Recovered memory:

An Anglican Priest once told us little kids a campfire ghost story about an English laddie, a hopeful heir, who for the usual reasons has to spend a night in a room of a Scottish castle that's haunted by the ghost of a severed hand (shades of Ulster!). The lad takes a loaded pistol to bed with him and tries to stay awake but nods off and abruptly wakes up feeling a dank cold chill at the end of the bed. Fearfully, he looks down and in the moonlight sees the ghastly pale hand with filthy nails etc hovering there, and shoots!

Of course the denoument is that he's shot himself in the foot....