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Fatima’s Harp — A Christmas Haunting

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Through the halls of Stubley Hall, a Saracen love song haunts the place with the sound of the harp.

A great hall during Christmas times with good food, merry guests and an unmistakable sound of a harp playing a love song. Scared yet? No? Sounds like the right vibe for a cozy Christmas time perhaps. But if the harp playing comes from nowhere, and no one is playing, scared then? This is what festive guests might hear echoing through the halls every Christmas Eve at Stubley Hall, reminiscing about the tragedy of war and love. 

Not far from Rochdale, Manchester in England, sits the Stubley Hall. Already in the 1600s, the hall was known for being “an ancient mansion with stables, barns, dovecotes and water mill”, so you know it is old, even by British standards. And such an old place carries many tales within the stone walls, and stories about the paranormal and sighting of ghosts has been plentiful. And one of them is the story about Fatima. 

The Crusader With the Diamond Studded Cross

The knight Ralph de Stubley lived here once upon a time, a knight who served Richard the Lionheart during the crusades in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the crusades Ralph joined in on, they saw it as a successful mission as they were able to capture Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. But they never quite managed to seize Jerusalem, which they saw as a spiritual symbol and as the holy city. 

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One of the more romantic, yet tragic tales from the crusade wars, was about one of Saladin’s daughters. Her name was Fatima and she fell in love with Ralph during the raging battle of the holy city.

However in 1192 the British crusaders had to pull out after the battle of Jaffa, and Ralph was forced to leave Fatima behind. But before leaving, he swore his undying love for her, promising her he would return. As a token, he gave her a diamond studded cross to keep as a reminder of him. 

The Harp of Love Songs

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com

Three years went by and Fatima heard nothing of the knight who promised to come back for her. Growing tired of just waiting she disguised herself as a troubadour and sailed across the ocean in search of him. Just bringing her harp she played so well but hadn’t been able to play in her sorrow. But she would never reach the shores of England to return to her beloved Ralph. On the eve of Christmas, she died. The plague had travelled with them on the ship and she and the rest of the passengers and crew perished. 

The same night there was a wedding at Stubley Hall, Ralph’s wedding. He was to marry a wealthy Baron’s daughter. Maybe it was only to save the family who were in need of money, maybe he fell in love with another one. Either way, the song of his past lover came to the hall. During the celebrations he was standing by the window, not enjoying the festivities. He was maybe thinking of her, the woman he truly wanted to marry. It was then he heard it, the harp. The familiar but now so nostalgic sound of Fatima playing the harp, playing none other than the love song she had played for him, a traditional Saracen love song. He rushed into the grounds, thinking he would see her among the trees. 

The guests noticed his disappearance and went after him and found him under an oak tree, dead, clutching a diamond studded cross.

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The Mistletoe Bough – The Bride in the Chest

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The Legend of the Mistletoe Bough or the Mistletoe Bride is a ghost tale that many big houses claim as their own. Bramshill House is one of them, and the story of the dead bride trapped in the chest haunts the already haunted place. 

Buried Alive: On Christmas Day the tale of the Mistletoe Bride that gets trapped in a chest and dies is told and retold throughout England.

A girl will always remember her wedding day, and making the wedding be held on Christmas day will surely make it easier to remember the wedding anniversary. But more people will remember it, if the bride turns into a ghost. 

This is the case of the bride of Bramshill House in Hampshire, one of Britain’s most crowded paranormal places. And although many big houses tries to claim the ghost of the bride in the oak chest as their own, Bramshill could be one of the choices with no less than 14 ghosts they claim wander there. 

Deadly Hide and Seek

In the early 17th century a girl named Anne Cope was to be married in this house. Anne is the name in some accounts, Genevre Orsini in others. English in some accounts while she was believed to be Italian in others. What remains the same is that it was Christmas Day and everyone was in a festive mood. She and her husband, Sir Hugh Bethell celebrated after having taken their vows, and as the old custom went, she was to be escorted to the marital bed.

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But before the party was over, the bride wanted to play a round of hide and seek, where the target to be found was her. And after a five minute start the search began, but to no avail.

Searching the whole house, the guest came back empty with no sign of the bride. Perhaps it was a trick from the bride? Could she just be exceptionally good at this game? But as time went on, the innocent prank she could have played on the guest turned into a dangerous one. 

Many believed the bride had fled from her marriage. Her husband Hugh on the other side, spent decades searching for his bride that was lost. It was only after fifty years the mystery surrounding her disappearance came into light, and then her haunting had already began.

It is not the only ghost story from England that starts at a wedding during Christmas.

