954) and Sign of the Pagan (1954), with such imagery re-enforced by film posters and advertising. So could Harry Martindale’s experience have been inspired or influenced by exposure to this?
It is important to realise the distinctions that may be drawn between inspiration and influence in this context. If inspired by cinematic images, Martindale’s Romans were hallucinatory from start to finish, having no existence outside his own brain. Such a view underpins psychosocial hypotheses in ufology, which postulate that cultural images generate hallucinations and misperceptions. The a priori tenets of this view are: (1) people see whatever they are culturally conditioned to perceive; (2) society imprints the imagery necessary in their brains; and (3) people are prompted into inventing fictional reports for perverse reasons of their own.
But if influenced by imagery, the possibility exists that Harry Martindale’s vision, while hallucinatory, was one triggered by paranormal cognition, drawing upon images and symbols in culture but also generated by some external factor. Such was a theory of apparitions explored by researchers GNM Tyrrell in Apparitions (1942) and Hilary Evans in Seeing Ghosts (2000). Tyrrell speculated that a psychic signal of some kind was received by way of telepathy or clairvoyance, which a component of the unconscious mind then arranges as a complex visual hallucination. Tyrrell and other researchers linked dream imagery with ghosts (see Andrew MacKenzie in Ghosts and
Apparitions, 1982) and with other types of entity experience; this might be the same mental mechanism responsible for organising dreams. Thus, culturally derived images of Romans might play a part in creating experiences, but with some underlying paranormal cause. While Tyrrell recognised his hypothesis best fitted the crisis-type ghost attributed to telepathy, he was open to wider possibilities whereby popular tradition and symbols might supply material from collectively held ‘idea patterns’ obtained from multiple telepathic sources. In this way the wider community provides a mental image bank upon which psi powers draw (Tyrrell, 1942).
If this seems rather like having your hypothetical cakes and eating them, indeed it is. Psychosocial theories remain nebulous, their appeal owing much to convenience rather than actual evidence. The same may be said for the trenchant concept of memes that has drifted from biological theory, an extension of neo-Darwinism, into cultural studies, and washes up in discussions on oral tradition. (See ‘A MemeBased Approach to Oral Traditional Theory’ by Michael Drout, Oral Tradition 21.2, 2006, pp269-294.) Cultural memes are conceived as ideas replicating themselves somehow being copied from one human mind to another and spreading onwards. Whilst I am all for inter-disciplinary studies, importing biological theories to explain social and cultural phenomena is a controversial and vexed area (see, for example intelligence testing in The Mismeasure of Man, 1981, by Stephen Jay Gould; ‘Taking the Dawkins Challenge, or, The Dark Side of the Meme’ by Gregory Schremp, Journal of Folklore
Research vol.46, no.1, Jan-April 2009). While attractive as a metaphorical conceit or description, no one can actually identify the organic unit or processes involved in
transmission, or just how cultural ideas transform into seemingly real visual perceptions.
Alternatively, of course, one may freely postulate a personal symbolic element in Martindale’s sighting. Could his vision have reflected an unconscious desire to be a policeman? In his later police career, he served as a member of a disciplined, uniformed and helmeted force patrolling the streets of York (and doubtless having to control more than his fair share of contemporary drunken barbarians) rather like the legions of 15 centuries previously – after all, did not American author Joseph Wambaugh use the title The New Centurions for his 1971 police novel? Such a vision might represent a symbolic unconscious fantasy or vision, or might have psychically linked him to the marching Romans of ancient times. There is no means of knowing.
Given the state of current theories about apparitions, believing we have answers on dualist or materialist lines is premature. There is no such thing as a simple hallucination, since we do not yet understand how consciousness works and creates ordinary perceptions, let alone seeing ghosts. We lack any model of how such hallucinations occur, just as we do not understand what orchestrates the contents of minds into the nocturnal pageants and pantomimes forming dreams. Simply labelling a manifestation does not explain it, and psychosocial explanations fail to account for some people seeing apparitions, but not others in the same culture.
As I have previously argued, despite the proliferation of traditional headless ghost stories in Britain, actual witnesses to decapitated spectres are scarce. Millions of cinema-goers and TV viewers have seen the glory that was Rome but no corresponding flood of Roman ghost sightings has followed. Furthermore, the phantom legionaries described by Martindale differed from cinematic depictions in 1953. Consequently, to discover how such things can be seen it is necessary to find out more about how our brains process images, and gather more examples of those who have witnessed, or believe they have witnessed, Roman apparitions.
