#ghost-story — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #ghost-story, aggregated by home.social.
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Some missionaries are so fanatical that even death will not make them shut up about their faith.
#Germany #Helgoland #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Monk_on_Helgoland_Island -
My childhood brushes with ghost lore
Despite writing about supernatural folklore, I rarely think about my childhood brushes with ghostly stories. I thought I might rectify that here—by reflecting on two examples of ghost lore I was exposed to in my youth.
Before I begin, I should point out that children’s folklore is just as vital and dynamic a phenomenon as its adult equivalent. Children’s Folklore: A Source Book (1999) is one example of a text that documents the folkloric creativity of children (as opposed to their passive receptivity). The book shows that wherever children come together, they form what folklorists call “folk groups.” The only criteria for the existence of such a group is that “two or more people. . . share something in common—language, occupation, religion, residence”; that they “share ‘traditions'”; and that they have the opportunity to meet face to face.
The Grey Lady
I’ll start with my childhood experience of belonging to a large “folk group” at my prep school, Tockington Manor, in South Gloucestershire. Every child in the school belonged to this folk group, because everyone, at some point, learned about the Grey Lady who haunted the manor’s halls. The boarders at the school were terrified of this lady: they said she wandered the manor at night—the spirit of a nurse who’d fallen from a skylight when the building served as a hospital during the First World War. I don’t remember much about this nighttime revenant, but she’s clearly a variant of a folkloric figure found at boarding schools everywhere: the Grey, White, Black, or Brown Lady.
In my school, older students, already initiated into the ghostly mystery, passed on stories about the drab-colored lady to the younger children, who did the same for the incoming class. I can only assume that telling stories about the Grey Lady allowed us to share anxieties in a fixed, personified form, which helped us adapt to unfamiliar surroundings. It also mythologized the building’s space, especially for boarders—those who couldn’t leave. Separated from their family homes, they created bonds and associations through the emotions that ghost stories evoke.
The story of the Grey Lady may have been one of the most memorable aspects of our folk group. But one story doesn’t create a culture. We also played games like marbles and conkers and had a shared language (words like cave—Latin for “beware”—were used to signal that a teacher was coming). Sometimes we sneaked out of school to gather in an old stone quarry, a place now dense with ivy-covered trees. The aura of this place—which we called simply “Quarry”—will forever remind me of the childhood capacity to create mythological worlds in spaces dominated by adults.
The Yellow Lady
The second example of supernatural storytelling from my childhood occurred during a trip to a Catholic boys’ camp in the summer of 1991. There too the sharing of ghostly legends created belonging among the boys. Despite sharing a tent with my brother, a cousin, and members of my cousin’s family, I felt unsettled in my new surroundings, and I remember how powerfully the nighttime telling of ghost stories allowed us to bond through fear.
The only story I remember clearly (because it terrified me) was inspired by a local landmark. Visible from the camp was a house that glowed an eerie yellow at night. The sight of this building alone would be enough to inspire a haunted house tale. But in our case, the color became detached from the building, and we gave it to a supernatural figure who roamed the grounds at night. Apparently, a mysterious revenant called the Yellow Lady haunted that house, and she visited the meadow where we slept. Pricking up her disturbingly large ears to listen for wakeful boys, the Yellow Lady prowled the rows of tents, determined to steal a child.
Although I remember thinking at the time that the Yellow Lady must have been a ghost, she differs in one important way from the Grey Lady mentioned earlier. While the latter was merely a scary presence that never interacted with students, the Yellow Lady was relational, embodying the discipline of the adult world (“no talking after lights out”). Her eerie color and super-sensory abilities—a result of her inhumanly large ears—suggest that she was a kind of supernatural bogeywoman, perhaps even close to a fairy.
The extreme effectiveness of this Yellow Lady legend meant that all of us had trouble sleeping that night. The next day we rushed to mass, hoping to find protection in proximity to a sacred ritual. The impulse was in keeping with much ghost lore, where holy symbols ward off supernatural threats.
Interestingly, while researching “Yellow Lady” stories (to see how commonplace they are), I came across a blog post in which the writer talks about a Yellow Lady story he learned at a camp run by monks. He then turns the tale into a literary short story—an embellishment, perhaps, of a fragmentary tale like mine. It seems to me that the writer’s camp may even have been the one I attended. Either that or the Yellow Lady haunts a number of such camps.
Haunted houses and witch houses
Besides my encounters with the Grey and Yellow Ladies, the only other ghost lore I can remember from my childhood are stories about haunted houses. These were always abandoned homes in the neighborhood, their shattered windows revealing darkness inside, the absence of family life. Repeating things we’d heard or inventing stories on the spot, we called these houses “haunted” or the former resort of “witches”—words that described the rupture in our sense of what a home should look like. One of these houses sat at the corner of Charborough Road and Dunkeld Avenue in Filton, Bristol (I can still picture its dilapidated state). Another was on a road branching off from Charborough Road: they said that if you looked into its broken, upstairs window, you might see a witch looking back. (The latter is a vague memory that may even have been my own thought.)
