Practices for Disturbing Times
3 years ago
Monday, March 7, 2011
Bodleian hauntings
There is a woman who haunts the Bodleian. I see her nearly every day that I make my way to the lower reading rooms to sift through dust-covered tomes on mythology and theory (which, if I'm honest, hasn't been for a while, since I currently spend my time in the upper reading rooms exploring Old Norse sagas and related criticism). But when I say haunts, I do mean haunts -- I could easily believe that it is only I who sees her. She walks -- or maybe glides -- from one side of the building to the other, her eyes invariably on the book she is reading while she roams (and who but a ghost could walk and read, never lift her eyes from the page, yet never stumble, bump, or trip?), her hair in the same loose bun, day after day, that could easily have made its way from the pages of the 1800s, and her waist-cinched, ankle-length black dress billowing around her. If she is a ghost -- a female scholar debarred from the library during her time on earth -- I suppose there are worse ways to spend eternity than perusing the eleven million volumes in the Bodleian's collection.
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2 comments:
I agree. If I could choose, I would haunt a library or a theatre. The former, obviously, so that I could read books for all eternity. The latter so that I could just watch plays for all eternity. I'd be quiet, just making enough noise to remind people I was there but not enough to cause any trouble. Not that I've thought about this at all...
I came across your blog while searching on Bodleian Library. As someone who worked for a couple of years in the Bodleian stacks and in the Lower Reading Room, I think your ghost was Dr Lightfoot, a classics scholar who always had the same desk in the reading room, hair in a bun and used to walk around reading Herodotus and so on. She has something of a fan club among undergraduate reader and library staff. Sorry to puncture your ghostly apparition. Of course if it's real ghosts you want, the Bodley stacks are the place. There were places (two or three levels beneath Broad Street) where none of us were particularly comfortable working alone...
Incidently, if (as I surmise) you have an interest in Christian matters and Norse literature, you may find George MacKay Brown's stories and poetry of interest. 'Greenvoe' is a wonderful novel that has me in tears at several points. Forgive if I'm preaching to the converted.
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