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REAL GHOST STORIES (Collected and Edited by William T. Stead) online

REAL GHOST STORIES by William T. Stead

Chapter II. Tragic Happenings Seen in Dreams.

"In the month of October, 1888, the neighbourhood of Kalmar was shocked by a horrible murder committed in the parish of Wissefjerda, which was about fifty kilometres from Kalmar as the crow flies. What happened was that a farmer named P. J. Gustafsson had been killed by a shot when driving, having been forced to stop by stones having been placed on the road. The murder had been committed in the evening, and a certain tramp was suspected, because Gustafsson, in his capacity of under bailiff, had arrested him, and he had then undergone several years' penal servitude.

"This was all that I or the public knew about the case on November 1st of the same year. The place where the murder was committed and the persons implicated in it were quite unknown to me and the clairvoyant.

"On the same day, November 1st, having some reason to believe that such a trial would be at least partially successful, I experimented with a clairvoyant, Miss Agda Olsen, to try if it was possible to get some information in this way about such an event.

"The judge of the neighbourhood, who had promised to be present, was unfortunately prevented from coming. The clairvoyant was hypnotised in my wife's presence, and was then ordered 'to look for the place where the murder had been committed and see the whole scene, follow the murderer in his flight, and describe him and his home and the motive for the murder.' Miss Olsen then spoke as follows, in great agitation, sometimes using violent gestures. I took notes of her exact words and reproduce them here fully.

"'It is between two villages--I see a road--in a wood--now it is coming--the gun--now he is coming along, driving--the horse is afraid of the stones--hold the horse! hold the horse! now! now he is killing him--he was kneeling when he fired--blood! blood!--now he is running in the wood--seize him!--he is running in an opposite direction to the horse in many circuits--not on any footpaths. He wears a cap and grey clothes--light--has long coarse brown hair, which has not been cut for a long time--grey-blue eyes--treacherous looks--great dark brown beard--he is accustomed to work on the land. I believe he has cut his right hand. He has a scar or a streak between his thumb and forefinger. He is suspicious and a coward.

"'The murderer's home is a red wooden house, standing a little way back from the road. On the ground-floor is a room which leads into the kitchen, and from that again into the passage. There is also a larger room which does not communicate with the kitchen. The church of Wissefjerda is situated obliquely to your right when you are standing in the passage.

"'His motive was enmity; it seems as if he had bought something--taken something--a paper. He went away from home at daybreak, and the murder was committed in the evening.'

"Miss Olsen was then awakened, and like all my subjects, she remembered perfectly what she had been seeing, which had made a very profound impression on her; she added several things which I did not write down.

"On November 6th (Monday) I met Miss Olsen, and she told me in great agitation that she had met the murderer from Wissefjerda in the street. He was accompanied by a younger person and followed by two policemen, and was walking from the police office to the gaol. I at once expressed my doubts of her being right, partly because country people are generally arrested by the country police, partly because they are always taken directly to gaol. But when she insisted on it, and maintained that it was the person she had seen when asleep, I went to the police office.

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