Read the full story of Fatima’s Harp

Hugh, now an old man, was in the attic, still searching. Having been through the mansion so many times, one should have thought there could be no more things to be found. But then, when knocking on some oak panelling, a secret door he didn’t know about suddenly opened. Inside the door was a room with a wooden chest. It was locked. Inside the chest when he finally got it open, the remains of the bride he had hoped to spend his life with, still in her wedding dress, holding her bouquet of wilted flowers, she had been by his side all this time. 

In the lid of the chest the bride had been trapped in, there were signs of nails scraping in her dying efforts to escape, to get out, but she never would. 

The Bride in the Oak Chest

The Chest: Although the original chest was removed in 1812, there is always a chest in the houses claiming the ghost.
Photo: Country Life page 435 by Edward Hudson (1854–1936

So many accounts of the white lady has been reported at Bramshill House. Even Michael the first of Romania asked to move room after the white lady kept passing his room during his stay there. And you can sense her arrival by scent, lily of the valley, which was Anne’s favorite. 

Not so many remember her wedding, her death, all in one. She is remembered as much, although her real name is disputable, the name Mistletoe Bride remains. Poems, movies, books and folklore retells about the young bride in the oak chest. 

The same story was retold by Susan E Wallace in 1887 as ‘The Old Oak Chest’ and by Henry James as ‘The Romance of Certain old Clothes’ in 1868. The old tale also made it onto the silver screen in 1904 when Percy Stow made the short film ‘The Mistletoe Bough.’

And every Christmas, her death is retold again and again, without her ever being found alive. 
“Oh sad was her fate! In sportive jest,
She hid from her Lord, in an old oak chest.
It closed with a spring and her Bridal bloom,
Lay withering there in that living tomb.”

The Mistletoe Bough by Thomas Haynes Bayley
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The Bramshill House Bride, or the Legend of the Mistletoe Bough

https://books.google.no/books?id=dogvornHYEAC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=ginevra+chest&source=web&ots=TG2RwFaz3b&sig=SYANGBWZkYlcjQbqizM6iAESkRo&redir_esc=y#PPA33,M1

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The Highwayman Robbed of his Life

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Now a peaceful place for a road trip, it was once a hot spot for highwaymen and a dangerous place to travel. Sometimes, it was also dangerous for the robbers. 

On a chilly Christmas Eve a woman and her father were riding in their carriage down the Road to Hawkhurst Kent. In the eighteenth century highwaymen were notorious and feared in the English countryside. They robbed whoever came their way, and sometimes, the robbery went more violently than necessary. And Hawkhurst housed some of the more notorious gangs and smugglers at the time, making the place feared along the English coast.

Alone With The Highwayman

Dangers on the road: A carriage was a sure sign of wealth and a target for the highwaymen.
Photo: Asalto al coche (Robbery of the coach), by Francisco de Goya.

This had been the case of the young woman’s brother, who had been killed on maybe even the same road. But there was one road to take to get anywhere and the same family was again meeting an unfortunate end. The carriage was stopped by the highwayman Gilbert when they were around the village of Marden in Kent. He ordered the father and daughter out of the carriage to strip them of their possessions and valuables. But as soon as the daughter stepped on the ground, the horse bolted, carrying her father away, leaving her all alone with the robberer at the side of the road, seemingly helpless. 

But the story comes with a twist seldom seen in other horror stories like these. A horror, not only by being robbed, dawned on her as she laid eyes on the face of the man. She recognised him, Gilbert, as the one who had murdered her brother as well. And she refused to see such a fate befall on herself. Enraged and afraid she drew a knife and stabbed the before he could take more from her by reaching for a hidden knife in her bag and planting it into Gilbert’s side and fled into the bushes.  

When the father and the driver managed to calm the horses, they returned to the sight of where they had left her alone. There, all they could find was Gilbert’s dead body that they buried on the side of the road.

The Price of Her Life

It wasn’t until the next day the woman was found by the villagers of Marden, wandering around after having stabbed a man to death. All alone this cold Christmas Eve she had been fleeing from the danger from last night. But although she escaped alive, her body unharmed, it is told that during the night she had gone completely mad.  

And every Christmas Eve since, the same scene, the robbery, the murder is repeated by their ghosts, first by Gilbert himself, then later perhaps joined by the woman. 

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The Paranormal Database

 7 Spine-Tingling Tales of Christmas Ghosts Hawkhurst

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A Royal Haunting at Christmas

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Every Christmas, the royal ghost of Anne Boleyn is said to visit her childhood home as a spirit.

One of the more famous ghosts that know how to travel, is the ghost of the infamous Anne Boleyn. Most known for the wedge between the State of England and the Catholic Church in the time of the Tudors. The peoples perception of her at the time was awful, and it would be understandable if she felt some sort of resentment or sorrow for how her life ended, even in the afterlife.  

