The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-05-07
Fatal OmenS.

Not a few old families pride them
selves upon inheriting certain omen
whereby they are warned of deaths aE
preach. Some are warned by meteor
ght, some by melancholy strains of mu
sic floating from the mansion to die AVA
in the woods A mysterious knocking
never heard at any other time, tells tn
lords Of hampton that one of their race i
bound for the silent land. A stamping
by unseen feet on the palace floor predi
Gates Il death in the family of the duca
house OF Modena. A sturgeon forcing
It's way up the Trent toward Clifton Hall
Is a sign that the Cliftons of Nottingham
shire viii have to put or mourning
For some days before the death of the
h~ir Of the Breretons, the trunk of tree
Is 10 he seen floating on the lake near the
+ family mansion. Two giant owls perch
upon the battlements of Wardour Castle
wuen an ArundePs last hour has come.
II "a Devonshire Oxenham is about to die,
white-breasted bird futters over the
doomed ones bed. A local ballad relate:
hpw on the burial eve of Margaret,
beiress of the brave and generous Sir
James Oxenham, silver breasted bird
Il ~ over the wedding guests just as Sir
+ J Janus rose to acknowledge their congratu-
iatious The next day the bride tell dead
at the altar, stabbed by a discarded lover.
Howell saw a tom bstone In a stone-cutter'
shop in Fleet street, in 1882, inscribed
With the names of sundry persons, who
hereby attested the fact that John Oxen
IA II, Mary, his sister, james, his son,
and Elizabeth, his mother, had each and
al died with ii te-breasted bird hutteT-
ing above their beds. A family of Loeb
Ranzs, Arran, know when one of their
kin is about to die, by an invisible piper
playing a lament on the hillside. When
death purposes visiting a Mclean, of
Lochbury, the unwelcome caller is her
aided by the spirit of battle-slain ances-
Tor ringing the bells on his fairy bride,
as he gallops twice round the old home
stead. As a rule, death announcing
phautoms are of the feminine gender.
No Lady Holland expects to shu fife off
this mortal coil until she has seen a
sAadowv counterfeit presentment Of her
If. Tie Middletons, of Yorkshire, as
becomes an ancient Catholic house, have
a Benedictine nun to apprise them of
reduction in the number Of Middletons-
A weeping, moaning, earthy-sprite warns
the StanleYs Of the death of distinguish
Ell member of the family A hairy-armed
.irI called May Moullach, brings the like
sd news to the Grants, of Grant; the
BJdach-am-d otherwise the ghost Of
the hill, performers the office for the
Grants Rothiemurcus, and most old High
land families boast their own familiar ban
since, whose wailng, screaming and weep
ine, tells them the head of the house
must make room for his heir. Lady
Faushaw, visiting the head Of AN Irish
sept in his moated barOnial grange, was
made aware that banshees are not pecu-
liar to Scotland. Awakened at midnight
by an awful unearthly scream, she beheld,
by the light Of the moon, a female form
q. the window Of her room, which was too
tar from the ground for any woman Of
mortal mould to reach. The creature
owned a pretty, pale face, and red, dis
hevelied hair, and was clad in the garb
Of old-very old Ireland. After exhibit
TING herself for some time the interesting
$ pectre shrieked twice and vanished.
When Lady Fanshaw told her host what
she had seen he was not at all surprised
"A near relation" said he, ''d'ed last
ni.ht in this castle We kept our expec-
t.stiou of the even: from you lest it should
throw a cloud over the cheerful reception
ahich was your due. Now before such
ma event happens in the family and castle,
,ne female spectre YOU saw always be-
comes visible She Is believed to be the
sDIrItoi woman ofinferIor rank, whom one
NV ancestors married, and whom he af-
.erward caused to be drowned in the mOat
-o sxpiafp the dishonor done to our race" /
IF all banshees originated in the same way,
the less the proprietors of such things
Drag Of the matter, the better.