Said to be cursed after torturing a calf, the butcher apprentice is now cursed to haunt the old butcher street for eternity. For centuries now, people claim to have heard the horrid sound of hooves clattering on the ground as he was transformed into the very thing he tortured for fun.
The medieval streets of Bern’s Old Town have always held their share of mysteries, but few places are said to be as restless after dark as Rathausgasse, the street leading to the city’s historic town hall. As the sun sets behind the sandstone facades, something unseen seems to stir in the narrow alleys.
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At night, residents and late-night wanderers report hearing the clatter of hooves on cobblestones, and the sharp crash of objects falling in empty rooms. Yet when they investigate, there are no horses, no wagons, and nothing disturbed. The streets remain eerily quiet. Perhaps it was the cursed butcher apprentice said to haunt the streets of Bern?
Rathausgasse: Die Berner Rathausgasse im Regen, 1992, Hotel Glocke. //Source: Christian Boss 1965/Wikimedia
Ghostly Encounters at Rathausgasse and the old Butcher’s Alley
From 1619 the upper section (now Rathausgasse) was known as Metzgergasse (Butcher’s Lane), while the lower section was first called Postgasse in 1798. The area was also a well known red light district. Throughout the 19th century, residents complained about the waste, smell and noise associated with the Schaal, an open hall of butcher’s stalls vis-à-vis the Simsonbrunnen in Kramgasse. The former slaughterhouse (No. 22) is a cultural asset of regional importance.
They claim the restless spirit of a cruel butcher’s apprentice roams these alleys in the dead of night known as the ghost of Rathausgasse or the Schaal Ghost.
Centuries ago, this heartless apprentice is said to have brutally slaughtered a calf, not out of necessity, but for his own amusement.
As punishment for his senseless cruelty, his spirit was cursed to live on as a ghostly calf, forever roaming the alleys of the old town. It is said that the clatter of hooves heard in Rathausgasse belongs to him — a spectral animal seeking peace he can never find.
Hauntings at the Schlachthaus-Theater
The eerie activity in Bern isn’t confined to the streets, but also at the old slaughterhouse in Rathausgasse, now used as a theater and called the Schlachthaus-Theater. The theater is reportedly no stranger to the paranormal and staff and spectators claim to have heard the unmistakable sound of hooves clattering.
But it is certainly not the only ghost said to haunt the halls of the theater. Actors and stagehands alike have whispered of unexplained noises, mysterious cold drafts, and fleeting shadows moving behind the curtains. Props fall for no reason, doors creak open, and some claim to hear faint, mournful voices when the house is empty.
One actress claims to have heard the sound of pearls clattering, like a pearl necklace ripping and falling to the floor. This went on all night, but she was unable to find any of them.
Though no single spirit has been identified, many believe these hauntings are tied to the rich and often tumultuous history of the building and its past performers, some of whom perhaps never quite left the stage.
A City of Stories and Ghosts
In Bern, where every corner seems to guard a story from the past, such legends aren’t easily dismissed. Whether it’s the ghostly calf of Rathausgasse or the spirits lingering in the theater, these stories continue to be woven into the living fabric of the old city, kept alive by the ghost tours around the city and those looking for something haunted
And so, when the night falls and the streets of Bern grow quiet, some say it’s wise to listen for the faint sound of hooves… and remember that in this ancient city, the past never truly rests.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
In one of the oldest inhabited castle in Scotland, Glamis Castle is said to be filled to the brick with ghost stories and legends. According to the stories though, there is seemingly something more monstrous and more blood thirsty said to be sealed inside of the bricked up secret chambers, waiting to get out.
Standing in stoic grandeur amidst the rolling Angus countryside, Glamis Castle has long held a reputation for secrets, shadows, and spectral figures. Known as the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Glamis or Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, the seat of Lord Strathmore, is steeped in royal history and ancient nobility — but its corridors also echo with stories far darker than those found in any history book.
Of its many chilling legends, two vampire tales rise above the rest, hinting at unnatural bloodlines and eternal imprisonment behind stone walls. These stories, passed down for generations, have become the cornerstone of Glamis Castle’s macabre mythology.
The Vampire Child: The Sinister Family Secret
At the heart of Glamis Castle’s vampire lore is the enduring whisper of a “vampire child” — a secret so terrible, it was said to be known only to the laird, his heir, and one trusted family retainer in each generation. According to the legend, there is a secret chamber in the castle where the vampire child was placed. There is an old story that guests staying at Glamis once hung towels from the windows of every room in a bid to find the bricked-up suite of the monster. When they looked at it from outside, several windows were apparently towel-less. Though this is more likely due to the owners removing them in order so that the guests would not find the rooms, according to several relatives of the family.
The lords of Glamis. who, according to legend, were drinking and gambling, losing their family fortune. By the mid-17th century, the castle was in ruins. It was inherited by Patrick Lyons, who rebuilt the castle and rehabilitated the family, for which he was made the earl of Strathmore.
According to lore, in the early l800s the first son of the 11th earl of Strathmore was born a hideously deformed, egg-shaped monster with no neck, tiny arms and legs, and a large, hairy torso. According to legend, the child was once born into the Bowes-Lyon family with monstrous characteristics: deformed, unnatural, and blood-hungry. This child, believed to be a vampire or some other unholy being, was hidden away in a sealed chamber within the castle — a room known only to a few and never spoken of publicly.
In fact, there was a son born, Thomas Lyon-Bowes, the first child of Thomas Lyon-Bowes, Lord Glamis, and his wife Charlotte Lyon-Bowes née Grimstead. He is however recorded born and died in October 21, 1821. The stories about the child being “a monster” allegedly started when the unnamed midwife retold it in the local village.
The castle was given to the second son, unlawfully, and the creature, after so many years away became mad. It reportedly died in 1921 or 1941.
Some versions of the tale go further, suggesting that the “secret of Glamis” is that in every generation, one such child is born — cursed or blessed, depending on the point of view — with vampiric traits. Another legend tells that the monster is in Loch Calder near the castle. These children, it is said, never die, but are locked away, immortal and unseen, sustained through blood or other unknowable means. Over time, the corridors of the castle have become riddled with rumors of bricked-up rooms, hollow walls, and windows that can be seen from the outside but do not exist within.
Searches for the supposed secret chamber have never revealed definitive answers — only more questions. But for those thinking that concealing a child inside a room seems to harsh about this family, just think about the tragic case of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, cousins of the queen, listed dead for years, but turned out to live in Earlswood Hospital for mentally disabled people in 1941, classified as: “imbeciles”.
The Blood-Sucking Woman: The Servant Entombed Alive
A separate legend, no less disturbing, tells the story of a serving woman who was caught engaging in a grotesque act of vampirism. According to lore dating back several centuries, the woman was found leaning over the corpse of a fellow servant, her mouth stained red, drinking the blood from the lifeless body.
