Multo (Ghost)

In my spare time, I’ve been browsing old folklore articles again. The other day, I came across a rather interesting and… different version of Snow White. It starts like this:

Once upon a time there was an exceedingly beautiful woman who worked as a postmistress. She had a magic mirror she called the Mirror of Amaryllis. Every morning as she got dressed, she asked the mirror this question:

“Mirror of Amaryllis, is there anyone on earth more beautiful than I?”

The mirror would answer her: “No.”

Yes, you read that right: the wicked queen/evil stepbiological mother character is a postmistress! Why a postmistress, you ask? I wondered, too.

This version comes from Mexico, circa 1914. So my first theory was that since early twentieth century Mexico had no royalty or nobility, perhaps the storyteller didn’t want to use a queen. And given the patriarchal society of the time, perhaps a postmistress was the highest female authority figure that the storyteller could think of.

Sounds plausible, right? Except later in the story, we do indeed get kings and queens and princes. No, the wicked mother figure is a postmistress for a different reason. You’ll have to read the story to find out why.

Read “The Mirror of Amaryllis” here, at Ephemera.

I also wondered why the mirror was called The Mirror of Amaryllis; the flower has nothing to do with the story. According to this website, the amaryllis is a symbol of strong confident women, as well as of pride and stunning beauty. This symbology comes from Victorian floriography, so I don’t how applicable it is to Mexican folktales. Still, it fits the characterization of the villainous postmistress.

The story was originally given by Señora Concha Molina to German ethnologist Max Leopold Wagner, who collected it in Mexico (probably Veracruz) around 1914. Wagner published it in Spanish in 1927, as part of an article in the Journal of American Folklore.

My translation of the story is a bit loose, and I added a few embellishments and details that weren’t in the original tale. Because, as someone once said, you’re always supposed to add your own twist to a folktale, when you retell it—that’s kind of the point. Of course, I tried to make sure that my embellishments stayed within the spirit of the story, as Señora Molina originally told it.

I hope you enjoy it.

Reference

Wagner, Max L. “Algunas Apuntaciones Sobre el Folklore Mexicano,” Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 40 no. 156 (April-June 1927), pp 105-143. The story begins on p. 125.

The illustration is from Favorite Fairy Tales by Logan Marshall (1917). Source: Project Gutenberg.

Three friends from Reykjavíc arrive in remote Hesteyri, a village in the Icelandic Westfjords that was abandoned in the 1950s. Nowadays, the place is only occupied in the summer, as a sort of a base camp for vacationers who wish to hike the surrounding wilderness. Garðar, his wife Katrín, and their friend Líf have purchased a house in Hesteyri, planning to convert it into guest lodgings. They (along with Líf’s dog Putti) have come to the deserted village in the chilly offseason, in order to renovate their property.

While there, the trio must battle their own lack of handyperson skills, the increasingly frigid weather—and a strange hostile presence that doesn’t seem to want them there, but also won’t let them leave.

Meanwhile, in Ísafjörður, the largest town in the Westfjords, psychiatrist Freyr leads a lonely existence. He transferred here from Reykjavíc after the mysterious disappearance of his young son Benni three years before. When a preschool in the town is viciously vandalized, local police officer Dagný brings Freyr in to consult. The vandal has completely destroyed the place, and scrawled epithets like “dirty” and “ugly” in all the rooms. There is no sign of forced entry. How did it happen? And why does that one little kid stare so hostilely at Freyr?

Freyr discovers that sixty years ago, the town elementary school suffered a similar defacement. It occurred right after the disappearance of Bernódus, one of the students, who vanished in much the same way Benni did. And on the same day that the preschool is vandalized, one of Bernódus’s former classmates hangs herself without explanation. She leaves a note behind: one that mentions not only Bernódus, but Freyr’s son Benni, whom she never met.

As the narrative progresses, Freyr and Dagný uncover strange connections between the events of the present, of three years ago, and sixty years ago. Connections that reach all the way to Hesteyri.

I found I Remember You by idly typing “ghost story” into the online catalog of the Mechanics Institute Library. Since the author, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, writes crime fiction (so-called “Nordic Noir”), I wasn’t sure going in if this was really a ghost story, or a crime thriller masquerading as a ghost story, like The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Turns out, yes: this is supernatural horror. And it’s pretty good, though I like it better as a detective novel than as a ghost story.

The novel’s chapters switch back and forth between Katrín’s point of view in Hesteyri, and Freyr’s, in Ísafjörður. Freyr’s chapters are where all the investigation takes place, and here, the supernatural elements are woven nicely into the detection elements of the story. The scenes where Freyr encounters the ghost of his son are particularly eerie. The resulting narrative feels like a ghost story, in addition to being a mystery.

