The Dead Knight by John Masefield
English poet and writer, Poet Laureate 1930-1967
Could be seen as a “sequel” to La Belle Dame Sans Merci, an excerpt of which is in the previous post
…And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!'
I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side…
from La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
John William Waterhouse, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
English Ghosts
There was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it; the churchyards were all haunted; every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it; and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit.
from The Spectator, Vol 6, 1729
Above us, rising ridge beyond ridge, slope beyond slope, spread the mountainous moor-country, bare and bleak for the most part, with here and there a patch of cultivated field or hardy plantation, and crowned highest of all with masses of huge grey crag, abrupt, isolated, hoary, and older than the deluge. These were the Tors-Druids' Tor, King's Tor, Castle Tor, and the like; sacred places, as I have heard, in the ancient time, where crownings, burnings, human sacrifices, and all kinds of bloody heathen rites were performed.
Bones, too, had been found there, and arrowheads, and ornaments of gold and glass. I had a vague awe of the Tors in those boyish days, and would not have gone near them after dark for the heaviest bribe.
From The Engineer’s Story by Amelia B. Edwards, 1866