Unfortunately, at this juncture we have to ask, “Where are the Roman ghosts?” for there are very few published first-hand accounts to purely spontaneous sightings like that by Martindale. By requiring a sighting to be spontaneous (i.e. unlooked for) I am excluding mediums claiming to channel Roman spirits, planchette communications and figures in the guise of Romans who are recognised as someone else. Thus, I omit such oddities as a Roman Centurion ‘in the Tenth Legion’ who purportedly communicated at a séance at Borley Rectory in 1938 ( The End of Borley
Rectory, 1945, by Harry Price) the wholly remarkable visions of a local medium concerning Roman and other spectres at Great Livermere, Suffolk ( Friends, Romans
and Ghosts, 2004, by Beryl Dyson) and the Jewish lady who saw her deceased uncle dressed up as a Roman Senator after retiring to bed and turning out the lights (‘On the paucity of apparitions in Jewish contexts and the cultural source theory for anomalous experience’ by Christopher M Moreman, Journal of the SPR, 2013, vol.77, p129).
Local ghost experts confirm this lack of named witnesses. Concerning a segment of the Icknield Way in Hertfordshire, Damien O’Dell, author of Paranormal Hertfordshire (2009), reports an absence of identifiable witnesses to phantom legions along the Icknield Way near Miswell (personal comms. 1 and 3 Mar 2018). Regarding the Icknield Way, James McHarg stated only that “a young couple” sitting in a car along the ancient trackway in 1961 apparently both saw and heard ghostly legionaries. This reference was only in passing, within a discussion of a Scottish phantom battle case, but the manifestation was supposedly repeated a few months later to a party of men and women. (‘A Vision of the Aftermath of the Battle of Nechtanesmere AD 685’ by James McHarg in Journal of the SPR, 1978, vol.49, no.778, citing an article ‘They Tell of Fighting Phantoms’ by M Letheringham,
General Practice, 25, 6 Nov 1970, which I have not seen). At Hadrian’s Wall, Darren Ritson, author of Haunted Northumbria (2009), informs me the only first-hand report he has obtained comes from a visiting medium, and thus not a spontaneous sighting. (Pers. comm., 28 Feb 2018).
Currently, the 14 people who reported a Roman soldier hovering 2ft (60cm) off the ground at Thorncomb Wood at Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, on 13 October 1969 are unidentified, other than they included a group of borstal boys on a work programme ( Ghosts of Dorset, Devon and
Somerset, 1974, by Rodney Legg, Mary Collier and Tom Perrott). Similarly, we have no named witnesses for the lone Roman soldier (possibly a Roundhead) at All Saints Churchyard, Brenchley ( Haunted Kent Today, 1997, by Andrew Green) or for phantom legionaries marching over a roundabout near Clearwell Castle, Forest of Dean ( Weekend Haunts, 1994, by Robin Mead). Plenty of hearsay, but a lack of first-hand testimony.
Even when witnesses to Roman phantoms are named, they may prove to be inventions, e.g. ‘Lord Percival Durand’ at Wroxham Broad, Norfolk, imagined by Charles Sampson for Ghosts of the Broads (1931, 1973). This has not prevented wider diffusion of the story in ghost books or even efforts by sceptics to ‘solve’ them (the Wroxham ghosts were needlessly
The case also involved a strange apparition resembling a giant turtle seen in the grounds
‘explained’ as hallucinations induced by marsh-gas. ( Unsolved Mysteries: A
Collection of Weird Problems, 1974, Valentine Dyall, Larry Forrester and Peter Robinson).
Certain aspects of accounts of a haunting at a property near Roman remains south of Cambridge detailed by Tony Cornell in his book Investigating the
Paranormal (2002) are more evidential, but much of the significant material relies upon statements from a Japanese medium. The case also involved a strange apparition resembling a giant turtle seen in the grounds by workmen. Cornell concluded it might have been a vision of a detachment of Roman legionaries throwing up a protective mantle of shields around themselves.