Katrín’s chapters are more of a cabin-in-the-woods horror story. This section is certainly creepy, and cabin-in-the-woods is a popular horror genre, but it’s not as much to my taste. In addition, some of the supernatural elements in this section feel added on just for the sake of being spooky, rather than to serve the narrative. Katrín is warned against the trip by a character who seems to be psychic for no reason; we’re never even properly introduced to him. In the village, she also gets voices in her head that warn her to “Run, Kata, Run!” Who is warning her? And why? Never explained.

On the other hand, Katrín’s chapters also have Putti the dog, who might be my favorite of the Hesteyri characters. Poor Putti. He senses so much more of what’s happening than his stupid humans do.

Overall, the novel, when taken as a whole, is a pretty good read. The switching back and forth between Katrín’s and Freyr’s points of view never feels disorienting, and both narratives kept me engaged. I definitely found myself reading the novel more like a mystery than a ghost story: connecting the clues, flipping back and forth to check details and dates. Sigurdardóttir intricately weaves together all the threads of the plot, involving elements spread out over many decades, in a way that felt quite satisfying to unravel. There were several twists that I anticipated well before they were revealed, but that didn’t bother me; I consider that part of the pleasure of mystery novels.

On the other hand, the primary ghost is a little too vindictive for me. One of the more appealing aspects of traditional ghost stories, especially crime-related ones, is the notion that, in the end, karmic justice triumphs (this is one of the attractions of fairy tales, too). But there has to be balance, some linkage between the wrong done to the ghost and the harm that he or she inflicts in return. When the linkage between the ghost and its victims is too tenuous, the story (for me) becomes “merely” a horror story, a tale of arbitrary, malicious violence. And I’m not a fan of horror, per se. Yes, I know that’s odd; most people don’t make the distinction between ghost stories and horror stories, but I do.

I also realized, after finishing the book, that there were some plot holes I still had questions about. All of these pertained to supernatural details of the story, which is why I consider that aspect of the novel less well thought out than the mystery part.

So do I recommend I Remember You? If you are a fan of Nordic crime fiction, and/or enjoy a dash of paranormal horror with your detective stories, you might like it. If you are primarily a reader of “classic English style ghost stories,” or the type of stories published in Supernatural Tales, and less a reader of crime thrillers, this is probably not for you.

I liked it enough as a mystery that I plan to check out Sigurdardóttir’s Freya and Huldar series. If you think you might like it, then do check it out. Happy reading!

I can’t resist, I have to rant about them. I’ll hide this part in a disclosure block. It probably won’t make sense until after you read the book, anyway.

• Who was the voice in Katrín’s head warning her to run? Was it the the little boy in her class who warned her not to go? Was it Bernódus tormenting her? Was it Benni? I doubt that last possibility, though; Benni only communicated with his parents, and was too young and newly-dead to be addressing adult women by their diminuitive nicknames.
• What was up with that little boy in Katrín’s class? I assume he is the same little boy who glared at Freyr after the preschool vandalism. Is he psychic? Was he also bullied? Had Katrín (a grade school teacher) protected or comforted him in some way?
• Who was the source of the footsteps and rustling that Katrín’s ghost heard at the very end? She is a ghost (a rage ghost, even), so the rustling and footsteps that Freyr and Dagný heard when they came to the island should have been her. Is the other presence Garðar? It shouldn’t be Bernódus anymore, because his issues should be resolved (once he kills Úrsúla, which it’s implied that he will).
• I do feel sorry for the previous owner of the house, and Katrín, too. Neither of them did anything wrong, and certainly not to Bernódus. Especially Katrín, who didn’t even cause anyone’s death by accident. I guess they died because Bernódus had become an angry and vengeful spirit, just as Katrín has. (If he buys the house, I don’t think Freyr is long for this world. I hope Dagný and Putti and Sara stay safe.)
• The timing of Bernódus’s revenge was a bit weird. He punished Úrsúla almost immediately (but apparently didn’t carve a cross on her back); the teacher not too long after (and carved a cross on her back). Why did Bernódus wait so long to get revenge on the others? The story implies that Benni’s death and arrival in the village reawakened Bernódus’s spirit, simply because of the similarity of their deaths, I suppose? And because Bernódus hoped that his body would be found, when people searched for Benni. But that still doesn’t explain why Bernódus waited so long to get revenge on his classmates.
• It was a nice touch for Benni to insist that Freyr come clean about Líf before his body can be found; but why? Everyone already knows that Freyr had a car accident. The clue that led to the discovery of Benni’s body came from Benni’s friend, not from Líf. Sara never needed to know about her.

