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Gef The Talking Mongoose (The Dalby Spook)

New book on Dalby Spook mystery
Link is dead. No archived version found.

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.
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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?
 
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?
 
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?
 
Peripart said:
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?
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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.
 
Peripart said:
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?
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This is how someone says it's done ..

 
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!
 
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
 
PeteByrdie said:
Does anyone know how to pronounce 'Voirrey'? I've always struggled with it. Such an intriguing name.
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I always thought it was pronounced "Vwa-rey", but I've never heard anyone say it, that I can recall anyway.
 
graylien said:
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?
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There are no squirrels on the Isle of Man I'm afraid. I'm not sure about ferrets.
 
gattino said:
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
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Case in point:


Am very impressed by this trick - although it's totally pointless tbh.
 
graylien said:
an eclectic set of articles
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Thanks for posting that . . .

Classifying Gef with poltergeists seems sensible.

Reading an account of a classic - if suspiciously migratory - poltergeist tale attached to Boggart Hole Clough in Blackley, I traced it back through Edwin Waugh to Roby's Traditions of Lancashire, from which all later accounts derive. His much-reprinted volumes were a product of the 1830s and 40s but he is these days regarded as having compiled them rather than written them himself.

It is Thomas Crofton Croker who is usually credited with the cheeky poltergeist of the Clough. Like Gef, this mischievious spirit had a favourite place - under the stairs in this case. From here he would make cheeky observations about the family. They got so fed up with him that they used to stick a shoe-horn in the hole to block his view. This provided the opportunity for the Boggart, as it was called, to forcibly eject the obstruction. It all leads up to the famous scene in which the family decamps with all their possessions. A neighbour spots them and hears the sorry tale. "Aye, we're flitting!" comes the voice of the Boggart from inside a saddle-bag. At which they give up all hope of escaping their guest.

Now Crofton Croker was an Irishman and his books on fairy-lore have a distinct flavour. His account of the Boggart is filled with lively detail which cannot be traced to any other earlier account. He was a good spinner of yarns and the "We're flitting!" tale is also attributed to a Yorkshire poltergeist, several less certain locations and it has analogues worldwide. As a writer, he was happy, I think to supply the banker Roby with tales by the yard.

Anyone reading the tale of the Boggart will be reminded of Gef. I doubt if that establishes his literary origin so much as a shared oral tradition with the Isle of Man close to Ireland in every respect. His mongoose shape was exotic enough but his personality seems steeped in Irish Boggartry to me. :)
 
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Frideswide said:
excellent work James!

literary or not, I find Gef's personality oddly endearing! :clap:
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I love Gef, and James' Blackley Boggart is intriguing! But I will admit, something about this type of poltergeist gives me the absolute, creeping horrors!!:eek:

A "normal" polt would be enough to send me around the bend, with the throwing stuff and stacking furniture in weird ways. But the thought of some creepy conscious entity, with apporting abilities, that knows stuff, and seems to be watching you all the time...Brrrrrr!!!
 
Just to add to the horrors, Waugh has another boggart tale from a spot a mile or so north of Heywood*. The Gristlehurst Boggart is a very atmospheric yarn. This boggart was supposedly dead and buried with a stake through its heart, which gives it an unusual physicality, though it did not appear to stop its work.

Waugh's original is told in dialect, which this webpage helpfully translates! :)
Link is dead. No archived version found.

*I have located G. Farm* on my A to Z of the area. The Lane is also marked but not named. I intend to visit the location, though the grave of the boggart may be hard to pin-point!

Edit
*The property is now in the poshest part of Rochdale, last on the market at a price approaching two million pounds.
 
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drbates said:
That's a horrible drawing. If it's accurate i hope poor Voirrey got the treatment she needed for the grosser deformities and someone stopped her being hit the face with a shovel.

I believe the Isle of Man had a massive delivery of perspective in the 50s, which must have made things easier for everyone.

The book sounds interesting, but if it had that cover art it'll find itself recovered in brown paper before it finds a home in my shelves.
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I love and frequently visit the Isle of Man and I'm quite interested about Gef the Talking Mongoose and would buy the book, but if they publish it with that drawing on the cover, a picture of it would go straight to that website :
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/

However, I've seen the site of the publisher, Strange Attractor, and they seem to get books out with less artistically shocking covers.
 
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