The Terror In The Bedroom

[dem]

Artist unattributed, Varney, the Vampyre; or, The Feast of Blood, 1847
Norman Saunders, No Grave Has My Love, Black Mask (UK), Aug. 1950

Crawling from your pillowcase and up for deadly mischief, it's THE TERROR IN THE BEDROOM!

Yet more OCD chuckles. As threatened, a big vault romp around the bedroom, surprisingly smut-free give or take the odd item, but that could change. Abominable alarm clocks, demoniacally possessed duvets, assault by crumpled bedlinen ... passed on Wilkie Collins' The Adventure Of Terribly Strange Bed and M. R. James's "Oh, Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad ..." as too over-familiar, which, I realise, makes a complete mockery of the first selection, but had to include it. 13 stories, one bonus novel and enough on the subs bench for a volume 2.

James Malcolm Rymer- Varney The Vampyre: Chapter I: The church bell tolls midnight as beautiful young Flora Bannerworth endures a troubled sleep.Outside, a creature with a ghastly face and eyes of tin plucks the lead from her window pane with long bony fingers. Flora awakens, watches frozen in terror, as the vampyre admits himself to her room. The briefest chase around the bed and he has her pinned down, helpless to repel the fangs at her lovely throat!

Horacio Quiroga - The Feather Pillow: Recently wed, Alicia is wasting away before the eyes of her dominant husband. What could be causing her illness?

Edith Bagnold - The Amorous Ghost: An erotic ghost story you could take home to meet your parents. While his wife is away, two of the maids hand in their notice after discovering a woman’s underclothes in the master’s room. That night, he watches transfixed as a figure half-materialises in a chair with her back to him, slowly slipping out of her clothes. It’s with great relief he hears his wife return, undress and slip into bed beside him. It must be freezing outside because she’s cold enough to chill the entire room ….

Andrew Brosnatch (Weird Tales, Sept. 1925)

Gerald Dean - The Devil Bed: BLOODE WARM AND RED
ON HIS HANDS THATTE CARVED THIS BED
BLOODE SHALL BE SHED
BY HIM WHO HEREON RESTS HIS HEAD

Those who've slept in the carved monstrosity tend to embark on murder sprees shortly afterward (the record number of kills by one man is nine). But antique collector Harry Ware isn't one to be taken in by superstitious mumbo jumbo and decides to grab some sleep in the devil bed on the night before it's to be donated to a museum.

Michael Arlen - The Gentleman From America: The amusing but ultimately horrible and tragic story of how tourist Howard Cornelius Pile fell foul of Mayfair lushes Quiller and Keir-Anderson when he took their £500 bet. To win the money, Pile has to last a whole night in the haunted house belonging to Quiller's aunt with only a candle and his revolver for company. "I hope you have better luck than the last man who spent a night in that room. He was strangled." Quiller has thoughtfully provided a book for him should he get bored - Ivor Pelham Morley's Tales Of Terror For Tiny Tots (don't bother looking for it on Amazon). Despite himself - for he is not a superstitious man - Pile settles down to read a pleasant little something called The Phantom Footsteps, a delightful penny dreadful detailing the appalling fate of two sisters when a homicidal maniac breaks into their Belgrade home. The gentleman from America is badly affected by the gory story, so isn't at his best when the apparition with long arms appears at the foot of his bed ...

H. R. Wakefield - Damp Sheets: Cardew House, Hallocks, Sussex: Free-spending Robert stands to gain a fortune on his Uncle Samuel's death but the old bastard still keeps clinging on. So Agatha decides to assist him on his way with a fatal dose of pneumonia. The dead man takes this very badly.

E. F. Benson - The Other Bed: An Englishman abroad in Switzerland slowly comes to realise that he's sharing a room with the aftermath of a messy suicide. Alternatively, the same author's famous Caterpillars will likely put you off four-posters until at least night-time.

Elliott O'Donnell - Accusing Shadows: "A ghost story founded in fact." Hartz Mountains. Osmandson, desperate for a room for the night, takes refuge at Frau Krassein's. All she can offer him is the room in which her master passed away two days ago - and his remains have yet to be removed. Osmandson reluctantly accepts, even when he discovers the big black coffin at the foot of his four poster. During the night, the old man's gruesome hammer-and-nail murder is re-enacted in shadow play on the ceiling.

