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THE SEVEN NIGHT-WALKERS.

Yes, my master, it's a queer old story,
And it's many a year since last I heard it—
Since I heard the good old father telling
All about the Seven Night-Walking Spirits.
Thus he told the story—thus I heard it:
If you took an oath upon those spirits,
And the oath upon them should be broken,
Seven nights will come to you the walkers;
Seven nights they'll come, each night to wake you;
Seven nights you'll always see the seven;
But upon the seventh night, my master,
By the seventh spirit you'll be strangled.
Round your neck the ghost will twine his fingers,
Then upon your throat you'll feel them pressing:
Then they pass away into the midnight.—
But, my master, where could you have heard it?
Charles G. Leland.

And old Gipsy assured me that he had heard of the Seven Walkers, as described by Sir W. Scott in the oath


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sworn by the Rommany Hayraddin Maugrabin. Whether my informant was mistaken or not—and I do not think he would deceive me in Rommany matters—nothing is more likely than that such a superstition should have been preserved among Gipsies.