GHOSTWATCH
ALAN MURDIE asks whether poltergeists ever return to their old haunts – even centuries later...
All over Britain there are small villages and hamlets where, as judged by formal historical scales and standards, very little has happened. On a spring or summer evening when the air is still you can almost sense the peace that permeates these small communities that were first mentioned in the Domesday Book. Dagworth in Suffolk remains one such place, remaining the type of quiet, rural settlement that poet Thomas Gray contemplated in 1750 in his famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard.
Their historical records are a long roll of births, marriages and deaths, together with manorial, agricultural and ecclesiastical returns attached to the seasonal cycles and providing the short and simple annals of the poor over many generations. So it is with Dagworth, its small size and agricultural character securing it few mentions in written histories of the county of Suffolk, little having interrupted its quiet and peaceful rhythms over the centuries.
Basically, very little has happened at Dagworth in major historical terms for a very long time. In fact, it could be said that the most sensational event in its history occurred as long ago as the reign of Richard II, when a ghostly being invaded the Manor House, then the home of Sir Osberni de Bradewelle of ‘Daghewurthe’, as the area was recorded.
According to the monastic writer Ralph of Coggeshall, the compiler of the Chronicon Anglicanum (see FT377:40-45), a certain ‘fantastical spirit’ manifested in the house and conversed with the family, imitating the voice of a one-year-old child. The spirit called itself ‘Malekin’ and said that his mother and brother dwelt in a neighbouring house, and that they often chided her because she left them.
The things Malekin did and said were wonderful, could be very funny and even embarrassing. Initially, the family were extremely terrified, but by degrees they became used to his words and silly actions, and conversed familiarly with him. The entity sometimes spoke English, in the dialect of the region, and sometimes in Latin, discussing Scripture with the chaplain of the knight. Malekin often asked for food and drink, which, when placed on a certain chest, immediately disappeared. The entity claimed to have been a human child abducted from a field by fairy beings.
As Ralph of Coggeshall is considered by historians to have died around 1227, this account would have been collected by
Harry Price suggested the Dagworth story might be an account of a poltergeist
him within living memory and it has been taken as an example of a folk belief in fairy changelings and the existence of small and invisible entities. In his Poltergeist Over England (1945), Harry Price suggested the Dagworth story might be an account of a poltergeist.
I found myself thinking further over these issues when enjoying a recent study of county folklore, Suffolk Fairylore (2018), by historian Dr Francis Young. This book was launched last October, appropriately enough in the mid-Suffolk village of Woolpit, famous for its long-debated story of the Green Children (an enduring and even more astonishing legend also related by Ralph of Coggeshall; see FT57:39, 41; 222:54-55).
As a book, Suffolk Fairylore may be appreciated on a number of levels. If you enjoy reading about the Suffolk countryside and lots of fairies, this is definitely a book for you. But, more pertinently, it provides a wide
ranging and scholarly study, encompassing a great many diverse stories, anecdotes and experiences from around Suffolk, the most thorough yet to emerge. Much of this material is fragmentary, but combined together it proves Suffolk possesses the greatest concentration of fairy and elvish folklore amongst all the eastern counties (at least identified so far). Evidence of belief appears in early witchcraft trials, folk stories and curious anecdotal sightings. Whence this lore springs and what it represents are questions for study and deeper discussion, but with reference to the Dagworth story Dr Young remarks: “…the spirit in Ralph’s account resembles the much later idea of the poltergeist… who is not seen but plays tricks on the household and sometimes communicates with them.”
It should be remembered Dr Young writes primarily as a historian and folklorist, but examining the details more closely from the perspective of psychical research, one sees that this is correct. One may detect in the account given by Ralph of Coggeshall of the manifestations reported of Malekin certain characteristics familiar as hallmarks of poltergeist activity. These were obvious to Price and will be to any informed modern researcher. For example, we have references to a ‘certain maiden’ (an adolescent focus?), ‘silly actions’ (a
typical description of poltergeist antics) the disappearance of objects (commonplace), and reports of the presumed haunting presence being heard and physically felt but never seen (except on one occasion). All are well documented in poltergeist studies. With respect to the voice, could this even have been an example of the rare Enfield-variety of speaking poltergeist? (For another historic example see the ‘Devil of Mascon’, France in 1612 in Poltergeists: A History of Violent Phenomena (2011) by PG Maxwell-Stewart).
