The notion of a supernatural child is disturbing to me.

I know someone who used to live far out in the country. Her house sat isolated down a rural road. Her nearest neighbor lived a mile away. From her window one night, she observed a strange figure standing beneath a rural electric co-op light pole in her yard. The height of a toddler, it remained perfectly still, illuminated by the fixture overhead, in a circle of light surrounded by darkness.

A lost child.

Just as my friend was about to go to the rescue, it turned its head and met my friend’s gaze.

It was an enormous owl.

She was scared out of her wits and so was I.

The Marquess of Londonderry was certain he wasn’t mistaken. He really did see a ghostly child. And the ones who loved him wished he hadn’t.

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
You know what a neckcloth and cutaway coat does to me.

The Reverend Richard Harris Barham (1788 – 1845), intimate of Regency wit Sydney Smith, first mentioned the spectral phenomenon known as the “radiant boy” in his famous Ingoldsby Legends (1837). In this tale, a family’s young son becomes obsessed with the spirit of a boy, pale and crying, wandering the grounds of his home, a modest manor.

His mother tells her son it is nothing:

“The linden tree is straight and tall, its leaves are fresh and fair; but there’s no little boy at all–no pretty boy is there.”

But as she said this, her cheek was a little red and her voice hesitated. For she knew the legend of the radiant boy–that its appearance was a portent of bad luck and violent death.

Germanic folklore told of a curse of the kindermorderinn–children murdered by their mothers. The legend found its way to northern England where such apparitions were common, occurring particularly on the great estates of the wealthy. The spirits resembled young boys naked or nearly so, surrounded by white light–heirs deprived of their rightful inheritance, or so it was said.

Corby Castle in Cumbria, with its Regency facade by Peter Nicholson, used to be nothing more than a Border tower. Years ago, the rector of Greystoke and his wife stayed overnight in the old part of the house. The next morning, they departed so precipitously their hired chaise knocked the flower garden’s fence down.

The rector later wrote:

“Soon after we went to bed, we fell asleep; it might be between one and two in the morning when I awoke. I observed that the fire was totally extinguished; but, although that was the case, and we had no light, I saw a glimmer in the centre of the room, which suddenly increased to a bright flame.

I looked out, apprehending that something had caught fire, when, to my amazement, I beheld a beautiful boy, clothed in white, with bright locks resembling gold, standing by my bedside, in which position he remained some minutes, fixing his eyes upon me with a mild and benevolent expression.

He then glided gently towards the side of the chimney, where it is obvious there is no possible egress, and entirely disappeared. I found myself again in total darkness, and all remained quiet until the usual hour of rising.

I declare this to be a true account of what I saw at Corby Castle, upon my word as a clergyman.”

Corby Castle in Cumbria

A similar apparition, called the “Blue Boy,” resides in another border fortress, Chillingham Castle. Once the seat of the Grey family and the Earls of Tankerville, it was a popular country house party pad in the late nineteenth century. Even so, guests often reported blue flashes followed by a loud wail in the castle’s chamber known as the Pink Room.

Eventually the castle fell into ruin but recently a new owner has attempted a restoration. A remarkable account of this process, including the update of the Pink Room, can be found here.

But back to the Marquess of Londonderry–as Viscount Castlereagh, Robert Steward was a well-known Regency era figure and husband of an Almack’s Patroness. Long before his duel with rival and fellow ghost-observer George Canning, his lordship served His Majesty’s forces in Ireland. There he witnessed the apparition known as the Goblin Child of Belashanney. According to Thomas Moore, “Regency Poet of Wine and Love,” Castlereagh recounted his experience to Sir Walter Scott and ‘told it without hesitation as if he believed it implicitly:’

“It was one night when he was in the barracks and the face brightened gradually out of the fireplace and approached him. Lord Castlereagh stepped forward to it, and it receded again and faded into the same place  approached it.”

Strangely enough, of the two men who confessed their ghostly encounters to Scott, both ended their lives by suicide. One was the Earl of Stanhope.

The other was Lord Castlereagh.