It’s been a while since my last post! Apologies for that, there’s been a lot going on. But I’ve still been making time for reading and puzzles and watching classic television and film. Today, I think I’ve got a goodie for you.

Tales of the Kyoto Ghost Story Priest is a manga, illustrating some allegedly true ghost stories from the real-life “Ghost Monk” (Kaidan Osho), Daiun Miki. Miki is the Chief Monk of the Renkyu-ji Temple in Kyoto, and is known for his use of “scary stories” to teach Buddhist precepts. Sorta like the Jatakas, or (for Christianity) the parables of Jesus, only spookier.

The manga includes eleven stories, all of which are either tales that Miki heard from people who consulted him, or were his personal experiences. As you might expect, they have a told-round-the-campfire, urban legendary feel: sometimes gruesome, sometimes sentimental, sometimes both. And yet, they are distinct from the types of urban legends that I typically hear.

Though Miki tells these stories in order to teach about Buddhism, you needn’t worry about being preached to. In fact, not all the stories have a moral or a lesson explicitly attached to them. When they do, they generally treat the theme of karma (no surprise), or illustrate the persistence of consciousness/soul after death.

And not just the souls of animate beings, either! My favorite stories are the two tales of Kooh the stuffed bear. Not only is Kooh beloved by the young boy who owns him, but Kooh evidently loves his owner right back. In the first tale, the boy takes Kooh with him out swimming in the ocean, and is attacked in the water by what seem to be the ghosts of drowned people. Kooh saves the boy from being drowned by his attackers. In the second tale, the ghost of Kooh rescues the son of his now-adult former owner from another oceanic death.

Naturally, one might suspect that these people who come to consult a monk about spooky encounters might be pulling his leg. But the stories aren’t all hearsay: Miki claims to have had some supernatural experiences himself. And, perhaps, some special abilities.

One of his more interesting gifts (though I’d hate to have it, myself) is the ability to “smell” when someone is going to die. The deaths that Miki senses are illness related; there’s no implication that he can sense when someone will die in an accident, or other unexpected event. So this ability is less implausible than it might sound. It’s known that dogs can sniff out cancer and other medical conditions in humans (Wayback Machine link). Who’s to say that some humans might not be sensitive enough to notice these sorts of biological changes, too?

Whether you believe these tales or not, they do genuinely have that open-ended feel of real-life anecdotes. The stories don’t always have neat, tidy endings; truly interesting details are never explained (what were those things that tried to drown Kooh’s owner?). I’m not sure if reading these tales teaches me Buddhist precepts, but I am learning details about Japanese culture and customs that I didn’t know before. And I’m having fun! So that’s something.

This adaptation of Miki’s stories was illustrated by manga artist Tatsuya Morino, whose charming, old-school art varies from whimsical to delightfully gruesome. His style reminds me of Shigeru Mizuki’s Ge Ge no Kitaro—and no wonder! Morino was one of Mizuki’s chief assistants. Morino also illustrated Yokai attack! : the Japanese monster survival guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt. Beyond that, the only thing about him that I’ve found online is a series of amazing illustrations from what appears to be a manga adaptation of some classic western horror stories. I’d love to get my hands on that.

Have I piqued your interest? If you’d like to sample some of Miki’s storytelling style before picking up the manga, here’s a selection of some of his stories online:

• The Monk Who Survived – the story of novice monk Miki’s near brush with death. This is from a podcast (I only read the transcription), and the narrative is told by someone else, but it’s told in the first person as if it were by Miki1.
• Dharma Talk Through Scary Stories – Miki’s official YouTube channel, a combination of ghost stories and other didactic material (sermons, lectures, interviews). The channel is Japanese language, but the ghost story videos all have English titles and English subtitles—make sure you turn closed captions on. The translations aren’t perfect, but they are good enough to give you the story. Here are a couple to get you started:
  • A Hotel Room: This is one of the earliest videos on the channel, detailing one of Miki’s personal spooky experiences. It also includes some background about why he started what we might call his ghost story ministry.
  • The Doll: Who doesn’t love a good haunted doll story? This one is rather unusual.

If you enjoy spooky stories, and you’re looking for something a bit different, Tales of the Ghost Story Priest might appeal to you. Do check it out! I hope that you like it.

