Nätspöken

Hallowe’en  

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite

All are on their rounds to-night,—

   In the wan moon’s silver ray

   Thrives their helter-skelter play.

Fond of cellar, barn, or stack

True unto the almanac,

   They present to credulous eyes

   Strange hobgoblin mysteries.

Cabbage-stumps—straws wet with dew—

Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,

   And a mirror for some lass

   Show what wonders come to pass.

Doors they move, and gates they hide

Mischiefs that on moonbeams ride

   Are their deeds,—and, by their spells,

   Love records its oracles.

Don’t we all, of long ago

By the ruddy fireplace glow,

   In the kitchen and the hall,

   Those queer, coof-like pranks recall?

Every shadows were they then—

But to-night they come again;

   Were we once more but sixteen

   Precious would be Hallowe’en.

                                       Joel Benton   

                           ur "The Book of Hallowe’en", 1919 

Sad Ghost of Nothingness – Small, 2014

bronsskulptur

Fredrik Raddum 

Käre tid, så gott om spöken det finns på nätet— många, för att inte säga de flesta är rätt gulliga, och en hel del är vackra. Här kommer en litet urval.

Ghost Ribbons, 2013

Sean Dawson

Abstract Portrait: 'Servants of the Ghost'

David Hibbert 

The Ghost of a Flea

  William Blake 

John Varley – an artist, astrologer and close friend of Blake – reported in his 'Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy' (1882) that Blake was once visited by the ghost of a flea and that ‘This spirit visited his imagination in such a figure as he never anticipated in an insect.’ While drawing the spirit it told the artist that all fleas were inhabited by the souls of men who were ‘by nature bloodthirsty to excess’.

Marshal Peng Dehuai and his hungry ghosts, 2007

Yun-Fei Ji 

Hallowe’en Charm

 Fern seed, hemp seed, water of the well, 

   Bark of wizard hazel-wand, berry of the bay, 

Let the fairy gifts of you mingle with the spell, 

   Guard the precious life and soul of him that’s far away! 

Oak slip, thorn slip, crystal of the dew, 

   Morsel of his native earth, shoot of mountain pine, 

Lend his arm the strength of you, let his eye be true, 

   Send him like the thunderbolt to break the foeman’s line! 

Rose leaf, elm leaf, kernel of the wheat, 

   Airy waft of thistledown, feather of the wren, 

Bring him peace and happiness, let his dream be sweet, 

   Take my secret thought to him and call him home again!

                                                              Arthur Guiterman

Small Garden Ghost,1929

Paul Klee 

Ghosts and Cats, omkring 1902

 Lyonel Feininger 

Ghosts

  Grace Gardner  

Ghost

  John Tunnard 

Doors and Ghosts, 1983

Kenneth Noland 

hm, jag ser nog snarare en trasmatta

 Ghost, 2015

Sergey Kalinin 

I Nils Celsius "Sambling af svenske ordspråk", 1708,  kan man hitta: "Korss och kröke, gud beware oss wäll för Spöke, som påminner mig om den skotska bönen:

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

ghost face, 2017

Sarah Cain 

All Souls’ Night, 1917

 You heap the logs and try to fill 

The little room with words and cheer, 

But silent feet are on the hill, 

Across the window veiled eyes peer. 

The hosts of lovers, young in death, 

Go seeking down the world to-night, 

Remembering faces, warmth and breath—

And they shall seek till it is light. 

Then let the white-flaked logs burn low, 

Lest those who drift before the storm 

See gladness on our hearth and know 

There is no flame can make them warm. 

                                          Hortense King Flexner

I valet och kvalet

"What had impressed him most was the difference between war as imagined and witnessed. As imagined it had seemed the most immense of sports; as witnessed it was merely murder."

 "THE little house, tell this story. It was lived within my walls; not a line is invented and it was I, by my interfering, who brought about the happy ending. Who wants a story that does not end happily, especially a Christmas story? To have been responsible for the happy ending is pretty nearly as clever as to have made the story up out of one’s own head or, as we houses say, out of one’s own walls.

Perhaps you never heard before of a house telling a story. If that be so, it is because you don’t listen or because you go to bed too early. Unlike people, we houses sleep all day long; but after midnight we wake up and talk. When the clock strikes twelve, our stairs begin to crack and our windows to rattle and our floors to creak. If you ever hear these sounds, don’t be frightened; they simply mean that the kind old walls that shelter you have begun to remember and to think. And we have so many things to remember and to think about, especially we old houses who have been standing for almost two hundred years. We have seen so much; we have been the friends of so many generations. More little children have been born beneath our roofs than we have stairs on which to count. We reckon things on our stairs, just as people reckon things on their fingers. When our stairs crack after midnight, it’s usually because we’re counting’ the births and love-makings and marriages we have watched. We very often get them wrong because there are so many of them. Then the doors and windows and floors will chip in to correct us. “Ha,” a window will rattle, “you’ve forgotten the little girl who used to gaze through my panes in 1760 or thereabouts.” One of the doors will swing slowly on its hinges and, if anyone disputes with it, will bang, shouting angrily, “Wrong again—all wrong.” Then the walls and the windows and the doors and the floors all start whispering, trying to add up correctly the joys and sorrows they have witnessed in the years beyond recall.

Det finns gånger jag vill ha något att läsa — men jag vet inte vad, och förkastar de ena efter de andra av alla förslag jag ger mig själv.  Jag söker i minnet efter lämplig författare, eller försöker att åtminstone sätta fingret på vilken sorts bok jag vill ha. Det känns som om min hjärna har rest bort, jag klarar inte av något djupsinnigt eller komplicerat — så många böcker ramlar bort i första omgången. Något spännande? Nej, till och med en mysdeckare är mer än jag kan svälja nu — inte ens en Miss Marple. Förresten kan jag nästan alla Miss Marple-böckerna utantill. Något romantiskt då, tänker jag — nej tack, inget slisk.

Ja, jag är svår att göra till lags.

Gutenberg blir min räddning — som vanligt. Han pekar på en författare som jag aldrig hört talas om: Coningsby Dawson. Jag slår upp honom, och blir varken imponerad eller intresserad. Men Gutenberg ger sig inte i första taget och kommer med ett nytt förslag — samma författare men en annan titel: The Little House. Jag som gillar hus, ger efter — och är glad att jag gjorde det. En charmig bok på min nivå. Ett enkelt men gott språk, och ett lite ovanligt grepp att låta ett hus berätta vad som händer på  “Dolls’ House Square.” 

Stella Langdale (1880–1976) har illustrerat boken — hennes mörka, ofta dramatiska, kolteckningar balanserar bokens aningen sentimentala innehåll.