The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
The Humming at Castlegate Midnight Watch
Battle of York, battlefield, York, York
I.Background & History
The Battle of York was fought on 21 March 867 between the Vikings of the Great Heathen Army and the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, within the city of York itself. The ground is catalogued by the Society under the name of the battle, at the heart of the old city.
About it lie the Castlegate quarter and a close-set company of medieval parish churches, a friary site, a hall of merchants, a Quaker meeting house and a hospital. Little of the ninth century is visible to the eye; the streets are of later date, and the battle is remembered chiefly by name.
Source: Battle of York (867), Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Raven-Hummer
A tall figure in a sodden wolfskin cloak and rusted ring-shirt, seen only at the corner of the eye and always a little nearer than before. Its mouth does not open, yet a slow, tuneless hymn in no known mode issues from it, and the tune is somehow inside the hearer's own throat. Those who look full upon it find the face turned away, though the body has not moved.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
Every person recorded as having learnt the tune has afterwards walked towards the river and not returned by their own will. The entity attends most closely to those who attempt to record it.
III.The Account
Hour of nine. The Society's watch was opened on the night of 20 March 1917 by Mr. Ambrose Leatherby, Secretary, and Captain H. Fenwick, invalided home from Flanders, in an upper room overlooking Castlegate. The occasion was a series of complaints from fire-watchers and billeted soldiers who, from the winter of 1916, had reported a hymn sung very slowly somewhere beneath the pavement. Four men, all of whom had hummed it afterwards, had been taken from the district: one to the asylum, three to the Ouse.
Hour of eleven. The first notes were heard by both gentlemen at eleven minutes past the hour. The sound had no direction. It was low, male, and sung with the dragging patience of men who have long been without food. Captain Fenwick, who had sworn that he was proof against fancy, observed that the tune was one he seemed always to have known. Mr. Leatherby noted that the Captain's lips were moving. He asked him to stop. The Captain replied that he had not begun.
Hour of one. Mr. Leatherby's notebook, in a hand growing ragged, records that the street below was empty yet the cobbles seemed to be wet. A figure stood at the corner of All Saints, wrapped in a heavy pelt, its face turned aside. Each time he looked away and back it had advanced by the length of a lamp-post. The singing was now in his own chest. He found he could not write the word 'stop' without humming the line that followed it.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦A slow, tuneless hymn heard from beneath the pavement between eleven at night and five in the morning.
- ✦Wet cobbles in dry weather along the line of Castlegate towards the river.
- ✦The sense of a tall figure standing just beyond the corner of vision, advancing when unobserved.
- ✦Involuntary humming in those who have heard it, continuing for years.
- ✦A smell of wet fur and iron in closed rooms.
Testimony of Witnesses
“"I never learnt it, sir, I swear. But I woke in the night with it in my mouth, and the lads were all humming along beside me, every one asleep."”
“"There was a man in a fur at the end of the passage with his face to the wall. I said good night to him. The tune started up in my own throat, and my husband has been unable to bear the sound of me since."”
“"I followed the wet marks to the staithe and found a gentleman standing with his boots in the water, humming. He did not know me. He did not know himself."”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A tallow candle never before lit
- ☐A bowl of river water
- ☐A length of unbleached linen
- ☐A handbell wrapped in cloth
- ☐A page of plain paper and a pencil
The Rite
- I.Begin at precisely eleven minutes before midnight, with every window shuttered and no person present who has hummed the tune.
- II.Set the bowl of river water upon the threshold and light the candle beside it.
- III.Bind the mouths of all participants with linen so that none may sing, even unawares.
- IV.At the first note, ring the muffled bell once and say aloud, 'No man here has learnt it.'
- V.Repeat the bell at every quarter, speaking no other word.
- VI.At five, pour the water upon the cobbles in the line of the river and extinguish the candle with the fingers.
- VII.Write nothing of the tune; burn the paper unread.
Caution. The Society's footnote records that Mr. Pelham Rudd removed his linen at the third quarter to correct the pitch of the hymn, and was found at the staithe with his mouth full of silt.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
Select a bar to filter the register.
Castlegate · Castle · a few paces
The Pelt-Bearers, phantom procession. Six shapes carry something heavy down Castlegate each midnight, and they are always one man short.
York Carmelite Friary · Abbey · a few paces
Brother Candlewick, spectre. A friar with no hands lights candles that burn with a cold blue flame and gutter whenever he is named.
Castlegate House · Castle · 0.1 miles
The Stair-Knocker of Number Nine, poltergeist. Something knocks upon the underside of the stair, and answers whoever knocks back.
All Saints' Church · Church · a few paces
The Pale Sexton's Widow, white lady. A woman in grave-linen is seen at the tower door, holding out a key that is never taken twice.
St Crux Church · Church · a few paces
The Vestry Heron, spectral animal. A grey bird stands in the churchyard at dusk, and where it has stood the grass is found stripped of colour.
Merchant Adventurers' Hall · Manor House · a few paces
The Ledger-Clerk, revenant. A stooped man in a counting-house coat adds columns of figures in the air, and those whose names he writes sicken within the year.
Medieval parish churches of York · Church · a few paces
The Bell-Rope Cur, phantom hound. A hairless black dog drags a frayed rope through the streets, and a bell tolls in whatever house it passes.
St Mary's Church · Church · a few paces
The Apprentice of Ouse Bridge, headless apparition. A boy in a leather apron walks the nave carrying his own cap, with nothing above the collar to wear it.
Grand Opera House · Old Theatre · a few paces
The Footlight Fen-Fire, will-o'-the-wisp. A pale flame drifts along the empty balcony rail and draws the unwary towards the stage trap.
St Michael's Church · Church · 0.1 miles
The Borrowed Chorister, possession. Choir boys have woken speaking in a grown man's voice, naming debts owed to no one living.
Central Methodist Church · Church · 0.1 miles
The Hymn-Board Shadow, unclassified entity. The numbers on the board rearrange themselves nightly, and the congregation sings what they spell.
St Sampson's Church · Church · 0.1 miles
The Midwife of Sampson's Square, spectre. A woman in a stained apron knocks at doors where no child is expected, and a birth follows that no one can account for.
Friargate Quaker Meeting House · Church · 0.1 miles
The Silent Meeting Cat, spectral animal. A grey cat sits among the benches in stillness, and any who stroke it find their own voices gone for a week.
Church Street · Church · 0.1 miles
The Lantern Mourners, phantom procession. Forty hooded figures pass with lanterns that give no light and cast shadows that move against the wind.
Dorothy Wilson's Hospital · Hospital · 0.1 miles
The Blue-Coat Matron, white lady. A pale woman in a charity-school gown counts sleeping children at midnight and, if the number is wrong, stays until it is right.