Horrified, the castle’s occupants did not attempt to destroy her in the traditional methods associated with vampires — no stake, no fire, no silver. Instead, they condemned her to a crueler fate: she was bricked up alive within a hidden room, left to die in solitude, possibly in the very act of waiting for another victim.
Some stories say she remains alive to this day, an immortal vampire trapped inside the walls, forever hungry and vengeful. Those who work at Glamis today have reported unexplained cold spots, sounds of scratching, and even soft crying from behind thick stone walls — perhaps signs of the entombed servant still begging for release.
The Secret Chamber
This part of a secret chamber being haunted is told by many and could have sprung out from an older legend. The origins of this story go back hundreds of years, to an age when the Lyon and Lindsay clan were engaged in a bitter, ongoing feud.
On a cold snowy night, there was a group of Lindsays on the run from other clans and they went to Glamis to seek refuge. Some say it was the Ogilvie who was trying to escape the clutches of their enemies, the Lindsays.
The Earl promised them his protection, but trapped them in a room where he looked inside. Some say that the Earl was working with the Lindsays and caught them and imprisoned them. He never let them out of the 16 feet thick room, and for years, there were banging from the walls, screams and noises coming from them. Even after they were dead and long gone fro hundreds of years, you could still hear their cries through the castle.
The sitting Earl decided to put a stop to the haunting and went into a room where no one went. He opened the door with a key and he was frozen with terror. He closed the door, bricked it up and never spoke about what he saw ever again.
A Castle of Secrets and Shadows
Glamis Castle is no stranger to the paranormal. In addition to its vampire legends, it’s also home to numerous ghost stories — from the Grey Lady thought to haunt the chapel, to the Earl Beardie, cursed to play cards with the Devil for eternity. Yet none are as unsettling — or as persistently whispered about — as the vampire tales that seem woven into the very walls of the building.
Visitors often speak of a strange feeling of being watched, even in empty rooms. Some claim that doors open and close on their own, or that footsteps echo down halls long after the castle has closed for the night. Could one of those footsteps belong to the vampire child, still pacing in darkness? Or is it the blood-sucking servant, endlessly circling her unseen prison?
The castle may gleam proudly by daylight, but as night falls, the questions it refuses to answer begin to stir. And somewhere, in one of its sealed rooms, the undead may still be waiting.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
After the exhumation of the graves of one of Zurich’s mayors who died under mysterious circumstances people started talking about seeing his ghost wandering around the church tower and wall of St. Peter. Could the ghost of Rudolf Brun, who ruled during volatile times in the city have returned?
Zurich, a city renowned for its stunning landscapes and rich culture, also harbors a darker side woven into its history. Tales of ghostly encounters and restless spirits have permeated its ancient streets, attracting those intrigued by the supernatural. St. Peter’s Church in Zurich is the only baroque church in the city. The clock on the tower is the largest in Europe and the dial has a diameter of 8.7 metres. St. Peter’s parish church is the oldest church in Zurich and dates to before the year 900.
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Buried just below the clock tower is Rudolf Brun, the first independent city mayor in the 14th century and leader of the Zürich guilds’ revolution of 1336. He died a terrible and mysterious death, that some attributed to poisoning.
Rudolf Brun as Zurich’s first Independent Mayor
Rudolf was the son of Jakob Brun, a member of the city council, and of Mechthild. Brun overthrew the former city council with the help of the city’s craftsmen in June 1336 to balance the power between them and the aristocracy.
In 1349, Brun led a massacre of the Jewish community of Zurich, seizing many of the spoils for himself. The incident was caused by antisemitism in the city due to the alleged murder of the son of a Zurich man, and fueled by the subsequent accusations of well poisoning. The son of Zurich man Zur Wyden from a family of shoemakers, about four years old, was murdered, and the Jews were accused of the murder. The Zurich Jewish community numbered around 400, and most of them were killed.
Mayor Rudolf Brun for example took possession of the house of a certain Moses. This event took place in the frame of the widespread persecution of Jews during the Black Death, in which the Jews were accused of spreading the bubonic plague.
On 17 of September in 1360 he died and was buried in St. Peter’s Church together with his cook. It was believed that the cook had poisoned him, but it remained a mystery for years.
Exhuming his Bone to get to the Bottom of the Murder Mystery
In 1972, Brun’s remains were examined and tested positive for arsenic according to the ghost walk tours that used to be in the city. But as the substance was often used in earlier times for medicinal and recreational purposes, the result was inconclusive. The bone and hair analysis gave no other signs for poisoning.
So what really happened, and how did Bruno, who lived through a violent time in Zurich’s history, die?
None the wiser for the truth, Brun’s bones were reburied at the clock tower. If we are to believe the rumors, it was without his skull, which had mysteriously disappeared. Could this have been the incident that caused him to rise up as a ghost?
The Haunting of Rudolf Brun
Just a few weeks after the reburial of Rudolf Brun, two boys were playing football near the gravesite when they experienced something that would give the historic man a ghostly reputation. When the ball they were kicking stopped in front of the feet of a dark figure. According to the boys, this mysterious figure before them was wearing old-fashioned clothes.
One of the boys went to get the ball, not really taking too much notice of the strange man standing at a short distance. When approaching, the figure of the man turned around and walked towards the tower wall. When reaching the wall, the figure walked right through it and disappeared.
According to the rumors, more than one person had seen this figure around the tower.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Centuries after the witch panic in Salem, New England was gripped by another entity – vampires! Thought to crawl out from their graves at night and back to their remaining family to feed and consume the life of them. This has later been known as the New England Vampire Panic The only way to stop them was to dig them up and set them on fire.
In the quiet, frostbitten corners of 19th-century New England—amid snow-capped fields and rickety clapboard farmhouses—a curious darkness was spreading. But it wasn’t witches this time. It wasn’t demons, or ghosts, or devils hiding in the woods. No, what haunted the good, God-fearing folk of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Vermont was something far stranger.
Vampires.
Not the aristocratic, silk-robed kind with Eastern European accents. Not the seductive, night-stalking vampires of Hollywood imagination. These were homegrown, farm-dwelling, dirt-under-their-nails revenants. According to local belief, they didn’t sip fine blood from crystal goblets. They clawed their way out of graves and siphoned the life from their living kin—not with fangs, but with supernatural persistence.
This wasn’t just a gothic fever dream. It was real. It had a body count, graves empty after their families dug them up and burnt their remains to cure themselves of the curse of the undead. After it swept across the east coast, it was later called the New England Vampire Panic.
