The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
Testimony of the Harvest-Debt at Arundel Chancel
Fitzalan Chapel, church, Arundel, West Sussex
I.Background & History
The Fitzalan Chapel is the chancel of the church of St Nicholas, in the western grounds of Arundel Castle, West Sussex. It dates to the fourteenth century and serves as the private mausoleum of the FitzAlans and, later, the Howard family.
The chancel is thus a place of burial for a great house, kept apart from the parish church to which it belongs. Beyond this the Society records only that the chapel stands within the castle precincts, and that the town below it lies in the valley of the Arun.
Source: Fitzalan Chapel, Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Sheaf-Bride
A tall woman in a grave-gown stiff with chaff and barley-beard, her arms laden with a sheaf of wheat that is always freshly cut and always wet. Her face is never clearly seen, for it is turned toward the sheaf as though in nursing; witnesses agree that when she lifts it, it is the face of someone known to them, and younger than they remember.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
She attends one household in each generation and takes one of its number, always the eldest unmarried child, without violence and without refusal. Those who have tried to withhold the payment have been found in the fields in the dead of winter, standing upright, and surrounded by standing corn.
III.The Account
The first testimony is that of Mr. Josiah Tulley, sexton of Arundel, given in the winter of 1851 and set down by the Society's clerk. In the wet summer of 1816, he said, the corn rotted upon the Sussex downs and the poor went hungry. His father, then under-sexton, went by night into the chancel where the great dead lie, and there, upon the cold floor between the tombs, he spoke aloud a bargain: that his own fields might ripen when no other's did, and that whatever was owed should be paid when it was asked. The harvest that year was the only full one in the parish. Mr. Tulley would say no more of the terms, save that his father never again entered the chapel after dark, and that he wept whenever the barley was cut.
The second testimony was given in 1888 by Mrs. Harriet Dyer, born Tulley, the sexton's daughter, who stated that her father had not told the whole. A woman came to the cottage in the autumn of 1834, she said, when her elder sister Martha was nineteen. She stood at the garden gate with a sheaf in her arms and did not speak. Martha rose from the supper table, took her shawl, and went out to her, and the two walked together toward the castle wall. In the morning the sheaf lay upon the doorstep, and the grain in it was still warm. Mrs. Dyer added what her father had not said: that the woman had Martha's own gait, and that when the gate-latch fell it fell twice.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦A smell of cut and sun-warmed barley in the chancel at all seasons, strongest in the dark of the year.
- ✦A gate-latch that falls twice at any gate near which the woman approaches.
- ✦Wheat-ears, freshly green, found upon the doorsteps of the family's descendants on the morning before a nineteenth birthday.
- ✦A sense in the listener of being gently counted, as by one who is reckoning a sum that has nearly come right.
- ✦Standing corn appearing overnight in frozen fields where none was sown.
Testimony of Witnesses
“I passed the Tulley gate near eleven and there was a woman there in a gown the colour of ash, with corn in her arms. I wished her good night and she did not answer, but the girl came out and took her arm like a sister.”
“The woman held the sheaf like a babe at the breast. When she looked up at the window I saw it was the same face as Martha Tulley's, that was lost these twenty-seven years, and not a day older than nineteen.”
“I attended the family and found no ailment in them, only a conviction, held by all, that something was owed. I will say only that the grandmother asked me to close the shutters against the corn.”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Inadvisable
Requisites
- ☐A sickle that has never cut living grain
- ☐A loaf baked by the youngest of the household and left unsalted
- ☐A white linen cloth, unmarked
- ☐A candle of unbleached tallow
- ☐The family Bible, open at Ruth
The Rite
- I.1. At midnight on the eve of a nineteenth birthday, lay the cloth upon the chancel floor and set the loaf at its centre.
- II.2. Light the candle and speak aloud, without omission, the name of every person yet taken.
- III.3. Lay the sickle across the loaf with its edge turned toward the door.
- IV.4. When the latch falls the first time, do not turn; when it falls the second time, read the Book of Ruth, from the first chapter, without pause.
- V.5. Should the woman set down the sheaf, take it up and carry it from the chancel, and do not look at her face.
- VI.6. Bury the grain, sickle and all, in unploughed ground before the sun rises.
Caution. The Society's Mr. Lisle was warned that the woman must not be looked upon when she lifts her head, and he looked. Let the exorcist remember that she wears the face of someone he has loved.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
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Arundel Castle · Castle · 0.1 miles
The Candle-Snuffer of the Keep, spectre. A footman in antique livery who extinguishes every taper in the corridor behind late sleepers, and is heard breathing beside the bed.
Arundel Blackfriars · Abbey · 0.2 miles
The Grey Almoners, phantom procession. A line of hooded friars crosses the meadow at dusk bearing an empty bier, and one of them is always a man the watcher knows.
Arundel Priory · Church · a few paces
Brother Salt-Mouth, revenant. A monk who rises from the damp ground of the priory site and speaks in a voice of drowned wells, and those who answer him sicken within the week.
Arundel Cathedral · Church · 0.1 miles
The Stair-Dropper, poltergeist. Something unseen lets fall a heavy object on the cathedral stair at three each morning, and the sound is always one step nearer the sleepers' door.
Trinity Congregational Church · Church · 0.2 miles
The Pew-Rat, spectral animal. A pale rat the size of a spaniel is seen along the gallery rail at evening service, and the person it watches is dead within the year.
Slayer's Slab · Tomb · 1.6 miles
The Hollow Under the Slab, unclassified entity. A cold that pours from the stone at nightfall and shapes itself into an outline the length of a man, pressing upward from within.
Arundel and District Hospital · Hospital · 0.4 miles
The Matron in Starch, white lady. A nurse in an antique apron walks the wards at night, laying a cool hand on the brow of those who will not wake.
Poling Preceptory · Templar Preceptory · 2.1 miles
The Crossed Knight, headless apparition. A mailed rider without a head halts at the old preceptory wall and turns his shoulders slowly toward any who stand in his road.
Lyminster Priory · Abbey · 1.6 miles
The Cloister Lamp, will-o'-the-wisp. A small blue flame drifts across the water-meadow in the shape of a hand holding a lantern, and leads the unwary into the river.
South Marsh Mill · Old Mill · 0.7 miles
The Miller's Grey Dog, phantom hound. A shaggy hound with eyes like lit flour-dust pads behind the mill at night, and its breath is warm upon the neck of those who hurry.
St Mary Magdalene's Church · Church · 1.6 miles
The Borrowed Choirgirl, possession. A child of the parish sings in a stranger's voice through the night and wakes in the morning unable to say her own name.
St Mary the Virgin's Church · Church · 2.2 miles
Goodman Lych-Gate, revenant. A farmer long dead stands each Sunday at the church gate to shake the hands of the living, and his palm is always wet.
St Nicholas Church · Church · 2.5 miles
The Bell-Rope Clerk, spectre. A pale clerk in a black coat is seen in the tower writing in a ledger, and the names he enters are those of the next to die.
St Mary's Church · Church · 3.0 miles
The Lamp-Bearing Mourners, phantom procession. A silent file of mourners with shuttered lanterns walks the lane toward the graveyard, and it is always one more than were buried.
Amberley Castle · Castle · 3.7 miles
The Moat-Breather, unclassified entity. Something beneath the still water exhales slowly against the walls at night, and the mist it makes forms the shapes of faces.
