The old stairs around the old town in Bern are most definitely haunted. Ascending from the Cathedral on Münsterplattform towards the Aare River, ghosts of the past are said to be the ones behind the creaks on the stairs.
The Mattentreppe may appear as a simple stone stairway leading from the dignified heights of Bern’s center to the working-class roots of the Matte district, known in centuries past for its bathhouses, its brothels, and even a visit from Casanova himself. This steep flight of steps, carved into the hillside and shadowed by the cathedral’s towering silhouette, is more than a picturesque shortcut. It is one of the city’s most haunted places, a corridor of shame, sorrow, and long-held secrets.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
As the bells of the Bern Minster chime twelve on New Year’s Eve, and fireworks erupt over the Aare, there are those who claim they see more than celebration unfolding in the ancient quarter. Ghosts rise with the fog. Footsteps echo with no source.
The Nobleman and the Cripple haunting the Mattetreppe
The Mattentreppe is not only said to have been haunted by the ghosts appearing on New Years. It is also said to be haunted by the ghost of a nobleman from the olden times. He fell in love, or at least had an affair with a maid. When she became pregnant with his child, scandal loomed. The nobleman, unable to bear the disgrace and unwilling to face the consequences of his actions, hurled himself down the Mattentreppe in despair.
To this day, people have reported seeing the pale figure of a well-dressed man, pacing or rushing down the stairs, as if in torment. His cloak flutters even on windless nights.
In earlier years, a terribly crippled man was often seen on the matted steps where they had a landing. Hunched and crippled, he was sitting with two heavy baskets balancing impossibly from each finger. Passersby, moved by his suffering, would offer help. But whenever someone reached for a basket, the man would vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving only a mocking “Hahahaha!” echoing off the stone walls.
New Years Haunting of the Stairs
The eeriest of all tales tied to the Mattentreppe comes with the tolling of the New Year’s bell. When the bells in the cathedral begin to ring at the turn of the year, a poor soul rises from her grave: a young woman in a long, flowing gown, her face shaded beneath a wide-brimmed hat tied neatly with ribbons.
During the 20th century, the terrace by the Cathedral was changed from a graveyard to an open plaza by the Münsterplattform. We don’t know when she was buried as the location was built as a churchyard in 1334 and 1919 as this is when the ghost story was first published in print.
She ascends the stairs going from the cathedral down towards the river. She is aiming at one of the houses in the Schifflaube street between the cathedral and the Aare Riverbanks, where she lived and is now haunting. The Schifflaube/Schiffländte was a place for reloading the boats that were going up and down the river. It’s an old street with old buildings, although which number or if it’s still there is uncertain.
On the attic floor, she stands thoughtfully in the same spot, always silent. And when the last toll of the bell has faded away, she departs again, as silently as she came. She carefully closes the doors behind her. Without looking back, she walks past the houses, up the path toward the gardens, only to suddenly vanish like a mist.
In the place she keeps returning to, she once murdered her child, secretly, without anyone ever finding out.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
After a devastating fire in the old Iroquois Theater in Chicago around 600 people died trying to escape the flames. Even after the Oriental Theater was built in its place, some still believe the ghost from the fire is haunting the stage.
The Oriental Theater in the windy city of Chicago is a grand venue that has been entertaining audiences for over 90 years. But behind the grandeur and glitz lies a dark and eerie history, filled with ghostly legends and supernatural stories.
Many people believe that the Oriental Theater is one of the most haunted venues in Chicago, with a long list of ghostly sightings and unexplained phenomena. What sets this ghost story apart though is how the haunting origin story is more scary than the haunting itself. And the most deadly haunting happened as soon as this spot in the city was turned into a theater.
The Nederlander: The theater has had many names and is today called The Nederlander. Before this exact theater were built, another one who burnt is said to have caused the haunting said to go on inside of the building.
The Fire of the Iroquois Theater and Death Alley
The Oriental Theater, formerly known as the Iroquois Theater, opened its doors in 1903 at 24 W. Randolph Street. It was a grand venue, with a seating capacity of over 1,700, and was designed to be the most luxurious theater in the world. The newspaper also advertised with it being fireproof. But just as Titanic was unsinkable, the theater would catch fire as soon as it opened.
Just five weeks after its opening during a performance of a comedy-musical called Mr. Bluebeard starring Eddie Foy, tragedy struck when a fire broke. The show had been a success and the theatre were sold out with extra standing tickets being issued. Most of the spectators were women attending with their children.
A spark from the stage lights hit the very flammable muslin backdrop and it burst into flames quickly. First, they weren’t too panicked, as they all believed it when they said it would be safe from fire. But then the fire started to spread, and none of the fire prevention equipment seemed to be working.
When the spectators tried to flee the theater, they were unable to locate the exits as they were not labeled and doors were locked. In the staircase people were trampled, crushed or asphyxiated to death.
When the crew and actors escape in the backscene doors, the cold air caused a fireball that shot out from the stage onto the crowd. Those who managed to find a window or get to the roof jumped to their death.
There were no fire-alarm box in the building and when the fire department finally arrived, it was already too late. 602 people lost their lives in the 30 minutes blaze, making it one of the deadliest theater fires in history and was remembered as The Great Chicago Fire Disaster.
Hundreds of bodies were piled up in the theater of mostly women and children. It reportedly took over five hours to gather them all, the amount of bodies raging six feet above the ground. The next door space turned into a temporary morgue and hospital. Soon, the alley right next to the theater was called the Death Alley and was remembered as such for a long time.
Ever since there have been rumors about it being haunted and the spirit of the dead lingering in the alley now known as Couch Place. Whispers in the night as well as people feeling the ghostly touch on the shoulders.
So some say that the theater was cursed from the start, but it was certainly not the end though.
Couch Place: Commonly called the Alley of Death, was the place they place the bodies after the fire and many have experienced strange things in this backstage place of the Chicago theater district. // Source
The Start of Oriental Theater
After the fire, the theater was rebuilt and renamed the Oriental Theater in 1926. In 1988 the Oriental Theater closed down and fell into disrepair, but it was restored in 1998 and is now a popular venue once again.
However, the history of the Iroquois Theater fire has left a lasting impact on the theater, and many believe that it is responsible for the ghostly sightings and unexplained phenomena that occur there.
Ghostly Legends and Reports
There have been many reports of ghostly activity at the Oriental Theater over the years. The ghosts of those who perished in the fire is also said to haunt the newly built theater and people claim to have seen their spirit leaping out from the window onto the street as a death loop. There is also the smell of smoke coming from nowhere that people claim is a remnant lingering from the deadly fire.
When actors are on stage they report about seeing shadows moving on the balconies. In the fire, they perhaps had it worse, as they were the ones locked inside and were unable to open the doors leading down to the first floor.
The Wicked Incident
One of the stories told was during a production of the musical Wicked. Ana Gasteyer had the role of Elphaba. In the end of Act I, there is a scene where she learns to fly and smog and fog comes from the auditorium and filling the stage. She told in the writing Celebrity Ghost Stories that she looked to the sides in the wings. They were filled with people, more people than the stagehands of the production used to have there.
The people didn’t look like crew either, they looked like families, but when she landed and the smoke cleared, there was no one there.
She also claimed to have seen a woman in the hallways with a boy and a girl, all wearing period clothes. It was first when she asked her dresser about it that she thought they might have been ghosts, as Dec 30. was coming up.
Could this have been one of the performances she claimed to have seen the ghosts?
Spooky Events and Experiences at Oriental Theater
The Oriental Theater in Chicago is a grand venue that has entertained audiences for over ninety years. In 2018 it was renamed to the James M. Nederlander Theatre, after the founder of Broadway in Chicago.
But behind the glamour and glitz lies a dark and eerie history, filled with ghostly legends and supernatural stories and the danger of fire.
Once upon a time there used to live a Basilisk in a cave underneath where the Tanner’s Fountain (Gerberberglein) is today. Said to kill with its poisonous breath even, it has become the very symbol of Basel today.
In the very old city of Basel in Switzerland lies a quiet little street called Gerberberglein, near the banks of the Rhine and the bustling Marktplatz in the Swiss city filled with legends. You will also see a lot of depictions of a basilisk around the city. Painted on walls, statues on the fountains. Today, the area is surrounded by charming medieval architecture, cobbled alleys, and the hum of daily life, but could it also house a Basilisk?
Read more: Check out all legends and ghost stories from Switzerland
Although the name Basel and Basilisks seems to be a coincidence, there are a lot of stories about that once upon a time, a terrible basilisk was lurking underneath the medieval city. Its home was in a cave where the Gerber Brunnen, or the tanner’s fountain is found today.
Basilisk of Basel: Basilisk at the bridgehead of the Wettstein Bridge in Basel. The four basilisks were designed by Ferdinand Schlöth (1818–1891). The molds were made by Hans Baur. The sculpture does not depict a griffin and has nothing to do with the bird Gryff. // Source: EinDao/Wikimedia
What Is a Basilisk?
The basilisk is one of the oldest creatures in European folklore, first appearing in texts as early as the first century AD and Greek folklore. Medieval bestiaries described it as the “king of serpents” — hence the name basiliskos, Greek for “little king.” It was often associated with death, poison, and forbidden knowledge, a creature born from unnatural acts: a serpent hatched from a rooster’s egg, warmed by a toad or snake. Its uncanny power to kill with a look made it the embodiment of pestilence and unholy wrath.
Basilisk: The basilisk and the weasel, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. The cockatrice (pictured) became seen as synonymous with the basilisk when the “basiliscus” in Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum (ca 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as “cockatrice” (1397).
Basilisks were believed to be hatched from eggs that were laid by roosters (who had to be either 7 or 9 years old) on the dung pile of serpents. This combination produced a creature with the head of a rooster and the tail and wings of a large serpent.
A Monster Beneath Basel City
According to a legend that has haunted Basel since the Middle Ages, a basilisk is a monstrous hybrid said to be part rooster, part serpent, and part toad who once lived in a dark, damp cave underneath Gerberberglein. The cave, now sealed and lost to time, was once believed to be the domain of this deadly beast. It was said that one glance from the basilisk could kill a man outright, turning flesh to stone or burning life from the body. Even the breath of the creature was fatal.
