e.

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 ph