Charles Montgomery Skinner, Rogue Researcher March 30, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Charles Montgomery Skinner was an early American folklore writer famous for such works as Myths and Legends of Our Own Lands. Skinner though had a promising background, one that gets him into that select catalogue of ‘rogue researchers’. Charles has just been describing a series of poltergeists, including some phantom snowball throwers.
Without presuming to doubt the veracity of tradition in these matters, an incident from the writer’s boyhood in New England [born 1852] may be instanced. The house of an unpopular gentleman was assailed – not in the ostentatious manner just described, yet in a way that gave him a good deal of trouble. Dead cats appeared mysteriously in his neighborhood; weird noises arose under his windows; he tried to pick up letters from his doorstep that became mere chalk-marks at his touch, so that he took up only splinters under his nails. One night, as a seance was about beginning in his yard, he emerged from a clump of bushes, flew in the direction of the disturbance, laid violent hands on the writer’s collar [i.e. Skinner himself], and bumped his nose on a paving-stone. Then the manifestations were discontinued, for several nights, for repairs.
Say it quietly but Charles Montgomery Skinner began life as a New England hoodlum. Any other rogue researchers: drbeachombing At yahoo DOT com
Perhaps we can generalise. Young serial killers torture pets, young folklorists set up paranormal displays for disliked neighbours?
