Phantom Drummers

[dem bones]

Phantom Drummers

George Cruickshank, The Drummer of Tedworth, reprinted in Peter Haining Ghosts: The Illustrated History, 1987

Companion piece to Bagpipes of Doom. Preferably spectral military drummers in fact/ 'fact' and fiction but all welcome.

In this article it is my intention to be the biographer of a few ancient and well-born ghosts only, as space will not permit me to condescend to mere one-generation ghosts, pedigreeless spirits.

A. was an Airlie who killed a poor drummer, whose spirit plays a drum at Cortachy Castle, Kirriemuir, Scotland, whenever any member of the Ogilvy family is going to die. The origin of this tradition is that the drummer, for some reason or other, in his lifetime so enraged a former Lord Airlie that he had him thrust into his own drum and flung from the window of a tower of Cortachy Castle, though the drummer threatened to haunt the family ever after if his life were taken.

He has seemingly kept his word, for in 1849, before the decease of a Lord Airlie, and again in 1884, before the death of a Lady Airlie, the beat of the drum was on each occasion distinctly heard by different guests of the family. One of these guests was a lady staying in the castle, who was so ignorant of the tradition that, having heard the beating of a drum while dressing for dinner, she innocently asked her host — Lord Airlie — at the table who his drummer was. The question made the peer turn quite white, for the sound had preceded the loss of his first wife, and it was only a few months after this ominous dinner party that the second wife died.

— Beatrice Knollys - Modern Family Skeletons: (Harmsworth, July 1898).

A. S. Hartrick

Arthur Machen - Drake's Drum: (Living Age, 14 June 1919: John Gawsworth (ed.), Thrills, Crimes & Mysteries, 1935).

Elizabeth Walter - The Drum: (Snowfall & Other Chilling Events, 1965: The Spirit of the Place, 2017).

Bernhardt J. Hurwood - The Demon Drummer of Tedworth: Monsters and Nightmares (Belmont, Feb. 1967)

Aiden Chambers - Death's Drummer Boy: (Haunted Houses, 1971)

Robin Smyth - The Ghost of Cottfield Village: (Richard Davis [ed.], Spectre 4, 1977

Peter Haining - The Call of Drake's Drum: (The Restless Bones & Other True Mysteries, 1978)

Leon Garfield – The Restless Ghost: (Pamela Lonsdale (ed.), Spooky, 1984: Peter Haining [ed.], Scary!. 1998)

Alan Robson - Richmond's Little Drummer Boy (Grisly Trails & Ghostly Tales, 1992)

Jamila Gavin - The Demon Drummer: (Michael Morpurgo (ed.), Ghostly Haunts, 1994)

Paul Finch - The Drummer of Cortachy: (Terror Tales of the Scottish Highlands, 2015)

[humgoo]

Arthur Quiller-Couch - The Roll-Call of the Reef: (Wandering Heath: Stories, Studies, and Sketches, 1895; Cornish Tales Of Terror, 1970)

[dem bones]

The Drummer of Tedworth

The magistrate of Tedworth in Wiltshire, England, could not have imagined the consequences when he confiscated the drum belonging to William Drury — an itinerant magician caught in some shady dealings—and told him to leave the district.

That was in March 1662. Hardly had the culprit left Tedworth when the drum began to produce drumming noises itself. It also flew around Magistrate Mompesson's
house, seen by several people besides the magistrate. After several sleepless nights, he had the drum broken into pieces. Still the drumming continued. Nor was that all. Shoes flew through the air, and chamber pots were emptied onto beds. Children were levitated. A horse's rear leg was forced into its mouth.

The possibility that the exiled drummer had sneaked back and was causing the trouble was fairly well ruled out when it was discovered that he had been arrested for theft in the city of Gloucester and sent to the colonies. The Reverend Joseph Glanville, chaplain to King Charles II, came to Tedworth to investigate the phenomena. He heard the drumming himself, and collected eyewitness reports from the residents. No natural cause was found for the effects, which stopped exactly one year after they had started.