Philip Murray - The Patch: A haunted four-poster. The narrator is convinced that somebody is hiding under his bed and, armed with a poker, takes a look. Sure enough, "A man was lying there on his side, his face toward me, his knees drawn up." He raises the alarm, but when his fellow guests investigate they discover a dark patch on the carpet in the vague shape of a man. The next night, the bed having been moved, he allows himself a tiny peek to reassure himself that it was all nonsense ...

A. N. L. Munby - The Four-Poster: If you're looking for morbid entertainment, you could do a lot worse than doss down in a bed that once belonged to a notorious body-snatcher.

Charles Birkin - The Kiss Of Death: An obscure island in the Philippines. In her younger days, social-climber Lady Sylvia Nicholson was engaged to Colin Howard, but "jilted him at the altar when a bigger fish swam along." Several years later she lies in bed awaiting a midnight visit from her latest lover, Philip Dewhurst. She makes love to the man who enters in the dark .... only to discover that it isn't Dewhurst she's sharing her bed but her old flame, Colin. Who is now a leper ...

David Langford - 3:47 AM: Dekker's week old digital alarm clock keeps waking him at 3.47am, no matter what time he sets the alarm for. He's been having nightmares, too. Nightmares in which insects burst from his skin, his teeth shatter and his eyeballs explode. Deciding to face his fears head on, he lies awake, waiting to see what happens as the seconds tick closer to the 3.47 mark ...

Terry Tapp - The Bed: His wife Claire is dead, and now Paul lies in hospital unable to move a muscle beyond blinking in answer to Dr. Stewart's questions. How did he get into this terrible state? It all began when he reassembled the antique four-poster bed ... and released a Succubus.

Graham Masterton - Bridal Suite: When Dorman Pierce brutalised wife Faith at the Sherman Hotel on their honeymoon, the bride's witchy godmother placed a curse on him that he become part of the bed. Since Pierce's day, over twenty men have been likewise absorbed into the mattress and consequently no women who's slid under the duvet has ever enjoyed a moment's shut eye. Now sinister landlady Mrs Gaylord is showing newly-weds Peter and Jenny to their room ...

Bonus novel:

Stephen King - Gerald's Game: Jessie Burlingame handcuffed to the bedposts, her corpulent husband on top of her, so aroused he suffers a fatal heart attack. How can she get free? What will she do if a passing serial killer chances upon the house?

[Chuck_G]

How about 'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford?

[jonathan122]

If we're excluding "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad", perhaps we could make room for the same author's "Two Doctors", possibly James's most underrated story.

[weirdmonger]

'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Poe?

[dem]

Thanks gents, blindcat. The list is growing but had not considered Crawford's nautical bunk-bed chiller. Can you think of any Halloween-specific inclusions? Jonathan, as if to emphasise your point, I can't remember a thing about Two Doctors, so will take a refresher course as soon as time permits. The Tell Tale Heart fits, but isn't really a goer in the circumstances as it's been anthologised even more often than Oh Whistle ... and The Terribly Strange Bed put together! Come to think of it, The Upper Berth has seen plenty of action, too.

A pair that would have gone on the original listing had I but thought of them at the time.

Angela Carter's The Lady In The House Of Love

and the very recently published:

Gary Fry - The Jilted Bride of Windermere: Traditional ghost story, which sees the corpse of a long drowned woman slipping into bed with a best man and philandering bridegroom on consecutive nights.

There should also be some representation for the attack from beneath the bedsprings. There are doubtless better examples (i don't think you can class it among his horrible best), but this will do as a stop-gap..

Richard Laymon - Spooked: Selene hears shuffling noises under her bed. Followed by a groan. But that's stupid! there can't be anybody under the bed! There can't be! Can there? Oh, if only Alex were here. How selfish of him to go out gallivanting on Halloween night. And then a voice. "I'll tear you up!"

[dem]

Louisa Baldwin - The Weird Of The Walfords: (The Shadow On The Blind & Other Ghost Stories, 1895). Mindful that ten generations of his family have died there, Humphrey Walford's first act as the new squire is to dismantle the hearse-like, three-hundred-year-old four poster with an axe. Unfortunately, Walford reluctantly allows Gillam the carpenter to keep the elaborately carved panels.

