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The Misadventures of Stingy Jack: The Origins of Halloween

30 Oct

If you’ve ever carved a pumpkin, dressed up in costume, or gone trick-or-treating, then you owe a debt of gratitude to a certain Irishman named Stingy Jack. That’s right, the origins of Halloween can be traced back to an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. And according to legend, Stingy Jack played a key role in the creation of this spooky holiday.

So who was Stingy Jack, you ask? Well, he was a clever but miserly fellow who loved nothing more than hoarding his wealth and playing tricks on others. One day, he met the devil himself in a pub and managed to trick him into paying for his drinks by turning himself into a coin. But Jack wasn’t satisfied with just a free night of drinking – he also wanted to cheat the devil out of his soul.

So Jack made a deal with the devil – he would let the devil have his soul, but only if the devil agreed to never take Jack to hell. The devil, eager to get his hands on Jack’s soul, agreed to the deal. But when Jack eventually died, he found that heaven didn’t want him either because of his deceitful ways.

So Jack was forced to wander the earth as a ghost, with only a carved-out turnip to light his way. And on the night of Samhain, when the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest, he would roam the countryside, playing tricks on people and scaring them with his eerie glow.

When the Irish immigrants brought their traditions to America, they discovered that pumpkins were a more plentiful and easier-to-carve alternative to turnips, and the Jack-o’-Lantern was born. And thus, the legend of Stingy Jack lives on to this day, inspiring generations of Halloween revelers to dress up in spooky costumes, eat too much candy, and scare the pants off each other with ghost stories and unexplained mysteries.

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The Cannibal Clan: Sawney Bean and other Scottish Delicacies

10 Sep

Gather around the fire, lads and lasses, and let me tell ye a tale of the darkest depths of Scottish legend – the story of Sawney Bean. Sawney Bean was a notorious cannibal who roamed the Scottish countryside in the 16th century, feasting on unsuspecting travelers who happened upon his lair. He was said to be the leader of a clan of inbred cannibals, with a wife who was also his sister (eww). Legend has it that Sawney and his clan would ambush travelers on the road, drag them back to their cave, and then feast on their flesh. They were so skilled at this gruesome practice that they managed to evade the authorities for over 25 years. But eventually, the king of Scotland caught wind of their heinous deeds and set out with a group of soldiers to capture them. They searched high and low, but Sawney and his clan had hidden themselves deep within their cave. However, the king was determined to find them, and he ordered his men to search every inch of the cave. What they found inside was nothing short of a horror show. The cave was filled with the remains of their victims, with body parts strewn about like macabre decorations. Sawney and his clan were arrested and brought to Edinburgh for trial, where they were found guilty and executed. To this day, the legend of Sawney Bean lives on, a warning of the darkness that can lurk within the human soul. So if you’re ever travelling through the Scottish countryside and happen upon a cave, be sure to watch your step – you never know what might be lurking inside.

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The Hairy, Scary, and Hilarious Tales of Black Shuck and Other Devilish Dogs

9 Jul

Ah, the Black Dog, or as he’s known in some parts of the British Isles, Black Shuck. This legendary creature has been the subject of countless tales and spooky stories over the centuries. But where did this mysterious beast come from, and why does he continue to haunt our imaginations?

Well, the origins of Black Shuck are shrouded in mystery, as you might expect. Some say that he’s a remnant of ancient Celtic mythology, a supernatural hound that guarded the gates of the underworld. Others believe that he’s a creature from Norse mythology, brought over by the Vikings during their invasions of Britain.

Whatever his origins, there’s no denying that Black Shuck has become a fixture in British folklore. He’s often depicted as a massive black dog, with fiery eyes and shaggy fur. Some tales describe him as having multiple heads, or even being able to talk.

One of the most famous stories about Black Shuck comes from the town of Bungay in Suffolk. According to legend, in 1577, the beast burst into the local church during a thunderstorm, killing a man and a boy before disappearing in a flash of lightning. The claw marks from his paws were said to be visible on the church door for centuries afterwards.

So why does Black Shuck continue to capture our imaginations? Perhaps it’s because he represents something primal and ancient, a reminder of the wild and untamed nature of the world around us. Or maybe it’s just because he’s a really spooky dog.

Whatever the reason, Black Shuck remains a beloved and feared figure in British folklore, inspiring countless tales of terror and wonder. So the next time you’re out for a walk on a misty moor or a dark forest path, keep your eyes peeled for the glowing eyes and shaggy form of the Black Dog. And if you see him, be sure to give him a good scratch behind the ears – after all, even supernatural hounds need a little love sometimes.