— Frank Smyth, Ghosts & Poltergeists, 1976

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Nov 26, 2023 13:47:08 GMT dem bones said:

The Drummer of Tedworth

 The Reverend Joseph Glanville, chaplain to King Charles II, came to Tedworth to investigate the phenomena. He heard the drumming himself, and collected eyewitness reports from the residents. No natural cause was found for the effects, which stopped exactly one year after they had started.

— Frank Smyth, Ghosts & Poltergeists, 1976

Samuel Pepys Diary December 1667:

25th. It being a fine, light, moonshine morning, and so home round the city, and stopped and dropped money at five or six places, which I was the willinger to do, it being Christmas-day, and so home, and there find my wife in bed, and Jane and the maids making pyes, and so I to bed, and slept well, and rose about nine, and to church, and there heard a dull sermon of Mr. Mills, but a great many fine people at church; and so home. Wife and girl and I alone at dinner—a good Christmas dinner, and all the afternoon at home, my wife reading to me "The History of the Drummer of Mr. Mompesson," which is a strange story of spies, and worth reading indeed. In the evening comes Mr. Pelling, and he sat and supped with us; and very good company, he reciting to us many copies of good verses of Dr. Wilde, who writ "Iter Boreale," and so to bed, my boy being gone with W. Hewer and Mr. Hater to Mr. Gibson's in the country to dinner and lie there all night.

Monday 15 June 1663:

That done, by water, I in the barge with the Maister, to the Trinity House at London; where, among others, I found my Lords Sandwich and Craven, and my cousin Roger Pepys, and Sir Wm. Wheeler. Anon we sat down to dinner, which was very great, as they always have. Great variety of talk. Mr. Prin, among many, had a pretty tale of one that brought in a bill in parliament for the empowering him to dispose his land to such children as he should have that should bear the name of his wife. It was in Queen Elizabeth’s time. One replied that there are many species of creatures where the male gives the denomination to both sexes, as swan and woodcock, but not above one where the female do, and that is a goose.

Both at and after dinner we had great discourses of the nature and power of spirits, and whether they can animate dead bodies; in all which, as of the general appearance of spirits, my Lord Sandwich is very scepticall. He says the greatest warrants that ever he had to believe any, is the present appearing of the Devil1 in Wiltshire, much of late talked of, who beats a drum up and down. There are books of it, and, they say, very true; but my Lord observes, that though he do answer to any tune that you will play to him upon another drum, yet one tune he tried to play and could not; which makes him suspect the whole; and I think it is a good argument.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

The longer diary entry for 15 June 1663 can be found here, along with these notes:

www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/06/15/

In 1664, there being a generall report all over the kingdom of Mr. Monpesson his house being haunted, which hee himself affirming to the King and Queene to be true, the King sent the Lord Falmouth, and the Queene sent mee, to examine the truth of; but wee could neither see nor heare anything that was extraordinary; and about a year after, his Majesty told me that hee had discovered the cheat, and that Mr. Monpesson, upon his Majesty sending for him, confessed it to him. And yet Mr. Monpesson, in a printed letter, had afterwards the confidence to deny that hee had ever made any such confession.

(“Letters of the Second Earl of Chesterfield,” p. 24, 1829, 8vo.)

Joseph Glanville published a relation of the famous disturbance at the house of Mr. Monpesson, at Tedworth, Wilts, occasioned by the beating of an invisible drum every night for a year. This story, which was believed at the time, furnished the plot for Addison’s play of “The Drummer, or the Haunted House.” In the “Mercurius Publicus,” April 16-23, 1663, there is a curious examination on this subject, by which it appears that one William Drury, of Uscut, Wilts, was the invisible drummer. — B. ↩

[dem bones]

Ryz Hajdul, J. A. Brooks, Britain's Haunted Heritage, 1990

PHANTOM DRUMMER BOY
STRANGE TALE OF THE AIRLIES

More extraordinary than any ghost story in fiction and equally inexplicable is the grim tale of the phantom drummer boy of Cortachy Castle, the seat of the Airlie family. An authentic account appears in the April number of "Pearson's Magazine." The story runs as follows:

"A certain wicked Earl of Airlie had a quarrel with one of his friends, and his passionate temper and haughty pride made him refuse to acknowledge himself in the wrong.

