A love of the marvellous is a common characteristic of country village
folks, and I have already referred to such beliefs in the supernatural
among my men. We had our own "white lady" on the highroad where it
turns off to Aldington, though I never met anyone who had seen her;
there were, too, signs and wonders before approaching deaths, and a
thrilling story of a headless calf in the neighbourhood.
An old house at Badsey, once a _hospitium_ or sanatorium for sick
monks from Evesham Abbey in pre-Reformation days, was reported to be
haunted, and people told tales of "the old fellows rattling about
again" of a night. Probably these beliefs had been encouraged in
former times by the monks themselves, to prevent the villagers prying
too closely into their occupations; and no doubt the scattered
individuals of the same body originated the popular theory that the
Abbey lands of which they were dispossessed would never, owing to a
curse, pass by inheritance in the direct line from father to eldest
son--an event that in the course of nature often fails, though by no
means invariably.
In recent years a startling story has been told, and even appeared in
a local paper, of a ghostly adventure near the Aldington turning. A
young lady (not a native), riding her bicycle to Evesham from Badsey,
passed, machine and all, right through an apparition which suddenly
crossed her path, without any resulting fall.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107