The Hamilton Files

The Skylark

"There seems to be every degree of control, and every variety of physical response, from the most elementary tipping of a table to writing or speaking intelligent sentences; and sometimes, though seldom, ideas are expressed in what, to the medium, is an unknown tongue.”—Sir Oliver Lodge, in Why I Believe in Personal Immortality.

THE story of the next script, its appearance in Winnipeg in 1942, its translation, and the verification of its author nearly two years later, is surely one of the most unusual events of the Marshall mediumship.
On the afternoon of October 22, 1942, Mrs. Marshall brought a curious piece of writing to my mother. She explained that earlier that same day while she was writing a letter in her own home, she apparently had gone into a light trance, for when she had “come to herself” (as she put it) she had found these puzzling characters on one of the sheets of notepaper. (See plate 7.) Dawn left the paper with my mother and returned to her home.
A few days later my mother showed it to our good friend Mr. Wither. He studied it carefully and suggested that it might be Gaelic writing. He offered to take it to a friend, Mr. James A. Mitchell known in Winnipeg as a student of Scottish literature and an authority on the Gaelic tongue.
Shortly Mr. Wither reported back to my mother that Mr. Mitchell had indeed verified it as being written in Gaelic, and that he had commented on the remarkably few errors in markings and in spelling, considering the intricacies of grammatical construction and syntax in this ancient and now little-known tongue. Mr. Mitchell kindly sent us his own free translation of this Dawn script:

The Skylark

“The early rising housewife
When the plains are dark
Sees the East with grandeur
Put on its purple hue
Before the sun of the firmarnents
Leaps forth in full flame
Her morning song is tuned
Ere I could see her trend.

Ascending and ascending,
Singing as she soars.
Singing as she is climbing
On gentle wing and swift,
Ever onward bound
With flights of ease;
And with a voice subdued.
Like a revolving star.
Serving, ever serving.

Peter Campbell.”