Gerberbrunnen: Paul Siegfried (1878–1938) lawyer, historian, and writer. Gerberbrunnen, also known as Richtbrunnen , is located at Gerbergasse 48 in Basel-Stadt. Inscription: In this well’s dark depths once lived—legend tells us—the basilisk, a wild monster. Today, it bears Basel’s coat of arms. A court was then held here, and dancing and minnesong were also practiced; from the guild house that stood by the spring, it was called the Gerberbunnen (Gerber’s Well). After drying up for many years, it now flows again, full and clear. No dragon plots murder within it anymore, but another dragon lives on. O Basel, free yourself from it: break the head of discord! // Source: EinDao/Wikimedia
No one dared venture near the cave. Animals avoided the area, and plants withered as if poisoned by the very air. The townspeople lived in terror, avoiding the cave and whispering tales of brave fools who tried and failed to slay the beast.
The Tale of the Basilisk Egg
It is said that on a Thursday morning in 1474 before Laurentius, a black rooster, older than a decade, laid a big oblong egg in the middle of Gerbergasse. Usually in basilisk lore, the egg is laid by a rooster when it’s either seven or nine years old. Everyone knew that this had to be a basilisk egg and panic spread.
They sentenced the rooster to death before the egg could hatch. As soon as the egg would hatch, no sword or knight could kill it. To vanquish the monster you had to pull out a mirror so that the basilisk would see its own reflection and die of its own power.
They sliced the rooster open, finding three eggs. After killing it, they tossed it on the pyre, making sure that they would never again be bothered by the threat of a Basilisk again.
This account is found in the same chronicle from 1624 where they discussed the basilisk living in the cave underground.
The Basilisk as Basel’s Symbol
Though the monster was vanquished, the basilisk never left Basel’s story. In fact, it became one of the city’s most enduring symbols. The first known illustration of a basilisk in Basel dates from 1448, when it was shown holding the city’s coat of arms.
The Basilisk holding Basle’s coat of arms can be traced back in heraldry to a monument reminding of the fatal 1356 earthquake that destroyed the city almost to the ground: “Basilisk, you poisonous worm and fable, now you shall hold the shield of the dignified city of Basel”. This epigraph probably dates back to the early 15th century.
Basiliskbrunnen: The most common way to encounter a basilisk in Basel today is on one of the numerous “Basiliskenbrunnen” that can be found throughout the city. These fountains were first designed in 1884. Today , 28 basilisk fountains are still in operation in Basel. // Source: Wikimedia
To this day, basilisk statues can be seen throughout the city — perched on fountains, carved into bridges, and hidden in iron railings. The most famous are the Basilisk Fountains from the 19th century, designed to reflect the city’s medieval past and its victorious confrontation with the beast.
While today these statues may seem whimsical or decorative, their origins lie in something far darker — a time when people believed monsters slithered beneath their feet.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
After taking his regime of terror too far on a stormy winter night, the Bailiff of Brunegg committed a sin so huge on a hunt that would send him into a haunted afterlife.
High in the canton of Aargau, where the shadow of Brunegg Castle falls across the land, a legend as cold as the alpine wind lingers through generations. The castle was built on a hill at the edge of the Jura mountains in the 13th century, probably as part of the Habsburg border defences.
When dark clouds gather and the holy season approaches, those living near the castle in Brunegg village at the foot of Chäschtebärg mountain swear they hear a distant thundering, like hooves pounding across frozen earth, echoing from above. This is no storm. It is the Bailiff of Brunegg, rising once again for his eternal, damned hunt.
Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
This grim tale, recorded in the 19th century by folklorist Ernst L. Rochholz in Swiss Legends from Aargau, paints a chilling portrait of cruelty, hubris, and supernatural justice. And even today, locals will tell you: when winter bites and silence settles heavy over the land, listen for the call of “Hop-Hop!” may come riding down the slopes.
The Tyrant of Brunegg Castle
The story begins in Brunegg Castle, an imposing stronghold nestled in the rural Swiss countryside. The castle, though quiet now, once housed a bailiff, or Landvogt as it is in German. During the medieval period in Switzerland, a bailiff, known in German as a “Vogt,” played a significant administrative and judicial role. The bailiff was typically a nobleman appointed by a higher authority, such as a king, duke, or lord.
He was a man of power, authority, and, according to legend, unrepentant cruelty. One fateful winter, as snow blanketed the land and bitter cold pierced even the stone walls of his keep, the bailiff resolved to go hunting.
Schloss Brunegg: The Brunegg Castle on the hill overlooking the village below. This is where the ghost hunt is said to start on stormy winter nights. // Source
With a black horse, a pack of snarling hounds, and a retinue of servants, he charged into the deepening snowdrifts. The cold was so fierce, the breath of man and beast froze in the air. As the storm worsened, their feet froze, their limbs stiffening with frostbite.
But the bailiff, obsessed with his hunt and blinded by ego, would not turn back.
Murder for Warmth
As his followers collapsed around him, the bailiff stumbled upon a lone woodcutter working in the forest, perhaps hoping to survive the winter with what little firewood he could gather. Rather than ask for aid or offer mercy, the bailiff murdered the man outright, slicing him open and warming his frozen feet in the steaming belly of the corpse.
This gruesome act was the last straw.
As if in divine retribution, the sky darkened and a furious snowstorm erupted over Brunegg. Blinding winds swept through the forest and fields. The bailiff, his dogs, and his remaining attendants were never seen again. All were buried in snow, swallowed whole by the wrath of the mountain. The castle, high on its hill, stood silent.
Each winter, the people at the foot of Brunegg Castle claim they hear phantom hooves galloping above. The hounds bark. The bailiff’s voice rings out with a sinister “Hop-Hop!” — urging his invisible dogs onward. But always, at the spot where the woodcutter died, the sound ceases.
It is said that the bailiff’s ghost is cursed to hunt eternally, never able to pass that spot, doomed to repeat the sins of his final ride through blizzard and blood.
A Tyrant Reborn: Gessler or Ghost?
Interestingly, well-read Swiss citizens have long drawn parallels between the Bailiff of Brunegg and another infamous tyrant of legend, Albrecht Gessler, the ruthless official from the tale of William Tell, the hero of Swiss independence. Albrecht Gessler, also known as Hermann, was a legendary 14th-century Habsburg bailiff at Altdorf, whose brutal rule led to the William Tell rebellion and the eventual independence of the Old Swiss Confederacy.
Gessler is the man who famously forced Tell to shoot an apple off his own son’s head — a story of oppression, defiance, and eventual retribution.
No sources that predate the earliest references to the Tell legend of the late 15th century refer to a bailiff Gessler in central Switzerland, and it is presumed that no such person existed. Some believe the Bailiff of Brunegg is Gessler, or at least a folkloric echo is another example of how abuse of power and cruelty earn not only rebellion but eternal punishment in Swiss legend.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
Why did we stop telling ghost stories for Christmas? In the olden days, it used to be a tradition to gather around and tell each other ghost stories in Victorian England. Often set in cold and dark castles or somewhere far remote in the cold icy night. Here are some perfect short stories you can read for free, perfect for Christmas time.
The tradition of telling ghost stories during Christmas times is an old one, especially during the Victorian era Big Britain and northern Europe. Big names like Charles Dickens with his famous “A Christmas Carol” is one example.
Today many of these classics have fallen into the public domain and are free to read and share for everyone. Here we have collected some horror or ghost stories that are set in Christmas times and perfect for the dark and snowy evenings.
First published in 1820 in Irving’s masterpiece, The Sketch Book, The Christmas Dinner is a charming tale by the great American writer behind such timeless classics as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Painting the scene of a Christmas dinner spent at the table of Bracebridge Hall, a countryside manor, the merry songs and stories of the dinner table echo with jollity of Christmases long past. A charming yet melancholic tale where the narrator joins a traditional English Christmas dinner at an old country house, filled with merriment, ancient customs, and the bittersweet shadow of absent loved ones. A ghostly warmth rather than outright horror.
First published in 1820 in Irving’s masterpiece, The Sketch Book, The Christmas Dinner is a charming tale by the great American writer behind such timeless classics as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. Painting the scene of a Christmas dinner spent at the table of Bracebridge Hall, a countryside manor, the merry…
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
Christmas Re-union is a short story found in the collection NOT EXACTLY GHOSTS by Andrew Caldecott, upholding the old tradition of christmas ghost stories. This is a bit of a newer publication and were published in 1947. During a holiday gathering, old family secrets surface, leading to a sinister revelation about a long-dead relative — and a chilling presence that suggests some sins don’t stay buried.
Christmas Re-union is a short story found in the collection NOT EXACTLY GHOSTS by Andrew Caldecott, upholding the old tradition of christmas ghost stories. Published in 1947
In this chilling tale by J. S Le Fanu, the death of a corrupt church sexton on Christmas Eve unleashes supernatural events in his churchyard—as though his spirit lingers, disrupting the holy peace. First published in 1871.
A ghostly card game? During Christmas times? Yes! Charlotte Riddell was a well known writer of her Victorian times, at least, her stories was as she published them under a mans name. This one was published in 1863. Siblings inherit a haunted estate and, on Christmas Eve, witness the ghostly reenactment of a long-forgotten murder, finally revealing the truth behind a century-old disappearance.
A ghostly card game? During Christmas times? Yes! Charlotte Riddel was a well known writer of her Victorian times, at least, her stories was as she published them under a mans name. Published in 1863.
Set on Christmas Day, this Gothic moral thriller follows a man who murders his way into an antique shop, only to be visited by a mysterious figure—perhaps a devil, perhaps a savior—who challenges his soul’s darkest impulses.
Between the Lights is a short horror story published in 1912. Between the Lights is a part of a short story collection “The Room in the Tower and Other Stories” also published in 1912. At a Christmas house party, a man recounts a vivid vision he experienced during a game of hide-and-seek — of a formless, malevolent figure moving in the gathering gloom, blurring the line between memory and premonition.
Between the Lights is a short horror story published in 1912. Between the Lights is a part of a short story collection “The Room in the Tower and Other Stories” also published in 1912.
At a cozy inn on Christmas Eve, guests trade spooky stories—until a real, bloodstained intruder named “Jerry Bundler” appears, turning festive warmth into true fright.
