10. Eglinton's Observation
Archibald William Montgomerie, more commonly known as the 13th Earl of Eglinton and 1st Earl of Winton (1812–1861), is said to have been well-known and liked by his fellow countrymen. He's most remembered for his attempt to revive jousting tournaments as a public spectacle in 1839. Unfortunately, heavy rains chased off the crowd of 10,000 people. When the event was reconvened a day later, most of the crowd didn't return.
Less well-known is a tale that, on October 4, 1861, Lord Eglinton was playing a round of golf on the links of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, when he suddenly stopped in the middle of the game. He told his companion, "I can play no more. There is the Bodach Glas. I have seen it for the third time; something fearful is going to befall me."
The Bodach Glas—the "dark gray man"—of Scotland was rumored to haunt certain clans. Eglinton died suddenly that very night of internal bleeding, possibly caused by a stroke, as he was handing a candlestick to a lady who was retiring to her room.
9. Death Gives Hugs
In 1924, Mrs. Bliss Coleman and her husband were living out of a rented room in a house in Oakland, California, and she was in the habit of going back to her room each day when she had a 4:00 PM break at work.
One day as Mrs. Coleman was returning at 4:00, she entered the house and saw a woman who was a third-floor tenant talking to the landlady in the hall . . . and there was a 183-centimeter-tall (6′) skeleton standing next to the tenant with a bony arm wrapped around her waist. Neither the third-floor tenant nor the landlady seemed the least bit aware of the third figure in their meeting. Coleman, terrified but knowing she couldn't explain the weird vision, rushed past the two women and took shelter in her room down the hall.
Three weeks later, the third-floor tenant died, leaving her children motherless.
8. Questionable Hospitality
The English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651, upended the lives of Sir Richard Fanshawe and his wife, Ann, the Lady Fanshawe, in 1649, when they found themselves obligated to quickly vacate their residence in Cork, Ireland, before their neighbors tried to hang them. As they made their way to Spain, they stayed in the homes of a number of friends. This is how they found themselves spending a night at the castle of Lady Honara O'Brien. After dinner and some polite conversation, the Fanshawes excused themselves to their room for the night.
At around 1:00 AM, Lady Fanshawe was awoken by a voice coming from the window. She went to it and opened the curtain to discover a woman leaning into the window from outside. The woman wore white and had red hair and a "ghastly complexion"; she cried out the ancient Irish call of mourning, "ochon, ochon, ochon! and then melted away like a cloud. Lady Fanshawe immediately woke her husband to tell him what happened.
The following morning, before the Fanshawes could find a way to describe the strange event to Lady O'Brien, the latter told them that she, herself, had not slept well that night, for in a different part of the castle, she had stayed up to care for an ailing cousin of hers who had died at around 2:00 AM. She then expressed hopes that the Fanshawes slept well, for she gave them the best room in the castle . . . but forgot that a spectral woman appeared in that room's window whenever a family member was dying.
The Fanshawes didn't stay a second night!
7. Hand Off
In 1934, author Elliott O'Donnell made note of the strange experience of a young woman of the MacKenzie family in Scotland. Said young woman had gone upstairs one morning to fetch something from her bedroom and heard something in the room fall as she was leaving. Annoyed, she looked around for source of the noise and found that an old-fashioned silver candlestick had fallen next to her dresser. She walked over to pick it up and stopped as she realized what had knocked the candlestick over to begin with.