Historically, poltergeists have variously been interpreted as spirits, witchcraft or fairies and goblins. Concerning the latter, similarities were drawn by parapsychologist Dr George Owen in an article ‘Brownie, Incubus and Poltergeist’ ( International Journal of Parapsychology, autumn 1964, pp.455-472), where he suggested that the folklore of domestic spirits and elvish beings were pre-scientific accounts of poltergeist activity attributable to the unconscious mind. Taking this view was his wife, Dr Iris Owen, who in 1972 launched the famous ‘Philip Experiment’ in 1972 in Canada, where members of the New Horizons group in Toronto succeeded in creating raps and table levitations in conditions emulating a light-hearted Victorian séance. They attributed their success to the collective conceit of inventing a ghost they called Philip whom they pretended was present at their sittings. ‘Philip’ was given a fictional pseudo-historical biography, derived entirely from their imagination. They found that by invoking ‘Philip’, psychokinetic manifestations would follow. Engaging in the fiction of ascribing phenomena to an external entity, they seemed to release their own unconscious psychokinetic powers. (See Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis (1976) by Iris Owen and Margaret Sparrow; also FT61:41-42, 166:37, 212:59, 227:16, 302:69, 305:73, 351:18).
In 1972 Dr Ian Stevenson, renowned for his studies of past life memories, proposed the case for there being two varieties of poltergeist. Relatively simple and noncomplex disturbances he attributed to the unconscious mind. Those involving complex effects (such as the targeted movement of objects and apparent communications) might imply a discarnate presence external to living humans. (See ‘Poltergeists Are They Living or Are They Dead’ in the Journal of the American SPR 1972 vol.66, pp.233252). The two distinct patterns postulated by Stevenson (if not the causes) were confirmed by Gauld’s statistical analysis of 500 historic cases some seven years later (see Poltergeists (1979) by Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell). This covered a wealth of historic cases which, when analysed in terms of recurrent features, showed a division between short-lived person-centred disturbances and place-centred outbreaks. Gauld’s research indicated that occupants of a property might change, but the poltergeist effects would later be repeated in the property. Whether the intelligence behind them was once-human or nonhuman (e.g. elementals or demonic) was not capable of determination.
The studies by Stevenson and Gauld raise wider questions. Firstly, can poltergeists repeatedly strike over much longer periods, and, if so, what is the origin of the forces doing the striking? These were questions not explored at the time, the dominant theoretical model amongst the minority of parapsychologists who took poltergeists seriously being that of ‘Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis’ (RSPK) based on the assumption that stressed living individuals were producing the phenomena from their unconscious minds and because disturbances were generally short-lived. If the stress was dealt with, the poltergeist usually disappeared. One of the few challengers to this viewpoint during the mid1970s was Guy Lyon Playfair, influenced by his own study and experience of poltergeists in Brazil, where interpretations were shaped by the writings of spiritist Allan Kardec. In other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, less influenced by spiritism, instances of poltergeists were ascribed to traditional elvish beings, known as ‘duendes’. Later, Colin Wilson adopted such a view after looking into the infamous ‘Black Monk of Pontefract’ case (see Alan Murdie, “When the Lights Went Out”, FT293:28-37) about which a great deal more has been learned recently.
I remember encountering these familiar elements in Suffolk with one of the first poltergeist cases I ever heard about direct from a first-hand source. This was the late Mick Brooks, a Suffolk fireman and work colleague of my father. Mick told me that when growing up as a teenager he had experienced poltergeist phenomena in his family home that affected his brother and sisters.
In 1971 the Brooks family lived in a council house in Great Cornard, near Sudbury in Suffolk. Without warning, poltergeist manifestations began, chiefly noises and object movements. There was also a cold spot and sounds like footsteps. Mick recalled their family dog, a border collie called Mitch, growling at a point at the top of the stairs; and the youngest member of the household, Mick’s youngest sister, aged three, seemed to see a person standing in the same spot, a presence which she referred to as “my friend”. Mick Brooks told me: “It sounded like a child much of the time… like someone doing gymnastics or acrobatics”.
The most traumatic incident involved his oldest sister, who was 15 at the time. A set of shelves were removed noiselessly
from the wall and crashed down behind her, while she was looking out of the front windows waiting for her boyfriend to call. She suffered severe shock, which affected both her relationship and her health.
Calling in a canon of the Church of England to hold a prayer ceremony brought respite for the Brooks family for three months. Disturbances and noises then resumed. A second ceremony and blessing by the canon cured the problem, the last manifestation being three knocks at the front door. Mick told me they went to answer the door. “No one was outside. No one was in the square.” That was taken as a signal that the entity was departing and the family was troubled no more.
At the time I discussed this with
Mick Brooks, I realised that as well as a poltergeist, it sounded partly like a haunting, though I did not see how this fitted the ‘unconscious mind’ theory. But with the case over and with the rest of the family having moved away, there was no real opportunity to explore it further. However, Mick was surprised to learn that over 12 years later, in 1983, phenomena were reported at the same house, with a young mother complaining of a strange atmosphere and shadowy forms appearing – so it seemed possible that the phenomena might have come back. Mick never varied in his story over the years but sadly, though originally a fit man and a black belt in judo, he later suffered serious health issues and died unexpectedly in 2000 at the early age of 48.