A Well Travelled Ghost

Anne Boleyn: The ghost of the former queen has been spotted many places in the UK after her death.

As ghost sightings go, perhaps the Tower of London is a more well known place for ghost sightings of her, as this was the place she was held imprisoned and executed. But it is far from the only place paranormal sightings of the former Queen have been spotted in the UK. She has also been spotted in Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Rochford Hall to just name a few. But in the spirit of Christmas, we are going to have a look at where the royal ghost spends her Christmases in the afterlife. 

Every Christmas she is said to make an appearance at Hever Castle, at least it is now expected. Christmas was supposedly her favourite time and Hever Castle was her childhood home with good memories. And contrary to how her ghost is seen at other locations, headless and darkly dressed for instance, it is said she is seen as more happy and content when spotted here.

Christmas at Hever Castle

The castle was built in 1270 in the rural part of Kent, and although relatively small compared to many other castles we can see in England, it came to play a big part in England’s’ history as it was the seat of the Boleyn family. This is also the place where Anne and Henry first met, when he was still married to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and had an affair with her younger sister, Mary. 

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She is often reported to be seen under a big oak tree that stands on the castle ground. This is the place Anne and Henry spent a lot of time courting. Although the ending for the couple was one of the most dramatic break ups in British history, the courting seems to have been genuine. Henry is said to have written her at least seventeen letters, begging her to be his, and the length he went to marry her, spoke to how much he wanted her in his life. 

The Tragic Ending

Hever Castle: This is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and were she is seen every Christmas. It is now open to public.
Photo: Hever Castle, Kent/ijclark

Although they did get together in the end, their match was a very unpopular one. In order to divorce the queen, he had to part with the Catholic Church, and Anne was in the public eye a witch, a heretic and a seducer that was a danger to the empire and papal law. They never had a son, but their child Elizabeth the first turned out to be one of England’s longest reigning queens. 

But after several miscarriages, never ending gossiping and pressure from all sides, their love turned sour and in the end, Henry found another one and decided to get rid of Anne, in a most dramatic way. On the charges of treasury and adultery and incest with her brother, she was sent to the Tower of London and sentenced to death. On May 19th in 1536, she was executed by beheading at the Tower. 

Popular Sightings

With a such an accessible place with such a famous ghost, the reports about sightings has been plentiful. Like in 2015, when a tourist at the castle captured something on camera he was certain had to be the former queen by the fireplace.

The Ghost: Liam Archer captured this photo in 2015, convinced it was the ghost of the queen.
Photo: Liam Archer/Daily Mail

‘I believe there is something important historically inside the fireplace she wants me to recover.’, Mr Archer that took the picture told the papers at the time.

Who is to say for what reason Anne has to haunt her childhood home, let alone England as a whole? In any case, her imprints on the course of the history, religion and the royal line, was irrevocably shaken by her life and work.

It has also been said she has been seen walking across the beautiful bridge on the premise that crosses River Eden, perhaps on her way home to the place of her happy and innocent childhood.

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Anne Boleyn’s ghost captured on camera at Hever Castle

Ghost of Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle

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The Ghost Bridge in the Jungle

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Deep in the jungle of Côn Đảo in Vietnam, there is an unfinished bridged called Ma Thiên Lãnh Bridge also called The Ghost Bridge, both because of its dark origin as well as the lingering presence still seen. 

The bridge was built by 300 prisoners from the Côn Đảo Prison during the French colonization of Vietnam. The Côn Đảo Prison was a prison that the French colonists used to imprison those thought to be especially dangerous to the colonial government. The prison was used from the 1800s until the end of the Vietnam war. A number of stories of torture and abuse comes from that prison, located on an island. And some of these unfortunate prisoners were made to build this Ghost Bridge in the middle of the jungle. 

Death on the Bridge

The Ghost Bridge: Several reports about paranormal happenings and ghosts comes from this bridge that were built on the labour of prisoners.
Source: vetaucondao.vn

To build infrastructure on the island with the prison, they needed material. In 1930, French colonialists made the prisoners carry rocks to the Núi Chúa mountain to build this bridge. The purpose of the bridge was to make transportation of materials to Ong Dung Beach to be used as building the infrastructure of the Côn Đảo island. It is said that around 356 of the prisoners forced to build this bridge lost their life, either starving to death, poisonous drinking water, horrible abuse from the French or even the climate or the rugged terrain became too much for them. 

However, in spite of how much effort that was made to build the bridge, it would never be completed. In August 1945 after the revolution, the work on the bridge was left as the French left Vietnam and only parts of the bridge were complete and stands today, now only standing as a reminder of the bloody labour the prisoners were forced to. 

