"Ghosts do not go about their business like other people."
-- p. 205
In J. Sheridan LeFanu's 1866 novel Guy Deverell, a dinner-table discussion about the haunted room at a country manor leads to a tale about a haunted store-room, in which there were strange noises and dishes inexplicably broken. "Delightful!" another guest cries. "That's what Mrs. Crowe, in that charming book, you know, 'The Night Side of Nature,' calls, I forget the name; but it's a German word, I think--the noisy ghost it means. Racket--something, isn't it?...I do so devour ghosts."
Of course, the word she's looking for is "poltergeist." I find it delightful that the character can't remember the word, and counts on the reader to be familiar with Mrs. Catherine Crowe's "charming book" and supply the noun. This book, first published in 1848 is credited, even in the OED, as introducing the word to the English-speaking world, in a chapter titled "The Poltergeist of the Germans, and Possession."
The book combines stories of strange phenomenon, grouped into loose categories such as "Wraiths" and "Doppelgangers," with philosophical speculation on the unknown realms of the universe in a tone that could be called Fortean, although Charles Fort wouldn't be born until 1874. Crowe's basic perspective is that "the pharisaical scepticism which denies without investigation, is quite as perilous, and much more contemptible, than the blind credulity which accepts all that is taught without inquiry." (16) She also points out that "superstition" is "a title of opprobrium which it is very convenient to attach to whatever we do not believe ourselves." (19)
The stories are taken from diverse sources: from previously published collections, from newspaper accounts, from the lives of the saints and historical material, including works by people like Plato, and many from folks such as "Miss D, of G" and "Mr S C, a gentleman of fortune." Many of their stories involve thinking they see someone who turns out to be far away, in another country, and usually on their deathbed at the time at the siting. Others involve visits from spirits "dying with something on (their) minds(s)," (p. 156) who come back to settle trivial debts.
Mrs. Crowe's narrative on these matters is matter-of-fact, insisting on neither dismissive nor supernatural explanations. And some of her digressions are well worth quoting, such as:
"I have heard it objected that we cannot suppose God would permit the dead to return merely to frighten the living...But God permits men of all degrees of wickedness, and of every kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harass and disturb the earth." (p. 162)
And, on the traditional depictions of hell and heaven: "The picture, on the one side, is too revolting and inconsistent with our ideas of divine goodness...while, with regard to the other, our feelings somewhat resemble those of a little girl I once knew, who, being told by her mother what was to be the reward of goodness if she were so happy as to reach heaven, put her finger in her eye and began to cry, exclaiming, 'Oh, mamma, how tired I shall be of singing!' " (p. 173)
This book is available from Wordsworth Editions in association with The Folklore Society, in their "Myth, Legend, and Folklore" series.