Gef: The Talking Mongoose / The Dalby Spook

[lucy house]

Would be interesting to know if there have been any other incidents of spirits talking through animals. im loving Gef.....

On an unrelated note my mother and younger brother claim that my cat, Yes CAT!! spoke to them once when we lived in a very spooky house. They said that they were leaving and the cat ran down the stairs and stated in a very creepy voice ''please, dont leave me.'' They did seem very firightened when i came home and they told me. I just laughed it off but they were deadly serious and clearly terrified.

 

[Graylien]

There's Whitey the self-pitying Talking Cat.

Whitey always seemed to feel that he wasn’t getting enough attention, and that people were mistreating him. He even caught the attention of a policeman passing by the Deem’s car one day. They were having a nap during a road trip through North Carolina which included Whitey. According to Search Magazine’s report, the policeman heard a cry, “Help! Help!” When he approached the car, he found the cat inside with its sleepy owners saying, “I want out! Nobody love me!”

 

[lucy house]

There's Whitey the self-pitying Talking Cat.

How interesting. Thanks for that. Evedently there may be something out there using our animals as conduits.......

 

[Kazza34]

Wasn't there talk that Gef was actually a pen!s - no joke

 

[Graylien]

Was there? Where is this talk?

 

[David Plankton]

If he was a penis was he talking bollocks?

 

[Naughty_Felid]

If he was a penis was he talking bollocks?

Nah he was just being a

 

[amyasleigh]

I recall reading long ago – where, I don’t remember – about events (1716 – 17) in the family home of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, during his adolescence: supernatural doings, a connection between which, and Gef of Cashen’s Gap, was suggested. The following, tells of the 1716 – 17 happenings.

http://www.ukparanormal.co.uk/Articles_OldJeffery.html

Said connection would seem, for sure, a “stretch” – but I find the idea rather intriguing. Basically pretty much a common-or-garden poltergeist, manifesting by strange noises and by moving things around. The Rev. Samuel Wesley (John’s father) tried to communicate with the “spook”, but got from it only noises like a small animal squeaking. His offspring nicknamed whatever-it-was, “Old Jeffery”. On some of the few occasions of its appearing in visible form, it was likened to a (sometimes headless) badger. With Britain getting involved in India by the early 18th century, there would have been Britons who knew about mongooses – but probably none in a remote Lincolnshire country town: the badger would seem a fairly-resembling known animal.

Admittedly, all pretty thin: but just imaginably, the same entity at Epworth; and in a later “go-around” on the Isle of Man, just over 200 years further on??

 

[amyasleigh]

I'm useless with links: that in the post above, doesn't seem to work -- but typing the wording as shown, directly in, should get one to the article concerned.

 

[stu neville]

I've sorted the link for you. We've got an Epworth thread, too, here, in which Gef is mentioned - a past incarnation of your good self, maybe?

 

[amyasleigh]

To stuneville post #100:

Thanks ! And -- my goodness ! Seems I'm not such an extra, extra clever mongoose; doing some exploring before posting, can be a good idea.

 

[Graylien]

New book on Dalby Spook mystery

Isle of Man News article heralding Chistopher Josiffe's imminent book on Gef (Christopher wrote the FT Gef cover story of a few years ago.)

There's an intriguing comment by one 'Gypsy Bowels' who claims to have visited Doarlish Cashen as a young child in the mid 40's.

I would be about 6 or 7 at the time, and I recall pestering Voirrey to find Jeff and let me hear him speak. I would follow her around the old buildings, whilst she whistled and shouted for Jeff, but he never materialized.

Voirrey was a very attractive young woman by this time. My Grandfather told me a few years later, that it was, in reality, Voirrey, who had the gift of throwing her voice. A good trick, and she got away with it. I remember her as a very nice person.

 

[GNC]

If Gef was Voirrey throwing her voice, why bother pretending to whistle and call for him when she could have done the voice on the spot? And what about the times when the creature was seen, what was that?

 

[Graylien]

By the 40's Gef had ceased manifesting. I guess the sceptical explanation would be that Voirrey had grown tired of her creation and the attention it attracted, so had stopped doing the act.

As for people outside the family seeing Gef, I'm not aware of any detailed sightings at close range. Perhaps people glimpsed squirrels or ferrets or such and mistakenly believed they had seen the loquacious mongoose?

 

[Peripart]

Is "throwing your voice" even a real thing? I thought that ventriloquists are simply very good at talking without moving their lips - how does anyone make it sound as if their voice is coming from somewhere else?

 

[PeteByrdie]

Is "throwing your voice" even a real thing? I thought that ventriloquists are simply very good at talking without moving their lips - how does anyone make it sound as if their voice is coming from somewhere else?

You're correct. Throwing your voice depends on the audience's assumption that any talking is coming from whichever dummy is moving its lips. So, Voirrey would have needed a remote controlled animatronic mongoose to pull the trick off. Clever girl!

Does anyone know how to pronounce 'Voirrey'? I've always struggled with it. Such an intriguing name.

 

[Swifty]

Is "throwing your voice" even a real thing? I thought that ventriloquists are simply very good at talking without moving their lips - how does anyone make it sound as if their voice is coming from somewhere else?

This is how someone says it's done ..

 

[Peripart]

That's really more about increasing the range and power of your voice, rather than making it sound like it's coming from the mongoose across the yard!

 

[Mythopoeika]

This is how someone says it's done ..

That's how to project your voice, not throw it!

 

[gattino]

Throwing your voice, I'd have thought, was about lowering the volume and pitch to make it sound like its coming from further away....the obvious example being the ventriliquist gimmick of doing a muffled squeaky little voice to give the impression of the puppet locked inside his case or box

 

[GNC]

Does anyone know how to pronounce 'Voirrey'? I've always struggled with it. Such an intriguing name.

I always thought it was pronounced "Vwa-rey", but I've never heard anyone say it, that I can recall anyway.

 

[Jepra Peld]

By the 40's Gef had ceased manifesting. I guess the sceptical explanation would be that Voirrey had grown tired of her creation and the attention it attracted, so had stopped doing the act.

As for people outside the family seeing Gef, I'm not aware of any detailed sightings at close range. Perhaps people glimpsed squirrels or ferrets or such and mistakenly believed they had seen the loquacious mongoose?

There are no squirrels on the Isle of Man I'm afraid. I'm not sure about ferrets.

 

[ramonmercado]

There are no squirrels on the Isle of Man I'm afraid. I'm not sure about ferrets.

I'm surprised no one has released squirrels into the wild there.

 

[GNC]

I'm surprised no one has released squirrels into the wild there.

Release some cane toads while they're at it.

 

[ramonmercado]

Release some cane toads while they're at it.

And wolves!

 

[Graylien]

Apparently there are polecats and stoats.

 

[Anonymous-50446]

Apparently there are polecats and stoats.

Explains the smell.

 

[Jepra Peld]

I'm surprised no one has released squirrels into the wild there.

I think someone did once but the squirrels were recaptured. I know there was talk of making the island a refuge for the red squirrel but plans were rejected.
All this is a long way from Gef, sorry.

 

[GNC]

Apparently there are polecats and stoats.

Surely the question should be, are there any mongeese? And if there are, how do you tell them apart from the polecats and stoats?

 

[Andy X]

Throwing your voice, I'd have thought, was about lowering the volume and pitch to make it sound like its coming from further away....the obvious example being the ventriliquist gimmick of doing a muffled squeaky little voice to give the impression of the puppet locked inside his case or box

Case in point:

Am very impressed by this trick - although it's totally pointless tbh.