The Lingering Ghosts

Many encounters from the locals have been told of the paranormal kind. One villager that was drinking with his friend told about a man with long hair, white shirt and black trousers, watching him from a distance before suddenly disappearing. 

A female villager saw a woman in a white dress at dawn, standing on the bridge at dawn, and as the villager told, she recognized the woman as a hungry ghost. Another female villager met the ghosts of two boys, none of them were wearing a shirt as they forced her to give them dessert.

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Côn Đảo Prison

I Wouldn’t Go in There (TV Series 2013)

List of reportedly haunted locations

Ma Thiên Lãnh bridge | Photo

DI TÍCH CẦU MA THIÊN LÃNH

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The Haunted Vicarage — Sweden’s most ghostly crowded house

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Even the home of the priests can’t keep the ghosts at bay. And in this house, the ghosts outnumber the living. 

Haunted: Many ghosts have been reported haunting this house throughout the years since it was built.

In the idyllic countryside of Sweden Borgvattnet is an old village deep in the forest. There are around 70 people living there, going about their business in the serene landscape of green trees. In this small village, the Borgvattnet Vicarage, a building from 1876, lies, used to house the priests connected to the local church. There are many residing in this vicarage, adding to the number of people in the small place, although not exactly living. 

More than once has the Swedish news media as well as a number of paranormal researchers found their way up to the quaint vicarage, looking like a cute inn to relax and enjoy nature as it has been open to the public since 1970. But the rooms available for rent are not necessarily just for you. The rooms are already all occupied by the ghosts, and therefore, it has earned the name of Sweden’s most haunted house. 

The Ghost Priest

The story was first only whispered among the priests living there as well as inside the church of Sweden. But one priest would break the silence and make it the most famous place in the country at the time. 

When the priest Erik Lindgren came as the new priest of his area, he came alone. The furniture was still something he was waiting for to settle into the old vicarage that was to be his own home. Therefore he was surprised and a bit scared when he started hearing stuff from the second floor. It sounded like heavy objects being dragged across the floor. When checking he found the second floor to be empty. There was no furniture there, and there was no one in the house but him. Or so he thought in the beginning, but it was only the start of the paranormal hauntings he was about to experience, living in this house. 

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Although it was not something that had been spoken about publicly before the haunting of the house was well known within the church. In 1947 that was about to change as a journalist heard about the haunting of the vicarage. He got the priest, Erik Lindgren to tell about his experiences and an article was published on the matter. The curiosity was overwhelming from the public and Lindgren himself had to block his phone in the end because of all the journalists trying to get to him to talk about the paranormal occurrences. 

Lindgren was meticulous and noted down every strange encounter in detail he experienced. But the list got so long that he stopped when he just accepted this was just a part of his everyday life. There were a lot of different activities going on in the lonely house. Everything from light turning off and on, invisible figures “crashing” into him making it hard to work and always giving him a feeling of someone watching him, never giving him a moment’s peace. From the second floor where he had the first day of the house heard heavy stuff being dragged over the floor, footsteps when there was no one there was constantly heard. 

The worst experience though, was on this particular day when he was sitting in his rockin chair, reading a book in 1945. The chair started to rock harder and harder so violently that he fell on the floor. When he sat down again, it happened once more, making it hard to stay seated. He felt a force from behind, going through him. His legs started to shake and he lost footing, falling on the ground. After this interview, the chair got famous and in the 60s, it turned up on one of Sweden’s entertainment shows before being bought back to the vicarage in the 80s. 

Some of the spotted ghosts:

So many encounters of different kinds have been reported. Shadow of a man passing by, the sound of footsteps coming to the front door and music playing out of nowhere. Some of the ghosts though, have a bit more story to them. 

The Gray Lady

More and more priests started coming forward with their stories. Like the priest Rudolf Tängdén who was also sitting in the great hall reading in 1930. Suddenly a gray clothed lady appears in the corner of the room. She walks towards him, taking small slow steps before changing direction, turns and walks into the office. He followed, but found nothing when he entered. 

The Crying Ladies

Ghosts in the Rooms: The rooms in the vicarage each carry their own ghost legend. What makes this particular house so haunted?

In the house there is a room called ‘the cryers room’. It’s been called that since the notary for the church, Inga Flodin stayed there on a business trip in 1941. She stayed in that very room and was awoken during the night. She finds three figures sitting on the couch, watching her intently. She turns on the lights, but nothing changes, they are still sitting there, staring. Flodin pinches her arm as well as letting her alarm clock ring to check if she really is awake. But, yes, she is. She notices that they all look incredibly sad, wearing a black, a purple and a gray dress. One of them is knitting. The woman in the gray dress looks particularly sad with red circles under her eyes. In a staring deadlock, Flodin can not do anything but stare back, petrified as well as curious and confused about what is going on. However, eventually she falls asleep. 

