So we all know Dracula. That old fella, the campy movies, the bone chilling books. It was a real table turner, and has this lingering precence in todays culture. And I mean, espeacially in todays culture. Vampires are so mainstream, the mainstream feels it’s too mainstream. So let’s give it to Stoker, he made all of us goths, emos, metal heads, and whatever subculture you subscribe to. Because Dracula is about subculture and about breaking free from your past, time, history and reinvent yourself. Well… In some readings at least. Bloodsucking toxic people is another one. But there was always something that preceded it, something that inspired the Magnum Opus. And here are some examples.
Carmilla
For all the snobby lesbian goths out there, yes, you are right, Carmilla was way ahead of Dracula. And by way ahead I mean by 26 years. It turned the vampire tropes to stone, set the stage and even the cultural analysis of it, yes, Irish vs British problem, I think of you. And so did probably Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu, the author of the work, as they were both Irish in a time, the Irishmen really needed some literary boost.
Editions
If you want an edition to read that are more academic oriented, i recommend “Carmilla : A Critical Edition” that put weights on its Irish roots.
Because of its length, it is mostly published alone, but if you are interested in the whole short story edition it was originally a part of, In a Glass Darkley, there is also that possibility. But for the cover though, I feel disappointed. It is a bit… boring. The coolest I think, is this hardcover edition by Pushkin press.
Synopsis
But even this, even this wasn’t the so called O.G vampire. Carmilla in turn was most likely inspired by this unfinished poem called Christabel.
Carmilla is the story of a young girl, Laura meeting with the mysterious Carmilla. They live deep in the woods of Styria, in today’s Austria.
Apparently Stoker was working on a new story, set in Styria, Austria with a character called Count Wampyr. So at least he moved the story further east. There is this direct link, I feel, that can’t be ignored. And it isn’t mostly. But to those snobby lesbian goths out there: You go girls, spread the word.
Listen to it here (Both Rose Leslie (Ygritte in GOT) and David Tennant (ALL CAPS LEGEND) is narrating, check it out)
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The Vampyre
This is an interesting one. John William Polidori’s short story: The Vampyre has sadly been so left at the side. First, he didn’t get the credit he deserved, as it was published by mistake as Lord Byron’s work. Then he tragically ended his life too soon.
It is based on Lord Byron though. He wrote it on that infamous literary retreat with the Shelley’s, and among other works was the start of Frankenstein. Lord Byron also wrote a similar pice, called “A Fragment“. But even more of a fun fact. The whole idea, Polidori played with the idea that a scourned lover of Byron, Caroline, already had published. It is heavily influenced on her book Glenarvon, that is in essence a diss track of Byron. Damn, those friends!
Among gothic and horror fans alike, his work is well known and has its cannon in the genre, but it hasn’t quite reached the mainstream audience as Dracula and in some regards, Carmilla did.
This is one that I long avoided, because I thought it was a comedy, and my small gothic heart couldn’t take the irony, and I found the name Varney a bit comical. Now I BTW love the vampire comedy and What We Do In The Shadows are my life, all versions, thank you very much!
But in fact, it any just seem like a satire because it in fact, installed many of the campy tropes that comes with gothic fiction and vampire fiction. But at the time, it was a Victorian era serialized gothic horror story variously attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as “penny dreadful”, and we simply loves penny dreadful, so much so, that we included it in our merch, check it out here (shameless self promotion, but hey, goths need to eat too).
The author was paid by the typeset line so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages and 232 chapters. Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words, and for those of you that ever tried Nanowrimo, you know what I talk about, this is legit a lot.
Listen to this and some other not so well known vampire stories that should be heard, read and repeated to infinity here
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Thalaba the Destroyer
Where the main character Thalaba’s deceased beloved Oneiza turns into a vampire, although that occurrence is actually marginal to the story.
OK, but in all seriousness, I do read. Like, a lot. Might just seem like I just subscribe to a niche part of tumblr, but no, this is serious literature. Serious FORGOTTEN literature. Ah. I think I would have been more OK with it, if not the end product (read Dracula) didn’t become so influential and that they give whole subjects to at uni. Also, sorry for my informal tone in talking about these pieces of arts, as my academic is reserved for school and I love to shake that stiff old academic voice off. (my professor highly disapproves though = academic literate reject).
