by Harry Ludlum
If such should prove to be the case, then it might well be suggested that it was Edward Waldegrave who was answering those questions about the nun.
If not, then we are left with two main contenders ... Miss Brackenbury and Harry Bull. There seems to be so little known about Miss Brackenbury that it appears impossible to judge the extent to which she was aware of the stories about the nun; but, to Harry Bull, the nun and her fate was part of the Bull family culture at Borley.
Assuming, from the answers given to questions about the nun, if it was her, that a holy sister did die at Borley, it seems that we still have no proof that her remains have been discovered at all!
So we must move to the next session. This is dated October 25, 1937, and lasted from 4.15am until 4.45am, and the sitters were again Sidney Glanville, Roger Glanville and Mark Kerr-Pearse.
295. Q Are you there?
A Yes.
296. Q Who are you?
A Jane (definite).
297. Q Same as in the library?
A Yes.
298. Q Is anyone else here?
A Yes.
299. Q Do you know Edwin?
A No.
300. Q Do you know Marianne?
A Yes.
301. Q Was she a good influence?
A No.
302. Q Do you know P? (Identity of P unknown. IB)
A No.
303. Q Do you know SM? (Again, identity unknown)
A No.
304. Q Do you spend much time in this room?
A No.
305. Q Did you come here because we are here?
A Yes.
306. Q Has anything important happened in this house?
A Yes.
307. Q Was it a tragedy?
A Yes.
308. Q Was it connected with Katie?
A No.
309. Q Was it connected with Katie, are you sure?
A Yes.
310. Q Do you know who it was?
A Yes.
311. Q Will you please spell the name?
A LIGHT.
312. Q Is it the name of a person?
A Yes.
313. Q Is it a message?
A Yes.
314. Q We presume your message is 'light mass prayer', etc?
A Yes (definite).
315. Q Can you tell us the name of the person connected with the tragedy in this room?
A Yes.
316. Q Spell it?
A LUNOLOWTUMNAL.
317. Q Is the word complete yet?
A No.
318. Q Give us the next letters?
A YC.
319. Q Is that still Jane?
A Yes.
320. Q Was the last message in English?
A No.
321. Q Was the last message in Latin?
A No.
322. Q Was the last message in French?
A No.
323. Q Was the last message in German?
A Yes.
324. Q How many words are there?
A (the table tipped four times in reply).
325. Q Are there four words?
A Yes.
326. Q Are they in the correct order?
A Yes.
327. Q Did you like the woman who married Harry Bull?
A Yes.
328. Q Do you still like her?
A (no reply).
329. Q Will you spell her surname?
A No.
330. Q Will you spell her Christian name?
A J ... (then no reply).
331. Q Are you tired?
A Yes.
332. Q Would you like us to stop?
A Yes.
Good night and thank you.
Now let us try to make some sense out of the answers 295 to 332.
The obvious question is who was Jane? The possibilities of Janen have already been discussed earlier, but there remains the identity of Harry Bull's wife, Ivy Brackenbury. Was Jane her second name? That this is possible is suggested by questions and answers 299 to 301.
The entity claims not to have known Edwin (Dom Richard Whitehouse) but did know Marianne. The point is that if we assume that this is Ivy Brackenbury responding, she would not have known Edwin because he didn't come onto the Borley scene until after the Bulls had ceased to occupy Borley Rectory with the death of Harry Bull in 1927.
She would, however, have known about or met Marianne because Lionel and Marianne Foyster are said to have to come to Borley for a short holiday in 1924, two years after they married.
The case for Ivy Brackenbury is further strengthened by answer 305, in the idea that the entity 'came to the Rectory' because the sitters were there. Here, for perhaps the first time, there is some definite possibility that Ivy Brackenbury did know something of the past troubles associated with the Rectory and the Bull family.
The next oddity is that seemingly aimless and meaningless expression 'LUNOLOWTUMNAL'. Further questioning revealed that the word was German and was supposedly four words, but a German dictionary reveals little that really comes close other than Lügner, which means liar, and Lümmel, which means lout or ruffian!
It is not hard to imagine aspects of the Borley story where such harsh exhortations as 'liar' and 'ruffian' might come into the picture, but there is another possibility concerning the 'term' LUNOLOWTUMNAL: that it refers to the moon, e.g. LUNO ... Luna, one suggestion being that the entity was trying to relate that something happened at the time of the 'low moon'. If this is the intended meaning, it could be that either the moon was at its early or its fading stage of visibility, or that it was low in the sky.
Another construction that might be put on this is that the message was a combination of both suggestions, i.e. that something happened to someone in the Rectory, possibly as a result of physical assault, hence the word 'ruffian' or its German version 'Lümmel', at the time of a certain phase or visibility of the moon.
Now recall the existence of a woman named Maria Rolf (maybe Rolt), resident at Borley Rectory in 1881. Her place of birth is given as Lausanne, Switzerland. The name Rolf, spelt without the E, either Christian or surname, is German. Maria Rolf was therefore almost certainly German Swiss. Here one can see where the German expression Lümmel might come into play!