The Maid’s Baby

In the pink room there are those claiming to hear the sound of cries of a baby, even baby figures have been spotted around on the property. Story goes that at the end of the 1800s, an unmarried maid gave birth out of marriage. There were also rumours that the father was the priest in the house at the time. The maid was then locked up to the birth of the child that never grew up. Most likely the child was killed and buried on the north side of the house, outside the pink room. Now both the maid and the baby wander the house.

The Dead Priest Wife

One of the first documented sightings of ghostly activity came from the priest Nils at the start of the 1900s. Nils had grown up in the house as the priest’s son before he himself became the priest. Through the years he experienced stuff in the house he was sure was his mothers doing. Like the time when he watched all the clothes on the clothesline being ripped from the line. 

His mother was Martha and died young giving birth to Nils. His father, Per, didn’t take the death of his beloved wife well. It was a cold spring and the ground was still too hard for the body to be buried. Therefore it was stored in the house as Per simply couldn’t be parted from his beloved. And it might have been a bit too long. In any case, several of the guests have also seen shadows and shapes, pulling their clothes, sitting in the bed, in none other than in the yellow room, the same room where Märta died.

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Sveriges Mest Hemsökta Hus – Historia & Fakta

Byn Borgvattnet

Borgvattnet

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The Haunting in Pasir Ris Park

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On the foundation of old land with a lot of history, a new park was built called Pasir Ris Park. But the haunted legends of ghost and vampiric creatures surrounding the mangrove forest followed into the modern day busy Singapore. 

The park of Pasir Ris is a fairly new park, built first in the late 80s the reports of strange occurrences started trickling in. And in the following year the park expanded as well as the legends surrounding it. 

The surrounding area that connects the entrances to the popular jogging routes of Pasir Ris Park is Sungei Api Api, a river known to be a place filled with murders and suicides from old times. It was also believed this was the place black magic was practiced in the olden days because of the thick forest. 

The Bird Tower in Pasir Ris Park

There are many spots the local deems as haunted. One of these hot spots, or cold spots if you will, is the Bird Tower in Pasir Ris Park. Located a bit away from the beach in the mangrove forest, it is not necessarily something that you see at once. During the day it looks like a cute and peaceful tower that was built for peaceful birdwatching in the area. But at night the atmosphere changes and the experiences people have seen or experienced themselves have made it so that it is known as the ‘suicide tower’, and apparently it is haunted. 

The Pasir Ris Park: Beautiful in the day, the park turns into something more sinister according to legend at night. //Photo: Cattan2011:Flickr

One of these urban legends that is the most told, and perhaps that started the rumours is the one about the boy with the third eye that died from falling down the tower. The third eye is something that in some lores makes you able to see ghosts according to folklore. The story goes that decades ago he was hanging out in the Pasir Ris Park with his friends and played around.

He spotted something at the tower that was not of this world and told his friends about it. Was it a ghost? The boy along with his friends agreed to come back at night on their bike for further explorations about the strange things he saw. 

They were all resting at the bottom of the tower, but suddenly, the boy with the third eye stood up and ran up the stairs, climbing to the top of the tower and — jumped. The fall turned out to be deadly.

Some of the friends ran to get help while the rest stayed back and watched over their friend as he was slowly dying. Right before he died of the fall, he told them about a feeling of being pushed from the tower. According to him it was an entity that forcefully made him fall. And according to the story he died on his way to the hospital. 

From then on it has been known as the suicide tower, as there have actually been several incidents of people taking their life there. 

The Vampiric Pontianak

In recent times there have also been more reports on two women standing at the top of the tower. According to some, it is possible pontianaks, a malayan and indonesian folklore vampiric ghost of a female who is a deadly creature, which is also been rumoured to roam the area in Pasir Ris Park. 

They are also the ones rumoured to haunt the areas around the beach, where the trees grow tall and thick. The Pontianak (Malayan), or the Kuntilanak (Indonesian), shows up in mythology and folklore in different shapes. Both in the form of a pregnant woman unable to give birth or as a vengeful female spirit with a vampiric touch. Signs like a baby crying or a scent of the plumeria flower or a decaying corpse warns she is around. She is using her appearance as a beautiful woman to lure men, killing them with her long fingernails by removing their organs. 

Check out more stories about the Pontianak here:

The Ghost on the Bench

The fear of ghosts and pontianaks was the thing locals and visitors alike have when hearing stories like a female runner told of when she herself experienced something she could only explain as paranormal. She went for a jog along the place where sightings of the paranormal sort has been reported and came back a believer.

