All Haunting Impressions Blogs

For 3 (or more) alternate days in May (9th, 11th and 13th) the Ancient Romans practised ceremonies to drive away malevolent spirits the Larvae and Lemures. These were hungry ghosts who returned to torment the living, either because they were wicked people in life or because they had not been afforded a proper burial or funeral rites. The Manes is another name for spirits but these were normally ‘good’, as long as the rites were observed.

Barefooted and at night, the head of the household would snap his fingers and wash his hands 3 times to purify himself. Filling his mouth with black beans which he thre behind himself saying: “I throw away these beans and with them I redeem myself and mine.” The formula was repeated nine times. Having completed the offering, the patriarch again purified his hands. He then struck a brazen instrument. He repeated a ritual phrase nine times: “Paternal manes, go.” As the ritual was now finished, he could safely look behind himself.
By taking food out of his own mouth and then offering this food directly to the Lemures, the Lemures would feel they had received their just due and leave the family in peace for another year. The month of May was seen as unlucky and marriages were forbidden or discouraged.

On the 13th May 609, Pope Boniface IV consectrated the Pantheon in Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs. The 13th May later became All Saints Day, probably to Christianize the Lemuria festival. However, in 741 All Saints moved to November 1st (by Pope Gregory III) but the assoiciation of the festival with ghosts remained in the eve of the hallowed day being rife with spirits (31st October).

Some believe that the fixing of the anniversary to the 1st November relates to Christianisation of the Irish autumn feast of ‘Samhain’ or Samonios as it would have been known (http://digitalmedievalist.com/faqs/samain.html). But the Christian church in Ireland was the Celtic Church, with its own distinctive traditions which was not under the direct power of the Roman Church. Also it was likely first observed on November 1st in Germany which makes the Irish connection even less likely. (http://www.churchyear.net/allsaints.html)

In Ireland the 1st November is associated with the harvest and the paying of taxes (in food) to the King. According to Stephen Roud there is a tradition of the boundaries between worlds being broken down at this time - but in the Celtic world this is more likely to refer to fairy folk than to the dead. This is all makes for the origins of Hallowe’en to be very confused but I would like to put forward the idea that it comes from the Lemuria festival, a time when ghosts went abroad and had to be appeased does sound rather like the Hallowe’en tradition. Especially when you consider that beans are still sacred to the dead in Italy, and on November 2nd, All Souls Day, Festa dei Morti, they play an important part in the feast. (At the ancient Greek Necromanteon, Oracle of the Dead, beans were given to the supplicants before they were allowed an audience with the Oracle.)

Some of the beliefs about ghosts in classical times are still with us. The idea that ghosts that haunt are the unhappy dead, because they have not received a decent burial is one that survives to this day. The ghost story told by Pliny the Younger is not so different from stories we are all familiar with today. This translation is from Latin teacher Rose Williams (http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa092998b.htm).

“There was a big house in Athens, with an unsavory and unhealthy reputation. The silence of the night was interrupted by the sound of weapons and chains. First they came from afar, but then they were heard nearby. Soon there appeared a filthy, emaciated old man with scraggly hair and beard. He had chains on his hands and feet.

The residents didn’t sleep very well. Some even died from fear. Eventually the house was empty.

Finally, deserted, it remained quiet. When it was put up for sale no one was interested.

Then one day Athenodorus, the philosopher, came to town. He saw the FOR SALE sign on the house, learned the asking price, and asked a great many other questions.

No one held back on the horrific details, but still the philosopher decided to go ahead and buy the place.

That very evening, his first in the house, Athenodorus took a torch, stylus, and writing tablet to the front of his house. He let the slaves off for the night. Then he determined to keep himself busy writing because, he thought, an idle mind is the devil’s playground.

At first, all was still. Then from afar came the rattling of chains. Stoically, Athenodorus didn’t even bat an eye, but kept on writing. The sounds grew closer and closer.

Soon they were in the cottage….

Then they were in his very room….

At this Athenodorus laid down his stylus and looked up. There was the ghost. It beckoned him with a finger, but Athenodorus just took up his stylus again. When the philosopher heard the chains rattling above his head, he picked up his torch.

Slowly the ghost ambled to the door with Athenodorus close behind. As it reached an open area in the house, the ghost disappeared. Athenodorus grabbed a handy nearby clump of grass and placed it on the spot where the ghost had vanished.

The next day, Athenodorus called the magistrate. In his official capacity, he dug up the spot that had been marked. There they found chains and inside the chains, the bones of a man.

The magistrate gathered the bones for a proper burial. Never was the ghost heard from again.”

