I may have slipped a little behind on the one product a week schedule. Nonetheless, here is the second Frightened to Death by Fairies picture, available as a print in a variety of sizes. A larger preview is here.

The subtitle is “The Bargest puppet was very effective.”

THE BARGEST, OR SPECTRE-HOUND.

IN the glossary to the Rev. Mr. Carr’s “Horae Momenta Carvenae,” I find the following: “Bargest, a sprite that haunts towns and populous places. Belg. berg, and geest, a ghost.” I really am not a little amused at Mr. Carr’s derivation, which is most erroneous. Bargest is not a town-ghost, nor is it a haunter “of towns and populous places;” for, on the contrary, it is said in general to frequent small villages and hills. Hence the derivation may be berg, Germ, a hill, and geest, a ghost–i.e., a hill-ghost; but the real derivation appears to me to be b�r, Germ, a bear, and geest, a ghost–i.e., a bear-ghost, from its appearing in the form of a bear or large dog, as Billy B–‘a narrative shows.

The appearance of the spectre-hound is said to precede a death. Like other spirits, Bargest is supposed to be unable to cross water; and in case any of my craven readers should ever chance to meet with his ghostship, it may he as well to say, that unless they give him the wall, he will tear them in pieces, or otherwise ill-treat them, as he did John Lambert, who, refusing to let him have the wall, was so punished for his want of manners, that he died in a few days.

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