The Viral Ghost: A female jogger took this photo in Pasir Ris Park on a nightly run, experiencing strange and seemingly paranormal things. This went viral when she published it on her facebook back in June 2021. Could this be an example of what haunts the park at night? // Photo: Source

On one of her runs in Pasir Ris Park, she encountered something that looked like a woman sitting on one of the benches in the park. There was something off about her, just sitting there by herself at night in the dark. The strangest thing about her was that it looked like she had no legs when the runner looked more closely.

A lot could explain this strange sight she managed to take a picture of in Pasir Ris Park that night. It might have just been a woman resting on a bench with her legs pulled up. But this was only one of the things she experienced that night in the park.

As the jogger ran past the strange looking woman, she later heard someone or something calling out her name. Problem was there was no one there, especially not one that knew her name.

However the woman managed to snap a photo and the picture fueled the fire about and many had their own theories and experiences about what lived inside of Pasir Ris Park.

These are just some of the occurrences that have been reported in this brand new and modern park. And even in a modernised place like Singapore, the old legends and lores of old times keep on having its place in this country.

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https://www.wegonative.com/article/4685/most-haunted-places-singapore

https://goodyfeed.com/spooky-reason-why-the-pasir-ris-tower-is-known-as-the-suicide-tower/

https://www.timeout.com/singapore/things-to-do/the-most-creepiest-and-haunted-places-in-singapore

https://mothership.sg/2021/06/pasir-ris-park-ghost/

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Huggin Molly – The Woman in Black of Alabama

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In the small town in Alabama, a big thing is haunting the streets and are after the town’s children. The scary apparition of the black clad Huggin Molly is still on the prowl.

Children should be home before dark, there is no telling what hides in the shadows, emerging after the sun sets. But the people of Abbeville in south Alabama, they have a pretty good idea of what darkness that lurk in the shadows, in the streets and behind the bushes and in the dark corners.

The children of Abbeville, Alabama has been warned plenty of times to stay indoors after dark. If not, they might encounter the creature known as Huggin Molly on the streets.

The Colonial Town of Abbeville

The small place of Abbeville looks like any other small colonial towns in the south with the cute brick houses with the flag waving towards the paved street and with a population around 2000.

Abbeville Alabama: Downtown Abbeville, Alabama where Huggin Molly supposedly roams in the night. // source

The climate is hot during the summer and mild during the winters. The people can shop in the small boutiques and eat at the family restaurant, a place where people know one another. It is also why when a stranger starts to roam the street, the townspeople takes notice as they watch from hammock on their porches.

Read Also: Check out the rest of our ghost stories from all across the USA.

The town of Abbeville has seen many tragedies throughout the years. Not only the hardship of the European settlers, the surrendering of the creek nation and a town in southern Alabama also made it hard for the black people all the way up to the segregation times.

There were reported lynching and sexual violence that went unpunished, making the streets more difficult for black people than the children that was warned to stay indoors after sundown.

The southern town has also experienced tragedies that left a collective trauma so hard that legend took form. One of these being after the fire. At the start of the 1900s, an arsonist burned down all of Abbeville, and this is also at the time when it looks like the legend of Huggin Molly took form. The town was also ravage by an F2 tornado that destroyed many of the old buildings, forcing the town to build on top of the old.

Huggin Molly as The Lady in Black

But these tragedies are not the things Huggin Molly is about. Rather than one of the towns collective tragedies, this is one of the towns big mysteries.

“…..On a cold, dark, rainy night…..so bitterly cold, damp, and dark…..when even street lights won’t burn, and the striking of a match refuses to yield the tiniest flame….on nights like this, Huggin’ Molly comes out of her lair and roams the streets of Abbeville to see whom she can find.”

So begins one account of the story the people of Abbeville have told each other since the early 1900s. The local legend is known as Huggin Molly, or the lady in black. Who is this woman all clad in black, and why is she after the children of Abbeville? What does she want with them?

Read More: There are many urban legends targeting children. How about checking out Kuchisake-onna – The Urban Legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman or Madam Koi Koi and The School Hauntings in Nigeria.

The local legend of Huggin Molly has it that a tall figure, around seven feet tall, started walking the streets of Abbeville, looking for victims, mostly children. She has no name other than what the townsfolk started calling her, no face to speak of and no one knows why she is after the children. She almost has this witch like status around her, although her behaviour is anything but.

Huggin Molly is said to be dressed in all black with a wide brim hat, also black, wandering through the night in the disguise of the shadows were even the streets light won’t illuminate her identity. Once she found a victim, an innocent child wandering after darkness, she attacks, hugging the person tightly as she is screaming loudly into their ears. 

Read More: There are many stories about women in black around the world: Like some of the ghosts in Unveiling the Dark History of the Tower of London and its Ghosts .

