Los Angeles daily herald. [volume] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1873-1876, 1874-06-07
Omens from the Other World.

A mysterious knocking, never heard
at any other time, tells the Lords of
hampton that one Of their race is
hound for the silent land. A stamping
nv unseen feet on the palace floor pre-
diets a death in the family of the ducal
house of Modena. A sturgeon forcing
its way up the Trent toward Clifton
Hall is a sign that the Cliftons OF
Notwithstanding will have to put on
mourning. For some days before the
death of the heir Of the Breretons the
trunk of a tree is to be seen floating
on the lake near the family manson.
Two giant owls perch upon the bat
Elements of Wardour Castle when an
ArundePs last hour has come. II a
Devonshire Oxenham is about to die,
a white-breasted bird futters over the
doomed ones head. A local ballad
relates how, on the burial eve OF Mar.
garet, heiress of the brave and gener-
Gus Sir James Oxenham, silver
breasted bird flew over the wedding
guests Just as Sir James rose to ac-
knowledge their congratulations. The
next day the bride fell dead at the
altar, stabbed by discarded lover.
Howell saw q tombstone in a stone
cutters shop in Fleet street, in 1867,
inscribed with the names OF sundry
persons, who thereby attested the fact
that John Oxenham, Mary his sister,
James his son, and Elizabeth his
mother, had each and all died with a
white-breasted bird fluttering above
their beds. A family of Loeb RAMA
Arran know when one Of their kin is
about to die, by an invisible piper
playing a lament on the hillside.
When death proposes visiting Mac
lean of Tochbury, the unwelcome
caller is heralded by the spirit of a
battle-slain ancestor ringing the bells
on his fairy bride, as he gallops twice
round the old homestead. AS rule,
death-announcing phantoms are OF the
feminine gender. No Lady Holland
expects to shuttle off this mortal coil
until she has seen shadOwy counter
felt presentment of herself. The Mid
dletons of Yorkshire, as becomes an
ancient Catholic house, have a Bene-
dictine nun to apprise them OF re-
duction in the number of Middletons.
A weeping, mourning, earthly sprlte
warns the Stanleys of the death of
DISTINGUISHED member of the family.
A hairy-armed girl, called Mary Moul-
ZACH, brings the like sad news to the
Grants of Grant. The Bodach-am-
dun, otherwise the ghost of the hill,
performs the office for the Grants OF
Rothiemurcus, and most old Highland
families boast their own familiar ban
shee, whose wailing, screaming, and
weeping tells them the head of the
house must make room for his heir.
Lady Fanshaw, visiting the head of
an Irish sept in his moated baronial
grange, was made aware that ban
shoes were not peculiar to Scotland.
Awakened at midnight by an awful,
unearthly scream, she beheld by the
light of the moon a female form at the
window of her room, which was too
far from the ground for any woman of
mortal mould to reach. The creature
had pretty, pale face, and red, dis
hevelled hair, and was clad in the
garb of old-very old-Ireland. After
exhibiting herself some time, the in
teresting spectre shrieked twice and
vanished. When Lady Fanshaw told
her host what she had seen he was
not at all surprised. "a near rela-
tion,u said he, "died last night in
this castle. We kept our expectation
of the event from you lest it should
throw cloud over the cheerful recep-
ton which was your due. Now, be-
fore such an event happens in the
family and castle, the female spectre
you saw always becomes visible. She
is believed to be the spectre of a
woman of inferior rank, whom one of
my ancestors married, and whom he
afterwards caused to be drowned in
the moat, to expiate the dishonor
done to our race."-A U the Year
Round.