Thalaba the Destroyer is more of an epic-work as in ,literary epics, spanning over time, place, people. It was written by Robert Southey from the Romantic school, as in the literary Romantics. If he really was into romance, I have no way of telling. It is interesting because of the plot. The poem is a twelve-book work with irregular stanzas and lines that are not rhymed. The poem deals with Harun al-Rashid and a group of sorcerers at Domdaniel that live under the sea. It was foretold that Thalaba, a Muslim, would be God’s champion and conquer the sorcerers. Something a bit odd for a British christian guy in the early 1800s to write about, but nonetheless very interesting.
Why does it have to be British tough? It makes sense in the Victorian times, being so sexual represses, something we might read into modern day mormon vampire tales and deep south sexual repression?
But no, it doesn’t always have to be British. In fact, Eastern Europe is steep in vampire lore, literature and culture. Several of those books and the likes though is not translated. But they do exist. For example we have the Serbian story with the most famous Serbian vampire, Sava Savanović from a folklore-inspired novel Ninety Years Later, or as in this translation: After Ninety Years, by Milovan Glišić, first published in 1880.
There are also German, like our emo friend Goethe that wrote the poem The bridge of Corinth. There are a lot of them. What is your favorite forgotten vampire story?
Any of this seem interesting for you? How about getting into the listening train of audio books. Now, get 50% off for the next 3 months. I’ve checked and I am now firmly sure these are the one that can offer most horror titles of the audio book platforms.
The creepy stuff on TV is often visual or sound based. Jump scares and scary costumes. It makes me wonder how on earth one can sustain the same type of scare in a book. But then I pick up one of these and I remember. The internal images in my head is pretty messed up as well.
In that regard, let’s have a look at the books that inspired some pretty iconic movies. The links provided are from Audible, and are affiliated links. That means I make a commission from each of the purchases coming off the links. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s look at the books and movies.
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
The movie has now gone on to be this iconic horror movie credited to director Roman Polanski. But did you know that it was originally a book published in 67, only a year before the movie came out. The writer Ira Levin is sort of an iconic figure about writing about seemingly perfect societies. He also wrote the Stepford Wives.
Summary Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband, Guy, move into the Bramford, an old New York City apartment building with an ominous reputation and only elderly residents. Neighbours Roman and Minnie Castavet soon come nosing around to welcome them; despite Rosemary’s reservations about their eccentricity and the weird noises that she keeps hearing, her husband starts spending time with them. Shortly after Guy lands a plum Broadway role, Rosemary becomes pregnant, and the Castavets start taking a special interest in her welfare. As the sickened Rosemary becomes increasingly isolated, she begins to suspect that the Castavets’ circle is not what it seems.
Read it here (Intro by Chuck Palanhiuk, writer of Fight Club)
This was one of those movies that came out in 2007 that I never thought I would like, but then did, because… well, not sure, never mind that. But anyhow. Before it was a movie, it was a comic book published in 2002 by Steve Niles. Since then it has continued to live and grow. Now Audiable have this cool thing where they get a bunch of narrators together.
Summary The isolated town of Barrow, Alaska, is plunged into darkness for a month each year when the sun sinks below the horizon. As the last rays of light fade, the town is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires bent on an uninterrupted orgy of destruction. Only Barrow’s husband-and-wife sheriff team stand between the survivors and certain destruction. By the time the sun rises, will they pay the ultimate price – or worse?
For those who follows Moonmausoleum, knows our weak spot is the classic Gothic setting. The movies that have been made of this have been alright, as I am extremely biased and just love everything with that setting: a haunted house, stiff British people and scary kids in Victorian clothing. And this is what it promises, a classical ghost story. Susan Hill wrote the book back in 1983, but the story is set at the turn of the century.
Summary As is so often the case with truly well-constructed fiction, this story contains all the exquisitely crafted detail and richness that film adaptations can struggle to encompass. Only enhanced by Paul Ansell’s thoughtful narration, this is Susan Hill at her best. Eel Marsh house stands alone, surveying the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway. Once, Mrs Alice Drablow lived here as a recluse. Now, Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor with a London firm, is summoned to attend her funeral, unaware of the tragic and terrible secrets which lie behind the house’s shuttered windows. It is not until he glimpses a young woman with a wasted face, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a sense of profound unease begins to creep over him and take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk about the woman in black or what happens whenever she is seen.