The Kit-Bag by Author: Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) This is from “Pall Mall Magazine”, December 1908. A legal clerk preparing for a holiday getaway finds himself tormented by the spectral presence of a hanged murderer whose belongings — including the titular kit-bag — may still carry his restless spirit.
Set in snowy Ukraine on Christmas Eve, this folkloric tale follows a trickster devil who wreaks havoc in a village while a young man seeks to win his beloved’s heart under supernatural influence.
The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and those close to him. A somber professor makes a Faustian bargain to forget his sorrows, but soon realizes erasing grief means erasing compassion, as a ghost teaches him that sorrow is essential to humanity.
The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and…
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
This is a christmas ghost story by feminist writer Elizabeth Gaskell. The main themes of this story are patriarchal power, aristocratic pride and the repression of women. It is a story of abuse,- physical violence and mental cruelty. As with all Gothic stories, the protagonist is taken out of mainstream culture into an isolated world which becomes terrifying .A nurse recounts a chilling memory from her youth when she and her young charge encountered the restless ghost of a banished child on a snowy Christmas Eve, doomed to roam the grounds of a crumbling mansion.
This is a christmas ghost story by feminist writer Elizabeth Gaskell. The main themes of this story are patriarchal power, aristocratic pride and the repression of women. It is a story of abuse,- physical violence and mental cruelty.
Horror: A True Tale is a short story written by John Berwick Harwood in 1861 for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and is a perfect example for a classic Christmas Ghost Story from Victorian times. A traveler spends a winter’s night in a desolate room where an unseen, oppressive horror presses close in the darkness — a disembodied presence that leaves both physical and mental scars.
Horror: A True Tale is a short story written by John Berwick Harwood in 1861 for Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and is a perfect example for a classic Christmas Ghost Story from Victorian times.
During her short lifetime Buisson published one novel, Put to the Test (1865), Her second novel, A Terrible Wrong: A Novel (1867) and short stories were published after her early death. Various of her writings appeared in Belgravia, a magazine edited by her friend the novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. This is were the short story The Ghost’s Summons were published in 1868. A doctor receives a midnight summons to attend a dying man, only to discover his mysterious caller was already dead — a ghost ensuring justice is served from beyond the grave.
Ada Buisson (26 March 1839 – 27 December 1866) was an English author and novelist remembered today for her ghost stories.
During her short lifetime Buisson published one novel, Put to the Test (1865), Her second novel, A Terrible Wrong: A Novel (1867) and short stories were published after her early death. Various of her writings appeared in Belgravia, a…
A Christmas party game of hide-and-seek takes a sinister turn when one player unwittingly hides with a ghost — a pale, silent figure whose tragic story is revealed too late.
Smee is a short story by A.M. Burrage, telling the haunting ghost story of a group of people playing hide and seek in a house were a girl died playing the very same game.
How about having a look about the darker things that Christmas has to offer. It’s not all just ugly sweaters and sweet eggnog. Here are some of the Dark Christmas Legends from around the world, bringing the spooky tales and traditions we are missing during yule times.
When most think of Christmas, they imagine cozy fires, joyful carols, and the warm glow of twinkling lights. But behind the tinsel and cheer, many cultures hold age-old, dark traditions that paint a far grimmer picture of the holiday season. While figures like Santa Claus reward the good, these otherworldly beings ensured the wicked received their due — often in blood-curdling ways. From malevolent monsters to ghostly visitors, here are some of the creepiest Christmas legends that have lingered through centuries.
Krampus — The Christmas Devil (Austria, Germany, Alpine Europe)
Perhaps the most infamous of dark Christmas figures is Krampus, a horned, cloven-hoofed demon who punishes naughty children. While Saint Nicholas rewards the good, Krampus beats, chains, and even abducts the wicked, stuffing them into his sack to drag them to Hell. Traditionally, Krampuslauf (“Krampus Run”) sees locals donning terrifying masks and costumes, chasing people through icy streets.
Frau Perchta — The Belly-Slitter (Austria and Bavaria)
A witch-like figure from Alpine folklore, Frau Perchta rewards industrious children and punishes the lazy or disobedient. If she finds someone idle or disrespectful, legend says she’ll slit open their stomach, remove their entrails, and fill the cavity with straw and stones. Perchta roams during the Twelve Days of Christmas, especially on Twelfth Night.
Père Fouettard — The Christmas Butcher (France, Especially Lorraine)
In the Lorraine region of France, Père Fouettard, or “Father Whipper,” is a sinister companion of Saint Nicholas. According to legend, he was a butcher who, in medieval times, lured three lost children into his shop, murdered them, and salted their bodies in a barrel. When Saint Nicholas discovered the crime, he resurrected the children and condemned the butcher to spend eternity as his dark assistant.
Every year, on Saint Nicholas Day (December 6th), Père Fouettard travels with the saint, brandishing a whip or bundle of sticks. While Saint Nicholas rewards good children with sweets, Père Fouettard metes out beatings to the disobedient. Dressed in dark robes with a scraggly beard and soot-covered face, he embodies the vengeful side of the holiday season.
In Iceland, thirteen mischievous trolls known as the Yule Lads descend upon villages in the days leading up to Christmas. While modern versions have softened them into pranksters leaving small gifts, old tales painted them as malevolent figures who stole children or terrorized villagers. Their mother, Grýla, a fearsome ogress, is said to snatch up naughty children and boil them alive in a cauldron.
Mari Lwyd — The Gray Mare (Wales)
A haunting tradition sees groups parading through Welsh villages with a horse skull mounted on a pole, draped in white cloth and adorned with ribbons. Known as Mari Lwyd, the eerie figure travels from house to house, challenging residents to a battle of wits in rhyme. Though playful today, its ghostly, skeletal appearance still chills the unwary.
La Befana — The Christmas Witch (Italy)
In Italian folklore, La Befana is an old woman who visits homes on the eve of Epiphany, riding a broomstick. While she leaves sweets for good children, the bad ones may find lumps of coal — or worse. Some versions claim she abducts misbehaving children, spiriting them away into the night.
The Tomte/Nisse — Mischievous Christmas Spirits (Scandinavia)
While usually benevolent, the Tomte or Nisse of Scandinavian folklore are house spirits who protect farms and families — but they demand respect. During Yule, they must be appeased with offerings of porridge and butter. Forget to leave their meal, or offend them in any way, and they’ll turn vindictive, sabotaging livestock, breaking tools, or even harming inhabitants.
Though charming in appearance, their darker traits reveal how even seemingly kind spirits could turn dangerous in the old folk traditions of the Nordic Yule.
Hans Trapp — The Cannibal Christmas Scarecrow (France)
In the Alsace and Lorraine regions, Hans Trapp is a terrifying Christmas figure. Once a rich, cruel man obsessed with dark magic, he was excommunicated and lived in the forest disguised as a scarecrow. Legend says he would capture and eat children. After being struck down by lightning, his vengeful spirit is said to still stalk misbehaving youngsters at Christmastime.
According to Greek legend, from Christmas to Epiphany, the Kallikantzaroi, impish goblins, rise from the underworld to wreak havoc. They sneak into homes at night, spoiling food, breaking things, and causing mayhem. Only warded off by protective charms, blessed fires, or ritualistic practices, these creatures embody the darker, chaotic side of the holiday season.
The Legend of the Christmas Spider (Ukraine)
While less terrifying, Ukraine’s Christmas Spider story has eerie origins. Legend tells of a poor widow whose children decorated their Christmas tree with cobwebs because they couldn’t afford ornaments. On Christmas morning, the webs turned to silver and gold. Though now a symbol of good fortune, it harks back to Europe’s old belief in omens and restless spirits during the Yuletide.
A Season of Shadows
For much of history, Christmas was as much a time for ghost stories and ominous folklore as it was for joy and kindness. Before modern lights pushed back winter’s darkness, people huddled together, sharing chilling tales and respecting ancient, unseen forces. These darker traditions remind us that the festive season was once a precarious time, when spirits roamed and monsters lurked just beyond the snow-covered hills.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
The Portent of the Shadow or just The Shadow is set during a Christmas gathering of friends, one guest tells of a terrifying, supernatural encounter involving an otherworldly shadow that leads to madness and death. Classic Edwardian Christmas ghostliness.
The Portent of the Shadow By E. Nesbit (Mrs. Hubert Bland)
THIS is not an artistically rounded off ghost story and nothing is explained in it; and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you ever come close to are like this in these respects: no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story.
*****
There were three of us—and another. But she had fainted suddenly at the second extra of the Christmas Dance, and had been put to bed in the dressing-room next to the room which we three shared. It had been one of those jolly old-fashioned dances, where nearly everybody stays the night, and the big country house is stretched to its utmost containing power; guests harbouring on sofas, couches, cots, and even mattresses on the floor. Some of the young men, even, I believe, slept on the great dining table. We had talked of our partners, as girls will, and then the stillness of the Manor House, broken only by the whisper of the wind in the cedar branches, and the scraping of their lean fingers against our window panes, had pricked us to such a luxurious confidence in our surroundings of bright chintz and candle-flame and firelight, that we had dared to talk of ghosts—in which, said we all, we did not believe one bit. We had told the story of the phantom coach, and the horribly strange bed, and the lady in the sacque, and the house in Berkeley Square. Not one of us believed in ghosts, but my heart, at least, seemed to leap to my throat and choke me, when a tap came to our door—a tap faint, but not to be mistaken.
“Who’s there?” said the youngest of us, craning a lean neck towards the door. It opened slowly—and I give you my word the instant of suspense that followed is still reckoned among my life’s least confident moments. Almost at once the door opened fully, and Miss Eastwich, my aunt’s housekeeper, companion and general standby, looked in on us.
We all said “Come in,” but she stood there. She was, at all normal hours, the most silent woman I have ever known. She stood and looked at us, and shivered a little. So did we—for in those days corridors were not warmed by hot-water pipes, and the air from the door was keen.
“I saw your light,” she said at last, “and I thought it was late for you to be up—after all this gaiety. I thought perhaps—” her glance turned towards the door of the dressing-room.
