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Short Fiction ▾
contents
  1. The Ghost and the Bonesetter
  2. The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh Being a Second Extract from the Papers of the Late Father Purcell. “The earth hath bubbles as the water hath— And these are of them.”
  3. The Last Heir of Castle Connor
  4. The Drunkard’s Dream Being a Fourth Extract from the Legacy of the Late F. Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh. “All this he told with some confusion and Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand To expound their vain and visionary gleams, I’ve known some odd ones which seemed really planned Prophetically, as that which one deems ‘A strange coincidence,’ to use a phrase By which such things are settled nowadays.” Byron
  5. Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess
  6. The Bridal of Carrigvarah
  7. Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
  8. Scraps of Hibernian Ballads
  9. Jim Sulivan’s Adventures in the Great Snow
  10. A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family
  11. An Adventure of Hardress Fitzgerald, a Royalist Captain
  12. “The Quare Gander”
  13. Spalatro
  14. The Fatal Bride
  15. The Mysterious Lodger
  16. Billy Malowney’s Taste of Love and Glory
  17. Ghost Stories of Chapelizod
  18. Some Gossip About Chapelizod
  19. An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street
  20. Ultor de Lacy
  21. Borrhomeo the Astrologer
  22. An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House
  23. My Aunt Margaret’s Adventure
  24. Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling
  25. Squire Toby’s Will
  26. Green Tea
  27. The Child That Went with the Fairies
  28. The White Cat of Drumgunniol
  29. Stories of Lough Guir
  30. The Vision of Tom Chuff
  31. Madam Crowl’s Ghost
  32. Carmilla
  33. The Dead Sexton
  34. Mr. Justice Harbottle
  35. The Familiar
  36. Sir Dominick’s Bargain
  37. Laura Silver Bell
  38. Dickon the Devil
  39. Hyacinth O’Toole
  40. Endnotes
English ▾

Short Fiction

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

free · 366,099 words · ~24 h read

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The Ghost and the Bonesetter

In looking over the papers of my late valued and respected friend, Francis Purcell, who for nearly fifty years discharged the arduous duties of a parish priest in the south of Ireland, I met with the following document. It is one of many such; for he was a curious and industrious collector of old local traditions—a commodity in which the quarter where he resided mightily abounded. The collection and arrangement of such legends was, as long as I can remember him, his hobby; but I had never learned that his love of the marvellous and whimsical had carried him so far as to prompt him to commit the results of his inquiries to writing, until, in the character of residuary legatee, his will put me in possession of all his manuscript papers. To such as may think the composing of such productions as these inconsistent with the character and habits of a country priest, it is necessary to observe, that there did exist a race of priests—those of the old school, a race now nearly extinct—whose education abroad tended to produce in them tastes more literary than have yet been evinced by the alumni of Maynooth.

It is perhaps necessary to add that the superstition illustrated by the following story, namely, that the corpse last buried is obliged, during his juniority of interment, to supply his brother tenants of the churchyard in which he lies, with fresh water to allay the burning thirst of purgatory, is prevalent throughout the south of Ireland.

The writer can vouch for a case in which a respectable and wealthy farmer, on the borders of Tipperary, in tenderness to the corns of his departed helpmate, enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a light and a heavy, the one for dry, the other for sloppy weather; seeking thus to mitigate the fatigues of her inevitable perambulations in procuring water and administering it to the thirsty souls of purgatory. Fierce and desperate conflicts have ensued in the case of two funeral parties approaching the same churchyard together, each endeavouring to secure to his own dead priority of sepulture, and a consequent immunity from the tax levied upon the pedestrian powers of the last-comer. An instance not long since occurred, in which one of two such parties, through fear of losing to their deceased friend this inestimable advantage, made their way to the churchyard by a shortcut, and, in violation of one of their strongest prejudices, actually threw the coffin over the wall, lest time should be lost in making their entrance through the gate. Innumerable instances of the same kind might be quoted, all tending to show how strongly among the peasantry of the south this superstition is entertained. However, I shall not detain the reader further by any prefatory remarks, but shall proceed to lay before him the following:

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

More by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

  • The Room in the Dragon Volant
    You spend the whole thing wincing at young Richard Beckett, rich, vain, and hopelessly smitten with a veiled countess, while an inn where guests keep vanishing closes around him. It reads like a ghost story but plays fairer than that, and the ending genuinely unnerves.
  • The Wyvern Mystery
    If you liked Uncle Silas but want something slower and stranger, this delivers: Alice hidden away at damp, lonely Carwell Grange, and a blind Dutchwoman whose scenes are genuinely frightening. It rambles a bit in the middle, but the dread when it lands is real.
  • Uncle Silas
    You need patience with its leisurely Victorian pacing, but once Maud Ruthyn is placed under the care of her unsettling uncle Silas and the watchful Madame de la Rougierre, the house feels unsafe. It rewards you with suspicion, dread, and nasty uncertainty rather than shocks.

genres

  • Horror

appears in

  • Ghosts & Hauntings

—

thank you for reading

Short Fiction by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

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