Humphrey weds Grace who thinks it cruel of him to deny her access to the famous locked room (Charles II reputedly slept there), which, he claims, is empty. Has she married a Bluebeard? Spying through the keyhole, Grace realises he's been lying as her eye falls on the most magnificent four poster. Reluctantly, Humphrey hands over the key. The room is empty!

Grace falls pregnant and travels to town for a new cot. Imagine Humphrey's horror when he recognises the panels as those that once belonged to the death bed! Worse is the follow when his wife renovates the locked chamber as a nursery ....

Even by Victorian standards this one is supremely miserable and, as such, highly recommended.

Shaun Jeffrey - The Quilters of Thurmond: (David Logan [ed.], Grotesque #3, 1993: Voyeurs Of Death, 2007). Last night a bedspread saved my life.

[Swampirella]

The Cocoon - John B. L. Goodwin (Alfred Hitchcock Presents 12 Stories for Late At Night 1973)

A 11-year old Denny lives with his self-absorbed father in a large old house at the end of a village. His father collects big game trophies but Denny collects butterflies which eventually are pinned onto his bedroom wall. His parents appear to be divorced or at least separated, and not amicably. One day, he finds a unique caterpillar in a nearby copse between two fields which he of course brings home. It's put into a special container called a "castle" & creates a cocoon for itself. Danny spends the rest of the autumn and all winter indoors, obsessively watching his "prize" and keeping his room locked to prevent any intrusion from his father or the servant girl. Despite this, an unpleasant smell seems to emanate from Denny's room.

Eventually at the end of April, a moth emerges. It's wings are easily 10 inches across and it's colouring varies from black to purple to green to black again. "The only definite delineations were a crab-like simulacrum centred on each hind wing and upon each fore wing, the imitation of an open mouth with teeth bared. Both the crabs and the mouths were chalked in white and vermilion."

Unable to persuade his father to part with an antique crystal tobacco jar to house the new arrival, he decides to place the moth into a cyanide jar and after it's death, pin it to a place of honour on his wall. "It was less than a month after the death of the moth when Denny was awakened in the night by a persistent beating on his window pane." The smell of the dead moth gets worse, as does the stain on the wall behind it. "By now both crabs and mouths were nearly as big as the wings themselves and the crabs were moving" The nightly beating against the windowpane grows more intense, and his father remarks "You look all dried up like one of those pupae you had upstairs". The story ends much as one would expect.

The collection which for what it's worth also includes M. R. James' "The Ash Tree", is available here:

archive.org/details/alfredhitchcoc1200hitc.

It's well worth borrowing for this splendid story alone.

[cromagnonman]

Working on the presumption that either Bloch or Derleth must surely have used this theme - seeing as how they used every other theme conceivable in the entire catalogue of literary conceits - I thought I'd see what I could find. And as ever dear old Augie came up trumps with "The Patchwork Quilt" in OVER THE EDGE.

This is a sedate and maudlin little tale about a ghost that tucks in guests with the titular quilt, replicating the attentiveness it displayed in life to the child that died beneath it. And that's pretty much the sum of it. No shocks, no scares and precious little atmosphere. For a story written to celebrate the silver jubilee of Arkham House I'd have thought Augie would have extended himself a bit more.

The characters verge on the stupid: why complain about the coldness in a room when you're leaving the window open, for instance. And some of the info dumping is deposited with a shovel rather than a trowel:

"She lives down the road on that farm just across from the cemetary - her family cemetary it is, that little one on the knoll."

I've read a number of good ghost stories by Augie and far too many abominable ones for my liking. This one falls somewhere in the No Man's Land of blandness that lies between.  

[dem]

Arthur Ferrier (?)

'Anne Eden' - Haunted Bed in the Tower: (The Weekly Dispatch, 22 May 1927). Spectre, Devil, Beast from Another World—What was that Monstrous Shape that Ever Crawled Back to the Scene of Its Ghastly Death?

Lord Halifax - Three in a Bed: (Lord Halifax Ghost Book), 1936. Married couple joined between sheets by cold other. A second spectral party arrives brandishing a razor ...