I wanted to post a ghost story for the holidays and I was recently reminded of a real haunting that I heard about when young. Back in the 1970’s my mother took a cleaning job in the offices of a local firm on the Queen’s road, Peckham in London. It was a large old house (probably Edwardian or Victorian) of four storeys. My mother frequently took one of my siblings with her as a helper and for companionship as she normally worked late in the evening or early mornings when the offices were unoccupied. It had its creepy corners and a bit of an atmosphere but you could have put that down to it being empty and dark except for a few occurrences which suggest otherwise.

One of my sisters recalled: ‘Ohhhh I didn’t like that [place] especially in the evening…There was a distinctive feeling in that building. It made you frightened. It wasn’t just spooky… There were certain rooms that once finished you wanted to leave them very quickly.’ My brother agreed ‘Once we’d finished a room I never liked going back in it.’ Personally, it felt like you couldn’t be sure a room was empty until the door was opened wide. Sometimes I thought I could see shadows moving from under the door, and wondered if someone was working late but when we went in there was no one. One time someone appeared to move across the floor - but I had only just shut the door after leaving the room.

My sister said: ‘It wasn’t nice in the evening but some occurances were in the early morning too. The room at the top and middle landing being particularly horrible. The feeling in the building made you want to leave; like something didn’t want you in there.’

One evening my sister was coming up the stairs towards my mother, ‘I was on the middle landing and I moved towards her … Suddenly her legs gave way and I said ‘What’s wrong’ she said ‘Oh, its just my legs’ and she didn’t feel well. I was worried because she was acting strange although we carried on cleaning, she seemed a bit distracted. She never said anything until weeks later. She said on the stairs behind me there was a man coming down the stairs and she was so shocked when she realised what it was that her legs just gave way. I think he was wearing period clothes, Victorian or Edwardian.’

On another occasion a man dressed in a top hat and cloak was spotted hanging around the top most landing which let to a single room in the garret.

Early one morning, around 6 o’clock, both my brother and mother had just arrived and as they entered the lobby and removed their coats a hoarse voice called out from above, ‘Who is that? Who is there?’ They were both surprised to hear some ones voice when they expected no one to be there but also a voice they did not recognise, a croaky voice like an old mans. They looked at each other worriedly and searched the building but there was not any one around except for them.

Today the offices have closed and they have been converted into accomodation, I wonder if the current residents have experienced anything ghostly there. My brother commented ‘I never saw any ghosts in B********y …having done countless shifts there,’ then he added nonchalantly ‘…but did hear a few moans and groans!’

For more information on ghosts in this part of London please visit http://dulwichonview.org.uk/2009/10/30/scary-monsters-and-super-creepy-stories/

I have been trying to discover more about the association of ghost stories with Christmas (particularly Christmas eve) in Britain. I have read more than once that Charles Dickens was responsible for this but I am not convinced; I think there is enough evidence to suggest that other things have helped to add a ghostly element.

It was Pope Julius 1 in the 4th century who set the 25th of December as marking the birth of Christ. Why it was chosen has been argued back and forth by many scholars, but it is accepted that the festivals of other religions and cultures (Jewish and Pagan) which were also celebrated around this date influenced the choice and the traditions. It was because of these non Christian connections that the Puritans tried to suppress Christmas in the mid-17th century(as well as being kill-joys, of course).

So where do the ghosts come in? At first I thought I was looking at a simple tradition of ghost story telling: between Hallowe’en and Christmas are dark days; the natural world hibernates and the weather is inclement [for something sensible on Samhain see http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/faqs/samain.html]. What would be more natural than to huddle around a fire and tell stories for entertainment – including ghost stories? The ghost story at Christmas is an oral tradition which Dickens drew upon when he published his stories (people were not shocked by their arrival and he writes himself: ‘I like to come home at Christmas…for we are telling Winter Stories – Ghost Stories,…around the Christmas fire’). M. R. James read his stories aloud to friends on Christmas Eve and the BBC continues to entertain us with ghostly stories on radio and television.

However, there may be something more here which links the dark days at the end of the farming calendar to the other world. Christmas itself is a borrowed feast in many ways, it is no accident that it falls on the date of what was in the Julian calendar the winter solstice. In Imperial Rome this date was a celebration of Sol Invictus - ‘the unconquered sun’. It is the ‘rebirth’ of the sun after reaching its furthest distance away it begins the long journey north again. Christmas and the other festivals in one form or another mark the winter solstice, for people living in the northern hemisphere this is a time of minimal daylight with considerable physical and psychological effect; for pre modern man it was a difficult and harsh time of the year.