Old Graveyards: A serene graveyard in New Hampshire reflects the eerie history of vampire folklore in early New England that was gripped by fear during the New England Vampire Panic.
A Disease by Any Other Name
To understand how New England came to believe in vampires, we need to talk about tuberculosis—known in the 1800s as consumption.
Before it had a scientific explanation, TB was a horrifying, slow-moving plague. It wasted the body and if you first got infected, there was a two in ten chance of surviving it as there was no cure. Victims grew pale and thin, their cheeks sunken, eyes glassy. They coughed blood. They wheezed and gasped and sometimes appeared to grow stronger just before they died, as if something unnatural were prolonging their suffering.
The White Death: The plague of tuberculosis is a disease that has killed more people than any other microbial pathogen and mummies dating back to the 8000 BCE. Over the years, many attempts to cure it through curious means show desperation. Fresh air, bloodletting, elephant urine, eating wolf livers and human breast milk has from ancient times been tried.
It was contagious, of course, though no one knew why or how. When one family member died, others often followed. Households dropped like dominos. And so the imagination of rural folk—grounded in a stew of folklore, fear, and grim necessity—did what it does best: It reached for reasons.
They began to believe that the dead were not staying dead.
Vampire Lore: In addition to consumption being rooted in a vampiric infliction, you also had rabies that gave strange symptoms and rare genetic disorders like porphyria that gave a sensitivity to sunlight and reddish teeth. Although in the New England Vampire Panic, it was mainly tuberculosis.
The New England Outback
Exactly why New England? After all, tuberculosis was a worldwide problem, why did the vampiric panic happen here, 200 years after the witch craze in Salem not too far from where they would begin to exhume their loved one from their graves?
There are several factors of how this particular lore and New England Vampire Panic started. One has to do with numbers. After years of civil war, the number of people living in Exeter, Rhode Island for instance, had dwindled to a few thousand, scattered across small rural communities. By some, this was later known as Vampire Capital of America and had a high count of exhumations like the case of Mercy Brown.
Contrary to popular belief about being puritanical, the rural New Englanders in the 1800s were not overly religious and 10 percent belonged to church in these parts. Missionaries were sent to these parts to get them back to God’s words as they saw these rural communities living in cultural isolation from the rest of the world..
The belief of the uneducated farmers have taken hold for many in later years. But was it really so? It seems like many places like Manchester, Vermont where Rachel Burton was exhumed and burned on the town square was founded by educated and not really the most superstitious and religious men. This seems to have changed after the Revolutionary War when it was then described as a place of drinking gambling, and superstitions like vampirism.
They were however superstitious and let their beliefs fester side by side with the industrial revolution and modernisation of the society in the cities not far from their farming communities. Also as a small community, there were a lot of relations between the exhumations. Like the case of the exhumation of Nancy Young having relation through marriage to Sarah Tillinghast who was also exhumed the same way. They were neighbors, although the farms were few and far between, family and friends, and like the sickness of consumption, so did the fear of the undead spread and infect through generations and places.
The Curious Case of Mercy Brown
The most infamous case of the New England Vampire Panic took place in 1892, in the icy hills of Exeter, Rhode Island. The Brown family had been ravaged by tuberculosis. First, mother Mary Eliza died. Then daughter Mary Olive. Then son Edwin became ill and left for Colorado in a desperate bid for recovery.
And then Mercy Lena Brown, a 19-year-old girl with dark hair and a shy smile, fell sick and died on January 17, 1892.
Mercy Brown: A historical portrait of Mercy Brown, the young woman at the center of the New England Vampire Panic.
The townsfolk were suspicious. Too many Browns were dying. Someone, or something, must be behind it. They began to murmur. Maybe one of the dead was still feeding. Edwin, now barely hanging on, had to be saved.
So in March—when the ground thawed enough to dig—they exhumed the bodies.
Mary Eliza and Mary Olive had decomposed as expected. But Mercy? Her body, kept in a crypt during the harsh winter, was remarkably intact. Her cheeks had color. There was blood in her heart, clear signs she was the vampire.
The heart and liver were removed and burned. The ashes were mixed into a tonic and given to Edwin to drink. (A sentence that should never be uttered casually, but here we are.)
Did it work? Tragically, no. Edwin died two months later. But Mercy’s story endured, becoming the poster child of the New England Vampire Panic—a real-life tale so haunting that even Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, reportedly took notes.
Mercy wasn’t the only one. According to folklorist Michael Bell, there was around 80 of these types of exhumations. From Maine to Massachusetts to Rhode Island, similar rituals were performed. Perhaps as far west as Minnesota. Not always with a name. Not always with fire. But the goal was the same: stop the dead from killing the living.
The Vampire Next Door in the New England Vampire Panic
These were not “vampires” as we think of them today, but corpses with unfinished business, still feeding on their living relatives from beyond the grave. They drained vitality, not with teeth, but through a metaphysical link. The only cure? Dig up the body, examine it, and if necessary, destroy the vessel.
Some communities in Maine and Plymouth, Massachusetts, opted to simply flip the exhumed vampire facedown in the grave and leave it at that. But in places like Connecticut, Vermont and especially in Rhode Island, they took it one step further.
If the corpse was found unusually fresh, with blood in the heart or organs (a not-uncommon occurrence in cold New England graves and those buried in the winter or put in freezing crypts waiting for the ground to thaw), it was declared the source of the curse. The heart would be removed and burned to ash, sometimes the liver, kidney or other organs were also taken. Often, the ritual was done in secret, other times it was done publicly, sometimes on a blacksmith’s anvil or just on a nearby rock in the cemetery. In many cultures it was believed that the fire in a blacksmith’s anvil was a divine gift and that they had the power to banish evil through their metal and flames.
There were also some cases where vines and sprouts growing from the coffins and bodies were seen as signs of vampiric activity, like we see with the exhumation of Annie Dennett. They believed that the vine or root growing at or by the grave reached the next coffin, another family member would be sick and die. This part of the legend is a bit more difficult to trace back to a particular superstition shared with other places.
As the ritual demanded, their heart and liver were burned on a nearby rock and the ashes were mixed with a tonic and given to the sick relatives to drink. Sometimes it was also said to be smoked or the fumes from the burning were inhaled by those attending.
The Mystery of J.B: Connecticut State Archaeologist, Nick Bellantoni, was excavating the cemetery and found something no one could have expected. Among the graves, one burial in particular captured attention: a coffin marked only with brass tacks, spelling the initials “J.B. 55”. The remains inside had been subject to a post-mortem ritual that hinted unmistakably at vampire panic practices during the New England Vampire Panic. // Photo courtesy of Nicholas Bellantoni
After the ritual, it seems like the rest of the body was reburied. In Woodstock, Vermont, a father exhumed the bodies of his daughters and burned them to save his last surviving child. In Griswold, Connecticut, archaeologists discovered 29 burials in the 1990s—one with the skull and thigh bones rearranged in a skull-and-crossbones pattern. The jaw had been hacked apart. The coffin was inscribed with “JB55,” believed to stand for “John Barber,” a middle-aged man who likely died of TB. The mutilation? A post-mortem attempt to stop the spread of vampirism.