“No,” I said, “she’s fast asleep.” I should have added a “goodnight,” but the youngest of us forestalled my speech. She did not know Miss Eastwich as we others did. Did not know how her persistent silence had built a wall round her, a wall that no one dared to break down with the commonplaces of talk or the littlenesses of mere human relationship. Miss Eastwich’s silence had taught us to treat her as a machine, and as other than a machine we never dreamed of treating her. But the youngest of us had seen Miss Eastwich for the first time that day. She was young and crude and ill-balanced, and the victim of blind calf-like impulse. She was also the heiress of a rich tallow-chandler, but that has nothing to do with this part of the story. She jumped up from the hearthrug, her unsuitably rich silk, lace-trimmed dressing gown falling back from her lean neck, and ran to the door, and put an arm round Miss Eastwich’s prim lisse-encircled neck. I gasped. I should as soon have dared embrace Cleopatra’s Needle.
“Come in,” said the youngest of use, “come in and get warm. There’s lots of cocoa left.” She drew Miss Eastwich in and shut the door.
The vivid light of pleasure in the housekeeper’s pale eyes went through my heart like a knife. It would have been so easy to put an arm round her neck if one had only thought she wanted it. But it was not I who had thought that, and, indeed, my arm might not have brought the light invoked by the lean arm of the youngest of us.
“Now,” the youngest went on eagerly, “you shall have the very biggest, nicest chair, and the cocoa pot’s here on the hob as hot as hot, and we’ve all been telling ghost stories, only we don’t believe in them a bit, and when you get warm you ought to tell one too.”
Miss Eastwich, that model of decorum and decently done duties, tell a ghost story! The child was mad!
“You’re sure I’m not in your way?” Miss Eastwich said, stretching her hands to the blaze. I wondered whether housekeepers have fires in their rooms even at Christmas time.
“Not a bit,” I said it and I hope I said it as warmly as I felt it. “I—Miss Eastwich—I’d have asked you to come in other times—only I didn’t think you’d care for girls’ chatter.”
The third girl, who was really of no account, and that’s why I have not said anything about her before, poured cocoa for our guest; I put my fleecy Madeira shawl round her shoulders. I could not think of anything else to do for her, and I suddenly found myself wishing desperately to do something. The smile she gave us was quite pretty. People can smile prettily at 40 or 50, or even later, though girls don’t realize this. It occurred to me, and this was another knife-thrust, that I had never seen Miss Eastwich smile—a real smile—before. The pale smiles of dutiful acquiescence were not of the same blood as this dimpling, happy transfiguring look.
“This is very pleasant,” she said, and it seemed to me that I had never before heard her real voice. It did not please me to think that at the cost of cocoa and fire and my arms round her neck I might have heard this new voice any time these six years.
“We’ve been telling ghost stories,” I said, “the worst of it is we don’t believe in ghosts. No one anyone knows has ever seen one.”
“It’s always what somebody told somebody who told somebody, you know,” said the youngest of us. “And you can’t believe that, can you?”
“What the soldier said is not evidence,” said Miss Eastwich. Will it be believed that the little Dickens quotation pierced me more keenly than the new smile or the new voice?
“And all ghost stories are so beautifully rounded off—a murder committed on the spot—or a hidden treasure or a warning—I think that makes them harder to believe. The most horrid ghost story I ever heard was one that was quite silly.”
“Tell it.”
“I can’t—it doesn’t sound anything to tell. Mrs Eastwich ought to tell one.”
“Oh, do!” said the youngest of us, and her salt-cellars loomed dark as she stretched her neck eagerly and laid an entreating arm on our guest’s knee.
“The only thing that I ever knew of was—was hearsay,” she said slowly, “at least half of it was.”
I knew she would tell her story, and I knew she had never before told it, and I knew she was only telling it now because she was proud, and this seemed the only way to pay for the fire and the cocoa and the laying of that thin arm round her neck.
“Don’t tell it,” I said suddenly, “I know you’d rather not.”
“I daresay it would bore you,” she said meekly, and the youngest of us, who after all, did not understand everything, glared resentfully at me.
“We should just love it,” she said, “do tell us. Never mind if it isn’t a real proper fixed-up story. I’m certain anything you think ghostly would be quite too beautifully horrid for anything.”
Miss Eastwich finished her cocoa and reached up to set the cup on the mantelpiece.
“It can’t do any harm,” she said to herself, “they don’t believe in ghosts, and it wasn’t exactly a ghost either. And they’re all over twenty—they’re not babies.” There was a breathing time of hush and expectancy. The fire crackled and the gas flared higher because the billiard lights had been put out. We heard the steps and voices of the men going along the corridors.
“It is really hardly worth telling,” Miss Eastwich said doubtfully, shading her faded face from the fire with her thin hand.
We all said, “Go on; oh, go on, do!”
“Well,” she said, “twenty years ago, and more than that, I had two friends, and I loved them more than anything in the world. And they married each other.”
She paused, and I knew just in what way she had loved each of them. The youngest of us said. “How awfully nice for you! Do go on.”
She patted the youngest’s shoulder, and I was glad that I had understood what the youngest of all hadn’t. She went on.
“Well, after they married I didn’t see much of them for a year or two, and then he wrote and asked me to come and stay, because his wife was ill, and I should cheer her up, and cheer him up as well, for it was a gloomy house, and he himself was growing gloomy too.”
I knew as she spoke that she had every line of that letter by heart.
“Well, I went. The address was in Lee, near London, and in those days there were streets and streets of new villa-houses growing up round old brick mansions standing in their own grounds, with red walls round, you know, and a sort of flavor of coaching days and post-chaises and Blackheath highwaymen about them. He had said the house was gloomy, and it was called ‘The Firs,’ and I imagined my cab going through a dark winding shrubbery and drawing up in front of one of those sedate old square houses. Instead, we drew up in front of a large, smart villa, with iron railings, gay, encaustic tiles leading from the iron gate to the stained-glass-panelled door, and for shrubbery, only a few stunted cypresses and acubas in the tiny front garden. But inside it was all warm and welcoming. He met me at the door.
She was gazing into the fire, and I knew she had forgotten us. But the youngest girl of all still thought that it was to us she was telling her story.
“He met me at the door,” she said again, “and thanked me for coming, and asked me to forgive the past.”
“What past?” asked that high priestess of the inapropos, the youngest of all.
“Oh, I suppose he meant because they hadn’t invited me before, or something,” said Miss Eastwich, worriedly. “But it’s a very dull story, I find, after all, and—”
“Do go on,” I said. Then I kicked the youngest of us and got up to re-arrange Miss Eastwich’s shawl, and said in blatant dumb show, over the shawled shoulders.
“Shut up, you little idiot!”
After another silence the housekeeper’s new voice went on:
“They were very glad to see me, and I was very glad to be there. You girls now have such troops of friends, but these two were all I had, all I had ever had. Mabel wasn’t exactly ill, only wreak and excitable. I thought he seemed more ill than she did. She went to bed early, and before she went, she asked me to keep him company through his last pipe, so we went into the dining room and sat in the two armchairs on each side of the fireplace. They were covered with green leather, I remember. There were bronze groups of horses and a black marble clock on the mantelpiece—all wedding presents. He poured out some whisky for himself, but he hardly touched it. He sat looking into the fire. At last I said:
“‘What’s wrong? Mabel looks as well as you could expect.’
“He said ‘Yes, but I don’t know from one day to another that she won’t begin to notice something wrong. That’s why I wanted you to come. You were always so sensible and strong-minded, and Mabel’s like a little bird, or a flower.’
“I said ‘Yes, of course,’ and waited for him to go on. I thought he must be in debt or in trouble of some sort. So I just waited. Presently he said:
“‘Margaret, this is a very peculiar house.’ He always called me Margaret; you see, we’d been such old friends. I told him I thought the house was very pretty, and fresh, and homelike, only a little too new, but that fault would mend with time. He said:
“‘It is new; that’s just it. We’re the first people who’ve ever lived in it. If it were an old house, Margaret, I should think it was haunted.’
“I asked if he had seen anything. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not yet.’
“‘Heard, then?’ said I.
“‘No, nor heard either,’ he said, ‘but there’s a sort of feeling, I can’t describe it. I’ve seen nothing and I’ve heard nothing, but I’ve been so near to seeing and hearing! Just not, that’s all. And something follows me about—only when I turn round there’s never anything but my shadow. And I always feel that I shall see the thing, or hear it, next minute; but I never do, not quite, it’s always just not visible.’
“I thought he’d been working rather hard, and I tried to cheer him up by making light of all this. ‘It was just nerves,’ I said. Then he said he had thought I could help him. and did I think anyone he had wronged could have laid a curse on him, and did I believe in curses? I said I didn’t, and the only person anyone could have said he had wronged forgave him freely, I knew, if there was anything to forgive. So I told him this too.”
It was I, not the youngest of us, who knew the name of that person wronged and forgiving.
“So then I said ‘He ought to take Mabel away from the house and have a complete change.’ But he said, ‘No, Mabel had got everything in order, and he could never manage to get her away just now without explaining everything, and above all,’ he said, ‘she mustn’t guess there’s anything wrong. I daresay I shall not feel quite such a lunatic now you’re here.’
“So we said ‘Good-night.'”
“Is that all the story?” said the third girl, striving to convey that even as it stood it was a good story.
“That is only the beginning,” said Miss Eastwich. “Whenever I was alone with him, he used to tell me the same thing over and over again, and at first when I began to notice things I tried to think that it was his talk that had upset my nerves. The odd thing was that it wasn’t only at night—but in broad daylight, and particularly on the stairs and passages. On the staircase the feeling used to be so awful that I have had to bite my lips till they bled, to keep myself from running up the stairs at full speed. Only I knew if I did I should go mad at the top. There was always, something behind me—exactly as he had said—something that one could just not see. And a sound that one could just not hear. There was a long corridor at the top of the house. I have sometimes almost seen something—you know how one sees things without looking—but if I turned round it seemed as if the thing dropped and melted into my shadow. There was a little window at the end of the corridor.
