Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-03-10
Strange Storic, OF the Supernatural in
Uot!cra Life.

The hereditary death summons of the
Orilvies, the beating of the ghostly
.rum. was heard sounding through the
corridors of tirlic Castle, in Forfarshire,
lust before the death the other day of
he ninth Earl of Airlic. 4.h0O miles
away in Colorado No less grave and
intelligent person than the late DR..
Norman Mcleod lends the weight OF
his testimony to the occurrence of this
manifestation some thirty years ago,
/ lust before the death of the late EarfS
father and predecessor i'll the title.
/ Scotland, the land of fell and flood, is
full of such supcrsti!ion5 rs this of the
drumming boyle of the Ogilvics. The
approaching death of q Bruce is an
/ noInced by the specter of woman in
white, which appears to the doomed
scion of that ancient and once royal
house. The late Earl of Elgin, man
of an eminently sound and robust char
acter. undoubtedly believed himself to
have been warned in this way. and was
profoundly affected by the vision. The
same thing is stated of his brother,
Gen. Robert Bruce, who accompanied
the Prince of Wales on his visit to this
country in 1860. Nor are such omens
confined to Scotland. The white woman
of the Hohcnzollerns went shrieking
through the Schloss at Berlin on the
eve of the death of the practical and
unbelieving Frederick the Great, and
for many Il generation past the spirit of
the Stanlcys has been seen and heard
weeping and bemoaning herself be-
fore the death of any person of diStinc-
ton belonging to that family" A like
apparition hauntS the castle of one of
the O'Neills of Ireland-in the shape of
a fair, pale woman, clad in the ancient
Irish dress, and with ruddy golden, dis
heveled hair, the injured ghost of the
daughter of the people of whom the
chief that married her ridded himself by
drowning her in the castle moat. Tho
Benedictine nun of the Middetons, the
twin owls which perch ut midnight on
the bat,lcment of Wardour Castle.
foretelling the death OF Arundel of
Wardour, the white-breasted bird which
flutters about the death-beds of the
Oxcnhams of Dcvonshire; the mystic
sturgeon which forces itself up the cur
rent of the Trent to call one Of the Cliff
tons of Clifton into the unknown world.
and the visionary trunk of an unreal
oak which floats at dawn in the lake of
Breretor Hall when Brercton is about
to dic-theSc are all familiar TO the
lovers of the night side of nature"
That such superstitions can grow in
other soil than that of ancient institu-
tons and the hereditary pride of race
we all know. The tale of the double
reelection seen by Abraham Lincoln i'll
his mirror, and of the ghostly warning
which he took from that phenomenon.
is familiar. But one of the strangeSt
and most inexplicable stories of the SUI
pernatural in mo lcrn life is that of tho
mystery of CLAIMS. CLAIMS Castle.
which stands. like Airlie Castle, in For
farshirc, is one of the statcliest and, at
the same time. one of the weirdeSt and
most imposing homes of the Scottish
nobility. 1t is of such vast extent that
when the first Prctender, james ILL.,"
went there. in l7lj, to join the fifth
Earl of Strathmore, who marched
then to die under the standard of tho
Stuarts at Sheritfmuir, eighty bedrooms
were prepared for the Prince and his
retinue. The castle has been modern
lied. in part to make it superb resi-
dence, but it retains most of its early
feudal features and is full of strange
passage-ways. hidden chambers, stars
that lead one knows not VIII ither. and
antique tapestries alive with grim fan
tastic shapes. For 800 years it has been
the home of the old Scottish race of the
Lyons, created Barons of CLAIMS in
HIS. Earls of Kinghorne in 1906 and
Earls of Strathmore in 1917. What the
mystery OF CLAIMS is no one knows, or
ever has known, save the master of
CLAIMS for the time being and his eldest
son and heir. to whom he is bound to
communicate it when tina: son and heir
attains his majority. The present Earl
of Strathmore and Kinghorne is now in
his fifty-seventh year. Five years ago,
in 1876. his son and heir, Lord CLAIMS,
came of age. Being ther n Lieutenant
in the Life Guards. he promised several
of his companions at q dinner of tho
Guards Club. just before he went down
to keep his birthday ut CLAIMS Castle,
that on his return he would tell them
all about the famous mystery" He
went, and when he returned tho first
of his friends who met and claimed the
fuliilment of his hasty promise was so
received that the matter was never
mooted again. London Standard.