1. The serial killings that this anecdote refers to are known as The Saitama Dog Lover Murders, perpetrated by the owner of the Africa Kennel, Gen Sekine, and two accomplices. For those with an interest in true crime, The Saitama Dog Lover murders are gruesomely fascinating on their own, completely aside from any connection with Daiun Miki. Here’s the Wikipedia article on the case.︎

This originally started as a sort of follow up to my “William Shatner as Archie Goodwin” post from last November: I found what seems to be the first feature film role of Deforest Kelley, aka Star Trek’s Dr. Bones McCoy! After a little more research, though, this has morphed into a read-and-watch post, in which I compare a Cornell Woolrich novella and two film adaptations.

First, the novella:

Young Vincent Hardy has a terrible nightmare, in which he dreams of fighting with and then killing a man in a strange mirrored room. When he awakens, he discovers bruises on his throat and blood on his wrists. And in his pockets: a button and a key that he had grabbed in his dream! Horrified, he runs for help to his brother-in-law, Cliff Dodge, a homicide detective. Cliff doesn’t believe him at first—until they learn about a murder that matches Vince’s dream in every detail. Is Vince a murderer? And why doesn’t he remember?

This is a spooky, twisty tale, with hints of what seems to be the supernatural. Woolrich has created a surreal, Kafkaesque situation; and as with a classic Kafka story, it’s not the protagonist’s fault. You really feel for poor Vince, as he falls deeper into his living nightmare. His furious brother-in-law is convinced that Vince killed a man and is trying for an insanity plea. Vince knows he’s telling the truth, but also becomes more and more convinced that he really is a murderer—and he doesn’t even know why.

There is a “scientific explanation” for what Vince experiences, albeit one that doesn’t hold up to a modern understanding of the mechanism in question. This is especially true in one particular detail, which thankfully got dropped from the film adaptations. But if you are willing to suspend your disbelief, this is a good, dark tale of a life gone suddenly awry.

“And So To Death” first appeared in Argosy Weekly, Volume 306, No. 1 (March 1, 1941), under Woolrich’s real name. It was subsequently reprinted, with the title “Nightmare,” under Woolrich’s pen name William Irish, in the 1943 collection I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes.

You can find a pdf copy of Argosy 306:1 here. The story starts on page six.

As I discuss below, you might want to read the novella before watching the films.

In 1947, Maxwell Shane wrote and directed his own adaptation of Woolrich’s novella, Fear in the Night. This low-budget film starred Deforest Kelley, in his feature film debut, as protagonist Vince Grayson. Paul Kelly portrayed his brother-in-law, Cliff Herlihy, and Ann Doran (perhaps best known as James Dean’s mother in Rebel Without a Cause) is Vince’s sister, Lil Herlihy. The story is set and filmed in Los Angeles.

Fear in the Night has fallen into U.S. public domain, which has the advantage that it’s easy to find online, and the disadvantage that most copies (both online and physical) are pretty poor quality. I’ve picked what I consider the best quality version, the one shared by PBS television Fort Wayne, on their Subterranean Cinema series. This version has some opening commentary by the Subterranean Cinema hosts.

Shane’s adaptation is quite faithful to the original story, with much of the dialogue (and Vince’s monologues) taken directly from the original text. The major change is the addition of Vince’s girlfriend Betty (Kay Scott), who is a teller at the same bank where Vince works.

This film version does drop or severely abridge what I consider to be key points for understanding the solution, and the crucial opening scene is muddy and hard to see. I read the novella before I saw the movie, and I can’t honestly say how easy it would be to follow the narrative without having done that. Plus, after having read the novella and then watched two adaptations, I’ve concluded that some aspects of this story are easier to accept when you read them, rather than when you watch them.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting and fun-to-watch minor noir. Shane and his cinematographer Jack Greenhalgh give the film the moody, chiaroscuro look that filmviewers associate with the genre, and use some inventive visual effects to effectively convey Vince’s confusion and disorientation. I particularly liked one scene towards the end that exploits t he Art Nouveau exterior of Vince’s residence hotel, to dramatic effect.1.

Cliff and Lil, as played by Paul Kelly and Ann Doran, are an adorable couple. They give Vince’s sister and brother-in-law more personality in the film than they had in the novella. I thought Deforest Kelley was a bit stiff in some of his more dialogue-heavy scenes, but overall, he does a good job at conveying the terror and confusion of his character, the horror that he feels at possibly having killed a man.

If you’re a fan of classic film noir, or if you’re a fan of the original Star Trek series, you might enjoy Fear in the Night. Especially if you’ve read Woolrich’s novella, first.

About a decade later, the director of Fear in the Night, along with the film’s art director, Frank Paul Sylos, took another crack at the story. I like to think that they were trying to make the version they envisioned the first time around, but lacked the budget to accomplish.