Although it is today known as the New England Vampire Panic, the people at the time didn’t use this terminology as the term was not commonly used in the community. But when the newspapers and outsiders started to look at the phenomenon, they classified it as vampire lore because of the similarities about the lore in eastern Europe dating back to the tenth century.
There are many versions about where the vampire lore that struck the New England coast around this time. According to residents of Exeter, Rhode Island, they claimed they got the exhumations tradition from the Native Americans that certainly had their own vampire lore. But what about the European connection?
Vampire Lore in the World: Although New England cultivated its own vampire belief, it certainly wasn’t the first. Across the ocean in Europe, the fear of the vampires in eastern Europe took hold in the 1700 and worked its way west. In Europe the wooden stake was said to be the thing banishing the vampire. In America, they burned their organs showing signs of vampirism.This illustration comes from an 1851 book by Paul Feval titles “Les Tribunaux secrets” and was created by René de Moraine.
In this time, there was also a Vampire panic in Europe, especially eastern and central Europe. German and Slavic immigrants are said to have brought their lore and superstitions with them in the 18th century. There were Hessian mercenaries that served in the Revolutionary War and Palatine Germans colonized Pennsylvania. There were also Germans and different eastern Europeans traveling through the area as healers, bringing with them the ideas of the undead and exhumation as a cure for the terrible diseases the townsfolk didn’t yet understand.
The Science Arrives too Late for Many
The New England Vampire Panic began to wane by the early 20th century, as germ theory and modern medicine began to explain disease in ways people could trust. TB was finally understood as a bacterial infection, not a curse.
In the meantime, there were as many as 80 exhumed graves we know of, but there were probably many more. For example, in 1862, reports of vampirism swept the community of Saco, Maine so strongly that almost every deceased resident was dug up and reburied, allegedly. Every corpse was, apparently, a suspect.
But the New England Vampire Panic hadn’t been entirely irrational. These were desperate people watching their families die horribly. They didn’t have the benefit of science. They had folk remedies, tradition, and fear—and so they reached for the most ancient tool humans possess: storytelling.
And in the dark corners of New England, those stories had fangs.
List of Vampire Cases of the New England Vampire Panic
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Coming down as an avalanche through the Swiss Alps, the Rollibock monster is the avenger on man when they take too much from nature.
Deep in the Swiss Alps, where eternal ice clings to jagged peaks and ancient glaciers wind their way through forgotten valleys, a chilling legend endures — the tale of the Rollibock.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
Among the locals of Valais and villages like Naters and Fieschertal, and the scattered alpine villages near the Great Aletsch Glacier, this supernatural creature is spoken of in hushed voices, especially when the wind howls through the mountain passes and the ice groans beneath the weight of unseen forces.
The Aletsch Glacier: is the largest glacier in Switzerland and the Alps. It is 15 miles long and up to 800 metres deep. Since the late 19th century Aletsch has lost almost two miles of its length, and by 2100 it is predicted to shrink by eight miles more, reducing it to a tenth of the mass it is today and nine in 10 glaciers in the Alps will disappear by the end of this century.
The Rollibock of the Alps
The Rollibock is no ordinary beast. Descriptions passed down through generations tell of a massive goat-like creature, its eyes glowing an unnatural, eerie light in the darkness. Its twisted, towering horns resemble gnarled branches coated in frost, and its entire body is encrusted with jagged shards of ice that clatter together as it moves. It is said to have torn open land, stones, and fir trees with its horns and hurled them high into the air. Some say when it breathes, the air turns brittle and the snow itself recoils in terror.
According to legend, the Rollibock is the ancient guardian of the Aletsch Glacier, protector of the frozen world from the greed and carelessness of men. According to legend, the RolliBock is a terrifying creature that takes revenge on everyone and everything that tramples on nature.
Fieschertal Village: Between the year 1300 and 1850/1860 the Aletsch Glacier grew rapidly in size and regularly pushed through the natural dam of the Märjelensee, causing flooding in large parts of the canton of Valais. In the 17th century, during the little ice age, German-speaking Catholics from the village of Fiesch began an annual pilgrimage to beg God to turn the glacier back.
The Rollibock and the Hunter
Woe to those who trespass on his domain with disrespect. One of the most enduring tales involves a reckless hunter who, driven by greed, ventured onto the glacier to harvest rare ice crystals believed to hold magical properties. As he smashed them from the ice, a sudden storm engulfed the glacier, and a lone ferryman appeared to offer him passage to safety.
The desperate hunter accepted, only to realize too late that the ferryman’s eyes gleamed like twin embers in the gloom. Midway across a frozen expanse, the ferryman’s form shifted and swelled, his cloak of furs transforming into shards of clinking ice, his visage twisting into the monstrous form of the Rollibock. With a bellow that echoed across the mountains, the beast dragged the screaming man into the depths of the glacier, his cries swallowed by the ice.
To this day, sudden storms and avalanches on the Great Aletsch Glacier are blamed on the Rollibock, a grim reminder that nature’s ancient powers still watch over the high places of the world. They also fear the mysterious Märjelen Lake they thought to be the place where the hunter disappeared.
The Revenge of the Rollibock.
Locals swear that if you hear the distant clatter of ice when the wind is still, you’d best turn back — for the Rollibock is near, and he does not forgive trespassers. And when the people of the Upper Valais experienced flooding, it was said the Rollibock was angered. Only those who fled to a chapel or a house where blessed objects were kept could save themselves. Those who didn’t make it was crushed to like dust in the sun, swallowed by the ice and snow.
It remains one of Switzerland’s most unnerving alpine legends, a chilling testament to the dangers of arrogance in the face of nature’s dominion.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Sitting on your chest, crushing you in your sleep, The Alp of Germanic Folklore was said to be a vampiric entity after people’s life force. But where did this creature come from?
In the dark hours between dusk and dawn, when restless dreams twist and turn through the minds of sleepers, a sinister being from old German folklore is said to descend upon its victims. Known as the Alp, this malevolent supernatural creature doesn’t haunt abandoned castles or misty graveyards — instead, it invades the fragile realm of sleep itself, leaving terror and suffocation in its wake.