The census returns list Maria Rolf as a visitor, and occupation that of governess, so we cannot readily ascertain how long Maria Rolf remained at the Rectory.
There is, however, the very real possibility that Maria Rolf might have been at Borley Rectory in 1888, the year of the real Kate Boreham's death, and might well have been aware of what really happened to Kate.
The next two sessions at Borley Rectory on October 25, 1937 are out of sequence in the microfilm copy of the Locked Book, even though the pages 146-7 are in sequence. As those sessions were unproductive, we will pass on to what took place between 2.10am and 3.05am.
This was held in the library, or Base Room in full lamplight, and the three sitters were Sidney and Roger Glanville and Mark Kerr-Pearse.
333. Q What is your name?
A Jane.
334. Q Are you the wife of Henry Dawson Bull?
A Yes.
335. Q Are you happy?
A Yes.
336. Q Do you see your husband?
A Yes.
337. Q Is he happy?
A No.
338. Q Do you have a control?
A (No answer).
339. Q Is anyone buried in the garden?
A Yes.
340. Q Who is it?
A FADENOCH.
341. Q Was he a member of the monastery?
A Yes.
342. Q Was he prior?
A No.
343. Q Was he a lay brother?
A No.
344. Q Was he a monk?
A Yes.
345. Q Was he a novice?
A (No answer).
346. Q Was he a friend of the nun?
A (No answer).
347. Q Had the buri
al been made before your lifetime?
A Yes.
348. Q Had the burial been made after your lifetime?
A No.
349. Q Is there evil in this house?
A No.
350. Q Was there evil in this house?
A Yes.
351. Q Is there now only good in this house?
A Yes.
352. Q Should the house be destroyed?
A No.
The next few questions related to the sitters themselves, and are of no importance, so the relevant questions and answers continue with:
353. Q Are you Caldibec?
A Yes.
354. Q Is that your pet name?
A Yes.
355. Q Did your husband use it?
A Yes.
356. Q Did you call your husband Carlos?
A Yes.
357. Q Do you know who wrote the messages on the walls?
A Yes.
358. Q Did you?
A No.
359. Q Did Carlos?
A No.
360. Q Did Harry?
A Yes.
361. Q Did Marianne?
A No.
362. Q Did Katie?
A No.
There then followed requests to write more messages on the walls for the sitters to see, and questions as to whether the entity knew about the previous messages. We continue with:
363. Q Do you know Mr Foyster?
A No.
364. Q Do you know Marianne?
A Yes.
365. Q Has Carlos been forgiven?
A No.
366. Q Is Carlos happier now?
A No.
367. Q Is Katie happier now?
A Yes.
368. Q Was Katie a servant here?
A Yes.
369. Q Was Katie your servant here?
A Yes.
370. Q Do you want to stop now?
A Yes.
371. Q Is the light too strong?
A No.
372. Q Then you are feeling tired?
A Yes.
373. Q May we speak to you again later?
A Yes.
Good night and thank you.
Let us now look for a moment at question 353. The sitters ask, 'Are you Caldibec?' The name Caldibec has variously been thought to be the name of the nun, or the name of the place from whence she came, but it is also a nickname for Henry's wife. It is this latter possibility that should hold our attention for a moment, because what this word Caldibec may actually have meant to be read as is a shortened version of Caroline Sarah Bull's name.
I would suggest that what the entity was actually saying was not Caldibec, but Carol Beth, short for Caroline Elizabeth. The eldest Bull daughter, who was also called Caroline Sarah, had the name Elizabeth as a third name. She was the girl known in the family as Dodie, who married the Rev. Hayden and eventually died in 1937. It is quite likely that Mrs Bull also had Elizabeth in her name, though she only seems to have been called Caroline Sarah in most records.
If we accept that the answer to question 353 was from Mrs Caroline Bull, then it would be fairly safe to reckon that responses 354 to 362 were also from Mrs Bull senior. With the exception of question 364, to which the answer is odd, given the answer to 363, answers to numbers 363 to 373 are also most likely to have come from Mrs Bull.
A fascinating part of the séance arises out of those results obtained by the use of a planchette which were undertaken for a serious purpose.
The first planchette session at Borley Rectory of which a record still survives took place on October 25, 1937, after a short initial experiment, the writings of which Sidney Glanville reports as being lost, and those listed on page 150 of the Locked Book start in mid-session so to speak, and are of little value.
However, of great value were the results obtained by Helen Granville at her home in Streatham, using another planchette, and unbeknown to Sidney and Roger Glanville. Helen's results were extraordinary, the more so because her planchette functioned away from Borley, while Sidney and Roger's produced nothing until it was taken to Borley!
In order to maintain continuity, and to facilitate further analysis of the results, my numbering sequence continues from the end of the table-tipping experiments.
