Ghost and Hauntings

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/

My father came from a small village outside Belgrade in Serbia. He told us a story that was well known to the village of an incident that took place within living memory.

The people there believed that the dead could become a vampire if, before burial a cat jumped over the corpse. Marco was not an old man when he died and he was much grieved for by his family and by his boyhood friend, Petronio. They used to play together under a large walnut tree that stood in the centre of the village. They played for hours on the swing that hung from its branches and grew up together like brothers.

Marco was laid out the night before his funeral, surrounded by candles; people came to pay their sorrowful respect. One man was set to watch over him during the perilous night. It grew late and the man grew tired, he fell asleep in the chair for some time. A black cat crept into the room, perhaps startled, it jumped over the body of Marco. The man woke up in time to see it but he decided not to say anything as he had failed in his duty. Nothing might come of it anyway.

They laid Marco’s coffin into the ground the next day, the people unaware of what had gone on the night before. The service was said and they retired to their homes.

That night Petronio was sitting with his family by the fire when he thought he could hear his name, he thought he could hear the sound of his friend’s voice, and he believed the memory of his friend was haunting him and he was sad. But he was not the only one that could hear the voice, when they looked out the window they were very scared. There sitting on the swing under the old walnut tree was Marco, “Petronio. Petronio.” he called “Wont you come and play with me?". Petronio stared out at his friend, terrified. His family gathered up garlic and placed it at the doors and windows. This was not ghost, Marco had become a vampire and had returned to his home. All night he called out “Petronio", the same lonely cry and the swing squeaked and creaked as it rocked back and forth.

The next day the village gathered together and the man responsible for watching over the body confessed that he thought something may have jumped over the corpse. They gathered up garlic and garlic flowers for protection, if it really was the case that Marco was a vampire something would have to be done.

Night came and the figure returned to the tree, calling again and again “Petronio-o, Petronio-o, come and play with me". The whole village hid in doors afraid of the monstrous apparition on the swing, that creaked and groaned throughout the night.

The next day the villagers cut down a young cherry sapling and made it into a stake. They dug up the coffin and inside they found Marco lying peacefully. They thrust the stake into his heart and his eyes opened. It was done and the vampire was no more.

I thought that some of you might like to read a few of the stories I was told when I was growing up. My mother told tales about the ghosts she encountered, some from England and some from her home town in Italy.

She came from a medieval hill village on the west coast of Italy, just north of Rome. It is called Tarquinia and is named after the original Etruscan town that stood there. It is best known for the Etruscan tomb paintings on the edge of the town. It has a very long history and, according to my mother, a lot of ghosts too.

A number of stories relate to one particular residence when my mother was a young woman. The family moved into a first floor apartment, with a large balcony. One afternoon as my grandmother was taking a siesta in her room she became aware of the sound of someone moving around the kitchen. She called out but no one answered. Yet she was quite certain that she could hear someone walking around wearing flip flops. The distinctive flick-flack sound carried on until she went to look, but of course, no one was there.

Later on she asked her daughters who was there that afternoon, why didn’t they reply when she called. They assured her it was none of them, besides they weren’t wearing flip-flops!

The distinctive footsteps were heard on several occasions by other members of the family, normally when the house was quiet and they thought they were on their own.

One day my mother was alone in the flat. She went out to the bathroom, which was reached by walking along the balcony. It was a separate wooden structure and she locked herself in. Within a few minutes she heard a knocking on the wall. She was surprised as she was sure that she was alone. She called out who was it, she would be a minute. No one replied. The knocking, or should I say banging as it was quite load, was persistent and she called out for who ever is was to stop. Maybe one of her brothers had come in and were messing around. The sound grew louder and louder, she was quite scared she was sure she had been alone. The wooden walls shook with the force and she thought the whole thing was going to collapse around her. There was nothing for it, she would have to make a dash for freedom. With the pounding still going on, she threw open the door and without looking round, ran along the balcony back to the safety of the main rooms. Just then her father returned home, he promised he had only arrived then and he never heard anything. They checked together and there was certainly no one outside. The neighbours too said they heard nothing at all, which left my mother askance as she was sure the pounding was so loud and so violent how could anyone not have heard.