Read more: Check out all ghost stories from Germany
A figure of nightmares dating back to medieval Europe, the Alp exists in the shadowy intersection between spirit, demon, and vampire. Sometimes a seductive human, a butterfly, a pig in a magical hat, it has long served as a terrifying explanation for the most intimate of fears: what comes for us when we are most vulnerable, in our beds, under the cover of night.
The Alp And Mare: An Alp is typically male, while the mara and mart appear to be more feminine versions of the same creature. The Alp, in many cases, is considered a demon, but there have been some instances in which the Alp is created from the spirits of recently dead relatives, more akin to a spirit or ghost.
A Creature of the Night
But what was an Alp? There are so many variations of this legend, but mostly it’s a male entity, often the spirit of a recently deceased man. It is also seen in connection to the Germanic Elf, or the otherworldly or underworld creatures.
It could also be the spirit of a woman who died as a sinner and pregnant. It was also believed that she could create the Alp if she ate something unclean or something that had dwarf spit on it. She could also create an Alp if she did inappropriate gestures during pregnancy or frightened a dog or horse during it.
Unlike the towering monsters of other myths, the Alp is an insidious tormentor, striking unseen and unfelt until its victim is gripped by an unnatural terror in the midst of sleep. It’s traditionally described as a malevolent spirit or goblin-like being, often invisible, though sometimes appearing in grotesque, human-like forms or even taking on the shape of a cat, dog, snake, or butterfly.
Shapeshifter: The Alp may change into a cat, pig, dog, snake or a small white butterfly and can fly like a bird and ride a horse. The Alp always wears a hat, known as a Tarnkappe which is simply a hat or veil that gives the Alp magic powers and the ability to turn invisible while worn. The hat is visible no matter what shape the Alp takes. An Alp who has lost this hat will offer a great reward for its safe return. The Alp also possesses an “evil eye” whose gaze will inflict illness and misfortune. Removing or damaging this eye also removes the Alp’s malicious intentions.
The Alp’s most feared ability, however, is its power to induce terrifying sleep paralysis — what folklore once called a “nightmare” (the term originally referring not to a bad dream, but to the demon itself).
Victims would wake to find themselves unable to move or cry out, an invisible weight pressing down on their chest as a suffocating dread filled the room. They might hear the Alp’s breath, feel its claw-like fingers at their throat, or see shadowy shapes moving just beyond the edge of reason.
An Appetite for Blood and Breath
The Alp was believed to feed on both the life essence and the blood of its victims, not unlike a vampire. It was said to drink the milk of nursing women and, disturbingly, sometimes the blood from their nipples. Livestock were not safe either — cows found mysteriously drained of milk were often blamed on the Alp’s nocturnal visits.
Another chilling feature of the Alp legend is its association with dreams themselves. The creature was thought to control a sleeper’s dreams, turning them dark and violent, manipulating the victim’s mind as it fed upon their fear.
Nightmare: A haunting depiction of the Alp, a malevolent creature from German folklore, tormenting a sleeping woman in her bed. the German word Alpdruck (literally ‘elf-oppression’) means ‘nightmare’. There is also evidence associating elves with illness, specifically epilepsy. In the early modern period, elves are described in Northern Germany as doing the evil bidding of witches; Martin Luther believed his mother to have been afflicted in this way.
Its favorite targets were said to be those in states of emotional turmoil, the ill, and the vulnerable. It would even sometimes fixate on specific individuals, tormenting them night after night, sometimes also sexually, like a Succubus and Incubus.
Defending Against the Alp
German folklore offered a variety of protective measures against the Alp’s predations. One common method involved placing a broomstick under the pillow, a shoe at the side of the bed with the toes pointing towards the door, or an iron horseshoe hung nearby — symbols meant to confuse or repel the spirit.
It was also believed that calling the Alp by its name could banish it, though given its invisibility and secretive nature, discovering the true identity of an Alp was often impossible.
From Dwarf to Demon: In Teutonic myth and folklore, Alp were considered friendly elf-like beings which lived in the mountains, but eventually turned more negative and malevolent. They were likened more to the moss people or mountain dwelling dwarfs until becoming closer to demonic.
Another curious belief held that binding one’s hair before sleep or keeping the bedroom door slightly ajar would prevent the creature from entering, as the Alp was a creature of rules and compulsions, easily deterred by simple tricks or obstacles.
Echoes in the Modern World
Many modern scholars and folklorists view tales of the Alp as early cultural interpretations of sleep paralysis, a phenomenon still experienced worldwide today. The suffocating weight, inability to move, hallucinated figures, and overwhelming terror described in Alp encounters mirror accounts of sleep paralysis episodes in astonishing detail.
Yet even with the benefit of modern science, the age-old fear persists. There’s something uniquely unsettling about the idea of being helpless within your own home, your own bed — and perhaps that’s why the legend of the Alp continues to cast a long, dark shadow in the collective memory of Europe.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Around the ruins of the once grand Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland, England, the ghost stories are covered by a thick veil of sea mist. From legends of a gallant knight to the Queen from the War of Roses, the abandoned fortress is not quite empty.
High upon the storm-battered cliffs of Northumberland, along the bleak, windswept edge of the North Sea, the desolate ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle loom against the sea misty horizon. It used to once be the largest castle in Northumberland and a garrison against Scotland, but only fragments remain of its grand past.
Today, the 14th century castle’s skeletal remains offer a hauntingly beautiful backdrop for coastal walks — but for those who linger too long after dusk, this crumbling fortress whispers tales of bloodshed, betrayal, and restless spirits.
The Grim Legacy of Thomas Plantagenet
Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster: (c. 1278 – 22 March 1322) was one of the leaders of the baronial opposition to his first cousin, King Edward II. Soon after Thomas’s death, miracles were reported at his tomb at Pontefract, and he became venerated as a martyr and saint.
Dunstanburgh Castle was born of ambition and rebellion. Built in 1313 by Thomas Plantagenet, the Second Earl of Lancaster, it was intended as both a symbol of defiance and a personal refuge against his increasingly hostile cousin, King Edward II.
But Plantagenet’s rebellion would ultimately prove fatal. Captured and tried for treason, his fate was sealed on a cold March day in 1322. Because of their kinship and Lancaster’s royal blood, the king commuted the sentence to beheading, as opposed to being hanged, drawn and beheaded,[5] and Lancaster was executed on 22 March near Pontefract Castle.
Yet even death offered no dignity. Legend holds that it took an inept executioner a gruesome eleven strokes to sever Thomas’s head and that eleven strokes were needed for his decapitation. Locals say the Earl’s anguished spirit has never left Dunstanburgh.
Visitors have reported seeing a headless figure wandering the Dunstanburgh Castle grounds, his severed, mangled head cradled beneath one arm. Witnesses claim his face still bears the contorted agony of those final, harrowing moments before death.