“Downstairs there was another corridor, something like it, with a cupboard at one end and the kitchen at the other. One night I went down into the kitchen to warm some milk for Mabel. The servants had gone to bed. As I stood by the fire waiting for the milk to boil I glanced through the open door and along the passage. I never could keep my eyes on what I was doing, in that house. The cupboard door was partly open; they used to keep empty bottles and things in it. And as I looked I knew that now it was not going to be ‘almost’ any more. Yet I said ‘Mabel?’ not because I thought it could be Mabel who was crouching down there, half in and half out of the cupboard. The thing was gray at first and then it was black. And when I whispered ‘Mabel,’ it seemed to sink down till it lay like a pool of ink on the floor, and then its edges drew in, and it seemed to flow, like ink, when you tilt up the paper you have spilt it on, and it flowed into the cupboard till it was all gathered into the shadow there. I saw it go quite plainly. The gas was full on in the kitchen. I screamed aloud, but even then I’m thankful to say I had enough sense to upset the boiling milk, so that when he came downstairs three steps at a time, I had the excuse for my scream of a scalded hand. The explanation was satisfactory to Mabel, but next night he said:
“‘Why didn’t you tell me? It was that cupboard. All the horror of the house comes out of that. Tell me, have you seen anything yet? Or is it only the nearly seeing and nearly hearing still?’
“I said. ‘You must tell me first what you’ve seen.’ He told me, and his eyes wandered as he spoke to the shadows by the curtains, and I turned up all three gaslights and lit the candles on the mantelpiece. Then we looked at each other and said we were both mad, and thanked God that Mabel was at least sane. For what he had seen was what I had seen.
“After that I hated to be alone with a shadow, because at any moment I might see something that would crouch and sink and lie like a black pool and then slowly draw itself into the shadow that was nearest. Often that shadow was my own. The thing came first at night, but afterwards there was no hour safe from it. I saw it at dawn, and at noon, in the dusk and in the firelight, and always it crouched and sank, and was a pool that flowed into some shadow and became part of it. And always I saw it with a straining of the eyes, a pricking and aching. It seemed as though I could only just see it, as if my sight, to see it, had to be strained to the uttermost. And still the sound was in the house, the sound that I could just not hear. At last one morning early I did hear it. It was close behind me, and it was only a sigh. It was worse than the thing that crept among the shadows.
“I don’t know how I bore it. I couldn’t have borne it if I hadn’t been so fond of them both. But I knew in my heart that if he had no one to whom he could speak openly he would go mad, or tell Mabel. His was not a very strong character. Very sweet and kind and gentle, but not strong. He was always easily led. So I stayed on and bore up, and we were very cheerful and made little jokes and tried to be amusing when Mabel was with us. But when we were alone we did not try to be amusing.
“And sometimes a day or two would go by without our seeing or hearing anything, and we should perhaps have fancied that we had fancied what we had seen and heard, only there was always the feeling of there being something about the house that one could just not hear and not see. Sometimes we used to try not to talk about it, but generally we talked of nothing else at all. And the weeks went by, and Mabel’s baby was born. The nurse and the doctor said that both mother and child were doing well. He and I sat late in the dining-room that night. We had neither of us seen or heard anything for three days—our anxiety about Mabel was lessened. We talked of the future: it seemed then so much brighter than the past. We arranged that the moment she was fit to be moved he should take her away to the sea, and I should superintend the moving of their furniture into the new house he had already chosen. He was gayer than I had seen him since his marriage–almost like his old self. When I said ‘good-night’ to him he said a lot of things about my having been a comfort to them both. I hadn’t done anything much of course, but still I am glad he said that.
“Then I went upstairs—almost for the first time without that feeling of something following me. I listened at Mabel’s room. Everything was quiet. I went on towards my own room, and in an instant I felt that there was something behind me. I turned. It was crouching there: it sank, and the black fluidness of it seemed to be sucked under the floor of Mabel’s room.
“I went back. I opened the door a listening inch. All was still. And then I heard a sigh—close behind me. I opened the door and went in. The nurse and the baby were asleep. Mabel was asleep, too; she looked so pretty, like a tired child—the baby was cuddled up into one of her arms with its tiny head against her side. I prayed then that Mabel might never know the terrors that he and I had known—that those little ears might never hear any but pretty sounds, those dear eyes never see any but pretty sights. I did not dare to pray for a long time after that. Because my prayer was answered. She never saw, never heard anything more in this world. And now I could do nothing more for him or for her.
“When they had put her in her coffin I lighted wax candles round her, and laid the horrible white flowers that people will send, near to her, and then I saw he had followed me. I took his hand to lead him away.
“At the door we both turned. It seemed to us that we heard a sigh. He would have sprung to her side in I don’t know what mad glad hope. But at that instant we both saw it. Between us and the coffin, first gray, then black, it crouched an instant, then sank and liquefied, and was gathered together and drawn till it ran into the nearest shadow. And the nearest shadow was the shadow of Mabel’s coffin. I left the next day. His mother came. She had never liked me.”
Miss Eastwich paused. I think she had quite forgotten us.
“Didn’t you see him again?” asked the youngest of all.
“Only once,” Miss Eastwich answered, “and something black crouched then between him and me. But it was only his second wife crying beside his coffin. It’s not a cheerful story, is it? And it doesn’t lead anywhere. I’ve never told anyone else. I think it was seeing his daughter that brought it all back.”
She looked toward the dressing-room door. “Mabel’s baby,” said the youngest of all.
“Yes, and exactly like Mabel, only with his eyes.”
The youngest of all had Miss Eastwich’s hands and was petting them.
Suddenly the woman wrenched her hands away and stood at her gaunt height, hands clenched, eyes straining. She was looking at something that we could not see, and I know now what the man in the Bible meant when he said “the hair of my flesh stood up—”
What she saw seemed not quite to reach the height of the dressing-room door handle. Her eyes following it down, down, widened and widened. Mine followed hers, and all the nerves of my eyes seemed strained to the uttermost—and I almost saw—or did I quite see? I can’t be certain. But we all heard the long-drawn, quivering sigh. And to each of us it seemed to be breathed just behind each.
It was I who caught up the candle—it dropped wax all over my trembling hands—it was I who was dragged by Miss Eastwich to the side of the girl who had fainted during the second extra. But it was the youngest of all whose lean arms were round the housekeeper when we turned away, and that have been round her many a time since in the new home where she keeps house for the youngest of us all.
The doctor, who came in the morning, said that Mabel’s daughter had died of heart disease, which she inherited from her mother. That was what made her faint during the second extra. But I have sometimes wondered whether she may not have inherited something from her father. I have never been able to forget the look on her dead face.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
In the ruins of the former castle of Rouelbeau in Switzerland, the ghost of a Lady in White is said to appear during Christmas times. As one of the Weiße Frau from Germanic folklore, she is believed to have been the mistress of the castle until she was cast away for not bearing a son.
In the marshlands and forests of western Switzerland, the crumbling ruins of Rouelbeau Castle stand as a lonely reminder of medieval ambition and restless spirits. The name Rouelbeau, which is commonly used today, may consist partly of the French verb roiller , which means “to rain heavily” and is translated as “to strike” in the old local dialect. And partly of bot, which means “frog”. One explanation for the meaning of Rouelbeau built on the marchy plain near the Seymaz river, is that the lords of the castle could not sleep at night because of the loud croaking of frogs and therefore had their servants strike the water.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
While few stones of the fortress remain, it is not the broken walls that draw uneasy glances from passersby, but the enduring legend of La Dame Blanche, or in German called Weiße Frau, the White Lady — a sorrowful ghost whose presence is still feared along the winding path known as the Chemin de la Dame Blanche and around the ruins of the castle.
Rouelbeau Castle Ruins: Oil painting of the ruins of Rouelbeau Castle in Meinier in what is now the Swiss Canton of Geneva, by an unknown artist. An inscription on the backside uses the alternative spelling “Roilbot” and feature a number which may be read as the year “1808” From a private collection.
The Tragic Tale of Rouelbeau’s White Lady
Stories about the spirits of the Lady in White have been told in Europe since pre-christian times, and has been a part of folklore for ages. There are now hundreds of so-called Ladies in White, haunting decaying European castles, ancient forests and deep waters.
The origins of this particular legend of the Lady in White of Château de Rouelbeau, trace back to 1318, when Knight Humbert de Choulex ordered the construction of Rouelbeau Castle in what is now the municipality of Meinier, in the canton of Geneva. He was a vassal of the Faucigny-Baron. While intended as a defensive stronghold against rival factions and the restless borders of medieval Switzerland, the castle’s history quickly turned dark.
According to oral tradition, Humbert’s first wife was cast aside, cruelly divorced after failing to provide him a male heir. Her name is now lost and what became of the discarded woman remains a mystery. Some say she died of grief, others that she was locked away, or met a violent, unrecorded end. It is her anguished spirit, so the legend tells, that took the form of La Dame Blanche, forever bound to the castle grounds.
For generations, travelers and villagers alike have reported sightings of a pale woman dressed in flowing white, a shimmering diadem crowning her head, gliding silently through the misty fields surrounding the castle ruins. Most eerily, her appearances are said to coincide with tragic or unexplained deaths in the area.
The Haunted Castle Ruins: The south-western tower and the southern wall of the Rouelbeau Castle. // Source
A Haunting Presence in the Christmas Night
Local accounts vary as to when the White Lady is most active. Some say she emerges under the cover of a new moon’s darkness, while others claim she walks under the ethereal glow of a full moon. But one certainty endures: Christmas Eve remains the most sacred and sinister night in the legend of La Dame Blanche.
It is on this night, according to stories passed down since the 19th century, that the entire castle is said to rise again from its ruins, bathed in ghostly light, with spectral inhabitants returning to reenact scenes from long-forgotten feasts and torments. The Lady herself appears resplendent, her otherworldly beauty made all the more chilling by her silent, sorrowful gaze.
There is even a curious twist to the tale. In one solitary account from the early 1800s, a destitute orphan, lost and starving in the winter woods, encountered La Dame Blanche on Christmas Eve. Instead of vanishing in terror, the child accepted the ghost’s beckoning hand and was led to a hidden cache of gold and silver, a reward for his pure heart and desperate plight. The treasure, it is said, lifted the boy from poverty — but he was forbidden from ever revealing the source, save to the dying.
The following year punished one of his greedy relatives by locking him in the castle vault to his death.
The Chemin de la Dame Blanche: Path of Shadows
Even today, the path running alongside the ruins bears the ominous name Chemin de la Dame Blanche, and locals approach it with quiet caution, especially during the cold months. Strange lights have reportedly flickered in the trees, and unexplained cold drafts creep through the marsh even on still summer nights.