Considering all this lore, it seems to me that ghosts fill the gaps where social meaning decays, whether through separation from home, abandonment of a home, or maladjustment in a place that’s not yet fully home. When I consider these crucial functions, I understand why empirical approaches to ghostly “phenomena” bore me: they arguably fail to understand ghosts at all.
Read about more ghost lore here.
#books #england #EnglishFolklore #fiction #Filton #folklore #ghost #ghostLore #ghostStories #ghostStory #Gloucestershire #GreyLady #hauntedHouse #history #horror #TockingtonManor #witches #writing #YellowLady -
First ebook from my podcast, out this week!
Leave scrolling behind with a walk in the spooky/funny/slightly delirious storybook world of "30% Wild"
All the Season 1 episode intro stories, plus a bonus one, full of wise coyotes, underwater panthers, disappearing farmhouses, lost sharks, and wolves making poor hiring decisions.
Not on Amazon, just right here: https://ko-fi.com/s/fc9563f5fd
#rewilding #wildlife #campfirestories #ghoststory #ebook #indie #podcast #nature
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Before proposing marriage to strange, pale women in abandoned castles, you should really do a proper background check.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Dead_Bride -
A princess on Rügen once embarked on a treasure quest in order to prove her innocence.
Sadly, this didn't work out too well for her.
#Germany #Rügen #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Princess_Swanwithe -
This blog post about haunted paintings from @IcySedgwick is an absolute banger https://www.icysedgwick.com/cursed-artworks/ #occult #ghost #haunted #ghoststory #paranormal #fortean
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Many lost souls appear as "fiery men" - humanoid apparitions of living flames.
#Austria #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Saved_Fiery_Man -
Few things are as tragic as a ship sinking with all men within sight of the harbor.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghost_Ship_%28Emden%29 -
Never ever shake a ghost's hand. That never ends well.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghost_and_the_Groom -
The dead do not always have the materials for playing games of all kinds.
Thus, they are often forced to improvise.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #bowling #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Bowling_Farmers -
In the deep winter, and the dead of the night, the ghosts hold their own masses. And the unfortunate among the living can stumble into them, if they go to church at the wrong time...
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #church
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Mass_for_the_Ghosts -
The Heart of Everything: A Novel "Even death can’t break the bond between father & son in an uncannily funny & poignant novel about love, loss, memory, & family" Sale: $4.99 to $2.49 by Marc Levy Rating: 4.3/5 (6,384 Reviews) #Fiction #Family #Love #Grief #GhostStory #Journey #MarcLevy #BookSky
The Heart of Everything: A Nov... -
A sunken road near Münsterhof is haunted by a strange, headless ghost.
#Poland #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Headless_Man_near_M%C3%BCnsterhof_and_the_Farmer -
👻 Famous atheist philosopher claims to have seen *something* when he was *dead*—because who doesn't love a good ghost story from a guy who devoted his life to saying there's nothing to see? 🚫🧙♂️ Apparently, a brush with #pneumonia and the #afterlife turns even the staunchest #skeptics into spiritual storytellers. 🧐📜
https://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/a-j-ayer-what-i-saw-when-i-was-dead/ #famousathetist #ghoststory #philosophy #HackerNews #ngated -
Stealing from the dead is generally considered to be unwise.
Especially if you've seen the dead person in question wandering around.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/A_Dead_Man_Searches_for_his_Gown -
A house in Osterode was once haunted by an ambulatory wall clock.
It's probably for the best that no one started a song-and-dance routine while investigating this house.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Officers -
There is a house in Gdansk with a dark and sordid history.
#Poland #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_House_%22Adam_und_Eva%22_at_Danzig -
Even ghosts need some downtime to relax and play games!
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #bowling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPg5PlrKBs -
In Osterwieck, a theft was once solved by a Meddling Kid, and the ghosts who supported him.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Stolen_Goose -
A fiery goat haunts the Büntlitten hill near Dornbirn.
#Austria #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #goat
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Billy_Goat_of_B%C3%BCntlitten -
Never ever shake a ghost's hand. That never ends well.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghost_and_the_Groom -
"Cursed is he who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone."
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Boundary_Stone -
The ghost of a murdered sailor haunts the dune valleys of Sylt Island.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #Sylt
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Man_of_Dikjend%C3%A4l_Valley -
Beneath the ruins of Schauenforst Castle, a knight spends eternity with playing bowling as an ironic punishment.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #bowling #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Golden_Bowling_Game_(Schauenforst) -
Do not build new facilities on the ruins of an old, haunted monastery - unless you are okay with inheriting their ghosts.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghosts_Haunting_the_New_Mill_at_the_Innerste_River -
Buildings can leave psychic impressions long after they are gone.
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghostly_Mill -
Some ships are lost at sea.
But "lost" does not always mean "gone".
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_Ghost_Ship_(Pellworm) -
Try out this neat trick for learning the winning lottery numbers!
On a second thought, don't. In fact, forget I said anything!
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory #magic
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/Another_Summoning -
Many lost souls are happy enough to help the living. But be sure to properly thank them for their services!
#Germany #folktale #folklore #ghost #ghoststory
https://wiki.sunkencastles.com/wiki/The_God-Fearing_Carter