C. C. Senf (Weird Tales, Nov. 1929)

E. F. Benson - The Bed by the Window; (Hutchinson’s Story Magazine, July 1929; Weird Tales, Nov. 1929). With a publishers' deadline to meet, Benson quits London to take up lodgings at Farningham, a quiet Norfolk coastal village, on the recommendation of friends who tell him it's the most boring place on earth. This proves inaccurate. Benson realises from the first that the landlord, Hopkins, despises his wife, and vice versa. The author's recurring dreams add up to a premonition of bloodshed, and he's not the least surprise when, a week after his return to the capital, the newspapers are full of a brutal murder.

Attachments:

Haunted Bed in the Tower.pdf (108.94 KB)

[dem]

The Monster, The Sketch. 4 April 1928

TROUBLED NIGHTS IN HAUNTED BED.
Girl Flies From "Choking Hand."
Strange Story.

A queer story of a haunted bed appears in a letter from a Hong Kong correspondent to the South China Morning Post. He states that about three years before the date of his letter he bought an ordinary bed with a wire mattress in a Hong Kong shop, and used it with startling results.
"When I slept in that bed," he writes, very often I could see a long hairy hand stretching towards me. Before I could make up my mind to seize it I always fell into a paralysis, and do what I could at the end I got the worst of the battle. I would not believe that the bed was haunted, and suffered for this some time."
He induced a servant to take the bed to her room and experiment with it, as she declared she was not afraid of "spooks."
"The next morning she said the bed was 'horrible.' She was conscious of something attempting to choke her in her sleep and became so frightened that she fled from the room.
The original owner then determined once more to use the bed, though one Sunday morning in broad daylight while lying in it reading he saw "the same long and hairy hand," and experienced the same sensation of complete paralysis. After other experiences and after failing for three years to "get a restful night" in it he at last passed the bed on to a friend, who was troubled in the same way.
The bed is now in the hands of yet another owner who has not so far reported anything strange, and the correspondent asks whether he and the other sufferers were the victims of a singular hallucination.

— Evening Telegraph, 14 March 1921

HAUNTED BED TERROR.
An "official" attempt is to be made to solve the mystery of a haunted bed which strikes terror into all who sleep in it. The bed—an old oak model, dating back to Elizabethan times—has come to London from France. Every time the bed had been slept in, the Occupant awakens at night in terror. Many have rushed screaming from the room. The last person declares that at dead of night he awoke feeling conscious of some unseen presence. The next second he felt himself pushed forcibly out of bed. According to its construction, the bed should be extremely comfortable to sleep in. Yet no one has ever slept in it the night through, and always the owner sells it to someone else, glad to get rid of it. The people who report the experiences are normal, healthy people who are not interested in psychical matters. As an antique the bed is worth nearly £200.

— Fulham Chronicle, 14 October 1932

"HAUNTED" BED QUITE COMFORTABLE
Experimenter Fell Asleep.
No unpleasant or hair-raising experience befell the two men who slept on Thursday night in a "haunted" bed.
Mr. Harry Price, of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and Mr. C. E. M. Joad, the writer, screwed up their courage and went to the "haunted" chamber, prepared for the worst.
But nothing supernatural happened.
At precisely eleven p.m. the two men entered a private museum in West London, where the bed is housed, and prepared to spend the night full of eerie episodes. They locked the door of the room, sealed up all the cracks, turned out the light and got into bed—and then waited for things to happen.

STRANGLED MAN

A former owner of the bed has declared that when she was sleeping in it she was hurled to the floor, struck her head violently against the wall, and saw a vision of a richly-dressed man strangled on the coverlet
This was quite contrary to the experience of both Mr. Price and Mr. Joad, who found the bed very comfortable—so comfortable, indeed, that Mr. Price slept for two hours.
"Well, I am quite safe and sound," Mr. Price announced cheerfully to a reporter yesterday. "Neither Mr. Joad nor I experienced anything frightening.
"We waited patiently in the dark for hours, but I fell off to sleep and did not wake up until five o'clock. Mr. Joad did not sleep at all, but this was due to lack of fresh air in the locked and sealed-up room, and to a strange bed.
"The woman who owns the bed says we ought to sleep in it at least three nights in order to give it a fair trial. So it is likely that Mr. Joad and I will risk another night there later, but we shall not allow any visitors."