Christmas Haunting: Oil painting by Alfred Dumont from a private collection: «Ice skating at Pallanterie in front of the ruins of Rouelbeau Castle» from around 1870.
Hikers and amateur ghost hunters claim to have heard faint weeping near the site, or seen a pale figure moving just beyond reach in the gloom. Some modern investigators suggest the damp, misty conditions of the marshland might explain these apparitions — but those familiar with Rouelbeau’s legend know better than to tempt the unseen.
A second legend surrounding the castle ruins is about a black cat, le chat noir, with glowing eyes. It is said to roam the grounds, especially on foggy days at nightfall, suddenly attacking its victims with razor-sharp claws, tearing them to pieces. It is said to be the devil himself, who can only be repelled with a firm blow from a club. If the cat successfully defends itself, it should not be given a coup de grâce, as otherwise it would regain all its strength and abduct its victim into the underworld .
The story is partly linked to an incident in 1567: At that time, the brothers Claude and Jenon Dexert, who lived on the edge of the swamp, were accused of witchcraft and executed after a confession extracted under torture. According to tradition, the cat is their avenging angel.
Whether a cautionary fable or a true haunting, those who tread the path beside Rouelbeau’s ruins on a winter’s night would do well to keep their distance should a lady in white appear from the mist — for her intentions, like the history of the castle itself, remain forever shadowed in sorrow and mystery.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
One of James’s lesser-known but fascinating tales — set at Christmas, it’s presented as a series of letters about a disturbing Punch and Judy show, a mysterious disappearance, and a spectral visitation on Christmas Eve. It first appeared in print in the June 4, 1913 issue of the magazine Cambridge Review. It was published again in 1919 as part of the anthology A Thin Ghost and Others.
The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance by M.R James
THE letters which I now publish were sent to me recently by a person who knows me to be interested in ghost stories. There is no doubt about their authenticity. The paper on which they are written, the ink, and the whole external aspect put their date beyond the reach of question.
The only point which they do not make clear is the identity of the writer. He signs with initials only, and as none of the envelopes of the letters are preserved, the surname of his correspondent—obviously a married brother—is as obscure as his own. No further preliminary explanation is needed, I think. Luckily the first letter supplies all that could be expected.
LETTER I
Great Chrishall, Dec. 22, 1837.
My Dear Robert,—It is with great regret for the enjoyment I am losing, and for a reason which you will deplore equally with myself, that I write to inform you that I am unable to join your circle for this Christmas: but you will agree with me that it is unavoidable when I say that I have within these few hours received a letter from Mrs. Hunt at B——, to the effect that our Uncle Henry has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and begging me to go down there immediately and join the search that is being made for him. Little as I, or you either, I think, have ever seen of Uncle, I naturally feel that this is not a request that can be regarded lightly, and accordingly I propose to go to B——by this afternoon’s mail, reaching it late in the evening. I shall not go to the Rectory, but put up at the King’s Head, and to which you may address letters. I enclose a small draft, which you will please make use of for the benefit of the young people. I shall write you daily (supposing me to be detained more than a single day) what goes on, and you may be sure, should the business be cleared up in time to permit of my coming to the Manor after all, I shall present myself. I have but a few minutes at disposal. With cordial greetings to you all, and many regrets, believe me, your affectionate Bro.,
W. R.
LETTER II
King’s Head, Dec. 23, ’37
My Dear Robert,—In the first place, there is as yet no news of Uncle H., and I think you may finally dismiss any idea—I won’t say hope—that I might after all ‘turn up’ for Xmas. However, my thoughts will be with you, and you have my best wishes for a really festive day. Mind that none of my nephews or nieces expend any fraction of their guineas on presents for me.
Since I got here I have been blaming myself for taking this affair of Uncle H. too easily. From what people here say, I gather that there is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is accident or design that carried him off I cannot judge. The facts are these. On Friday the 19th, he went as usual shortly before five o’clock to read evening prayers at the Church; and when they were over the clerk brought him a message, in response to which he set off to pay a visit to a sick person at an outlying cottage the better part of two miles away. He paid the visit, and started on his return journey at about half-past six. This is the last that is known of him. The people here are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, as you know, and though, as you also know, he was not the most genial of men, and had more than a little of the martinet in his composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing of trouble to himself.
Poor Mrs. Hunt, who has been his housekeeper ever since she left Woodley, is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the world to her. I am glad that I did not entertain the idea of taking quarters at the Rectory; and I have declined several kindly offers of hospitality from people in the place, preferring as I do to be independent, and finding myself very comfortable here.
You will, of course, wish to know what has been done in the way of inquiry and search. First, nothing was to be expected from investigation at the Rectory; and to be brief, nothing has transpired. I asked Mrs. Hunt—as others had done before—whether there was either any unfavourable symptom in her master such as might portend a sudden stroke, or attack of illness, or whether he had ever had reason to apprehend any such thing: but both she, and also his medical man, were clear that this was not the case. He was quite in his usual health. In the second place, naturally, ponds and streams have been dragged, and fields in the neighbourhood which he is known to have visited last, have been searched—without result. I have myself talked to the parish clerk and—more important—have been to the house where he paid his visit.
There can be no question of any foul play on these people’s part. The one man in the house is ill in bed and very weak: the wife and the children of course could do nothing themselves, nor is there the shadow of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy poor Uncle H. out in order that he might be attacked on the way back. They had told what they knew to several other inquirers already, but the woman repeated it to me. The Rector was looking just as usual: he wasn’t very long with the sick man—“He ain’t,” she said, “like some what has a gift in prayer; but there, if we was all that way, ‘owever would the chapel people get their living?” He left some money when he went away, and one of the children saw him cross the stile into the next field. He was dressed as he always was: wore his bands—I gather he is nearly the last man remaining who does so—at any rate in this district.
You see I am putting down everything. The fact is that I have nothing else to do, having brought no business papers with me; and, moreover, it serves to clear my own mind, and may suggest points which have been overlooked. So I shall continue to write all that passes, even to conversations if need be—you may read or not as you please, but pray keep the letters. I have another reason for writing so fully, but it is not a very tangible one.
You may ask if I have myself made any search in the fields near the cottage. Something—a good deal—has been done by others, as I mentioned; but I hope to go over the ground tomorrow. Bow Street has now been informed, and will send down by to-night’s coach, but I do not think they will make much of the job. There is no snow, which might have helped us. The fields are all grass. Of course I was on the qui vive for any indication today both going and returning; but there was a thick mist on the way back, and I was not in trim for wandering about unknown pastures, especially on an evening when bushes looked like men, and a cow lowing in the distance might have been the last trump. I assure you, if Uncle Henry had stepped out from among the trees in a little copse which borders the path at one place, carrying his head under his arm, I should have been very little more uncomfortable than I was. To tell you the truth, I was rather expecting something of the kind. But I must drop my pen for the moment: Mr. Lucas, the curate, is announced.
Later. Mr. Lucas has been, and gone, and there is not much beyond the decencies of ordinary sentiment to be got from him. I can see that he has given up any idea that the Rector can be alive, and that, so far as he can be, he is truly sorry. I can also discern that even in a more emotional person than Mr. Lucas, Uncle Henry was not likely to inspire strong attachment.
Besides Mr. Lucas, I have had another visitor in the shape of my Boniface—mine host of the “King’s Head”—who came to see whether I had everything I wished, and who really requires the pen of a Boz to do him justice. He was very solemn and weighty at first. “Well, sir,” he said, “I suppose we must bow our ’ead beneath the blow, as my poor wife had used to say. So far as I can gather there’s been neither hide nor yet hair of our late respected incumbent scented out as yet; not that he was what the Scripture terms a hairy man in any sense of the word.”
I said—as well as I could—that I supposed not, but could not help adding that I had heard he was sometimes a little difficult to deal with. Mr. Bowman looked at me sharply for a moment, and then passed in a flash from solemn sympathy to impassioned declamation. “When I think,” he said, “of the language that man see fit to employ to me in this here parlour over no more a matter than a cask of beer—such a thing as I told him might happen any day of the week to a man with a family—though as it turned out he was quite under a mistake, and that I knew at the time, only I was that shocked to hear him I couldn’t lay my tongue to the right expression.”
He stopped abruptly and eyed me with some embarrassment. I only said, “Dear me, I’m sorry to hear you had any little differences; I suppose my uncle will be a good deal missed in the parish?” Mr. Bowman drew a long breath. “Ah, yes!” he said; “your uncle! You’ll understand me when I say that for the moment it had slipped my remembrance that he was a relative; and natural enough, I must say, as it should, for as to you bearing any resemblance to—to him, the notion of any such a thing is clean ridiculous. All the same, ’ad I ’ave bore it in my mind, you’ll be among the first to feel, I’m sure, as I should have abstained my lips, or rather I should not have abstained my lips with no such reflections.”
I assured him that I quite understood, and was going to have asked him some further questions, but he was called away to see after some business. By the way, you need not take it into your head that he has anything to fear from the inquiry into poor Uncle Henry’s disappearance—though, no doubt, in the watches of the night it will occur to him that ‘I’ think he has, and I may expect explanations tomorrow.
I must close this letter: it has to go by the late coach.
LETTER III
Dec. 25, ‘37.
My Dear Robert,—This is a curious letter to be writing on Christmas Day, and yet after all there is nothing much in it. Or there may be—you shall be the judge. At least, nothing decisive. The Bow Street men practically say that they have no clue. The length of time and the weather conditions have made all tracks so faint as to be quite useless: nothing that belonged to the dead man—I’m afraid no other word will do—has been picked up.
As I expected, Mr. Bowman was uneasy in his mind this morning; quite early I heard him holding forth in a very distinct voice—purposely so, I thought—to the Bow Street officers in the bar, as to the loss that the town had sustained in their Rector, and as to the necessity of leaving no stone unturned (he was very great on this phrase) in order to come at the truth. I suspect him of being an orator of repute at convivial meetings.