PLANCHETTE
HELEN GLANVILLE
STREATHAM
OCTOBER 28, 1937
374. Q Have you a message?
A W ... (indistinct).
375. Q If the word is 'well', say yes?
A Yes.
376. The planchette wrote 'Marianne' without a question being asked.
377. Q Do you want us to look in the well, yes or no?
A Yes.
378. Q Is the well in the cellar?
A Yes.
379. Q Is there something you want us to find?
A Yes.
380. Q Can you tell us what it is?
A (Indistinct reply).
381. Q Would you try again. Is it MA?
A (No reply).
382. Q Is anything in the well to do with a child?
A Yes.
383. Q Was the child dead when it was born?
A (Indistinct reply).
384. Q Do you mean yes or no?
A Yes.
385. Q Was it Henry Dawson Bull's child?
A Yes.
386. Q Do you want us to find it?
A Yes.
387. Q Shall we find it in the well in the cellar?
A Yes.
388. Q Do you mean the well that has been filled in?
A Yes.
389. The planchette wrote 'M' without a question being asked.
390. The planchette wrote 'Arianne' without a question being asked.
391. Q Is it someone using this name?
A (Indistinct reply).
392. Q Could you tell me your own name?
A (Indistinct reply).
393. Q Are you buried in the garden?
A Yes.
394. Q Can you tell us where?
A Der-re (indistinct).
395. Q Do you mean under the fir tree?
A No.
396. Q Near a tree?
A Yes.
397. Q Is there anything to tell us where?
A Stone.
At this point the reader will doubtless be interested to learn that there was a boundary stone on the far side of the Rectory garden, at a point that is now part of the stable cottage belonging to Colonel Dorey. But to continue:
398. Q Can you tell me the rest of your name?
A La ... (then indistinct).
399. Q Are the first two letters LA?
A ... irre.
400. Q Do you mean 'Lairre'?
A Yes.
401. Q Can we help? Are you unhappy?
A Yes.
402. Q Can we do anything to help you?
A Mass.
403. The planchette wrote 'Prayers aness' without a question being asked.
404. Q It is Mass, isn't it?
A Yes.
405. Q Can you tell me, are you buried in the garden?
A Yes.
406. Q Do you want Mass said in the house?
A Yes.
The entity replied to the next couple of questions to the effect that it didn't matter where in the house Mass was said. And so to continue:
407. Q If you still want to talk, say yes.
A Yes.
408. Q Can you tell me the name of your nunnery?
A Larire.
409. Q Do you mean 'Lar'?
A ... arre.
410. Q Is it the name of your nunnery you are trying to write?
A Yes.
411. Q Was it near Bures?
A Yes.
412. Q Can you tell me how far it was away? Two miles or more?
A Yes.
413. Q Was it Bures?
A Yes.
414. Q Do you mean it was Bures?
A Yes.
415. Q It is your own name
you are trying to write, isn't it?
A Yes.
416. Q Can you tell me the name of the monk?
A (Indistinct reply).
417. Q Is he unhappy?
A Yes.
418. Q Can you tell me when you passed over?
A 1667.
419. Q The month?
A May.
420. Q The day?
A 17.
421. Q Can you tell us why you passed over?
A Yes.
422. Q Did they hurt you?
A Yes.
423. Q Was there something you wanted very much before you passed over?
A Water.
424. Q Do you mean water?
A Yes.
425. Q Can you try to spell the name of the nunnery?
A H ... (then indistinct).
426. Q Is the first letter H?
A Yes.
427. Q The next letter?
A a.
428. Q The next letter?
A i.
429. Q The next letter?
A a.
430. Q Could you do it again?
A v.
431. Q Haiv, is that right?
A Yes.
432. Q Is it Haiv?
A Yes.
433. Q Was it a closed order?
A Yes.
434. Q Do you want more questions?
A Yes.
435. Q Has it gone now?
A Yes.
436. Q Was the monk's order OSB (Order of St Benedict) ?
A Yes.
427. Q Is the monk buried at Borley?
A Yes.
438. Q Do you know where?
A Yes.
439. Q In the garden, or under the house?
A (No reply).
Now let us look at questions and answers 374 to 388. These all seem to centre on Katie Boreham's dead baby. But who is answering the questions about the well? It could be Katie herself, but there is an indefinable something that suggest it isn't Katie at all who is responding, but instead the formerly unknown and ignored Swiss governess, Maria Rolf or Rolt!
This also presents a fresh possibility, that the name Marie Lairre might have been intended to read Maria-Lausanne, or part thereof, and thus seemingly nothing to do with the Borley nun at all! Remember that the census returns for 1881 tell us that Maria Rolf was born in Lausanne.
Numbers 389 to 392 suggest Miss Brackenbury, Harry Bull's harassed stepdaughter, because of the link between Harry Bull and Lionel and Marianne Foyster, through the latter couple having stayed at Borley during 1924, hence the request, as I see it, for Marianne!
Number 392 is of little use as the reply was indistinct, but from 393 on we appear again to be dealing with the nun.