The Wars of the Roses and the Queen’s Ghost on the Beach
Dunstanburgh didn’t die with Thomas Plantagenet. In the bloody turmoil of the Wars of the Roses, Dunstanburgh Castle changed hands from the fighting Lancastrian and Yorkists factions no fewer than five times, each siege leaving it further battered from cannon fire. Amidst the wreckage of those violent decades, another spirit lingers.
Right below the castle there is Queen Margaret’s Cove. It is said that Margaret of Anjou escaped to France here, lowered over the side of the cliff in a basket to a boat waiting below in 1460.
Margaret of Anjou: (23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was Queen of England by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. Through marriage, she was also nominally Queen of France from 1445 to 1453. Born in the Duchy of Lorraine into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René of Anjou King of Naples, and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine.
Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI, is said to roam the crumbling battlements and desolate beaches below. Desperate to defend her son’s claim to the throne, Margaret’s final days in the north were marked by betrayal and defeat. Her specter, clad in royal robes now faded by centuries, is often glimpsed at twilight, gazing mournfully out to sea.
Although the keepers of Dunstanburgh Castle tended to favour the Lancastrians and Queen Margaret, it has led to the castle being associated with her, most of them historically improbable and we don’t really know if she ever went there. She is also said to be haunting Owlpen Manor in Dursley, Gloucestershire.
Locals claim that during stormy nights, her sorrowful figure walks the shoreline, her ghostly form sometimes accompanied by the distant echo of battle cries and the ghostly glow of lanterns flickering within the empty towers.
The Ghost of Sir Guy the Seeker
One of the more obscure ghost stories said to haunt Dunstanburgh Castle comes the gallant knight, Sir Guy the Seeker from the 16th century. He was riding along the coast and was caught in a terrible storm. He found the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle and went there for shelter beneath the shattered turrets of the gatehouse. He stayed the night, and the storm raged and the wind howled.
Suddenly, a terrible figure appeared in white, urging him to follow as he would be rewarded with beauty bright.The night fearing nothing, followed the figure up a staircase to a room of hundred sleeping knights and their horses slept. There was also a beautiful woman sleeping in a crystal casket in the center of the chamber. Images and carvings of serpents were guarding each side of the casket. On one side was a sword, on the other a horn. The figure said the knight could save her by using either the sword or the horn, but could only choose once. He took the horn and blew it. The sleeping knight got up and attacked him. The figure in white kept taunting him as Sir Guy fainted.
When he woke up, he was back at the gatehouse. He became obsessed with the sleeping maiden he tried to find again. He searched every stone in the ruins, but found nothing. He died a lonely and broken man. But on stormy days it is said you can still hear his ghost with the thundering waves against the walls, wandering the ruins seeking the beauty bright.
Local Haunted Legends
Where did the story come from? Although there are slight variations of the legend, it has been told at least as early as the 19th century. Similar stories, possibly inspired by Arthurian legends, have existed as well close to Hexham and Eildon Hills.
There have also been said that there are tunnels under Dunstanburgh Castle, stretching and winding from Craston Tower, over to Embleton and nearby Proctor Steads.
Even in daylight, Dunstanburgh Castle carries an eerie quiet. The ruined gatehouse, shattered walls, and isolated cliffs exude a sense of melancholy, as though the land itself remembers every act of bloodshed committed upon it.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
A cold day in February, the village people in Manchester, Vermont gathered in the square to stop a vampire thought to suck the life out of a young woman. By burying her up and burning her remains, they thought they could fight back the curse of the undead.
New England, with its brooding forests, craggy hills, and centuries-old graveyards, has long been fertile ground for ghost stories, witch trials, and spectral folklore. But perhaps one of its grimmest and most unsettling chapters comes from a sleepy little village in southern Vermont — Manchester, 1793 — where townsfolk turned on one of their own dead in a desperate bid to halt a creeping, invisible killer: tuberculosis.
This is the eerie tale of Rachel Burton (née Harris), a woman whose body was unearthed, mutilated, and burned in front of a crowd of hundreds, believed to be a vampire draining the life of her husband’s new wife from beyond the grave.
The Death of Rachel Harris
In the late 18th century, Captain Isaac Burton, a respected deacon in the local Congregational church, buried his first wife, Rachel Harris, after she succumbed to consumption (the old term for tuberculosis). Consumption was a slow, wasting disease — it could pick off entire families one by one in a cruel, unrelenting sweep. To early New Englanders, it made sense to suspect some supernatural culprit.
We have the story of her, told by Judge John S. Pettibone (1786-1872). Already from this source, a lot of time had passed. She was a young woman, around 20 and was buried around 1792 and described by the judge as “a fine, healthy, beautiful girl” before her death. The ritual was described in his History of Manchester manuscript from around 1860 under a section titled Tale of the Demon Vampire.
Within a year of Rachel’s passing, Captain Burton remarried, taking Hulda Powell as his second wife. But it wasn’t long before Hulda, too, began to wither away. She suffered the tell-tale signs: a persistent cough, fatigue, night sweats, and alarming weight loss. The similarity of her symptoms to those of Rachel raised superstitious suspicions. In an era without germ theory, people didn’t understand how tuberculosis spread — but they did know when a deathly pattern felt unnatural.
And in New England folklore, there was a chilling explanation for such tragedies: the dead could feed on the living.
The Vampire Cure for Consumption
According to local belief, if a deceased family member was suspected of preying on their kin, there was only one way to stop them. You had to exhume the corpse and destroy the offending organ — typically the heart or liver — sometimes feeding the ashes to the afflicted, or simply burning them in the hopes of severing the connection between dead and living.
Sources vary about when the exhumation took place. Some say it was around three years after Rachel died. Some say that it was In February of 1793, after Hulda’s health worsened, the townsfolk and Burton’s family settled on this morbid course of action. Rachel Harris’s body would be exhumed, and whatever malevolent hold she had over Hulda would be broken in a public ritual.
Accounts suggest that between 500 and 1,000 people gathered at the graveyard in Manchester to witness the ritual — an astonishing turnout for a remote colonial village, but a testament to the grip of fear and superstition on the community.
It seems like many places like Manchester, Vermont where Rachel Burton was exhumed and burned on the town square was founded by educated and not really the most superstitious and religious men. This seems to have changed after the Revolutionary War when it was then described as a place of drinking gambling, and superstitions like vampirism.
Leading the ritual was Timothy Mead, while his relative, Jacob Mead, fired up his blacksmith’s forge nearby. The chilling operation was carried out in broad daylight, with Deacon Burton, a religious leader, presiding over the spectacle.
Rachel’s heart, liver, and lungs were removed, though contemporary accounts do not detail whether there was anything particularly ‘unusual’ about the condition of her remains — though it hardly mattered. The ritual was the important part.