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Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected

17 Oct

Nowadays everybody knows who Roald Dahl is – one of the most popular children’s writers the world has ever known – but there is also a generation who first became aware of him sitting in his cardigan introducing the TV series Tales of the Unexpected. For a while there were two Roald Dahls in people’s consciousness. One – the Tales of the Unexpected Dahl – who wrote slightly sinister, blackly humorous adult stories with a sting in the tail. The other – the Willy Wonka Dahl – who wrote slightly sinister, blackly humorous children’s stories illustrated by Quentin Blake. And back in 1979 the TV Dahl, the Tales of the Unexpected Dahl, took over for a while. After all, he had yet to write many of his most popular kids’ books, like The Twits, The BFG, Matilda and The Witches. But there is a third Roald Dahl, and that is the one to be found in the pages of his short stories – quite simply the master of the short-story form – because there is so much more to his tales than ‘the unexpected’, a label that has perhaps been too often applied to his adult work and which gives too narrow a view of its appeal. If every story consisted of nothing more than a twist we would read them once, perhaps skipping through to the big reveal, and then forget all about them. But you never forget a Dahl short story. He starts with ones based on his experiences as a fighter pilot in the Second World War and ends with ones of country life. In between there is horror, comedy, science fiction, satire and sex. Yes, many of them do end with a final drop of acid, but the pleasure goes far beyond the punchline.

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The Highgate Vampire

18 Jul

For years, North London had been plagued with a series of apparently inexplicable events and sightings, in and around the confines of Highgate Cemetery, culminating one Friday morning in February of 1970, when the Hampstead and Highgate Express ran a headline calibrated to chill the blood of residents across suburban north London: “Does a Vampyre Walk in Highgate?”. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a series of bizarre events occurred in and around Highgate. In 1967, two adolescent girls walking home along nearby Swain’s Lane claimed to have witnessed the dead rising from their graves by the cemetery’s north gate. Another teenager had been awoken one night with “something cold and clinging” on her hand, which left prominent marks the next morning, while reports circulated of a “tall man in a hat” walking in the area, before melting through the cemetery’s walls. Then, more chillingly, in the 1970s, several animals were found dead and drained of blood near Highgate Cemetery. A number of ‘sightings’ of phantoms and spectres – particularly of a tall, dark-cloaked entity with burning eyes – led to speculation the capital had acquired its very own vampire. Reports soon came from Highgate of tombs being broken into. Graves and bodies were desecrated and black magic rituals allegedly performed. Vampire hunters claimed to have broken open coffins, and plunged stakes into – and even burnt – the corpses of the ‘undead’. Newspapers obsessed over these strange occurrences. TV programmes were made about a supposed nest of vampires in Highgate Cemetery and those promising to root out this ancient evil were interviewed. In the years that followed, two men went to war over the narrative.

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The Black Reaper

14 Mar

Literary fame seems almost like a lottery; ghost story writers in particular seem to pick losing tickets more than any other kind of author. It is an interesting exercise to ponder why certain authors and their works in this vein, just as well equipped to stand the test of time as their contemporaries, fall into speedy obscurity, while others stay in the public eye. The Victorian era is a fine example of this – for every tale of terror that has survived in print today, there are a hundred languishing in undeserved obscurity. Bernard Capes is a case in point. During his writing career, he published forty-one books, contributed to all the leading Victorian magazines, and left behind some of the most imaginative tales of terror of his era – yet within ten years of his death, he had slipped down the familiar slope into total neglect. Until the early 1980s, Capes seldom appeared in reference works in this (or any other) field of literature, and even histories of Victorian writers published in his lifetime give him scant mention. He was overlooked by every anthologist in this genre from his death in 1918 right up until 1978: sixty years of lingering in the dark while many of his contemporaries were brought back to light. I would place Capes among the most imaginative writers of his day. He turned out plot after plot worthy of the recognition accorded to such contemporaries as Stevenson, Haggard, and Conan Doyle, all of whom are still in print today. This selection of his stories help put Capes in his deserved position with the leading talents of Victorian fantasy.