— Western Mail & S. Wales News, 17 September 1932

FAMOUS ACTRESS SEEKS HAUNTED BED
RUFFORD ABBEY AUCTION
DISTINGUISHED COMPANY OF BIDDERS
£5,168 REALISED BY TREASURES SOLD ON FIRST DAY

FRANCES DAY, the famous London screen and stage star, visited Rufford Abbey yesterday and had to race against time to get back for the show in which she is appearing at the London Hippodrome—all for a haunted bed
Miss Day arrived by car while the sale of the Rufford treasures was in progress, learned that the bed in which she was interested was not being offered, made one or two desultory bids which were exceeded, and left at about 4 o'clock.
"The Fleet's Lit Up" — the show in which she is appearing with Stanley Lupino — was due to start at 8.15.
Her inquiries about the bed created something of a mystery. It was not marked in the catalogue, but a note in the introduction supplied the information that Sir George Savile's "Dressing Room" was supposed to be haunted.
Miss Day said she had read that in the distant past a baby was suffocated in the bed and that subsequently it had taken on supernatural importance.

— Nottingham Journal, 12 October 1938

A. K. Macdonald, The Green Lady of Lacings, The Illustrated London News, 22 November 1933

[toff]

Great illustrations!

A lot of Christmas ghost stories use the trope, possibly following Scott's "The Tapestried Chamber."

Disused rooms are usually disused for a reason! The Nativity could have played out very differently.

Innkeeper: No vacancy, I'm afraid. Unless you stay in the haunted room, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - you don't want to do that!

[andydecker]

Wilkie Collins - A Terribly Strange Bed (Household Words, 1852.)

The young narrator is gambling in Paris. He stays the night with his wins in the shady etablissement, but the bed is a death trap. They want to kill and rob the foreigner.

[Deleted]

One could have a lot of fun with the thread title. But I for one will resist the temptation.

[dem]

Dec 9, 2023 14:36:54 GMT @wicca said:

One could have a lot of fun with the thread title. But I for one will resist the temptation.

Oh, feel free.

P. W. M. N. Thomas, The Landshawe Specter, Tatler, 12 Dec 1928

BEDROOM SPOOKS.
STRANGE SOUTHERN INCIDENTS.

The people of Enniscorthy are greatly exercised in connection with extraordinary incidents which have occurred within the past few days in a house in Enniscorthy. The incidents, a correspondent states, have been authenticated. A room in the house is occupied by two young men and a boy. On the first night of the strange happenings they retired to rest at the usual hour, and noticed nothing wrong until midnight, when one of them was awakened by tappings that seemed to come at intervals from different parts of the house. He paid no heed to them, but a moment later felt the clothes being gently drawn off the bed. Believing his companion was playing a joke, he requested him to desist. The latter denied he was playing a joke, and as the tappings continued a candle was lighted, but there was no one in the room save the two young men and the boy. They then locked the door on the inside and endeavoured to go asleep, but the tappings were resumed. A light was again procured, and the knockings ceased, but immediately on the candle been extinguished they were resumed and continued for about two hours. The men then went asleep, but on awakening in the morning were astounded to find the bed at the other side of the room. On the following night the same thing happened, and one of the men refused to sleep in the "haunted" bed. When he joined his companion in another bed, the empty bed was raised up in air quite up to the ceiling, turned over and laid down legs upwards. All the occupants were greatly frightened, and when a light was procured it was ascertained there was no one in the room. The men refused to sleep in the room after this, but for several mornings afterwards, although the room was untenanted, the furniture was found to have been changed during the night.

— Derry Journal, 1 August 1910

Paul Hardy Miss Edith E. Cuthel, A Horrible Honeymoon, The Strand, Jan. 1896

Actress' Quest for Ghost Bed

IN the long gallery of Rufford Abbey, Notts, haunted, it is said, by the wraiths of a monk, a child and an elderly woman who died there centuries ago, hundreds of people yesterday watched the break-up of another great Dukeries household.
The home of the Saviles for three centuries yielded up the first batch of its famous collection, accumulated from every corner of Europe.
Beds in which kings have slept, and specimens of every kind of workmanship, ranging from tapestry to armour, will find new owners among millionaires, actresses and dealers.,
Miss Frances Day, the actress arrived to bid for a bed which, says tradition, is haunted by the ghost of a child murdered in the Abbey centuries ago.
She was disappointed.
The bed will not be offered until later this week.
One of many purchases by Mrs. van der Elst was a sedan chair for which she paid 28 guineas.
Next month the 15,000-acre estate, the 500-acre park, the abbey itself with chapel and crypt, many farms, and the greater part of six Nottinghamshire villages will be offered for sale in lots.
At the end of yesterday's session 220 lots out of a total of 3000 had realised more than £5,000 for Sir Albert Ball, the present owner, who bought the estate from Lady Savile and her 19-year-old son, Lord Savile.
An oak coffer fetched 150 guineas, a refectory table 120 guineas, and eight Chippendale chairs 460 guineas.