The organs were then placed onto Jacob Mead’s blacksmith’s forge and burned to ash in front of the assembled crowd. As the account from 1860 says: “It was the month of February and good sleighing”. The belief was that by burning the vital organs, they would destroy the vampire’s connection to the living and halt the spread of the disease.
Often in these rituals, the sick would ingest the ashes of the burnt parts, often mixed into a tonic for them to drink. It’s not explicitly said, but it’s likely this also happened here. But for what purpose? Hulda Burton died in September of 1793, just months after the gruesome exhumation. The disease had already claimed her, and no amount of superstitious ceremony could stop it.
But the ritual’s failure did little to dissuade similar practices throughout New England. The vampire panic would continue for decades, culminating in famous cases like Mercy Brown’s exhumation in 1892 — a remarkably similar incident a century later, in the same region.
An Eerie Reminder
Today, there’s little to mark the site where Rachel Harris Burton’s grave was disturbed in Factory Point Cemetery in Manchester. Time and weather have worn away many of the old headstones, and the blacksmith’s forge long since cooled.
In the cemetery, the Vermont Folklife Center put a sign and marker in 2022, commemorating the story of Rachel Harris Burton. Her grave is noticeable because of the distinctive stone that was carved by Zerubbabel Collins, which was a very famous family of carvers.
But if you find yourself in Manchester, Vermont, wandering one of its ancient cemeteries on a fog-laden evening, spare a thought for poor Rachel — accused in death, desecrated in superstition, and forever part of America’s eerie legacy of vampire panics.
After all, history’s most unsettling tales aren’t always buried as deep as we think.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
Can the Aare Gorge in Switzerland be the home of an ancient creature? The Tatzelwurm is an old legend in the alps and even in modern times, people have claimed to have seen this elusive and mysterious serpent-like creature.
In 1935, a Russian and Berlin-born photographer called Balkin walked into the restaurant at Hotel Baer in Meiringen. On a hike to the Aare Gorge nearby he had encountered something strange as he was visiting. A narrow, towering chasm carved by millennia of rushing glacial water, where mist lingers between sheer limestone walls and the roar of the river drowns out the outside world.
After a few schnapps he told his story. He had seen a strange animal, perhaps 80 cm long and 25 cm broad. It looked like a scaly big snake, but had legs.
The innkeeper knew very well what he was talking about when mentioning the row of sharp teeth and a sharp whistling sound. It had to be the Tatzelwurm, or Stollenwurm as they called it in the Swiss. A well known legend, but not much hard evidence for it. Until now it was according to Balkin who had taken a photo of the creature.
Read More: Check out all haunted legends from Switzerland
The disturbing and mysterious image was published in the German newspaper: Berlin Illustrierte Zeitung in April that year together with a cash price for those managing to bring them a physical version.
Switzerland’s landscapes are famous for serene lakes, quaint villages, and the snow-draped majesty of the Alps. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the waters of the Aare Gorge, or Aareschlucht Gorge, could only be crossed by boat and was sometimes associated with Acheron, the underground river of death where Charon rows across.
One of the most chilling of these is the tale of the Tatzelwurm, a fearsome creature said to haunt the dense forests and deep ravines of the Bernese Oberland.
The picture of the Tatzelwurm published in Berlin Illustrierte Zeitung
A Monstrous Alpine Mystery
Descriptions of the Tatzelwurm vary by region, but the creature is typically depicted as a stubby, serpentine beast between 2 and 6 feet long, with a scaled body, short clawed legs — usually two front limbs, sometimes four — and a grotesque, feline-like or reptilian face. Some accounts claim it has poisonous breath or can emit a shrill, unsettling hiss.
They live in tunnels and caves that they dig themselves into the rock. Although generally described as relatively shy, Tatzelwurms are also considered dangerous and aggressive and have reportedly attacked humans and animals. It is said that when a Tatzelwurm crawls through sand, the sand turns to glass, which suggests that this mythical creature is said to generate intense heat.
Tatzelwurms supposedly do not reproduce biologically, but develop in a similar way to a basilisk : A rooster lays a black egg in a lake, where it is incubated by the sun’s warmth. From the egg hatches a Tatzelwurm, which may eventually grow into a lindworm.
It’s certainly not only one place it is said to be and stories of it are found in the Austrian, Bavarian, French and Italian alps as well. It goes under the name of both Tatzelwurm, Bergstutz, Arassas, Praatzelwurm and Stollenwurm, the most commonly used name in Switzerland. As this story first became famous in a German newspaper, it is by the German name it is known by in this case.
For centuries, Alpine farmers, shepherds, and travelers have spoken in hushed tones about the creature. Particularly in remote areas like the Aare Gorge, stories persist of strange sightings: a shadowy, writhing figure slithering through the mist, disembodied hisses in the darkness, and livestock found with inexplicable wounds.
The Aare Gorge Encounters
The Aare Gorge itself has always felt like a place caught between worlds. Hemmed in by 50-meter-high cliffs, the gorge narrows in places to a mere meter wide, and walking the narrow pathways above the rushing water feels unnervingly claustrophobic. This eerie atmosphere has made it the perfect setting for stories of strange creatures — none more famous than the Tatzelwurm.
The sighting of the creature was far from the first time someone claimed to have encountered something strange in the Aaron Gorge.
One of the earliest recorded encounters dates back to the 18th century and also the year 1814 has been mentioned. Other sightings followed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, often by woodcutters or herdsmen, who swore to see the beast in the heavy mist rising from the water or basking on rocks deep in the gorge where no man could easily reach.
Modern Legends and Mysterious Evidence
After the publication in the papers, the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung offered a reward of 1000 Reichsmarks for a captured worm. Some have claimed that the photo was developed in the offices in Berlin, not by the photographer himself and that should give credit to the story.
Though no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced, tantalizing pieces of supposed remains and blurry photographs occasionally make their way into local folklore.
The Alpine Monster Endures
Today, while the Aare Gorge remains a popular tourist destination, its atmospheric depths retain a reputation for eerie happenings. Visitors report feeling watched, hearing unexplained rustling sounds in the undergrowth, or catching glimpses of something large slipping between the rocks just out of sight.
While skeptics dismiss the Tatzelwurm as folklore born of isolation, fear, and overactive imaginations, the legend continues to cast its shadow over the Bernese Oberland and the Aare Gorge. In an age where ancient glaciers recede and secrets buried in ice begin to surface, one might wonder what else lies hidden in those deep, water-carved canyons — watching from the mist, waiting for nightfall.
In modern times there are over 80 eyewitness reports about the Tatzelwurm across the alpine landscape and to this day, the Tatzelwurm is the official mascot of Aare Gorge to this day. .