Do you know when you read a lot, one tends to become somewhat of a snob. This is what happened to me and in my stupid belief I had read everything worth reading and would never find something new I liked. But then, this came out, and it tipped the vampire genre on its head. Even the most snobbish Scandinavian literary critics that hates anything supernatural loved it. And so must you! And if you rather want to watch the movie, choose the Swedish one, as that one actually is pretty good as well.
Summary Oskar and Eli. In very different ways, they were both victims. Which is why, against the odds, they became friends. And how they came to depend on one another, for life itself. Oskar is a 12-year-old boy living with his mother on a dreary housing estate at the city’s edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets bullied at school, and wets himself when he’s frightened. Eli is the young girl who moves in next door. She doesn’t go to school and never leaves the flat by day. She is a 200-year-old vampire, forever frozen in childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood.
Yes Netflix, we have a lot to thank you for, but the movie version of Bird Box is not one. It’s not as it is bad, it is just… meh. And perhaps because it came out just because A Quiet Place came out and they were sort of similar. And by that, I mean very similar. But the book! The book is beautiful!
Summary Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn’t look outside anymore. Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors. The house is quiet. The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows. They are out there. She might let them in. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall. Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them. Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything.
Any of this seem interesting for you? How about getting into the listening train of audio books. Now, get 50% off for the next 3 months. I’ve checked and I am now firmly sure these are the one that can offer most horror titles of the audio book platforms.
And before you ask – no, I don’t look at Stephen King as a classic. Not yet. What I am talking about are these major players that started it all before they even knew what they were doing. They are not only scary fiction, but an examination of the human darkness before it was OK to talk about it in the open. They are sort of at a junction between classical literature and folklore. They helped to build the bridges of the mythology from our cultures and to the modern horror and scares in daily life. I only wish they could have seen how it impacted the culture, even for those not loving the horror genre. So this a small deep dive into the classics and why they are important.
Disclaimer – Oh look, it’s the affiliate ghost at out side. Yes, these links will take you to the works I’ve written about. If one chooses to purchase anything through these links, we will earn a small commission from it. The opinions are as always, our own. No let’s go!
Let’s get the more obvious out of the picture first. But let me ask you; have you ever heard about Dracula? Do you know a lot about the work? But have you actually read it? Surprisingly many haven’t even if they have an extensive knowledge of the tale. That is how important Dracula has been for later literature and movies. And even, I would say, fashion, culture, language, and interest in the country of Romania. But all good, it is all good, we thank our Lord, Dracula for it. Although it wasn’t really the first modern vampire tale, not even the one that got the vampire genre popular, it was however the one that iconified it for future generation.
The importance of the Other – vampires are often depicted as foreigners, they are of a different race. Stoker himself was writing stuff about the invasion and threat to the British Empire. On a small funny not, he was Irish himself, as Sheridan LaFenu that wrote Carmilla. Was this perhaps something about not feeling as the rest, perhaps they themselves were feeling like an outsider? Surely we can see this is a thing that are still relevant, still as delicate and must sometimes be treated through these codes, the codes of vampires, and vampires as our self. We are them, they are us.
Stoker spent seven years researching European folklore and drew from this when he wrote. It was not an instant bestseller and has meant more to the modern reader than those of Victorian times. Something that is very evident our culture.
Richard Matheson gave us a continuation of vampires as dangerous and the reason why mankind falls
Ann Rice with her books gave the vampires a heart that are very in now. And every time we think the vampire genre is played out, it continues to reinvent itself (read Let the Right one in)
Even what we consider the most silly spins on the vampire tropes (read Twilight), we can sense the important of it when looking at it as a metaphore for teenage angst for their own sexual drives and desires they feel will consume them.
Preface
Dracula comprises journal entries, letters, and telegrams written by the main characters. It begins with Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, as he travels to Transylvania. Harker plans to meet with Count Dracula, a client of his firm, in order to finalize a property transaction. When he arrives in Transylvania, the locals react with terror after he discloses his destination: Castle Dracula. Though this unsettles him slightly, he continues onward. The ominous howling of wolves rings through the air as he arrives at the castle.
Where to find it
Books
Luckily, this classic has been in circulation since it came out (me thinks) and it is translated into so many languages, formats and the likes. It is really to pick and choose what you like best. So for this, I have looked at the two things that decides what to go for. Price and cover.
If you care for the cheaper option, go for the Wordsworth Classic. Don’t worry. If you don’t collect the Wordsworth ones, Collins Classics also have one pretty cheap.
