Border Ghost Stories
Twenty-two supernatural tales gathered along the old frontier between England and Scotland, written by a Northumberland landowner, magistrate and antiquary who knew the ground at first hand. Pease ranges from the Roman wall to border keeps and village ale-houses: the warlock of Glororum, the prior of Tynemouth, the peacock’s cry in the Vale of Mallerstang, Seaton Delaval thinly disguised as Castle Ichabod. His preface says that certain places cry out for a story, so he supplied one, drawing on local legend and letting characters speak in broad Northumbrian and Lowland Scots. The 1919 collection is inscribed to the memory of Sir Walter Scott, and the debt is plain. Not every tale ends with an apparition, but feud, superstition and old stone keep the air heavy. Worth reading if you like hauntings tied to actual places.