The friend, who was an officer in the same regiment as the Earl, sent an emissary to the latter in the shape of a young drummer boy, who fearlessly carried a message of some kind to the Castle, was conducted into the presence of Airlie and awaited the proud Earl's pleasure. Either the wording of the message or some indiscreet action on the part of the lad himself angered the wicked laird, and he prepared to take a terrible revenge. Having called upon his retainers to seize the boy, he ordered him to be fastened inside his own drum, and then thrown from a high rampart on a tower of the Castle, knowing that his body would be dashed to pieces on the hard stones below.

The helpless boy heard the fiendish order given, and while it was being carried out he cursed his captor bitterly, swearing that if his life should be taken he would haunt the Airlie family forever.

No heed was taken of his threats, and the unfortunate boy went to his doom over the steep wall of Cortachy: but some years after wards, just before the death of the wicked Earl, the faint rub-a-dub-dub of a drum was heard to echo round the stately castle, and ever since then, before the death of an Earl of Countess of Airlie, soft music, accompanied by the sound of drumming, is distinctly heard, often by persons having no knowledge of the legend whatever, and always when least expected or listened for.

For instance, in August, 1849, a young Englishman, a friend of the heir of the Ogilvie's, was invited to Tulchan for a week's shooting, and on his way to the shooting lodge on the estate he rode a stout Highland pony and was accompanied by a gillie. As he neared his destination he was surprised to hear, stealing over the wild lonely Forfarshire moor, the sound of faint music, accompanied by the hollow rub-a-dub-dub of a drum. Tulchan stood quite alone, the only house for many miles round, and as darkness had already fallen the lad could not understand the weird sounds, and questioned his guide.

The Highlander muttered something inaudible and appeared greatly perturbed, but presently the music and the drumming ceased, and the riders drew rein before the front door of the lodge.

Before dismounting the Englishman was told that his host, young Lord Ogilvie, had been hastily summoned to London on account of the dangerous illness of his father, the ninth Earl (who already lay on his deathbed), and was asked to excuse his absence.

The gillie then solemnly related the family legend to the new guest, and on the following day the Earl of Airlie died, thus fulfilling the drummer's warning."

— Preston Herald, 3 January 1907

Jessie Adelaide Middleton - The Drummer Boy of the Airlies: (The Grey Ghost Book, 1912).

Elliott O'Donnell - The Phantom Drummer of Cortachy: (Scottish Ghost Stories 1911). The story listed as The Phantom Drummer of Fyvie on the contents page of O'Donnell's The Screaming Skulls and Other Ghost Stories 1964, should read The Phantom Trumpeter of Fyvie

Shane Leslie - The Drummer of Gordonmuir: (Ainslee's, Jan. 1916: Masquerades: Studies in the Morbid, 1924: Hugh Walpole [ed], A Second Century of Creepy Stories, 1937).

John William De Forest - The Drummer Ghost: (Atlantic, July 1869: (Alistair Gunn [ed.], The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories: Volume 9, 2021).

[dem bones]

The Watch for the Headless Drummer
From Our Own Correspondent

DOVER, Monday. TOMORROW at full moon a ghost may be laid—the ghost of a headless drummer boy.

In a passage dug under Dover garrison Castle by a Norman nearly 700 years ago an R.A. sergeant will sit and wait for the ghost.

The legend of the drummer has been current for generations.

The boy, so they say, was carrying the pay of his regiment when he was murdered and robbed. The body was found headless and the head was never discovered.

Ever since at full moon, so they say, the lad has played his drum and marched headless along the passages.

Fifty years ago, the story goes on, a lieutenant spent a night under the castle watching for the ghost. He was found next morning demented and his hair had turned white.

