Boggart of Lancashire.[1] The proverbial expression, “To roar like a Barguest,” attests to the hold he has had on the popular mind. His vocation appears to have been that of a presage of death; and, bearing this in mind, Sir Walter Scott’s derivation of his name from the German “bahrgeist,” spirit of the bier, seems the most probable among the many suggested. A friend informs me that Glassensikes, near Darlington, is haunted by a Barguest, which assumes at will the form of a headless man (who disappears in flame), a headless lady, a white cat, rabbit, or dog, or a black dog. There is a Barguest, too, in a most uncannie-looking glen, between Darlington and Houghton, near Throstlenest, and a circumstantial account has been supplied to me of one which haunts or haunted a piece of waste land above a spring called the Oxwells, between Wreghorn and Headingly Hill near Leeds. On the death of any person of local importance in the neighbourhood, the creature would come forth, a large black dog with flaming eyes as big as saucers, followed by all the dogs of the place howling and barking. If any one came in its way the Barguest would strike out with its paw and inflict on man or beast a wound which would never heal. My informant, a Yorkshire gentleman, lately deceased, said he perfectly remembered the terror he experienced when a child at beholding this procession before the death of a certain Squire Wade, of New Grange.
In the county of Westmoreland and some adjacent parts of Yorkshire there was formerly a belief in the existence of a similar being, called the Capelthwaite. He had the power of appearing in the form of any quadruped, but usually chose that of a large black dog. Fifty years ago there was, perhaps still is, in the parish of Beetham, near the town of Milnthorpe, a barn called Capeltbwaite barn, as having been the residence of such a being. He was very well disposed towards the occupants of the barn, who suffered him to haunt it unmolested. For them he performed various kind acts, especially helping them in driving home their sheep. On one occasion he is said, after a hard
- ↑ I am informed by Mr. Dodson that there are several “boggart barns” in the neighbourhood of Preston—in fact, that almost every village contains one.