When I was at breakfast he came to wait on me, and took an opportunity when handing a muffin to say in a low tone, “I ‘ope, sir, you reconize as my feelings towards your relative is not actuated by any taint of what you may call melignity—you can leave the room, Eliza, I will see the gentleman ‘as all he requires with my own hands—I ask your pardon, sir, but you must be well aware a man is not always master of himself: and when that man has been ’urt in his mind by the application of expressions which I will go so far as to say ‘ad not ought to have been made use of (his voice was rising all this time and his face growing redder); no, sir; and ’ere, if you will permit of it, I should like to explain to you in a very few words the exact state of the bone of contention. This cask—I might more truly call it a firkin—of beer—”
I felt it was time to interpose, and said that I did not see that it would help us very much to go into that matter in detail. Mr. Bowman acquiesced, and resumed more calmly:
“Well, sir, I bow to your ruling, and as you say, be that here or be it there, it don’t contribute a great deal, perhaps, to the present question. All I wish you to understand is that I am prepared as you are yourself to lend every hand to the business we have afore us, and—as I took the opportunity to say as much to the Orficers not three-quarters of an hour ago—to leave no stone unturned as may throw even a spark of light on this painful matter.”
In fact, Mr. Bowman did accompany us on our exploration, but though I am sure his genuine wish was to be helpful, I am afraid he did not contribute to the serious side of it. He appeared to be under the impression that we were likely to meet either Uncle Henry or the person responsible for his disappearance, walking about the fields—and did a great deal of shading his eyes with his hand and calling our attention, by pointing with his stick, to distant cattle and labourers. He held several long conversations with old women whom we met, and was very strict and severe in his manner—but on each occasion returned to our party saying, ‘Well, I find she don’t seem to ’ave no connexion with this sad affair. I think you may take it from me, sir, as there’s little or no light to be looked for from that quarter; not without she’s keeping somethink back intentional.”
We gained no appreciable result, as I told you at starting; the Bow Street men have left the town, whether for London or not, I am not sure.
This evening I had company in the shape of a bagman, a smartish fellow. He knew what was going forward, but though he has been on the roads for some days about here, he had nothing to tell of suspicious characters—tramps, wandering sailors or gipsies. He was very full of a capital Punch and Judy Show he had seen this same day at W———, and asked if it had been here yet, and advised me by no means to miss it if it does come. The best Punch and the best Toby dog, he said, he had ever come across. Toby dogs, you know, are the last new thing in the shows. I have only seen one myself, but before long all the men will have them.
Now why, you will want to know, do I trouble to write all this to you? I am obliged to do it, because it has something to do with another absurd trifle (as you will inevitably say), which in my present state of rather unquiet fancy—nothing more, perhaps—I have to put down. It is a dream, sir, which I am going to record, and I must say it is one of the oddest I have had. Is there anything in it beyond what the bagman’s talk and Uncle Henry’s disappearance could have suggested? You, I repeat, shall judge: I am not in a sufficiently cool and judicial frame to do so.
It began with what I can only describe as a pulling aside of curtains: and I found myself seated in a place—I don’t know whether in doors or out. There were people—only a few—on either side of me, but I did not recognize them, or indeed think much about them. They never spoke, but, so far as I remember, were all grave and pale-faced and looked fixedly before them. Facing me there was a Punch and Judy Show, perhaps rather larger than the ordinary ones, painted with black figures on a reddish-yellow ground. Behind it and on each side was only darkness, but in front there was a sufficiency of light. I was “strung up” to a high degree of expectation and listened every moment to hear the panpipes and the Roo-too-too-it. Instead of that there came suddenly an enormous—I can use no other word—an enormous single toll of a bell, I don’t know from how far off—somewhere behind. The little curtain flew up and the drama began.
I believe someone once tried to re-write Punch as a serious tragedy; but whoever he may have been, this performance would have suited him exactly. There was something Satanic about the hero. He varied his methods of attack: for some of his victims he lay in wait, and to see his horrible face—it was yellowish white, I may remark—peering round the wings made me think of the Vampyre in Fuseli’s foul sketch. To others he was polite and carneying—particularly to the unfortunate alien who can only say Shallabalah—though what Punch said I never could catch. But with all of them I came to dread the moment of death. The crack of the stick on their skulls, which in the ordinary way delights me, had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as they lay. The baby—it sounds more ridiculous as I go on—the baby, I am sure, was alive. Punch wrung its neck, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality.
The stage got perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it Punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered in so deadly a fashion that I saw some of those beside me cover their faces, and I would gladly have done the same. But in the meantime the scene behind Punch was clearing, and showed, not the usual house front, but something more ambitious—a grove of trees and the gentle slope of a hill, with a very natural—in fact, I should say a real— moon shining on it. Over this there rose slowly an object which I soon perceived to be a human figure with something peculiar about the head—what, I was unable at first to see. It did not stand on its feet, but began creeping or dragging itself across the middle distance towards Punch, who still sat back to it; and by this time, I may remark (though it did not occur to me at the moment) that all pretence of this being a puppet show had vanished. Punch was still Punch, it is true, but, like the others, was in some sense a live creature, and both moved themselves at their own will.
When I next glanced at him he was sitting in malignant reflection; but in another instant something seemed to attract his attention, and he first sat up sharply and then turned round, and evidently caught sight of the person that was approaching him and was in fact now very near. Then, indeed, did he show unmistakable signs of terror: catching up his stick, he rushed towards the wood, only just eluding the arm of his pursuer, which was suddenly flung out to intercept him. It was with a revulsion which I cannot easily express that I now saw more or less clearly what this pursuer was like. He was a sturdy figure clad in black, and, as I thought, wearing bands: his head was covered with a whitish bag.
The chase which now began lasted I do not know how long, now among the trees, now along the slope of the field, sometimes both figures disappearing wholly for a few seconds, and only some uncertain sounds letting one know that they were still afoot. At length there came a moment when Punch, evidently exhausted, staggered in from the left and threw himself down among the trees. His pursuer was not long after him, and came looking uncertainly from side to side. Then, catching sight of the figure on the ground, he too threw himself down—his back was turned to the audience—with a swift motion twitched the covering from his head, and thrust his face into that of Punch. Everything on the instant grew dark.
There was one long, loud, shuddering scream, and I awoke to find myself looking straight into the face of—what in all the world do you think?—but a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill immediately opposite my bed-foot, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. I caught the fierce glance of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. I heard the single enormous bell again—very likely, as you are saying to yourself, the church clock; but I do not think so—and then I was broad awake.
All this, I may say, happened within the last half-hour. There was no probability of my getting to sleep again, so I got up, put on clothes enough to keep me warm, and am writing this rigmarole in the first hours of Christmas Day. Have I left out anything? Yes, there was no Toby dog, and the names over the front of the Punch and Judy booth were Kidman and Gallop, which were certainly not what the bagman told me to look out for.
By this time, I feel a little more as if I could sleep, so this shall be sealed and wafered.
LETTER IV
Dec. 26, ‘37.
My Dear Robert,—All is over. The body has been found. I do not make excuses for not having sent off my news by last night’s mail, for the simple reason that I was incapable of putting pen to paper. The events that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that I needed what I could get of a night’s rest to enable me to face the situation at all. Now I can give you my journal of the day, certainly the strangest Christmas Day that ever I spent or am likely to spend.
The first incident was not very serious. Mr. Bowman had, I think, been keeping Christmas Eve, and was a little inclined to be captious: at least, he was not on foot very early, and to judge from what I could hear, neither men or maids could do anything to please him. The latter were certainly reduced to tears; nor am I sure that Mr. Bowman succeeded in preserving a manly composure. At any rate, when I came downstairs, it was in a broken voice that he wished me the compliments of the season, and a little later on, when he paid his visit of ceremony at breakfast, he was far from cheerful: even Byronic, I might almost say, in his outlook on life.
“I don’t know,” he said, “if you think with me, sir; but every Christmas as comes round the world seems a hollerer thing to me. Why, take an example now from what lays under my own eye. There’s my servant Eliza—been with me now for going on fifteen years. I thought I could have placed my confidence in Elizar, and yet this very morning—Christmas morning too, of all the blessed days in the year—with the bells a ringing and—and—all like that—I say, this very morning, had it not have been for Providence watching over us all, that girl would have put—indeed I may go so far to say,’ad put the cheese on your breakfast table———” He saw I was about to speak, and waved his hand at me. “It’s all very well for you to say, ‘Yes, Mr. Bowman, but you took away the cheese and locked it up in the cupboard,’ which I did, and have the key here, or if not the actual key one very much about the same size. That’s true enough, sir, but what do you think is the effect of that action on me? Why it’s no exaggeration for me to say that the ground is cut from under my feet. And yet when I said as much to Eliza, not nasty, mind you, but just firm like, what was my return? ‘Oh,’ she says: ‘Well,’ she says, ‘there wasn’t no bones broke, I suppose.’ Well, sir, it ‘urt me, that’s all I can say: it ‘urt me, and I don’t like to think of it now.”
There was an ominous pause here, in which I ventured to say something like, “Yes, very trying,” and then asked at what hour the church service was to be. “Eleven o’clock,” Mr. Bowman said with a heavy sigh. “Ah, you won’t have no such discourse from poor Mr. Lucas as what you would have done from our late Rector. Him and me may have had our little differences, and did do, more’s the pity.”
I could see that a powerful effort was needed to keep him off the vexed question of the cask of beer, but he made it. “But I will say this, that a better preacher, nor yet one to stand faster by his rights, or what he considered to be his rights—however, that’s not the question now—I for one, never set under. Some might say, ‘Was he a eloquent man?’ and to that my answer would be: ‘Well, there you’ve a better right per’aps to speak of your own uncle than what I have.’ Others might ask, ‘Did he keep a hold of his congregation?’ and there again I should reply, ‘That depends.’ But as I say—Yes, Eliza, my girl, I’m coming—eleven o’clock, sir, and you inquire for the King’s Head pew.” I believe Eliza had been very near the door, and shall consider it in my vail.
The next episode was church: I felt Mr. Lucas had a difficult task in doing justice to Christmas sentiments, and also to the feeling of disquiet and regret which, whatever Mr. Bowman might say, was clearly prevalent. I do not think he rose to the occasion. I was uncomfortable. The organ wolved—you know what I mean: the wind died—twice in the Christmas Hymn, and the tenor bell, I suppose owing to some negligence on the part of the ringers, kept sounding faintly about once in a minute during the sermon. The clerk sent up a man to see to it, but he seemed unable to do much. I was glad when it was over. There was an odd incident, too, before the service. I went in rather early, and came upon two men carrying the parish bier back to its place under the tower. From what I overheard them saying, it appeared that it had been put out by mistake, by some one who was not there. I also saw the clerk busy folding up a moth-eaten velvet pall—not a sight for Christmas Day.