Now Sgt. Harry Leeming, of the RA, is going to watch. With a friend he will sit in the passageway from moonrise till dawn. With only the light of a pocket torch they will await the drummer boy....

— Daily News Chronicle, 27 Feb. 1945

Nota Bene

The investigation of genuine legends of long standing may sometimes disclose forgotten facts. Unfortunately, once legends are mentioned, we get "spoofing," another name for "terminological inexactitudes." The story about a headless drummer boy parading in Dover Castle grounds is an invention of the recent war. No one had heard of it before. Now that the moment for trying to scare Wrens has passed it would be of interest if the author of the story would confess how he transplanted the Ingoldsby legend of the headless drummer from Salisbury Plain to Dover Castle.

— Dover Express & East Kent News, 27 August 1948

They Will See A Ghost At Dover Castle
BUT WILL THE HEADLESS DRUMMER BE THERE TOO?

THOUSANDS of people from East Kent will clamber up to Dover Castle on a few evenings next summer to see a ghost. He is a member of the cast of local amateur actors, the Dover Players, who will be presenting "Hamlet" under the ancient and castellated turrets of this 11th-century fortress.

This is not the first ghost to visit the castle however, for it is reputed to be haunted by one or two. The favourite and most likely to exist is Peter, the headless drummer boy. His story, handed down through the ages, goes like this.

Peter Watkins was drummer boy to Dover Garrison. His job was to walk round the turrets and ramparts of the castle to tap out drum messages that ordered the comings and goings of the military.

It also was his job to go to headquarters to collect the garrison pay. On one of these occasions he was returning through some underground passages when he was set upon by ruffians. It was a cleverly planned attack, the legend has it, and within a few moments Peter lay headless upon the ground, his hand clutching a shred of the bag containing the payroll.

A great hue and cry was set up but to no avail—the culprits remained free.

SEARCH FOR HIS HEAD

Now Peter is alleged to wander the ramparts and the underground passages, beating out a ghostly rat-a-tat upon his drum, in search of his head.

Nobody can claim to have seen him although his existence is never denied.

The only proof of any ghostly manifestations come from the last century when a young lieutenant of the Guards decided to wait one night to see the headless drummer boy.

He descended into the dark and dank dungeons and there lay in wait. The next morning searchers went to look for him—they found him stark mad with his dark curly hair turned overnight into a brilliant white thatch. Nobody ever heard from him what happened during that fateful night.

If anybody should know about Peter, it should be old Harry Leeming, for years Custodian of the Castle. He knows the old legend but has never seen Peter.

"Some nights in my home in the tower I have heard a ghostly tapping, but I have never discovered what it was caused by," he says. Another theory for the non-appearance of Peter these days is put forward by Mr. Charles Batt, of Granville-rd., Dover, who says that the headless drummer used to come from a particular tower that has since been boarded up.

Whatever happens, Dover Players are hoping that they do not suddenly find themselves with an extra player upon their rampart stage!

— Kentish Express, 19 December 1958

[dem bones]

John Cameron Jarvies (Aidan Chambers, Death's Drummer Boy, Haunted Houses, 1971)

Mystery of the phantom boy drummer

IT was the year 1919 and the German fleet was officially surrendering to the British at lonely Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands.

As the huge warships of the Royal Navy encircled the German vessels and moved in to accept the surrender, the ghostly beat of a single drum rolled eerily across the boundless seas where thousands of brave men of both countries had perished in the wartime holocaust.

A rigorous search was made but there was no sign of the spectral drummer. Every sailor stood at his post, no one was beating any drums, yet still the phantom music rolled on.

The riddle was never solved but many of the sailors present were convinced they had heard the ghostly drum of legendary maritime hero Sir Francis Drake who had died more than 300 years earlier.

According to naval legend, when the old sea-dog lay on his death-bed off the coast of Panama in 1596, he ordered his battle-drum to be taken back to Britain.