In the mid winter celebrations of other cultures, some at least of which have contributed to our Christmas traditions, there are many references to the dead or to ghosts. (For a very long list of winter solstice feasts see Wikipedia.)

From the 17th to the 24th December the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the feast of the god Saturn and essentially a harvest festival, but it has influenced our Christmas celebrations. It was a time when the normal social rules were turned upside down (the master served his slaves during the feast – also found later in medieval Christmasses) and people took on fancy or opposite dress, there was gift giving and feasting and a lot of merry making (people calling ‘Io Saturnlia!’ to each other), and mischief making. Two days of the latter part of the festival celebrated the Laeres. These were part of the canon of household gods in traditional Roman religion, they were spirits of the ancestors of the household. Good spirits, but very definitely they were the spirits of the dead.

The Greek equivalent was called the Kronia (Kronos and Saturn were identified with each other). In folklore malevolent goblins called Kallikantzaroi appeared from below ground from the 25th December to 6th January. It was believed that children born during the festival were in danger of turning into Kallikantzaroi. Interestingly, in Greek mythology the Gods gathered on Mount Olympus at the winter solstice and were joined by Hades, from the underworld of the dead.

In Germany and Scandinavia, there was the Yule festival that was marked by bonfires, story telling and feasting. This was an amalgamation of a number of other mid winter festivals including one called the Feast of the Dead.

Most strikingly there was a Slavic mid winter festival called Karachun, Korochun or Kračún and Khorovod in Russia and the Ukraine. It was celebrated on the longest night of the year when something called the Black God and other evil spirits were most potent. Hors (symbolising the dying sun) is defeated by the dark and evil powers of the Black God on that day. Hors is then resurrected on December 23rd and becomes the new sun. On this day, they burned fires at cemeteries to warm the spirits of the departed, invited the dead to the dinner feast and lit wooden logs at local crossroads. The household gods could join with the family in the festivities at the hearth. (The name of this festival looks like it might be related to the ancient Greek ‘Kronia’; the name of the god Hor looks like it might be borrowed from the Egyptian god ‘Horos’ who, by classical times was a sun god and the reference to household gods sounds Roman.)

The winter festival on December 21st in ancient Latvia was called Ziemassvētki, and was preceded two weeks before by ‘Veļu laiks’, the ‘Season of Ghosts’. During the Ziemassvētki feast, a space at the table was reserved for Ghosts, who would arrive on a sleigh (Ho Ho Ho!).

Archaeological monuments particularly in northern Europe have demonstrated that the mid winter solstice was significant far back in antiquity for which there are no written records. There are many examples, including tombs that are aligned with the solstice. Stonehenge has a solsticial alignment (both mid winter and mid summer) but it is likely the more significant of these was the mid winter. Newgrange is a large passage tomb in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. Built around 3300 BC it has a very special alignment with the mid winter sun. Above the entrance in the north east is a ‘roof box’ (window) in which the sun appears after it rises on the winter solstice, its rays reach right to the back of the chamber where the dead would have been.

Dowth, another chambered tomb in the same group, is aligned with the setting sun. The entrance of Maes Howe in Orkney is also aligned with the mid winter sunset. Do these ancient monuments point to a belief where there is a link between the dead and the solstice? Did the sun wake them or set them in their tombs? We will never really know what they believed. Although it is a tomb, that may not have been its only purpose, for us the monument itself is the attractor and back in time the symbolism of the building may have been just as important or more so, it could have been seen as the entrance to another world. Michael O’Kelly the archaeologist that excavated Newgrange and who discovered the phenomena is reported as saying ‘I expected to hear a voice, or perhaps feel a cold hand resting on my shoulder, but there was silence. And then, after a few minutes, the shaft of light narrowed as the sun appeared to pass westward across the slit, and total darkness came once more.’ (See http://www.knowth.com/new_grange.htm) Today people gather inside Newgrange on the morning of the solstice to watch the spectacle of the sun reaching down to the chamber. In prehistory, the entrance to the tomb was sealed and the only witnesses to the solstice would have been the dead. The position of the sun at the solstice remains about the same for around a fortnight of the actual longest day so the special alignment can be seen at Stonehenge and other monuments on more than one night - at Newgrange a quartz stone shutter had been used in antiquity on the ‘roof box’ to control the penetration of the suns rays into the tomb.

The mid winter then seems to be full of ghosts, the ancestors and less savoury figures. Is it really surprising at the darkest time of the year that this should be on peoples minds? The ghosts of our Christmas Eve are a reflection or a memory of old fears, remembrance of the departed and very old traditions.

