Another well-known Welsh haunting that may be relegated to the same class of phenomena as the corpse candles is that of the Stradling Ghost. This phantasm, which is supposed to be that of a former Lady Stradling, who was murdered by one of her own relatives, haunts St Donart's Castle, on the southern coast of Glamorganshire, appearing whenever a death or some very grievous calamity is about to overtake a member of the family. Writing of her, Mr Wirt Sikes, in his "British Goblins," p. 143-4, says: "She appears when any mishap is about to befall a member of the house of Stradling, the direct line, however, of which is extinct. She wears high-heeled shoes, and a long trailing gown of the finest silk." According to local reports, her advent is always known in the neighbourhood by the behaviour of the dogs, which, taking their cue from their canine representatives in the Castle, begin to howl and whine, and keep on making a noise and showing every indication of terror and resentment so long as the earth-bound spirit of the lady continues to roam about. Of course the Stradling Ghost cannot be said to be characteristically Welsh, because its prototype is to be found in so many other countries, but it at least comes under the category of family apparitions. The Gwyllgi, or dog of darkness, which Mr Wirt Sikes asserts has often inspired terror among the Welsh peasants, does not appear to be confined to any one family, any more than do the corpse candles, though, like the latter, it would seem to manifest itself principally to really Welsh people. Its advent is not, however, predicative of any special happening. The Cwn Annwn, or dogs of hell, that are chiefly to be met with in the south of Wales, on the contrary, rarely, if ever, appear, saving to warn those who see them of some approaching death or disaster. Neither they, nor the Gwyllgi, nor the corpse candles, since they do not haunt one family exclusively, can be called family ghosts. And only inasmuch as they are racial have they anything in common with the Banshee. Indeed, there is a world of difference between the Banshee and even its nearest counterpart in other countries, and the difference is, perhaps, one which only those who have actually experienced it could ever understand. CHAPTER XI THE BANSHEE IN POETRY AND PROSE "'Twas the Banshee's lonely wailing, Well I knew the voice of death, On the night wind slowly sailing O'er the bleak and gloomy heath." These are the dramatic lines Thomas Crofton Croker, in his inimitable "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland," puts in the mouth of the widow MacCarthy, as she is lamenting over the body of her son, Charles, whose death had been predicted by the Banshee; not the beautiful and dainty Banshee of the O'Briens, but a wild, unkempt, haggish creature that seemed in perfect harmony with the drear and desolate moorland from whence it sprang.