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The Knock?

Ringo

I like to not get involved in these matters
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
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Stockholm
I have been telling people for years about something that happened to me as a child and now that I come to try to read more about it, I can't find any mention of it so I'm hoping our collective knowledge can uncover something.

To cut a long IHTM story short, one evening my mother and I both experienced unexplained, simultaneous knocking on windows and doors in our house. It started at the stroke of Midnight and lasted less than a minute.

Years later, I read that this is called The Knock. An old Irish legend that death comes knocking at midnight and if you open the door, you are inviting death into your house.

But now I can't find any mention of it anywhere. Has anyone read/heard of this before? Any links?
 
Do you have Irish ancestry? Irish families who move abroad are believed to take the bean sighe with them, so perhaps The Knock works the same way.
 
Ahem, Bean Sidhe.

Also known as the Banshee.
 
Are you sure it wasn't a lorry rattling past your house? It happens all the time where I live (it's like living in bloody Hell Drivers... :evil:) and I'm sure that one day the house will fall down as a result.
 
Yes, I was just told a story at the weekend by a Northern Irish friend about an incident that happened to her family. The knocking occured simultaneously at her sisters house and her mothers house, she only found out it had happened to her mother at the same time accidentally as she hadn't told her for fear of scaring her.
 
Since discussing such things on here, I've learned that many people who have 'knocks', banshees etc never talk about them. It feels very personal and not the sort of thing one wants to bring up. :(
 
I have had some experience with a "knock." I've no idea if it was a genuine experience or not.

Basically, I was visiting my boyfriend and we were, um, doing stuff, when there was a loud bang on the window, it sounded like someone hitting it very hard with a fist.

We looked out the window, saw nothing. Went back to bed. A few minutes later we heard it again.

There were no sounds of anyone running away, and as we looked outside immediately they would have had no chance to run off.

No idea what it was, perhaps a ghost disapproving of what we were up to? :oops:
 
I kept hearing bangs on my windows for a while in the summer. I didn't know what it was until I noticed all the collared-dove shaped marks on the windows. I bought some of those stick on bird of prey shapes to keep them off but I still find dove shaped marks - right on top of the bird of prey stickers sometimes. That's evolution in action though I suppose.
 
Was it Springtime when the knocks were heard on the window? I hear young birds hitting the glass every so often around that season. Last year I had to phone the SSPCA when a little sparrow knocked itself unconscious, but they didn't get there in time and - sob - it died.
 
WhistlingJack said:
Are you sure it wasn't a lorry rattling past your house? It happens all the time where I live (it's like living in bloody Hell Drivers... :evil:) and I'm sure that one day the house will fall down as a result.

I'm sure it wasn't a lorry as we don't have such a road that allows for fast vehicles to hurtle past. Also, it was a distinct and purposeful knocking rather than a vibration/shaking.

I've just re-read the entire banshee the thread, including my own post about the knocking but I'm still searching for info off the board. Scargy - yours sounds like something similar and the Virgin Queen had a friend who experienced the knock first hand but she seems to have deserted the board back in 2005.
 
Very occasionally when aircraft go by they hit a resonant frequency and every window in the house rattles - so loud you can't hear the aircraft itself!

StormMagic, might you have been doing anything which could have caused some er, movement of the bed? This can produce a knocking sound at unexpected moments and the source is not always obvious.

(We've also had pigeon-shaped imprints left on our windows by impacts; apparently reflectivity is the important factor and those stickers may not work.)
 
It probably was a bird of some kind, but it was nighttime and August.

It certainly wasn't a plane, as it wasn't that kind of sound and there was nothing inside the room that could have been knocked against the glass. As I said before, it sounded like someone striking the glass hard with a fist.

I'm sure there probably was some rational explanation, but it freaked me out at the time!
 
StormMagic said:
It probably was a bird of some kind, but it was nighttime and August.

It certainly wasn't a plane, as it wasn't that kind of sound and there was nothing inside the room that could have been knocked against the glass. As I said before, it sounded like someone striking the glass hard with a fist.

I'm sure there probably was some rational explanation, but it freaked me out at the time!

How about a bat?
 
..The Knock. An old Irish legend that death comes knocking at midnight and if you open the door, you are inviting death into your house..

Yeah, anybody could be out there like Amish, Mormons, JW's, Barry Manilow fans..
"It's a dangerous business going out your door"- Bilbo Baggins

open-door_zpscfypi4sb.jpg~original
 
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Was at my daughters a wile back and there was a single knock at the front window, surprisingly loud, what the hell was that I asked? ho it's a bee, it does that every day at this time, and since then I when I have been there yes it does,
it's a big bee or was as it's probably knocked it's self senseless by now though it only did it once a day, bang and then buzz off and find a safer flight path.
 
Hearing 'The Knock' is not uncommon in my family, usually it presages or brings news of a death in the family. It is always three (heavy) knocks. There is no mistaking it. There are many instances and I have heard it myself.
We are a Highland Traveler family.

Another type of 'knock'; I live in an old cottage, said to be haunted and I believe it is. I have often been awakened between five and six a.m. by three heavy knocks on my bedroom door. Always on a 'work' day, earlier than I set my alarm. It is though an 'edge of sleep' experience and I accept that it could be something psychologically internal.
Useful though lol.
 
Hi Henry, to me, The Knock telling of a death is always on an external door. I've never heard of it coming on a window. Those entities that give this knock, be they fairy or otherwise, do not come into your home without an invite (which I would never offer).
If you go to the door and look, after one of those knocks, there is never anything to see.

The second was on my bedroom door, it was inside the home, which made me think of a different source. Like I said, I often wonder if that's something internal to me; I knew I had to get up so somehow I manufactured the knock, I mean it was in my head rather than an actual physical knock.
But that's not to say it might not have been something supernatural, a ghost or house spirit.
I've had that happen several times throughout my life.

Edit: Min Banister describes the same experience at Post #15 above.
 
Hearing 'The Knock' is not uncommon in my family, usually it presages or brings news of a death in the family. It is always three (heavy) knocks. There is no mistaking it. There are many instances and I have heard it myself.
We are a Highland Traveler family.

Another type of 'knock'; I live in an old cottage, said to be haunted and I believe it is. I have often been awakened between five and six a.m. by three heavy knocks on my bedroom door. Always on a 'work' day, earlier than I set my alarm. It is though an 'edge of sleep' experience and I accept that it could be something psychologically internal.
Useful though lol.

It is quite a common belief that hearing three knocks is often a foretelling of the death of a family member or that of a close one. Google offers up a surprising amount of information on this. Many people believe it to be true.
 
I heard The Knock this morning about 5.30am. I was awake but drowsing and thought it might be a neighbour at first but the way it ceased immediately I sat up made me suspicious.
Incidentally, two days later I heard of the death of someone who meant a lot to me.
 
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