If you are more of a collector you got to get to Barnes and Nobles Collectible Classics, Omnibus Edition. Its leather bound cover is just everyone’s dream for a grand library, filled with thick books that you just want to put on display. It also have a couple of other stories, including The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm. In also includes a dozen of Stoker’s short tales of the macabre, including “Dracula’s Guest,” a sidebar to his famous novel.
There are a lot of Dracula audio books to listen to, and I mean, a lot. First, start off with two things, do you want to hear the full version or the short one. Because the long one is long, but then again, in an abridged version you will miss out on some details.
For the full version, I recommend the version were Alan Cumming is one of the narrators of several (there are a lot of character so be warned).
The abridged version is a bit altered, a bit cut, but I think overall they managed to keep it in the same feeling. Also, bonus point, In the abridged version, Tom Hiddelston is on of the narrators.
Sort of like Dracula, this has spun its own franchise it has no control over and a people knows a lot about it without ever having read a page of it. At least they think they know the story. I don’t know at how many accounts I’ve corrected when they call the monster for Frankenstein. Yes, I know, I’m that person, and I regret having open my mouth every time, but alas, it has become a reflex – sorry in advance.
What is it about monsters? What made a 19 year old girl write something so profoundly harrowing and deep beyond her years? We love reading about the underdog, but the underdog in fiction we always need to see evolve as a hero and come out on top. This is the way, but not the horror way. This is the only genre that can deal with the failing monster that tries to come out as a hero, but will ever remain as the villain. It is deeply uncomfortable reading the same tales if the monsters, vampires and ghosts were actual living human beings, the stories wouldn’t work because that meant we have to acknowledge something about ourselves, not everyone comes out as the hero, not all underdogs will win. The only way we accept this in horror is that is a thinly veil between us and them that makes us able to leave the moral high ground and preconceived notions at the door.
The Modern Version
Frankenstein is like made for modern area. Every bit of human enhancement, every bit of artificial intelligence, everything that makes us question what is a human, and who has the right to live and in that, what does that entail. That is a pretty powerful question I personally only think will take Frankenstein with its creature on a long journey.
Preface
Frankenstein is written in the form of a frame story that starts with Captain Robert Walton writing letters to his sister. It takes place at an unspecified time in the 18th century, as the letters’ dates are given as “17—”. In the story following the letters by Walton, the readers find that Victor Frankenstein creates a monster that brings tragedy to his life.
Where to find it
Books
If you are looking for a cheap paperback, they got it all over. Collins, Penguin, everyone. I personally collect the Collins ones because I like the size of them. Choose your favorite. If you look for a paperback, but want a more exiting cover, Barnes and Nobles got you covered with their slick Flexibound Collection. Check them out!
If however, you are after a hardcover to look nice in your bookshelve, there are also a bunch of them. I personally like the one from Penguin Classic Hardcover Collection. If you are starting to collect minimalism hardcover books, this is the series you want. Look how cute and creepy it is!
My personal favorite it the edition narrated by Derek Jacobi. Just listen to the sample of the audio and you will see exactly what I mean.
The abridged version is also pretty cool. The director and star of the movie Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh is the one doing the narration, and knows the story in and out, and it shows, or hears… whatever. That guy must really like Frankenstein.
What happens when complex human beings have to hide their true selves, their other side so to speak, the one not necessarily fun one to bring to dinner parties. This is what Robert Louis Stevenson explored when he wrote the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or at least, that is what we were faced with when reading it.
The Modern Version
All psychological an character driven piece of fiction has certain elements to what makes a whole human, and how does it look if it’s split and let loose. What happens to a person too constrained, what happens to a person too careless.
Perhaps the on the nose and direct character from modern fiction must be the character of Hulk, constantly battling the darker side of himself, in a perhaps self inflicted happening because of his quest of perfection.
Preface
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde trample a young girl after accidentally bumping into her. Enfield forced Hyde to pay £100 to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought them to this door and provided a cheque signed by a reputable gentleman (later revealed to be Doctor Henry Jekyll, a friend and client of Utterson). Utterson is disturbed because Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. Utterson fears that Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll tells Utterson he can be rid of Hyde when he wants and for Utterson to drop the matter. And then the investigation starts.