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
In the midst of border disputes between the English and the Scottish as well as the looming threat of the plague, a new monster started lurking in the dark street. The Berwick Vampire is one of the oldest vampire stories from the UK.
Berwick was besieged on more occasions than any other town in the world with the exception of Jerusalem, changing hands between England and Scotland 13 times and as a cultural identity not in unison about who they are between the two. It also has more than one vampire story, one of them from a time before the vampire term was even a thing.
In the shadow of ancient battlements and along the fog-laden streets of Berwick-upon-Tweed, lingers the sinister tale of the Berwick Vampire. Though far less famous than its Eastern European counterparts, this chilling account has earned its place in folklore as one of Britain’s earliest recorded vampiric encounters.
A Town Haunted by Blood and Death
The story takes us back to the medieval period, when Berwick was a frequent casualty of border wars between England and Scotland in the 12th century. Life was brutal and death was a constant companion. Among the many tales of plague, battle, and witchcraft that circulated during these turbulent centuries, the legend of a bloodthirsty revenant rose to prominence.
As the story goes, a local man of ill-repute — sometimes described as a wealthy landowner or merchant, died suddenly, his life claimed by an unspecified illness or misdeed. Sometimes it’s said that everyone believed he was an upstanding citizen, and that his misdeed and corruption was only found out after he had died.
This is why they denied him to be buried on consecrated land after he died of the plague. Death did not lay him to rest. Within days of his burial, villagers began whispering of a pale figure stalking the streets after nightfall. Livestock were found drained of blood, and children complained of night terrors and unexplained bruises upon waking.
The Vampire’s Reign of Terror
It wasn’t long before these sightings took a darker turn. Townsfolk claimed to encounter the man’s corpse-like figure lurking in graveyards and near the town walls. Those who crossed his path reported feeling an intense, unnatural cold and being overcome by a sense of impending doom. It is also said that two children went missing, and they all believed it had to be him.
Revenant: The term vampire or the undead was not used in medieval time, but several of the stories about the Revenant, Sanguisa or the bloodsuckers of folklore bear resemblance to what the modern world would classify as a vampire legend. In folklore, a revenant is a spirit or animated corpse that is believed to have been revived from death to haunt the living and was in medieval times used interchangeably with ghosts. They come from various cultures like the Celtic and Norse, some reminding more about a classic ghost story, some more of a vampire legend. Although today a mixed version of the western and eastern European mythologies of the undead.
As he was running down the street, a pack of howling dogs followed him, keeping all the villagers awake. He shouted out: “Until my body is burnt, you folk of Berwick shall have no peace!”
The Vampire Hunt
The villagers gathered and decided to fight the vampire after several days had forced them inside after dark. Ten young farmers were selected to dig up his body, hack it up to pieces and burn it.
They did so, but it wasn’t the end of their misery. After burning him to ash, the plague returned and took half the population of Berwick. When they buried the dead, the villagers insisted that they could hear the sound of the vampire followed by his pack of hounds.
Howling Hounds: Often in William Newburghs tales of the undead, there is a pack of dogs following as the dog motif has been connected with death for ages in European mythology. The black dog is a supernatural, spectral, or demonic hellhound. It is usually unnaturally large with glowing red or yellow eyes, is often connected with the Devil, and is sometimes an omen of death.
The Legacy of the Berwick Vampire
The Berwick legend also highlights how vampire hysteria in the medieval and early modern periods often paralleled outbreaks of disease and unexplained deaths, as communities struggled to explain misfortune with supernatural causes as well as border disputes. Something that many of the vampire legends we have from William Newburgh, like the story of the Berwick Vampire, shares.
William of Newburgh: Many of the tales about the British vampires comes from the 12th century historian, William of Newburgh. William’s major work was Historia rerum Anglicarum or Historia de rebus anglicis (“History of English Affairs”), a history of England from 1066 to 1198, written in Latin. It is written in an engaging fashion and still readable to this day, containing many fascinating stories and glimpses into 12th-century life. He is a major source for stories of medieval revenants, animated corpses that returned from their graves, with close parallels to vampire beliefs.
Today, Berwick-upon-Tweed is a picturesque town known for its Elizabethan walls and coastal charm. Yet for those who listen closely, especially when mist rolls in from the North Sea, old stories persist. Locals still recount the ancient tale of the Berwick Vampire — a reminder of a time when the veil between life and death felt perilously thin, and the dead were not always content to stay buried.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
In the Alpine foothills in Bavaria, strange boulders mark the landscape. Many legends linger over these mysterious stones, some claiming it was the Devil himself who placed it there.
Said to be cursed forever after mistreating his prisoners, the jailer in Bern’s former prison tower, Käfitier is said to be haunted by the ghost of a monstrous calf.
For decades, parents have told their children to be home before dark in Lafayette, Colorado. The reason being that local lore tells of a vampire rising from his grave in the cemetery. But who exactly was the man behind the story, buried under the tombstone?
Buried in the same place as the Danish kings and queens, a legend about one of the smaller graves haunts the Roskilde Cathedral. It is said that a horse was buried here before any people, and it haunts the graveyard as the three legged helhest, an omen of death.
As a place of dubious drug testing and the place where most lobotomies were done, the Lier Hospital and former asylum was left with a haunted rumor lingering in the decaying walls. Although most of the buildings are now torn down, it is still remembered as one of Norway’s most haunted places.
The Danish ghostly horse spirit Helhest is said to roam around St. Canute’s Cathedral in Odense, Denmark. It is believed seeing the three legged horse is an omen of imminent death.
According to old legends and Danish folklore, there are stories of three legged horses haunting the churches and graveyards in the country. in Saint Olaf’s Church, the spirit of the helhest is said to be the omen of death.
Could it be that the oldest church in Oslo also has the oldest haunting? From legends about a dragon’s den underneath the structure and the ghostly silhouette haunting, the Gamle Aker Church perhaps has more activity than what meets the naked eye.
During a time when Bulgaria was under the Ottoman Empire, there was talk about a vampire haunting the streets of Veliko Tarnovo. The rumours got so bad, that the Islamic rulers had to turn to pagan belief to rid themselves of the bloodthirsty creatures.
In the windswept landscape of Norway’s west coast lies the Utstein Monastery, a site steeped in history and haunting tales. Known as Norway’s best-preserved medieval monastery, its ancient stone walls and iconic Gothic windows whisper stories of faith, love, and loss as well as the ghost of a Lady in White.
After dying for the cause of Irish Independence, it is said the ghost of Lord Edward is haunting the pub he is buried close to and bears his name.
In the ancient St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, there are said to be restless spirits still lingering. One of the more well known is said to be the ghost of Jonathan Swift, perhaps best known as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.