Ghosts, the dead, darkness are but one side of the equation. Light and life are the other: bonfires and the yule log were burned in northern Europe and evergreen plants symbolised life. It was a fitting choice for the Christian celebration. The winter solstice is often a major festival – marking the change in day length and the hope of spring. The dying of the sun and its revival, the winter and darkness become symbols of life and death. Many mid winter festivals also mark this time as the new year – as we do.

I hope this rambling will enrich your celebrations, whether Christmas or otherwise. When you unravel your Christmas tree lights and reach for the collection of M. R. James stories, you can wonder at the strange and very long history of the mid winter feast. I hope you will lucky enough to hear a ghost story this year!

I am pleased to add four new designs to the Christmas cards for 2009. These are based on the ghost stories written by Charles Dickens.

Although I had read A Christmas Carol many years ago and had watched The Signalman on the BBC at Christmas I didn’t really know much about the other ghost stories of Charles Dickens other than he published several at Christmas in his own literary magazines - these were always most popular when they included a ghost story.

Apparently he loved a ghost story and owed this fascination for the supernatural to his nurse Mary Weller who terrified him with many tales. I was struck when reading a collection of his supernatural stories how many were in fact concerned with premonition and portent (To Be Read at Dusk, The Signalman), sometimes including ‘crisis ghosts’ - the appearance of those recently or about to die (Christmas Ghosts). The ghosts were sometimes concerned with vengence or seeing that justice is done (The Trial for Murder).

His work included a range of styles, some reminded me of traditional folk ghost tales with elements of melodrama (Captain Murder and the Devil’s Bargain), gruesome.

Dickens was one of a number of indiviuals who we have to thank for giving us the sort of traditions we now always associate with Christmas. Apparently in industrial Britain Christmas was under threat and many traditions such as carol singing were dying out. A number of Victorians made efforts to revive and promote Christmas as a holiday. Dickens is also credited with giving us the idea that Christmas should include snow - it is normally rare but he grew up during a minor climatic event that gave regular snowy Decembers. (Mind you, I have also heard this put down to the old Julian calendar slipping so that Christmas was actually ‘in January’ by the mid 17th Century.) He is also credited with inventing the Christmas Ghost Story - but I’m not convinced that he created it, rather he revived an older tradition.

Producing the designs was not always that easy, A Christmas Carol has been illustrated several times and created on screen in film and television and was familiar enough, but Dickens doesn’t often describe his spectres in any great detail or the scene at the moment of terror, as M.R. James. When we do get a real ghost, it is quite a traditional figure often comfortable to chat with the main character. Although Dickens does draw the occasional spine tingling moment, more often the real terror is with the stories relating to portent.

I produced 2 images from A Christmas Carol - of some of the more frightening scenes. The very first ghostly occurence is when Scrooge arrives home and his door knocker … well, it is a creepy moment. The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come is the most sinister figure in his Reaper type appearance - which is justified when he reveals the inevitable future to Scrooge in the grave yard. The other image is taken from The Signalman which is one of the best ghost stories. I collected a few of the apparitions together with the author - including the ghost from the ‘Queer Chair’ for the last picture.

I have wanted to bring new drawings into the range for some time but other commitments have delayed that happening. Now I am pleased to say I am working on a number of new images which I hope you will like and they wont just be new Christmas designs either.

I am very fond of the skeleton character in the ‘Bones of Nunhead’, skeletons seem rather different figures from spectres. They seem to have an ambivalence about them, not normally malevolent but rather mischevious and uncaring. I’ve had a couple of ideas I wanted to try for some time and it looks likely there will be two skeleton designs.

I hope there will also be a couple of ghosts too, one peering round doors and catching you unawares. Another could show a ghostly figure creeping up the stairs - the inspiration for this, I am afraid to say was a nightmare I once had: a figure with a coat over it’s head was slowly moving up the stairs whilst I hid in a room off the landing. The reaction to the sketch I created was an instant “that’s scary” so it looks like I may have captured some of the absolute terror I felt during the dream!

I was fascinated by scarecrows when I was young, as most children are, with their rather sinsiter potential to ‘come alive’, at least in my imagination. A friend who knew I enjoyed spooky stories insisted that I look at the work of Robert Westall, as his writing included ghost stories for children. I was passed a copy of ‘The Scarecrows’ and suddenly I didn’t see them as funny or weird figures any more but something much more terrifying. The idea of a scarecrow that could scare more than birds seemed a good image to include.

Finally I hope this Christmas I will have another M. R. James story to add plus scenes from other well known authors who have written ghost stories, especially for Christmas enjoyment.

I’ll post the results as soon as they are finished.