Uncanny reputations at various sites that pre-date archæological finds of Roman cemeteries e.g. ‘Heaven’s Walls’ Litlington, Cambridgeshire ( Folklore as a Historical Science, 1908, by GL Gomme); Icklingham, Suffolk ( The Icklingham Papers, 1901, by
Henry Prigg) and Reculver, Kent ( Reader’s Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of
Britain, 1973) may confirm only previous discoveries or persistent folk memory. For example, a ‘Roman Centurion’ who appears in woodland at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, is a garbled local memory of the lost church of ‘St Urian’ ( A Natural History of
Ghosts, 2012, by Roger Clarke). Some apparitions labelled ‘Roman’ cannot be conclusively dated as such – e.g. the “man dressed in black and wearing a cloak, who can walk through walls” near the morgue of Royal Hospital in Derby could be from any period in the last 1,600 years, lacking any connection with a nearby Roman road (‘Get in the exorcist! Ghost of dead Roman soldier seen near brand-new hospital’s morgue’, D.Mail, 30 Jan 2009).
Similarly, the dating of purely auditory phenomena attributed to haunting Romans is guesswork: e.g. footsteps at Lympe Castle, Kent, heard ascending steps to the castle but never returning ( Haunted Britain, 1973, by Hippesley Coxe; London
Evening News, 7 Mar 1967), ‘The stomping legionary’ haunting the George & Dragon, Chester ( Ghosts of the North, 1976, by Jack Hallam) or footsteps at Cæsar’s Camp, Alma Lane, Hampshire. Such noises could be from any period (Alan Wood’s Military Ghosts, 2010, alternatively ascribes the Cæsar’s Camp manifestation to a military messenger killed in 1815). The sound of clashing ‘Roman’ weapons heard at Great Albans might stem from another battle in 1461 ( Paranormal Hertfordshire, 2009, by Damien O’ Dell).
Ultimately, only a handful of published examples provide named witnesses. Ghostly legionaries favouring periods of bad weather have long been said to wander Mersea Island in Essex (The Restless Ghosts of Ladye Place and Other
True Hauntings, 1967, by Harry Ludlam). The Revd Sabine Baring-Gould probably embroidered the story of the sounds of phantom legionaries fighting outside his rectory on the Island (again, how would he distinguish them from warriors from any other pre-gunpowder era battle or skirmish?) but author James Wentworth Day stated that Mrs Jane Pullen, longserving landlady of the Peldon Rose Inn, had spoken in the 1920s of encountering Roman ghosts on the causeway ( Essex
Ghosts, 1974). The last sighting appears to have been in 1970 mentioned in a short report, ‘The Strood Centurion Walks Again’ in the Essex County Standard for 13 February that year. Much of this press report is actually devoted to Mrs Pullen’s experiences 50 years earlier, but it mentions how two men recently travelling to West Mersea encountered a strange white mist, the appearance of which made one witness think of “the metal ‘skirt’ of a Roman tunic.” The article identifies them as Mr D Jordan of Mill Road and Mr Bert Mussett of Melrose Road, West Mersea.
One other published example involving a named witness is one that occurred in Norfolk in summer 1980. This was the experience of Griselda Cann of Faversham, who like the witnesses on Mersea Island was driving at night, seeing what appeared to be a column of Roman soldiers in a field by the roadside. I was alerted to her experience through a brief mention of it in the introduction to her book Haunted
Faversham (1995). On contacting her in November 2011. She told me: “I could see perhaps 30 or 40 of them, strung out. I had the impression that was just part of a longer line. They were walking from my right to my left. They could have been hikers, or long-distance walkers, and initially my thought was that they had a long way to go to get somewhere, and anyway what were they doing walking along in the mist when they could be on the lane further up the field, where I was? It took me just a moment to think ‘Romans!’ What made me think that was that I could see the middle part of their legs were bare… they all had a reddish, brownish clothing, and their skin was dark and tanned looking, and some had metal over-clothing of some kind and most had staves and some had bundles on their backs. They looked utterly exhausted.” With considerable pluck Giselda Cann stopped her car and got out to see what was happening. No one was to be seen. (Pers.comm., 28 Nov 2011)
Her sighting occurred in Norfolk, south of Narford, near the Peddar’s Way, close to the site of an old Roman road but, after 30 years, she was unable to pinpoint the exact location. Nonetheless, there are many fascinating features to this sighting including how, as Martindale mentioned with his sighting, the figures looked ‘utterly exhausted’. But I must also record one other very fortean feature of her sighting. In the course of later correspondence with Griselda Cann I learned her married name is Griselda Mussett – the same surname as one of the pair of witnesses to the Roman ghost on Mersea Island in 1970. Of French Huguenot origin, the surname Mussett is long recorded around Mersea Island, but her husband appears to have no ancestors from the area. Whatever may be made of it, the fact that two independent witnesses to ghostly Romans turn out to share the same uncommon surname is a rather striking coincidence, given the extreme rarity of such sightings.