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303
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
66
Nor
is
the
following
very
hard.
THE
COW
WITH
THE
BELL
I
had
given
a
glass
ball
to
the
wife
of
a
friend,
whose
visions
proved
so
startling
and
on
one
occasion
so
unholy
that
she
ceased
to
make
experiments.
One
day
my
friend's
secretary,
a
young
student
and
golfer,
took
up
the
ball.
"I
see
a
field
I
know
very
well,"
he
said,
"but
there
is
a
cow
in
it
that
I
never
saw;
brown,
with
white
markings,
and,
this
is
odd
in
Scotland,
she
has
a
bell
hanging
from
her
neck.
I'll
go
and
look
at
the
field."
He
went
and
found
the
cow
as
described,
bell
and
all.
{60b}
In
the
spring
of
1897
I
gave
a
glass
ball
to
a
young
lady,
previously
a
stranger
to
me,
who
was
entirely
unacquainted
with
crystal
gazing,
even
by
report.
She
had,
however,
not
infrequent
experience
of
spontaneous
visions,
which
were
fulfilled,
including
a
vision
of
the
Derby
(Persimmon's
year),
which
enriched
her
friends.
In
using
the
ball
she,
time
after
time,
succeeded
in
seeing
and
correctly
describing
persons
and
places
familiar
to
people
for
whom
she
"scried,"
but
totally
strange
to
herself.
In
one
case
she
added
a
detail
quite
unknown
to
the
person
who
consulted
her,
but
which
was
verified
on
inquiry.
These
experiments
will
probably
be
published
elsewhere.
Four
people,
out
of
the
very
small
number
who
tried
on
these
occasions,
saw
fancy
pictures
in
the
ball:
two
were
young
ladies,
one
a
man,
and
one
a
schoolboy.
I
must
confess
that,
for
the
first
time,
I
was
impressed
by
the
belief
that
the
lady's
veracious
visions,
however
they
are
to
be
explained,
could
not
possibly
be
accounted
for
by
chance
coincidence.
They
were
too
many
(I
was
aware
of
five
in
a
few
days),
too
minute,
and
too
remote
from
the
range
of
ingenious
guessing.
But
"thought
transference,"
tapping
the
mental
wires
of
another
person,
would
have
accounted
for
every
case,
with,
perhaps,
the
exception
of
that
in
which
an
unknown
detail
was
added.
This
confession
will,
undoubtedly,
seem
weakly
credulous,
but
not
to
make
it
would
be
unfair
and
unsportsmanlike.
My
statement,
of
course,
especially
without
the
details,
is
not
evidence
for
other
people.
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