There are similar stories current in the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, and practically all over Europe, and not only Europe, but in many of the states and departments of the New World.  This being so, I think there must be a substantial substratum of truth underlying the beliefs, phantastic as they may appear, and yet, are no more phantastic than many of the stories we are asked to give absolute credence to in the Bible.

In Old Castile the spirit of a Moorish leader who won many victories over the Spaniards, and was drowned by reason of his heavy armour in a swamp of the River Duero, still haunts his burial-place, a piece of marshy ground, near Burgos.  There, weird noises, such as the winding of a huntsman’s horn and the neighing of a horse, are heard, and the phantasm of the dead Moor is seen mounted on a white horse followed by twelve huge, black hounds.

In Sweden many of the peasants say, when a noise like that of a coach and horses is heard rumbling past in the dead of night, “It is the White Rider,” whilst in Norway they say of the same sounds, “It is the hunt of the Devil and his four horses.”  In Saxony the rider is believed to be Barbarossa, the celebrated hero of olden days.  Near Fontainebleau, Hugh Capet is stated to ride a gigantic sable horse to the palace, where he hunted before the assassination of Henry IV; and in the Landes the rider is thought to be Judas Iscariot.  In other parts of France the wild huntsman is known as Harlequin or Henequin, and in some parts of Brittany he is “Herod in pursuit of the Holy Innocents.” (Alas, that no such Herod visits London!  How welcome would he be, were he only to flout a few of the brawling brats who, allowed to go anywhere they please, make an inferno of every road they choose to play in.)

Here my notes on horses end; and although the evidence I have offered may have failed to convince many, I myself am fully satisfied that these noble and indispensable animals do not terminate their existence in this world, but pass on to another, and, let us all sincerely hope, far happier, plane.

CHAPTER IV

BULLS, COWS, PIGS, ETC.

From the Hebrides there comes to me a case of the phantasm of a black bull, that, on certain nights in the year, is heard bellowing inside the shed where it was killed.

There are many accounts of ghostly cows heard “mooing” in the moors and bog-lands of Scotland and Ireland respectively, and not a few cases of whole herds of phantom cattle seen, gliding along, one behind the other, with silent, noiseless tread.  Though I have never had the opportunity of experimenting with cows to see if they are sensitive to the superphysical, I see no reason why they should not be, and I feel quite certain they will participate in “the future life.”

Apropos of pigs, Mr. Dyer, in his Ghost World, says, “Another form of spectre animal is the kirk-grim, which is believed to haunt many churches.  Sometimes it is a pig, sometimes a horse, the haunting spectre being the spirit of an animal buried alive in the churchyard for the purpose of scaring away the sacrilegious.”