He was rewarded by three crashing sounds, and by other peculiar
phenomena. All these, unlike the scribe, he regarded as sent 'for
my particular conviction and comfort'.

These instances prove that, from the Australian blacks in the Bush,
who hear raps when the spirits come, to ancient Egypt, and thence to
Greece, and last, in our own time, and in a London suburb, similar
experiences, real or imaginary, are explained by the same
hypothesis. No 'survival' can be more odd and striking, none more
illustrative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain
elements. To examine these psychological curiosities may, or may
not, be 'useful,' but, at lowest, the study may rank as a branch of
Mythology, or of Folklore.

It is in the spirit of these sciences, themselves parts of a general
historical inquiry into the past and present of our race, that we
would glance at the anecdotes, legends, and superstitions which are
here collected. The writer has been chiefly interested in the
question of the Evidence, its nature and motives, rather than in the
question of Fact. It is desirable to know why independent
witnesses, practically everywhere and always, tell the same tales.
To examine the origin of these tales is not more 'superstitious'
than to examine the origin of the religious and heroic mythologies
of the world. It is, of course, easy to give both mythology, and
'the science of spectres,' the go by. But antiquaries will be
inquiring, and these pursuits are more than mere 'antiquarian old
womanries'. We follow the stream of fable, as we track a burn to
its head, and it leads us into shy, and strange scenes of human
life, haunted by very fearful wild-fowl, and rarely visited save by
the credulous. There may be entertainment here, and, to the student
of his species, there may be instruction.

On every side we find, as we try to show, in all ages, climates,
races, and stages of civilisation, consentient testimony to a set of
extraordinary phenomena. Equally diffused we find fraudulent
imitations of these occurrences, and, on one side, a credulity which
has accepted everything, on the other hand, a scepticism which
denies and laughs at all the reports. But it is a question whether
human folly would, everywhere and always, suffer from the same
delusions, undergo the same hallucinations, and elaborate the same
frauds. The problem is one which, in other matter, always haunts
the student of man's development: he is accu