last autumn that two gentlemen were going to a fair, as I heard, and leading a very fine horse behind the trap.  The night being fine and moonlight, they stopped at the iron gate there to light their pipes, when a gentleman dressed in old style, with buckskin leggings, walked through the iron gate, though closed, and patted the led horse on the neck.  They both agreed that he was most like to gentlemen of the St. Leger family whom they had known.  The Radiant Boy also appears here, and for years in the early part of last century no one would pass there after nightfall.  The Lord Doneraile, who is believed by the peasantry to stand under Lord Doneraile’s Oak, it has been told me positively, was third Viscount.

“There is an old man called Reardon here now who saw a gentleman riding a powerful black horse along Lord Doneraile’s route in the middle of the day, and his sister who was with him failed to see the horseman, though her brother had to pull her out of his way.

“I went up to Saffron Hill last winter to see the ostrich-like ghost which is there, and I heard a great sweep as of hounds and horses going past me.  Paddy Shea, late herd to Lord Doneraile, also would swear he saw the phantom Lord Doneraile pursuing the chase often.  I have heard that James Mullaine also saw him in Wilkinson’s Lawn, but have not any further proof.

“It is very few people will admit having seen these things.  George Buckley, present keeper of the Doneraile Park, got a great fright one night which might have been from the same cause.”

In this case it seems more than likely the huntsman, horse and hounds were all bona fide phantasms of the dead.

Wild Darrell

Littlecote, as everyone knows, is haunted by the spirits of the notorious “Wild Will Darrell” and the horse he invariably rode, and which eventually broke his neck.

But there are many Wild Darrells; all Europe is overrun by them.  They nightly tear, on their phantom horses, over the German and Norwegian forests and moor-lands that echo and re-echo with their hoarse shouts and the mournful baying of their grisly hounds.

Many travellers in Russia and Germany journeying through the forests at night have caught the sound of wails,—­of moans that, starting from the far distance, have gradually come nearer and nearer.  Then they have heard the winding of a horn, the shouting and cursing of the huntsman, and in a biting cold wind have seen the whole cavalcade sweep by.

According to various authorities on the subject this spectral chase goes by different names.  In Thuringia and elsewhere, it is “Hakelnberg” or “Hackelnbarend,”—­the story being that Hakelnberg, a German knight, who had devoted his whole life to the chase, on his death-bed had told the officiating priest that he cared not a jot for heaven, but only for hunting; the priest losing patience and exclaiming, “Then hunt till Doomsday.”

So, in all weathers, in snow and ice, Hakelnberg, his horse and hounds, are seen careering after imaginary game.