Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 40

One of the first known collectors of ghost stories, antiquarian and biographer John Aubrey’s compilation, Miscellanies, was published in 1696 and is packed with eye-witness accounts of ghostly sightings gathered from all points of Great Britain. Aubrey’s interest in the supernatural was reinforced by his own personal experiences. In Miscellanies, Aubrey writes about strange knocking sounds on the walls of his house a few days before his father died. ‘Three or four days before my father died’, he wrote, ‘as I was in my bed about nine o’clock in the morning, perfectly awake, I did hear three distinct knocks over the bed’s head, as if it had been with a ruler or ferula.’ This mysterious incident, when combined with his interviews of others who had encountered ghosts, utterly convinced Aubrey that the spirit world existed.