The Tower Monster #10: Cobblers July 24, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This wrap-up post looks at some of the modern accounts of the cylinder/bear ghost and particularly their inaccuracies. This is not done in a condescending way or with spite: this blogger makes factual mistake after factual mistake as his readers constantly remind him. It is, instead, to show again how we, with paranormal sources, where interest is great and source discipline moderate, live in an oral culture where stories evolve. Here is a little selection. Errors in square brackets.
According to one report, in January of 1815, a guard was walking around when he saw a bear in a doorway. The bear immediately started to run at him and the guard lunged at the bear with his bayonet but immediately passed through the bear that immediately disappeared. [The date is right, but there is no nineteenth-century reference to a bayonet nor an attack on the animal] Mystic Files
January, 1815 A sentry spots a bear in some smoke emanating from the Martin Tower [what is the smoke about, has it been deduced from the fact that the ghost comes under the door?]. He charges in an attempt to kill the creature, however the bear suddenly disappears and the sentry’s bayonet becomes embedded in an oak door [Again very satisfying detail, but completely unfounded]. When questioned by the Jewel House Keeper, the sentry was ‘trembling and haunted with fear, changed beyond recognition.’ Buzzfeed.
In January 1816, a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House claimed to have witnessed an apparition of a bear advancing towards him, and reportedly died of fright a few days later. In October 1817, a tubular, glowing apparition was claimed to have been seen in the Jewel House by the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, Edmund Lenthal Swifte. He said that the apparition hovered over the shoulder of his wife, leading her to exclaim: “Oh, Christ! It has seized me!” [Nice Wikipedia entry only the two events took place on the same night! The inconsistent dating was the fault of Swifte who seems later to have recognized his error. Both events almost certainly took place in January 1816, unless Swifte is wrong and they took place on different occasions] Wikipedia
One recorded haunting from the 19th century was from a Crown Jewel keeper E. L. Swifte. He and his family were having dinner in the Martin Tower when his alarmed wife spotted a moving object. Both he and his wife witnessed what looked to be a cylindrical object, resembling that of a lab tube [don’t know where the lab tube came from!], filled with blue bubbling fluid [bubbling seems to have been suggested by the lab tube]. Tube or not, the wife claimed it tried to grab her (not sure how a tube with no hands would do that but it gave the wife that impression) [Love the author’s mystification over the image]. The tube seemed to be an apparition as Swifte tried to throw a chair at it but it went straight through it [This is implied but never confirmed]. Ịt then vanished into thin air. Your Ghost Stories
If then a motor vehicle can have a ghost, so can a piece of chemical apparatus [this seems to be part of the lab tube heresy], hence the oft-repeated tale of the Tower of London will bear retelling. Franklyn, A Survey of the Occult, 181
Later Mr Swifte, an intelligent and highly responsible official, set down a detailed report of the occurrence. Never once when recounting it during later years did he change a single detail – or deny the terror which imprinted itself on his memory that dark night in the Martin Tower [Swifte only wrote his detailed account in 1860 in his eighties and himself admitted some errors there: he didn’t have long left to change his story! Whether his story changed or not beforehand is a nice question.]. Abbott, Ghosts of the Tower of London
In 1817… [The thing] disappeared after Swifte threw a chair at it – the item passed clean through without impact. January 1896 [Wikipedia above got the dates separated, this source though completely misconstrues the date in question!] a Beefeater (Royal guard) on patrol late one night in [he was outside] the Martin tower witnessed a large brown bear advancing towards him. The guard challenged the bear with his bayonet which passed straight through the animal and struck the wall [OK we’ll let it go..]. The unfortunate man fainted and died two days’ later of a heart attack [no reference to a heart attack]. The tower used to house the Royal menagerie [no it didn’t]. Paton, Book of Ghosts, 2
Any more satisfying inaccuracies? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
