While still a student, I lived in a loft or attic, where the stove stood in the middle of the room, near a pipe that passed through from the lower dwelling. My bed was in the corner, opposite two small windows, and by the stove stood a complete human skeleton—so that even on a dark night I could see, being in the bed, the outline of this skeleton, especially opposite the window, which had neither shutters nor even a curtain. I wake up one night after midnight, during a severe autumn storm; rain and wind are lashing against the windows, and the whole roof is cracking; the wind, apparently having ended up somewhere in a dead-end alley, howls like a wolf. It is so dark that the windows are barely distinguishable from the blank wall. I started to listen to see where the wind was howling so cruelly, in the chimney or in the hallway, and to my utter amazement, I heard something completely different: the ticking of the pendulum of a wall clock, which I did not have and never had.

I listen, rub my eyes and ears, get up, the same thing: everything around is dark, cold, damp, the storm is lashing at the window, and somewhere in the room, in the direction of the stove, a pendulum is swinging rhythmically. Having carefully thought over and considered everything, I stood up and began to approach by ear, slowly, step by step, to the place where the pendulum was swinging. During this crossing, short in distance but long, if not in time, then in the intensity of feelings, I became even more positively convinced that I was hearing not in a dream, but in reality, that the pendulum was swinging, measuredly, sonorously, evenly, although I do not have a wall clock. With the barely noticeable twilight shimmer opposite the windows, by touch and by ear, I reached the very stove and stood in even greater bewilderment, nose to nose with my skeleton, the outline of which was dimly visible against the white stove. 

What should I do now? The pendulum was clearly swinging within the skeleton; measured tick-tocks echoed from it, but no movement was noticeable. Closer and closer I got my nose to his face, to examine such a wonder in the darkness, and my skeleton, with whom I had long lived in such close friendship, suddenly spat in my face… Involuntarily recoiling, I wiped my face with my hand and made sure that all this was not my imagination, but materiality: the splashes scattered over my face were actually wet. This should have been the end of the research, and I would ask you to convince me that I was mistaken, that all this was not so! I stood, with my arms still folded in front of my constant comrade, staring and listening to the measured tick-tocks of the pendulum, which, however, up close, was ticking somewhat more dully. But after thinking a little more and not seeing a thing, I instinctively reached out and stroked the bald skull. Then I sighed and smiled; everything was explained. A small leak appeared in the roof and ceiling, near the pipe or stove, and drop by drop, water fell onto the bald, osseous, empty, and sonorous head of my mute comrade!

An excerpt from the book by Russian writer, ethnographer, and military doctor Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl, "On the Beliefs, Superstitions, and Prejudices of the Russian People" (1880)