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In Ghostly Company

17 Jan

The writing of ghost stories has attracted more talented amateurs than any other form of literature. By the term ‘amateur’, I mean those individuals whose main occupation in life is not writing, but those who take up their pen or sit at their typewriters in their idle hours between the demands of their normal profession. The list of candidates in the ghost story genre includes M. R. James, Sir Andrew Caldecott and A. C. and R. H. Benson. Another name to add to the list, one which is forgotten today by all but the most knowledgeable aficionado of supernatural fiction, is Amyas Northcote. Northcote remains a shadowy figure, and not a great deal is known about him or what prompted him to create this delicious collection of ghost stories. He was born on 25 October 1864 into a privileged background. He was the seventh child of a successful politician, Sir Stafford Northcote who was lord of the manor at Pynes, situated a few miles from Exeter. During his childhood years, all the great Tory politicians, including Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Randolph Churchill, were guests at the house. Sir Stafford was a great devotee of the theatre and literature. He had an especial fascination for ghost stories and the tales of the Arabian Nights and needed little encouragement to spin yarns of magic, wizardry and the fantastic to his children. No doubt this influenced the young Amyas Northcote in his reading tastes and sowed seeds of inspiration which were not to flower until many years later. Amyas attended Eton and was there at the same time as that doyen of ghost story writers M. R. James. It is not known if the two young men knew each other at this time, but the ancient and academic atmosphere that they breathed in together finds its way into both of their writings when, it would seem, out of the blue he brought out a collection of ghost stories in 1921.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past

20 Dec

‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, as well as anyone who grew up in the 1970s and was scarred for life by the BBC’s annual Ghost Story for Christmas. It is often assumed that this is a tradition inaugurated by the publication of A Christmas Carol on December 19, 1843. But Dickens had been channelling something much more ancient, something, in fact, much older than Christmas itself. These are the fireside tales of the Winter Solstice, when our Neolithic ancestors worshipped their death and resurrection gods and the Germanic tribes celebrated Yule, when the wild hunt rose and the Draugr – the ‘again walkers’ – gave up their graves on the darkest day of the year. People have always got together at this time of the year. And as these pagan echoes blend with quasi-Victorian religiosity, like rum and ginger in a winter punch, folk are bound to tell some pretty strange stories. When the unnamed framing narrator of Henry James’ seminal ghost story The Turn of the Screw listens to a friend reading the eerie manuscript, for example, it is on Christmas Eve. This was doubly so before radio and then television took over, and friends and families still had to entertain themselves. And why stand starchily around an upright piano singing carols when you can scare each other witless? This was the point of Jerome’s book, which both satirised and affirmed the genre of the late-Victorian ghost story, a particular type of English gothic that had become clichéd and ripe for parody by the end of the century. The form was, however, about to be accidently revitalised by M R James, a prestigious academic who took a ghoulish delight in frightening the life out of friends, colleagues and students by writing a single ghost story every year and reading it aloud to them in his rooms at King’s on Christmas Eve, extinguishing every candle but one. As he later explained, ‘If any of them succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.’

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The Legend of Stingy Jack

18 Oct

People have been making jack-o’-lanterns – pumpkins with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles, which are a sure sign of the Halloween season – for centuries. The practice of decorating jack-o’-lanterns originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as early canvasses. In fact, the name, jack-o’-lantern, comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”

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The Mozart of the English Ghost Story

12 Jul

How does William Wymark Jacobs earn the title “The Mozart of the English Short Story”? Because his prose is exquisite and translucent, and his plots – like Mozart/Da Ponte operas – are full of fun and mischief, as anti-romantic as they are romantic. Just as in the last act of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, if you blink you risk missing a sublime, or a sublimely comic moment, if your attention lapses when reading a Jacobs story, you risk missing sly irony, wry innuendo or a mordant remark – more often than not about marriage! In fact, the simple pleasure of reading Jacobs’s perfectly paced prose – in Evelyn Waugh’s words, his “exquisite precision of narrative” – is often more enjoyable than following the actual plots of his stories, which are often intricate and sometimes seem only to hang by a thread, which require the reader’s alertness, if not participation, and which are often not resolved until the very last word, sometimes leaving the reader vexed, or even disappointed, however charmed by the telling of the story itself. An example of this is the delectable The Bequest, from Ship’s Company, about late-middle-age second marriage and – inevitably with Jacobs – money. Even the end of The Monkey’s Paw requires some reader participation. The fact is that Jacobs’s invisible craft of narration often cannot be matched even by the ingenuity of his plots. That the lasting satisfaction of a Jacobs story lies less in its plot than its telling means that, like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Jacobs is infinitely re-readable. His sentences always have buoyancy and air. Knowing the plot of a Jacobs story – but not perhaps fully understanding its denouement – does not spoil the pleasure of reading and re-reading him. Open any Jacobs story and you will receive a lesson in how to write English prose and dialogue. Jacobs sustained this prose style, seemingly entirely natural to him – but he always worked hard and slowly – over some 150 stories and six novels. This means that making a selection from his stories is extremely difficult, because they almost all offer the same degree of pleasure.

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