I dined soon after this, and then, feeling disinclined to go out, took my seat by the fire in the parlour, with the last number of Pickwick, which I had been saving up for some days. I thought I could be sure of keeping awake over this, but I turned out as bad as our friend Smith. I suppose it was half-past two when I was roused by a piercing whistle and laughing and talking voices outside in the market-place. It was a Punch and Judy—I had no doubt the one that my bagman had seen at W———. I was half delighted, half not—the latter because my unpleasant dream came back to me so vividly; but, anyhow, I determined to see it through, and I sent Eliza out with a crown-piece to the performers and a request that they would face my window if they could manage it.
The show was a very smart new one; the names of the proprietors, I need hardly tell you, were Italian, Foresta and Calpigi. The Toby dog was there, as I had been led to expect. All B——— turned out, but did not obstruct my view, for I was at the large first-floor window and not ten yards away.
The play began on the stroke of a quarter to three by the church clock. Certainly it was very good; and I was soon relieved to find that the disgust my dream had given me for Punch’s onslaughts on his ill-starred visitors was only transient. I laughed at the demise of the Turncock, the Foreigner, the Beadle, and even the baby. The only drawback was the Toby dog’s developing a tendency to howl in the wrong place. Something had occurred, I suppose, to upset him, and something considerable: for, I forget exactly at what point, he gave a most lamentable cry, leapt off the foot board, and shot away across the market-place and down a side street. There was a stage-wait, but only a brief one. I suppose the men decided that it was no good going after him, and that he was likely to turn up again at night.
We went on. Punch dealt faithfully with Judy, and in fact with all comers; and then came the moment when the gallows was erected, and the great scene with Mr. Ketch was to be enacted. It was now that something happened of which I can certainly not yet see the import fully. You have witnessed an execution, and know what the criminal’s head looks like with the cap on. If you are like me, you never wish to think of it again, and I do not willingly remind you of it. It was just such a head as that, that I, from my somewhat higher post, saw in the inside of the show-box; but at first the audience did not see it. I expected it to emerge into their view, but instead of that there slowly rose for a few seconds an uncovered face, with an expression of terror upon it, of which I have never imagined the like. It seemed as if the man, whoever he was, was being forcibly lifted, with his arms somehow pinioned or held back, towards the little gibbet on the stage. I could just see the nightcapped head behind him. Then there was a cry and a crash. The whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the ruins, and then two figures—as some said; I can only answer for one—were visible running at top speed across the square and disappearing in a lane which leads to the fields.
Of course everybody gave chase. I followed; but the pace was killing, and very few were in, literally, at the death. It happened in a chalk pit: the man went over the edge quite blindly and broke his neck. They searched everywhere for the other, until it occurred to me to ask whether he had ever left the market-place. At first everyone was sure that he had; but when we came to look, he was there, under the show-box, dead too.
But in the chalk pit it was that poor Uncle Henry’s body was found, with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. It was a peaked corner of the sack sticking out of the soil that attracted attention. I cannot bring myself to write in greater detail.
I forgot to say the men’s real names were Kidman and Gallop. I feel sure I have heard them, but no one here seems to know anything about them.
I am coming to you as soon as I can after the funeral. I must tell you when we meet what I think of it all.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
In the middle of the night, it was said that the bells of St. John Church in Rapperswil, Switzerland started to toll. When the churchwarden went to investigate, it was said that he saw the headless ghosts of the fallen soldiers from the Battle of Näfels holding midnight mass.
“Before this evil news reached the city, that our brave heart had fallen in loyalty, the great bell in Rapperswil rang sixty-two times.” – JH. Fornaro
Along the northern shores of Lake Zurich, the medieval town of Rapperswil-Jona is known for its charming alleys in the old town, historic castle, and rose gardens which is why it’s known as Rosenstadt, or the City of Roses.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
But beneath this picturesque veneer lies a chilling legend, one that speaks of loyalty beyond death and spectral gatherings in the dead of night. The tale of the headless ghost soldiers of Rapperswil has unnerved locals for centuries and remains one of Switzerland’s most eerie supernatural legends.
A Bell That Rings for the Dead
Stadtpfarrkirche St. Johann (Saint John’s parish church) is a Roman Catholic parish church in the city of Rapperswil, right next to Rapperswil Castle on Herrenberg hill in the old town. Rapperswil Castle, the town walls of the former locus Endingen and the parish church were built by Count Rudolf II and his son Rudolf III of Rapperswil around 1220/29.
It is also on this hill on the southern walls that the first roses in Rapperswil blooms because their medieval sandstone walls are exposed to the sun all through the year. It is also where the old and dark ghost legends hang around the ancient halls.
The legend begins on a cold, silent night at the start of the 20th century, when the church bell at St. John’s Church began to toll by itself. This story was told by the Rapperswil politician and publicist Theodor Curti, who died in 1914, although it’s not certain exactly when this was supposed to have happened.
The mournful clang shattered the stillness of the sleeping town. According to the story, the churchwarden — believing someone had broken into the sacred place — made his way to the tower, expecting to find a prankster or a thief. Instead, he found the bell swaying on its own, untouched by human hands.
What he witnessed next would haunt the town’s memory for generations.
The Headless Procession
As the churchwarden descended into the nave, the flicker of ghostly figures appeared around the ancient altar. Dozens of soldiers, clad in bloodstained medieval armor, stood in silent formation. Their most horrifying feature: every one of them was headless. Despite this gruesome deformity, the soldiers appeared solemn and composed, as though celebrating mass in front of the altar.
The churchwarden watched in petrified awe as the ghostly warriors held a midnight mass for their fallen brethren. No words were spoken, no sound but the bell’s final echoes remained. When the ceremony ended, the soldiers faded back into the shadows, leaving behind an eerie chill in the air.
The Battle of Näfels and the Origins of the Legend
Local lore links these restless spirits to the Battle of Näfels, fought in 1388 between the Old Swiss Confederacy and the Habsburg forces that led to the independence from Habsburg rule. Rapperswil was then under Habsburg rule. It was a brutal clash in which 62 men from Rapperswil perished. It was said that the other soldiers all fled, only the brave Rosenstadters remained steadfast. When their bodies were found, they were all lying together, slain in a small orchard.
In his notes, Curti suggests that this is a variant of the legend that originated in the Battle of Näfels in 1388 that the death bell rang as well, exactly 62 times for the fallen ones. Although there really was 62 locals dead in the battle, there has been no historical proof that the bells actually rang back then but the legends.
Many believe the headless soldiers are the souls of these men, returning on certain nights to mourn their fate and honor those who died alongside them.
The Battle of Näfels: The battle was the last of the Swiss-Austrian conflicts that stretched through most of the 14th century. The Swiss had 54 men killed, who were buried at the parish church of Mollis. Habsburg losses are less well known, but are estimated to be between several hundred and 1,700 killed. In 1339, the first Näfelser Fahrt, a pilgrimage to the site of the battle, was held. This pilgrimage, which still occurs, happens on the first Thursday in April and is in memory of the battle.
Over the centuries, reports of the ghostly procession have persisted. Townsfolk whisper that the spirits are most likely to appear during violent storms, misty autumn nights, or on the anniversary of the battle. The legend has become so entwined with the town’s history that a path leading to the old battlefield is still marked by aged stones, and some locals claim to hear phantom footsteps or distant, mournful bells when passing by after dusk.
Symbol or Specter?
While skeptics dismiss the tale as folklore — a metaphor for the horrors of war and the sacrifices of the past — others remain convinced that something lingers within Rapperswil’s ancient walls. The church where the soldiers supposedly gather has undergone restorations, yet strange incidents occasionally occur: inexplicable drafts, flickering candle flames, and, once in recorded memory, the death bell tolling on a windless night.
Whether a symbolic remembrance or a true haunting, the story of the Ghost Soldiers of Rapperswil continues to captivate, reminding visitors and locals alike that the past is never truly buried — and that sometimes, the dead march on in silence, seeking the honor denied to them in life.
The whole estate of Rathfarnham Castle in south Dublin is said to have its ghosts. From the antique ballroom, its icy lakes and roads leading up to it, ghosts are said to linger.
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
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Is the ghost of Anne Brandfjell, a famous fortune teller and wise wife from Norway haunting the old Maritime school in Oslo?
A stop on the haunted pub crawl through Dublin, one of the stops would be John Mulligan’s. Stories about glass and bottles flying from the shelves has haunted the place for decades now according to the people behind the bar.
Ruling her Elingaard Manor house with an iron fist, the noble Birgitte Kaas is said to haunt it in her afterlife as well. But what is the truth of her strange disappearance and whispers about a deal with the devil?
Hanging her skin in trees every night, the vampiric Loogaroo across the Caribbean goes out to hunt for blood to quench her thirst as well as pay her dark lord for her dark powers.
Said to be the location of a hidden treasure, the old nobles from the Devil’s Castle in the Bavarian hills are said to roam the forest, still searching for it.
Inside one of Munich’s landmark churches, something devilish is said to be stamped on the floor. In the middle of the room, a black footprint is clearly seen, named The Devil’s Footprint, as he was said to have left it there.
Once the house of a greedy grain speculator, the haunted house at Promenadeplatz in Munich is said to be haunted by the man in the form of a cat, as penance after a curse drove him to ruin.
At the cusp of a vengeful ghost and a vampiric entity, the Kuntilanak of Indonesia, or the Pontianak as she is called in Malaysia, is after both vengeance and to devour her victims.
How haunted is a city to be named after its ghosts? This is the case of the Indonesian city of Pontianak, said to have been haunted by the fearsome ghosts known as the Pontianak or the Kuntinalak ghosts, thirsting for blood and vengeance.
Said to haunt the area around The Hubertus Chapel in the vast Ebersberg Forest in Bavaria, Germany, the Lady in White is seeking revenge for those refusing her a ride. But is she truly the only thing haunting this old and mystic forest?
Once, a plague ridden Lindworm was said to crawl out from the darkness, and attack the people of Munich. After defeating the dragon, and ridding themselves of the plague, a ceremonial dance has been danced through the city for over 500 years.