Two of my aunts shared a bedroom in the apartment and soon after they had moved in the girls asked if their parents would swap bedrooms. They admitted that they couldn’t get any sleep in there, someone was always walking around. My grandfather laughed and said they must been dreaming, and they were being silly. But eventually my grandparents gave in and swapped rooms with them. It was the middle of summer and quite hot. My grandfather lay there with his legs and arms hanging out the side of the bed to cool down, thinking to himself that there was nothing wrong with the room. Suddenly some one or something clasped his hand. His daughters had been quite right, there was someone in there with them.

The family made enquiries with their neighbours about the previous owners of the apartment. One woman, who had died sometime before, was a spiritualist and carried out regular seances in the flat. Leaving the possibility, according to my mother, that she have raised ’something’ that never went back. As for the footsteps heard in the kitchen, they were told that this woman only ever wore flip flops.

My father told us many stories when we were young about his life before he came to Britain. He grew up in a little village just outside of Belgrade in Serbia in the earliest part of the 20th century. My favourite stories were the ones that were scary and dangerous involving wolves and bears, and much worse.

When I wrote about the inspiration behind the cards, I hinted at one of these tales. I must have made it sound very intriguing, as I have been asked to reveal more. It’s certainly different from your average spooky story and I have entertained friends with it for many years. I haven’t met a person yet who didn’t experience a shiver down their spine when they heard it – I hope it gives you a shudder too.

My father attended college in Belgrade and it was during a journey home from there that he had a strange encounter. One cold winter evening when the snow was many feet thick on the ground, he was late leaving the college and had to run for the bus home. As he got out of the campus he could see the last bus driving off down the road. There was nothing for it but to walk the several miles to his village. However, it was dark and if he walked along the road it would take forever. There was one other option; it was a much shorter journey if he went through the forest. This was not something he did lightly. It was still a long way, and he could easily get lost if he didn’t stay on the path. There was deep snow and it was dark, which would make it even harder. He was a little nervous too: his Uncle had once gone to Belgrade to sell his geese and had wandered back through the forest late that night. During his passage home he had come across something in there that frightened him and he would never go into the forest again. He warned the family not to go into the woods. - but most of them joked that he must have been drunk and took no notice of the story.

My father didn’t want to be walking all night so he made up his mind and set off into the forest, he just had to stay vigilant and not lose his way. The snow on the ground made a soft “crump” noise under his feet and its whiteness reflected whatever light there was so he could see his way. He was quite alone, or so he thought. The appearance of a black cat surprised him. It crossed in front and gave him a stare before disappearing into the trees; something about it unnerved him, it was a bad omen but he was being superstitious.

A short while later he noticed something else was with him. In among the trees he could see a lamb or sheep. He wondered how it could have found its way this far into the forest; it wouldn’t last long in the snow. He thought he would try to catch the sheep and take it home to the farm. He walked quietly up to the animal but when he got close it ran away. He chased after it but it could run faster over the snow than he could. It skipped off into the trees and he thought to give up but then it reappeared, and so he tried again. He persevered but it was always just out of his grasp. Eventually he grew tired; it didn’t want to be caught and it was very late, time he was on his way. But where was the path? Whilst he was pursuing the sheep they had gone deeper and deeper into the forest together and now he started to worry.

He turned and tried to follow in the general direction of the tracks he had made but they went in all directions. As he jogged back over the snow he hoped that the path would be this way. Moving through the trees, he was startled to see the same sheep again, appearing some way ahead of him. He was sure he had left it far behind. He ran on past, there was no point trying again. He trekked some distance through the wood but whenever he looked round the sheep was somewhere in view. It was strange but the sheep looked more like a goat now - could he really have been mistaken before? He zigzagged between the trees. This was no ordinary animal, it seemed to have deliberately led him deep into the heart of the forest and no matter how far he ran it always seemed to stay with him. He was starting to feel very frightened.

Eventually he was relieved to see the clearing for the path in front of him. He looked behind to where the animal stood a little way off through the trees: it was clearly a goat. Then it did something very frightening. The goat stood up – ‘like a man’ but most of it was still very much goat. And then… it beckoned to him. My father insisted that the very hairs on his head stood on end.

He didn’t wait to see what would happen next and took to his heels as fast as he could without daring to look back. He ran through the forest until eventually he arrived out of the trees and at his home. He was hysterical with fright, so much so that the family member who waited up could get no sense out of him and had to throw a bucket of water over my father.

Whenever my mother told us ghost stories around a fire, my father would say mockingly: you think these “ghosts” are scary. I will tell you something really frightening…