This is it, as there are no stories of her actually hurting anyone. She simply hugs them, although terrifying enough on its own. But are there any origin story to this local legend of a hugging ghost?

The Many Legends of Huggin Molly

Who she is supposed to have been is up for debate and changes as the story itself changes throughout times. Was she a witch or the ghost of a woman that used to live in Abbeville? Is she something completely different from a human?

The Woman in Black: Grieving women wearing long black dresses is a well known motif, especially in European ghost lore. They can also be very dangerous according to many of the legends.

Read More: One of the theories was that Huggin Molly was some sort of witch. If you are interested in stories about witches, head over to our section filled of them: Here

In some accounts when the local townspeople tells the legend, Huggin Molly was a woman living in Abbeville a long time ago. She experienced a mother’s worst nightmare when lost her own child. Her grief was too much to bare and it made her mad. She started to roam the nights and went after the local children to make up for the death of child. Like it was a way of dealing with the tragedy of loosing her own.

In other accounts of the legend, she was a woman who got murdered in cold blood on the very streets she is now haunting and are trying to fulfill something. Perhaps she was killed after dark with no one to look out for her and are now in turn looking out for others?

Perhaps the real story behind the legend is the version about her being a professor at what used to be Alabama Agriculture School as some of the variations of the legend suggests. In these versions she is only trying to keep the students safe by getting them off the streets at night.

Or perhaps it wasn’t a ghost at all that haunted the street in her afterlife, but someone or something, getting dressed up specifically for this? To walk out in the dark to scare and hug children? Somehow, this comes off as almost more frightening than a ghost who only wants a hug.

A Legend with a Milkshake on the Side

In any case, who Huggin Molly was, what her motives are and if she is still roaming the streets doesn’t seem to upset most people in Abbeville. The people of Abbeville haven’t been too concerned by the legend and there are even a 50s themed restaurant named after her, making her a part of the community and town history.

Huggin Molly Legacy: The legend of Huggin Molly is more welcome than many other ghost stories in Abbeville Alabama. Head over to the local restaurant Huggin Molly’s frozen in time in the 50s ,just like the legend to hear more about the town ghost with a meal.

Even to this day the legend is part of the town and kids today are told about the lady in black on the streets. This is like what Jimmy, an Abbeville lifelong resident had to say when the Huggin Molly’s restaurant asked him to say a few words of her:

“Anybody who grew up in Abbeville grew up knowing the legend of Huggin’ Molly,” Jimmy says. “If your mother or dad didn’t want you to be out after dark, they’d tell you Huggin’ Molly would get you. And you believed it, too.”

Because this is the thing, the legend of Huggin Molly has not once been known to have harmed anyone. So many children grew up to tell tales of what they believed must have been Huggin Molly chasing them. And who knows, maybe she really did?

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References

11 Best Scary Ghost Stories – True Scary Stories for Halloween

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The witch legend behind Alabama eatery Huggin’ Molly’s

Abbeville Ghosts « Chattahoochee Heritage

Review, movies

Top American Horror TV-Series

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America really have a broad selection of horror to choose from: whether it be vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches and ghosts, they got you covered. They also have just the right amount of horror fear for your choosing, either like a small jump scare here and there or full fledge hide behind the pillow from it all. Here are some of the American horror TV-series to watch this spooky season.

Them

Them is a limited anthology series that explores terror in America. The first season centers around a Black family who move from North Carolina to an all-white Los Angeles neighborhood during the period known as The Great Migration. The family’s idyllic home becomes ground zero where malevolent forces, next door and otherworldly, threaten to taunt, ravage and destroy them.

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Brand New Cherry Flavor

Brand New Cherry Flavor — a limited series starring Rosa Salazar, Catherine Keener, Eric Lange, Jeff Ward and Manny Jacinto. A filmmaker heads to Hollywood in the early ‘90s to make her movie but tumbles down a hallucinatory rabbit hole of sex, magic, revenge – and kittens.

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Midnight Mass

An original series from Mike Flanagan, most known for creating The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. This series is set on a little island, so sleepy it might be dead. The isolated community on Crockett Island experiences miraculous events – and frightening omens – following the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest.

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Two Sentence Horror Stories

Another case of an internet phenomenom that made it into the small screen is the two sentenced horror stories we can find everywhere, especially on Reddit. ”Two Sentence Horror Stories” is an award-winning, original scripted horror anthology series. Each standalone story taps into the expansive world of the horror genre, pressing universal primal fears filtered through the anxieties of a connected and racially diverse generation.

