Via Newspapers.com

If, for some strange reason, you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know that I periodically post old news items about that liveliest of creatures, the goat. This one probably tops them all. From the “York Dispatch,” June 18, 1932:

WERNIGERODE, Saxony, Germany, June 18.--A scrawny billy-goat smeared with blood and honey and the scrapings of church bells, but still a billy-goat, bore mute evidence here, today that modern psychic research had won round one against the witches on "the Brocken," Germany's magic mountain.

At an eerie ceremony, in the cold and clammy fogs on top of the mountain, last night, the billy-goat failed to change into a man, although modern British and German psychic researchers faithfully carried out the old witches formula, supposed to achieve that result.

Round two takes place tonight, however, in the same setting, made famous in Goethe’s "Faust.” and in German witchcraft lore. What happened last night was this:

The experimenters, headed by Harry Price, London psychic expert, trooped up the sides of "the Brocken" leading the billy-goat and carrying an ancient witches formula, in manuscript, brought from the archives of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, London.

With them was Miss Gloria Gordon of England, for the formula called for a maiden "pure of heart,” and Miss Gordon said she guessed she was "as well qualified as any girl nowadays" for the part.

Atop the mountain, they anointed the goat with the blood, the honey and the scrapings of church bells. They used the proper pine to light a fire, described a circle of the proper size and uttered every one of the Latin incantations stipulated.

The goat then was led into the circle by a silver cord. A white sheet was thrown over him. More prescribed abracadabra was intoned. Then, in a weird monotone, expert Price boomed "one!” He continued booming until he reached "ten!” with proper pauses.

While a hundred or so spectators, huddled in overcoats, looked on in breathless silence, Miss Gordon, the maiden pure in heart, jerked off the white sheet.

But no handsome young man stepped out to greet her. Instead, there stood the same be-smeared billy-goat, shivering in the cold.

The witches had failed, and everybody applauded, for that is what they set out to prove. As Dr. Erich Bohn, a German scholar interested in the experiment, said:

"It is far from our expectation to summon witches and spirits. Nevertheless there is no reason why these ancient recipes and rituals should be merely cast aside, for it is the business of science to reject nothing so long as the method it employs is a scientific one."

The scientists will beard the spirits on the spot again tonight. But all the debunking in the world won't change "The Brocken” for its neighbors. When ominous blue-black clouds pour over the top and the wind swoops down the valleys in a frenzy, uprooting mammoth firs and screeching around the eaves, it’s creepy story time in the little timbered houses of the mountain dwellers and probably always will be.

The billy-goat was all right this morning but Gloria Gordon, the "maiden pure of heart,” was confined to her bed with a severe cold, contracted in the raw night wind on the magic mountain.

Gloria, a pretty blonde with wavy bobbed hair, broke down and confessed that she was really Urta Bohn, daughter of a Breslau attorney. "Dad wanted to avoid publicity,” she said.

Several of the spectators at last night's experiment were rubbing sore eyes today from the fumes of the powder flares, which, they said were more diabolical than any medieval witches incense.

Goats, I have noted, possess an uncanny ability to get people to make utter fools of themselves.

via Newspapers.com

There have been numerous reports of animal ghosts of various types, but this is the first time I can recall goats getting in on the fun. The Davenport, Iowa "Daily Times," May 12, 1896, carrying a reprint from the New Albany (Mississippi) "Gazette":

Three miles west of New Albany the Rocky ford road crosses a creek which was originally named Big creek, but was more appropriately named Hell creek by persons who have been compelled to cross the adjacent bottom in recent years. Just beyond this is another run called Mud creek, which stream is grown up with thick and heavy underbrush, and on cloudy nights the blackness that surrounds the traveler could be sliced into chunks and sold for ink. The bottom or lowland adjacent to the stream is of unusual width for one so small, and at the best is exceedingly uninviting.

Some years ago a gentleman passing through the bottom at night was almost thrown by his horse shying to one side, and when he looked ahead was confronted by a monster goat of white color rearing upon his hind feet as if to annihilate the animal and rider. One look was sufficient, and, making a sudden turn, he galloped out of the bottom at the risk of his life, swearing that he would drink no more New Albany blind tiger liquor. Not. wishing to put himself up as a target for the jeers of a suspicious public, he held his counsel and heard or saw nothing more of the weird apparition for some time.

About a year later his goatship was again on the warpath and confronted a gentleman of known sobriety, who, not daunted, urged his animal forward despite the warlike attitude of the ghostly visitor. The goat kept in the middle of the road, and when the small bridge was reached disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared.

The gentleman related his experience, which became noised abroad and gave courage to the man who had first sighted the vapory animal to relate his experience, and the two coincided so well that the people began to give them credit for having seen something to disturb their piece of mind. The story was given enough credence to cause an uneasy feeling to enter the mind of the traveler who crossed the bottom at night, and cause a chill to ramble up and down his spinal column as he passed the spot where the ghost had been seen.

Last year Mr.___, who is not a believer in things uncanny at all, and has a supreme contempt for a man who has seen spooks, had been beyond the creek harvesting hay, and was detained until after nightfall on his return home. The night was intensely dark and a slight rain was falling. As he drove through the impenetrable gloom, trusting to the instinct of the mules that drew the rake which he was astride to find the road, the misty and uncertain form of the giant goat suddenly appeared in the road ahead of him. The mules reared and plunged, very nearly upsetting the rake. Leaping to the ground he grasped the bits and was gratified to see the phantom recede as the team moved forward. The mules, trembling in every nerve, carried him along, and when the bridge was reached he disappeared as on former occasions, much to the relief of the gentleman who did not believe in spirits or unnatural apparitions.

Since that time a number of thoroughly reliable witnesses have been placed in positions to vouch for the truthfulness of the existence of the phantom goat. Persons who travel that road to and from town make their arrangements to pass that spot before nightfall, and very few have the temerity to invade the territory of his goatship after darkness has fallen.

An unsettling thing to see during your travels, to be sure. However, from what I know of goats, they're much safer in spirit form than in the flesh any day.