Where to find it
Book
This is a pretty slim book, and easy to carry around. Me personally like when the classics use old photographs, even if it isn’t hundred percent accurate. Therefore I like this Penguin Classic paperback more than the others. It also includes some bonus stories like: The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson’s inventiveness within the Gothic tradition: ‘Olalla’, a tale of vampirism and tainted family blood, and ‘The Body Snatcher’, a gruesome fictionalisation of the exploits of the notorious Burke and Hare.
For the hardcover, I came upon this one right here. Have you ever seen something so beautiful! This edition only have like 100 copies, is cloth-bound book includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket, and is my librarian wet dream.
The novella is not so long that it needs it’s own abridged version. This one her is narrated by Martin Jarvis. He started out in a career in film and television, but I think he has become particularly noted for his voice acting for radio and audio books. Or perhaps I listen too much, either way:
The story is a masterpiece for those interested in the unreliable narrator. Or is she? I- I don’t really know, but i gets me guessing. What do we know, and what is made up in our minds. How long can we only rely on our own mind when other tell us we’re crazy. It is a question about who we can trust and how far we can go for a job. Jesus, the life of a governess was a tough one.
It is also something about the children. They are cute, innocent and one wants to look after them. But still. There is something there… an eeriness that doesn’t go away. We can’t trust them, and at times, those kids scare us profoundly.
The Modern Version
In the century following its publication, The Turn of the Screw became a cornerstone text of academics who subscribed to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, others have argued that the brilliance of the novella results from its ability to create an intimate sense of confusion and suspense within the reader.
No a days it lives on in the little details. The creepy children, the big house in the dark. Television embraced it for instance with shows like Dark Shadows, the second season of Haunting of Hill House and a constant source for BBC dramas. Keep them coming.
Preface
On Christmas Eve, an unnamed narrator, along with some other unnamed characters, listens to Douglas, a friend, read a manuscript written by a former governess whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London but also has a country house, Bly. He is uninterested in raising the children and she takes on the job. And creepiness ensues.
Where to find it
Book
So, one of the lesser known collection of classics are from Arcturus Publishing. Of some of the more gothic and horror genre classics, they have these cool graphic covers that i enjoy. Other titles they do are from Edgar Allan Poe, Lovefract, The Yellow Wallpaper and many others.
But the beauty of hardcover is back at it again. I mean, the color, the font, the cover and the idea of a limited edition is just the thing I wish dearly for in my heart. And you know it’s legit when the publisher calls themselves Royal Classics
I Personally like this performance with Emma Thomson and Richard Armitage in the introduction. Emma Thomson is such a well read in British literature and it really shows in her work that deals with the written word of a time long forgotten.
I brought this on the list here, because I know of several becoming aware of the concept of The King in Yellow through True Detective’s first season, and I just saw it. So many years behind, but in my defense, I thought is was just a boring cop-show. But then everyone was like: what the fuck is the King in Yellow? And why is so many talking about it?
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895. It contains several weird stories easily categorized as supernatural
This is sort of an elusive one, that many doesn’t take the reference to. It is reference by many authors in books, movies, tv-series, but it is never really explained were it is from. Stephen King used it in Thinner, Edgar Allan Poe referenced it in The Masque of the Red Death and Lovecraft referenced it so much it became a part of the Cthulhu mythos and people often mistake Lovecraft as the sole creator.
List of Stories
The stories in the book are:
“The Repairer of Reputations” – A weird story of egotism and paranoia which carries the imagery of the book’s title.
“The Mask” – A dream story of art, love, and uncanny science.
“In the Court of the Dragon” – A man is pursued by a sinister church organist who is after his soul.
“The Yellow Sign” – An artist is troubled by a sinister churchyard watchman who resembles a coffin worm.
“The Demoiselle d’Ys” – A ghost story
“The Prophets’ Paradise” – A sequence of eerie prose poems that develop the style and theme of a quote from the fictional play The King in Yellow which introduces “The Mask”.
“The Street of the Four Winds” – An atmospheric tale of an artist in Paris who is drawn to a neighbor’s room by a cat; the story ends with a macabre touch.
“The Street of the First Shell” – A war story set in the Paris Siege of 1870.
“The Street of Our Lady of the Fields” – Romantic American bohemians in Paris.
“Rue Barrée” – Romantic American bohemians in Paris, with a discordant ending that playfully reflects some of the tone of the first story.
Where to find it
Book
There are many to choose from. For the paperback, Wordsworth Classics have one that is cheap, yellow and totally adequate. But my personal favorite is the graphic novel adaption, with really cool illustration by I. N. J. Culbard it really brings new life into the old story.