He vowed that, in the years to come, its thumping beat would be heard at the most decisive moments in his country's history. That is why it was said that, at the surrender at Scapa Flow, the spirit of the great admiral, symbolised by the rolling of the drum, was with his compatriots in their hour of triumph.

I thought about the legend of Drake's drum a few days ago as walked along the shores of wooded Castle Semple Loch near the village of Lochwinnoch. Night was draping its sable veil across the frostbound countryside and a grey mist hung like a shroud above the lifeless waters of the loch.

Murky

Somewhere in the murky gloom of darkness and mist wild ducks squabbled garrulously among the reeds. The pealing, booming call of whooper swans echoed hauntingly across the marshes.

The droll ambience of my lochside surroundings reminded me that Scapa Flow is not alone in having a ghostly drum legend. Castle Semple Loch in rural Renfrewshire has one, too.

I first became acquainted with the story when I worked as a countryside ranger at the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park visitor centre at Castle Semple Loch. I was organising a guided walk to various places along the lochside where ghosts or unexplained happenings had been recorded over a period of time.

"Are you doing the one about the wee boy with the red jacket?" asked two of the village children who were planning to come on the walk.

"What wee boy with the red jacket?" I responded. "The wee boy with the drum."

"Some of our pals have seen him along the loch shore. They say he's a ghost," was their frank and nonchalant reply.

It set me thinking. I was aware of the legend which tells how the phantoms of Covenanters and Jacobite dragoons killed at the Battle of Muirdykes are frequently seen haunting the field where they died.

The conflict took place on June 18, 1685, on a hillside overlooking Castle Semple Loch. Also linked with the battle was the discovery of a 17th century sword in the Castle Semple marshes during drainage and land-reclamation work.

It is thought the weapon was dropped by a combatant fleeing or retreating from the affray. More sinisterly, it is believed that the soldier who lost the weapon still lies entombed in the mud at the bottom of Castle Semple Loch — along with his horse.

It is unlikely the boy soldier apparition is linked to the Covenanting era. It is more probably associated with British Military history of the 18th and 19th centuries when it was customary for young lads to join the armed forces at an incredibly early age.

Lord Nelson, for example, enlisted in the Royal Navy when he was just 12. His second-in-command at the Battle of Trafalgar, Lord Collingwood, was only 11 when he joined up.

Orphans

But it was more usual for boys to enlist as buglers or drummers. Most were orphans, vagabonds, outcasts or from poor homes. Yet they were heroes. Who knows what horrors they must have seen in the world's theatre of war? Who knows what sufferings, what nightmarish scenes they found themselves engulfed in?

Yet, amidst the carnage, the slaughter and the sheer, inescapable terror and folly of it all, they stood by their posts giving the signals to retreat or advance and churning out the music which kept the regiments together and acting in unison as a formidable fighting force.

The Sempills of Castle Semple House and their successors, the Macdowalls, held prominent ranks in the British Army. Brigadier-General Hew, the 12th Lord Sempill, commanded the left wing of the Hanoverian army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 when the Jacobites were defeated. Colonel William Macdowall and other members of his family served with the king's colours in the West Indies, North America and various parts of war-ravaged Europe.

On their furloughs back home, they were frequently accompanied at Castle Semple House by members of their regiments, including their drummers and buglers. So it seems likely that the ghost of the boy soldier dates from the late 18th or early 19th centuries.

Is the story a hoax or is there a rational explanation? The work of James Clerk Maxwell and Guglielmo Marconi on electro-magnetic waves and radiation indicates sights and sounds from the past can be recorded and later manifested on the atmosphere. These manifestations are particularly powerful near water which has strong electro-magnetic energy fields.

Does this explain the reported sightings of the ghostly child-soldier? Or does the tormented spirit of 'a wee boy with a red jacket and a drum" still wander as a phantom in the lochside haunts he knew more than 200 years ago? — Derek Parker

— The Paisley Daily Express, 17 February 1997

Nilesh Mistry (Jamila Gavin, The Demon Drummer, Ghostly Haunts, 1994)