— Daily News (London), 12 October 1938

[dem]

If nothing else, this thread has the makings of an attractive gallery.

Lord Lyttleton's Ghost
The account of the phantom of doom that appeared to Lord Lyttleton on 24 November 1779 at his house in Hill Street, London, and the subsequent events, comprise one of the most famous English ghost stories. Lord Lyttleton, who was something of a rake and a womanizer, was awoken from his sleep on the night of 24 November to find the ghost of a woman standing at the foot of his bed. It is believed that even in his fright, he recognized the figure as that of a Mrs Amphlett whose daughters he had seduced and who had died of broken hearts. Nervously he asked the spirit what she wanted, and was told that he had just three days left to live. On the following fatal Saturday, Lord Lyttleton went with a party of his friends to his other house, Pitt Place at Epsom, having told them of his experience, but describing it as merely a dream. He boasted he was in good health and would surely "bilk the ghost". Just after eleven o'clock, as he was being helped to undress by his servant William Stukey, he gave a sudden gasp and collapsed dead into the man's arms. An even stranger sequel to the story was that Lyttleton had obviously been more worried about the prophecy than he had let on to most of his acquaintances, because he had spoken seriously about the encounter to a close friend named Peter Andrews and originally planned to spend the fatal weekend with Andrews in Dartford. Instead, though, he changed his mind and went to Epsom. And at the precise moment Lyttleton was dying, Andrews was suddenly confronted in his own bedroom by a figure whom he recognized. It was his friend who cried out, "It's all over with me, Andrews." Sensing a practical joke, Andrews leapt from his bed expecting to find his friend somewhere in the house. But there was no sign of the figure and none of the servants had seen anyone entering the building. It was not until the following day that Andrews learned of Lord Lyttleton's death at the precise moment he had seen the apparition.

— Peter Haining, A Dictionary of Ghosts, 1982

Reginald Mount The Tapestried Chamber in H. Douglas Thomson [ed.], The Great Book of Thrillers, 1935.

A NIGHT IN A HAUNTED BED. ONE of the weirdest nights I ever spent was in an old panelled oak bed, at a village somewhere down in Leicestershire. King Richard the Third, 'the wicked crook-back,' was said to have slept in it his last night, the night before Bosworth. It was a stately, awful, ghostly kind of bed, with faded vari-coloured feathers, like undertakers' plumes, at the four corners. The huge posts were carved, the legs were carved, the roof (or whatever upholsterers call it) was carved; the panels at the back were adorned with rude-scrambling thick-set figures of Alexander and his men slaying the miserable Persians, or it might have been the Macabees defeating the enemies of Israel. I did not like the look of the thing at all. Farewell to sleep I thought, directly the landlord threw open the door, and with a certain state ushered me into the room. There, then, had slept the deformed tyrant; there, then, he had divested himself of his ermined cloak, buff boots, stage jewels, the sword that had pierced good King Henry, and the dagger that he used restlessly to pull in and out of the sheath. Here, in uneasy sleep, Richard, then, had seen his victims return in ghastly procession. Henry, the Sixth 'punched full of deadly holes,' Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, Hastings, the two child princes 'with bright hair dabbled in blood,' Queen Anne, Buckingham. 'Give me another horse, bind up my wounde.' I spent a miserable night, so full of fearful dreams and ugly sights that, as I am a man, I would not spend another such a night, though 'twere to buy a world of happy days, so full of dismal horror was the time, and so indeed I told the landlord when I paid his bill in the morning, and took the train for Leicester, fleeing from the house as if it contained someone I had murdered. The next day I stood on the very field where Richard fell, and saw the place where, desperately fighting, he was at last struck down, and his crown beaten off into a hawthorn bush; but I never slept again in that haunted bed. — All the Year Round.

— Paisley Herald & Renfrewshire Advertiser, 30 July 1870