For the Hardcover you also must chose between some cool content or a cool cover. For the best cover I think the edition from The Pushkin Press have a nice cover on it. Contains: ‘The Repairer of Reputations’, ‘The Mask’, ‘In the Court of the Dragon’, ‘The Yellow Sign’
Horrorbabble have this great thing were they narrate lesser known horror stories. It is not often a thing that is prioritized so that little fact makes me happy. This is only one of the stories they have at audible, they have a bunch, check them out!
Any of this seem interesting for you? How about getting into the listening train of audio books. Now, get 50% off for the next 3 months. I’ve checked and I am now firmly sure these are the one that can offer most horror titles of the audio book platforms.
There are countless, countless, COUNTLESS ballads, songs, poems and plays about ghosts and hauntings throughout history. Here are a collection of some songs about ghosts that have a connection or is about an actual ghost legend or a haunting.
Murder of Maria Marten (1971) by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band
This modern folk ballad is actually inspired by the real Red Barn Murder. Maria Marten supposed eloped with her lover, William Corder in 1827, in Polstead, county Suffolk, England. He wrote back to her family, claiming they were fine. But then, Maria started appearing to her stepmother in her dreams. The ghost of Maria told she was dead and were they would find her.
They found her body in the barn and Corder was found and executed. Corder’s skeleton was reassembled, exhibited, and used as a teaching aid in the West Suffolk Hospital. The skeleton was put on display in the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons of England, where it hung beside that of Jonathan Wild until 2004. The murder inspired plays, songs and movies, one of them sung by Shirley Collins, with her voice echoing the ye’ old England ballads.
Read more about Maria Marten and The Red Barn Murder:
The murder of Maria Marten, a case called The Red Barn Murder got a lot of media coverage in England because of the strange circumstances. The murder was allegedly solved by the appearance of the ghost of the victim, haunting people’s dreams.
Few voices are as haunting than Alison Krauss. And the song, Jacob’s dream, even more so because of its backstory of The Lost Children of the Alleghenies. It’s a well known folk story from the Appalachia region of the United States. George and Joseph Cox, then aged seven and five , disappeared from their home in Pavia on April 24, 1856.
The legend tells that the night after the disappearance a local farmer, Jacob Dibert dreamt he walked a path through the woods past a dead deer, a child’s shoe and a fallen birch tree and eventually to a copse of birch trees in a small ravine. Here he found the bodies of the Cox boys. The dream recurred on the two following nights. He and his brother in law decided to make a search, culminating in the discovery of the bodies just as the dream had described – under birch trees in a small ravine reached along a track with a dead deer, a child’s shoe and a fallen birch.
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The Ride (1983) by David Allan Coe
The writer, Gary Gentry swears the ghost of Hank Williams appeared to him in his darkened house one night. Gentry says he tried to summon Williams for a little inspiration. And he supposedly came. The ballad tells the story of a hitchhiker’s meeting with the ghost of Hank Williams, Sr. in a ride from to Nashville, Tennessee. The mysterious driver, “dressed like 1950, half drunk and hollow-eyed” and driving an “antique Cadillac” (referring to the baby blue 1952 Cadillac convertible that Williams died in), questions the narrator whether he has the musical talent and dedication to become a star in the country music industry.
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Elizabeth (2010) by Ghost
The Swedish occult rock band could have had many listings on this particular list of songs about ghosts. Especially since they have dedicated their carrier to warn about the coming of the devil and other satanical topics. The song “Elizabeth” is about Elizabeth Báthory, not exactly a ghost, but who is remembered as one of the deadliest women and well… a vampire. In 2010, the band produced a three-track demo and the vinyl-only single “Elizabeth”, before releasing their first studio album, Opus Eponymous, on October 18, 2010.
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Angels (1997) by Robbie Williams
Yes, that is correct, a songs about ghosts. The romantic breakout hit of former Take That singer and solo singer, Angels, was actually inspired by paranormal occurrences that Robbie Williams experienced himself as young. “There hasn’t been a moment of my life when I haven’t been aware of the presence of something unseen,” he said. “The very first song I wrote was Angels and it’s about actual angels.”
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Here is our list of songs about ghosts and hauntings. Do you know of anyone else? Feel free to notify us about it.
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.
![Dracula [Audible Edition] cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ef+s6y42L._SL500_.jpg)