Concerning the issue of poltergeists returning, I was most interested to receive a letter in spring 2000 from the late Major Patrick de Vere Patey, the former owner of Dagworth Hall, concerning some ghost experiences within his family. Also included in passing in his letter was a mention of a haunting at Dagworth Hall prior to him moving there in the 1960s. This account was second-hand but it is nonetheless remarkable because of its context.
Major de Patey wrote: “One other curious event in Dagworth was that in the ‘Sixties a school inspector moved into the old part of the former Dagworth Hall only to leave pretty sharply due to what must have been the action of a Poltergeist behaving in the traditional manner. Mrs Whitted, who rented that part of the house after him, never had any trouble. Something to do with children, either his own or an association with others?” I asked Major de Patey for further details, but he wrote (22 April 2000): “I never met the School Inspector only knowing that he left in some haste.”
The present Dagworth Hall dates from the 15th century, but incorporates traces of a much earlier manor house, dating back to Domesday in 1086, erected on the same site. William Coppinger’s work The Manors of Suffolk (1910, vol 6) records that at the time of the Norman Conquest the land had been held by one Breme who had been killed at the Battle of Hastings. It then passed to Walter de Aggerworth or Dagworth and his wife Aveline and then to his son Robert in the reign of King John.
That such a small hamlet might have two poltergeist-like incidents occurring at precisely the same location, even so many centuries apart, is an intriguing detail. With the old manor long-gone and the newer Tudor building standing on its site, the two accounts only hint (but no more) at the possibility of poltergeists striking at the same place, irrespective of the passing of time (an eight-century gap would surely be a record).
Even more remarkable is the element of child-like apparitions materialising briefly in poltergeist outbreaks, a rare but persistent feature stretching into the late 20th century (for example the Hannath Hall Poltergeist over 1957-59 – see Poltergeists (1979) by Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell).
Another well-attested case was the Cardiff poltergeist case of 1990 investigated by Tony Cornell and Professor David Fontana. (see D Fontana (1991), ‘A responsive poltergeist: a case from South Wales’, JSPR 5 7, pp.385-402). This erupted in a mechanical engineering repair business and included the throwing of stones, coins or bolts, all impacting on the walls or floor and occasionally hitting someone harmlessly, and keys disappearing. Planks of wood were thrown violently into the workshop, originating apparently in the yard outside, and loud knocks were heard. A paint scraper that went missing suddenly re-appeared, hot to the touch “as if it had been heated for
some minutes with a blowlamp”. Although there were no voices, a couple who worked at the firm were plagued with telephone calls day and night (including on one occasion every few minutes throughout an entire afternoon) but the line was dead on answering. British Telecom engineers checked, but could find no faults.
Seen on three occasions was the partially formed and diminutive apparition of a small boy, dressed in what appeared to be a school uniform and cap, but with “no face under the cap, and no outline of hands or bare knees”, sitting on a shelf near the ceiling. Psychical researcher John Randall made a bold attempt to advance a far-fetched theory that this apparition was a living school boy prankster, possibly from an ethnic minority or with his face blackened (although his idea of what school boys looked like in the late 1980s seemed to be extracted from a Just William story rather than the facts). Enquiries indicated there were no schools in the vicinity that included caps as part of their uniform and no faceless and handless schoolboys were identified locally. More pertinently, the retail shop lacked any suitable hiding place even for the smallest of 12-year-old boys. It was left to Dr Serena Roney-Dougal in her book linking psi phenomena and traditional spiritualities and beliefs to point out that the form fitted the folkloric idea of elvish or goblin infestation, such beliefs also being prevalent in Germany. ( The Faery Faith (1991) by Serena Roney-Dougal).
In my view it will take a lot to shift the perspective that poltergeists predominantly originate from the unconscious minds of the living. Much stronger evidence would be needed to displace such a view, but equally it must be acknowledged that an unconscious origin theory is inadequate in a minority of cases or sufficient to cover many observations accumulated over the years.
As a final note, what makes this particular story potentially even more interesting is Dr Young’s own contact with some more recent occupants of Dagworth Hall when researching his book. Speaking at a meeting of the Ghost Club on 15 January 2019, Dr Young remarked he had been struck by the owner’s adult son recalling how his own young son, in early childhood, had often called out ‘Play again! Play again!’ a phrase that Malekin had supposedly uttered centuries before…
If it really is the case that poltergeists can strike twice at the same place over such an interval, then there may need to be some fundamental re-assessment of this most enduring of enigmas.