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Swamp Thing

From the DC Universe, based on characters originally written and drawn by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson came Swamp Thing back in 2019 with a good monster series that unfortunately only got the one season. Swamp Thing follows Abby Arcane as she investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana but soon discovers that the swamp holds mystical and terrifying secrets. When unexplainable and chilling horrors emerge from the murky marsh, no one is safe. Based on the DC

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What We Do in The Shadows

Based on the New Zealand mockumentary by the same name by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. The series centres around a camera crew following the lives of three vampires, who’ve lived together for over 100 years, on Staten Island, trying to fit into the modern society.

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Lovecraft Country

Based on the book by the same name, ,inspired by the universe of Lovecraft. A young African-American travels across the U.S. in the 1950s in search of his missing father. From Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams,

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American Horror Story

This show has been around for a long time, and has had a deep impact on the other horror shows that have aired for the last decade now. The premise of the show have been different for every season. But the first season is about a family moving to another city to get away from the husband’s infidelity. But they can never truly get away. At least not from the history of the murder house they just moved in to. Now they have reached the tenth season that centres around Aliens.

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Castle Rock

For lovers of Stephen King that needed a clash of characters and places from his universes, look to Castle Rock, the place where stories like “Cujo,” “The Dead Zone,” and “The Body.” They also have the prison from the Shawshank State Prison as well as the characters like Pennywise (the clown from “It”), the name Annie Wilkes (the crazed uber-fan in “Misery”) and more.

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The Walking Dead

With the long running series ending with the 11th season this year, it is perhaps time to take another look at it. And although a show with very uneven seasons, the show truly brought back the zombie craze to the world when it first aired back in 2010.

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The Black Ghost Cat of War

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In 1941 a fighter plane crashed in a field in the English countryside during WW2. The pilots died in the crash, but a mysterious black cat lingered. Now it is coming back every year on the date of the crash as a ghost cat, haunting the field. 

It’s 1941 and the second world war is a fact across the continent and the European sky is littered by blinking lights in the sky from the German Blitzkrieg. Although the sky is not lit up by stars now, but by war planes. For the naked eye from the ground it is impossible to see if it is an enemy or friend inside the cockpit, the people around start learning to recognize the airplanes by sound. 

There are countless of stories tal tells about the tragic things that happened during this dark period of time. And more than one story emerged that somehow involved this war.

Read More: Check out more ghost stories that revolves around the WW2 like Hauntingly Beelitz-Heilstätten Hospital, The Lingering Presence of a Nazi Ghost at Skaugum, Conn Barracks Ghosts of Nazi Soldiers and Bloody Nurses, Agnes Keith and the Ghost in her House

The Plane Crash in Shropshire

This is not a war story about the ghost of a fallen soldier though, but the ghost cat that kept haunting the place the soldiers died.

On the eve of 23rd of October in 1941, a plane was soaring in the sky over the green land of Poynton Green in Shropshire, England. The plane was coming back after a night sortie and heading back to base. But something went wrong that night and the trip ended horrible. The night that was pitch dark until then is now lit up as the plane is heading straight to the ground. 

The airplane that crashed: It was a British Beaufighter that crashed into a field and burned that night. This is where the ghost cat that is said to haunt the scene were it all happened is supposed to emerge from.

The plane is a British Beaufighter, belonging to the 68 Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and was heading to High Ercall where the RAF had an airfield. For an unknown reason the plane crashed in the field and the flames started to take over the aircraft. 

A local farmer came to the site to help and put the fire out, but it was too late and the flames engulfed the plane along with the people inside.

It was the Czechoslovak pilot Josef Kloboučník and sergeant Josef Klváčel, the radio operator that crashed with the plane and died that night. They were the first Czech members of the squadron, and they would never see the end of the war they fought in. 

The Black Cat Haunting the Crash Site

But the farmer that tried to help them didn’t leave empty handed however that night. As the plane went up in flames a black cat emerged from the burning plane. The farmer is said to have kept the cat as a pet for many years until it died as well.

According to some sources the farmer ended up giving the cat to an old woman that lived nearby. And that cat supposedly disappeared after the old woman died. But it still wasn’t completely gone and is said to have returned as a ghost cat. 

Read More: Check out more ghost stories about ghost cats like The History and Legends of the Haunted Abbaye De Mortemer and Ghosts of Mary King’s Close or other animals like in Unveiling the Dark History of the Tower of London and its Ghosts  and The Haunted Château de Commarque.

Every ten years it is said that a black ghost cat is seen at the crash site, the ghost cat still lingering even after all these years. And in 2031 it is supposed to make its comeback.

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The Paranormal Database

Thread: High Ercall (Shropshire) 23 October 1941

RAF Atcham – Some interesting aviation events that…

Beaufighter aircraft of 68 Sqn

68 Night Fighter Squadron