er until they became its neighbors, began
almost immediately afterwards to acquire a bad name. Frightful shrieks
were heard to proceed thence at night. Blue, red, and green lights were
seen to glimmer from its casements, and then suddenly disappear. The
clanking of chains succeeded, together with the howlings of persons as
in great pain. Then a ghastly spectre, in pea-green, with long, white
beard and serpent's tail, appeared at the principal windows, shaking his
fist at the passers-by. This went on for months.

The King, to whom all these wonders were duly reported, deplored the
scandal, and sent commissioners to look into the affair. To these the
six monks of Chantilly, indignant that the Devil should play such pranks
before their very faces, suggested, that, if they could but have the
palace as a residence, they would undertake speedily to cure it of all
ghostly intrusion. A deed, with the royal sign-manual, conveyed Vauvert
to the monks of St Bruno. It bears the date of 1259. From that time all
disturbances ceased,--the green ghost, according to the creed of the
pious, being laid to rest forever under the waters of the Red Sea.[B]

Some will surmise that the story of the castle of Putkammer is but a
modified version of that of the palace of Vauvert. It may be so. One who
was not on the spot, to witness the phenomena and personally to verify
all the details, cannot rationally deny the possibility of such an
hypothesis. Yet I find little parallel between the cases, and
difficulties, apparently insuperable, in the way of accepting such a
solution of the mystery.

The French palace was deserted, and nothing was easier than to play off
there, unchallenged, such commonplace tricks as the showing of colored
lights, the clanking of chains, shrieks, groans, and a howling spectre
with beard and tail,--all in accordance with the prejudices of that
age; nor do we read that any one was bold enough to penetrate, during
the night, into the scene of the disturbance; nor had the King's
commissioners any personal motive to urge a thorough research; nor had a
pious sovereign, the owner of a dozen palaces, any strong inducement to
refuse the cession of one of these, already untenanted and useless, to
certain holy men, the objects of his veneration.

Very different, in every respect, is the affair of the Pomeranian
castle. It is a narrative of the skeptical nineteenth century, that sets
down all ghost-stories as nursery-tales. The ow