Mr. Dyer goes on to say that it was the custom of the old Christian churches to bury a lamb under the altar; and that if anyone entered a church out of service time and happened to see a little lamb spring across the choir and vanish, it was a sure prognostication of the death of some child; and if this apparition was seen by the grave-digger the death would take place immediately.  Mr. Dyer also tells us that the Danish kirk-grim was thought to hide itself in the tower of a church in preference to any other place, and that it was thought to protect the sacred buildings.  According to the same writer, in the streets of Kroskjoberg, a grave sow, or, as it was called, a “gray-sow,” was frequently seen, and it was said to be the apparition of a sow formerly buried alive; its appearance foretelling death or calamity.

Phantasm of a Goat

Mrs. Crowe, in her Night Side of Nature, relates one case of a house near Philadelphia, U.S.A., that was haunted by a variety of phenomena, among others that of a spectre resembling a goat.

“Other extraordinary things happened in the house,” she writes, “which had the reputation of being haunted, although the son had not believed it, and had thereupon not mentioned the report to the father.

“One day the children said they had been running after ’such a queer thing in the cellar; it was like a goat, and not like a goat, but it seemed to be like a shadow.’”

This explanation does not appear to be very satisfactory, but as I have heard of one or two other cases of premises being haunted by what, undoubtedly, were the phantasms of goats, I think it highly probable it was the ghost of a goat in this instance, too.

The Phantom Pigs of the Chiltern Hills

A good many years ago there was a story current of an extraordinary haunting by a herd of pigs.  The chief authority on the subject was a farmer, who was an eye-witness of the phenomena.  I will call him Mr. B.

Mr. B., as a boy, lived in a small house called the Moat Grange, which was situated in a very lonely spot near four cross-roads, connecting four towns.

The house, deriving its name from the fact that a moat surrounded it, stood near the meeting point of the four roads, which was the site of a gibbet, the bodies of the criminals being buried in the moat.

Well, the B——­s had not been living long on the farm, before they were awakened one night by hearing the most dreadful noises, partly human and partly animal, seemingly proceeding from a neighbouring spinney, and on going to a long front window overlooking the cross-roads, they saw a number of spotted creatures like pigs, screaming, fighting and tearing up the soil on the site of the criminals’ cemetery.

The sight was so unexpected and alarming that the B——­s were appalled, and Mr. B. was about to strike a light on the tinder-box, when the most diabolical white face was pressed against the outside of the window-pane and stared in at them.