A Suicidal Welsh Ghost? April 15, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized , trackback
Over the years Beach has offered several Welsh ghost stories: remember the ghostly rabbits, or the jumping Welsh ghosts. Welsh ghost stories as, indeed, with almost all things Welsh are just better.
A strange ghost story comes from the Principality. There is a friendly society at Pontardowe, in the Swansea Valley, among whose rules is one that the funeral allowance on account of a deceased member shall not be paid in cases of suicide. One of the members recently died by his own hand, and the club accordingly refused to pay the death money. For this reasonable and just refusal the members are now complaining that they tire subjected to serious persecution from an unseen and, presumably, a ghostly agent. The manifestations begun on a recent Sunday, when one of the officers, returning home over a lonely road, was assailed, as he asserts, by the spirit of the late member, who, failing to obtain a satisfactory reply to his demand for the money, in a an unspiritlike manner assailed the unfortunate man, and actually ‘tore his clothes to ribbons.’’ Such, at least, was the account he gave, in tones of horror, at the first public-house he came to after this terrific encounter. But the ghost does not appear to have been satisfied with this demonstration. On the following Tuesday evening, whilst the members were assembled in the lodge-room, the usual knocks were heard at the door as of a brother seeking admittance. The door was opened, but no one was to be seen. The members, however, are all very certain that they heard the voice of the deceased utter the words, ‘Pay my widow my funeral money and then I shall be at rest.’ The meeting precipitately broke up, and the members are now puzzled to know what to do with such a determined deceased brother.
