The Tower Monster #8: A York Parallel July 22, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
One of the Notes and Query readers also suggested this as a parallel: a protean entity comes under a door and changes into different shapes or is perceived to do so. But first some background. Sir John Reresby (obit 1689) was a diarist who fought on the right side in the English civil war and who was, for a time, head of York castle. In 1686 some witch scandal flared up in the locality.
I would venture to take notice of a private occurrence which made some noise at York. The assizes being there held on the 7th of March, 1686-7, an old woman was condemned for a witch. Those who were more credulous in points of this nature than myself, conceived the evidence to be very strong against her. The boy she was said to have bewitched fell down on a sudden before all the court, when he saw her, and would then as suddenly return to himself again, and very distinctly relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her, in which he seemed to act the part of a wise man.
Now, however, we get to the parallel and it is striking: a guard sees a ‘thing’ come under the door and watches it change before him. Note that he was seeing this in moonlight.
But, though such is my own private opinion, I cannot help continuing my story. One of my soldiers being on guard, about eleven in the night, at the gate of Clifford Tower, the very night after the witch was arraigned, he heard a great noise at the castle; and going to the porch, he there saw a scroll of paper creep from under the door, which, as he imagined, by moonlight, turned first into the shape of a monkey, and thence assumed the form of a turkey-cock, which passed to and fro by him. Surprised at this, he went to the prison, and called the underkeeper, who came and saw the scroll dance up and down, and creep under the door, where there was scarce an opening of the thickness of half-a-crown. This extraordinary story I had from the mouth of both one and the other: and now leave it to be believed or disbelieved, as the reader may be inclined this way or that.
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