This version is set in New Orleans, and filmed on location there, too. It stars Kevin McCarthy (most famous for Invasion of the Body Snatchers) as the protagonist, Stan Grayson. Edward G. Robinson is his cop brother-in-law, Rene Bressard; and Virginia Christine (Mrs. Olson, the Folgers Coffee lady!)2 is Stan’s sister Sue. Stan Grayson is now a big band musician, and his girlfriend, Gina, is the lead singer for the band Stan plays in.

I have no idea if this film is public domain or not; but here’s the version that Wikipedia currently links to (only 360p, but the print is clean):

When Maxwell did Nightmare, he clearly started from the Fear in the Night screenplay. Dialog is line-for-line identical many places, and some scenes are even shot-for-shot the same. Grayson’s hotel room, while less dingy, has pretty much the same layout, right down to the photo of his girlfriend on the chest of drawers near the door. Maxwell even uses some of the same visual effects as in his first film, though fewer of them.

But there are some changes. Maxwell fleshed out the narration a bit more, and added in some details that enable the plot to make more sense. Some of these added details (like the villain’s past occupation) were in the original novella, but dropped from the first film. Some details (like the books on the shelves of the abandoned house) were new.

The production, overall, is more “mainstream” than Fear in the Night. The cinematography is less noirish: brighter, more conventional. It does showcase New Orleans quite nicely, though. The ending has been changed, to tie everything up in a much nicer bow than either the novella or the first movie did.

There is a lot of emphasis on the music—too much, and I say that as someone who likes big band music. Stan’s boss is played by real-life bandleader Billy May, who also wrote the theme song. The band is presumably May’s actual band. Connie Russell, who plays Stan’s girlfriend, was a professional singer. I assume that is truly her voice we hear in the band numbers, of which there are several.

Fear in the Night was 72 minutes long. I suspect that’s too short for a non-B feature film, and that Maxwell felt the need to pad this picture out to a more acceptable 89 minutes. This leads to a lot of musical performances, an extended tour of the New Orleans nightclub scene, and some other extraneous business, all of which throw the pacing off, in my opinion.

The acting from the main players is good, but not as edgy. Kevin McCarthy’s performance is more assured than Deforest Kelley’s was. This is both because McCarthy the actor was older and more experienced when he took the role3, and because the character he plays is older and more worldly.

Edward G. Robinson and Virginia Christine weren’t as adorable a couple as Paul Kelly and Ann Doran, but they were still pretty cute. Robinson was fifteen years older in the role than Kelly was, so his approach to portraying an angry tough-guy cop was naturally somewhat different.

Of the two films, I prefer the earlier one. Fear in the Night is quirkier, more visually interesting, and tighter. But, for someone who wants to watch a film without reading the source material first, I suspect that Nightmare will be a better watch.

So there you have it! I definitely recommend at least reading the novella; and if you are intrigued, check out one or both of the films. Watching both adaptations may feel redundant, but I think it’s an interesting exercise in seeing how two different groups of creatives (in this case, the actors and the cinematographer) approach the same material.

Enjoy!

1. This was an actual residence hotel, the Commodore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It’s still standing, and is still apartments. ︎
2. In yet another Star Trek connection, the (very rude and disrespectful) husband in the Folgers commercial is played by Stephen Collins, who also played Commander Will Decker in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I didn’t do this on purpose, I just picked this commercial at random, and then wondered why the jerk husband looked so familiar. ︎
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers came out three months before Nightmare ︎

About a year or so back, I came across this lovely bookplate and became intrigued with the quote, allegedly by Goethe, that it displays. As I wrote about here, the quote is probably not by Goethe; it’s likely a misattribution by George Henry Lewes. Lewes used the quote as the epigraph for the literary section of the nineteenth-century periodical The Leader, during his tenure as its literary editor.

Recently, I received a note from Artur Zwolski, who proposes what might be the closest actual Goethe quote:

Es ist nämlich ein Vorrecht des Schönen, daß es nicht nützlich zu sein braucht.

which he translates as “It is namely the privilege of the beautiful that it does not have to be useful.”

Naturally, I spent a little time looking into this new quote, too. If you like quotation research, you might enjoy reading what I’ve learned about this actual Goethe quote, over at Dark Tales Sleuth.

Thanks to Artur Zwolski for contributing to this little literary sleuthing project! Enjoy.

We’re coming to the end of this Christmas season, and here’s my last Winter Tale! This one comes from American author Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933), best known today for his interlinked weird tale collection, The King in Yellow. As was the case with my previous story, this piece isn’t Christmasy; it’s set in the autumn (October) rather than the winter. But I like it a lot, and I wanted to share it with you.

American Robert Darrel lives in a small Breton village, having married a local woman named Lys Trevec. The story opens with the discovery of a heap of bones and rusty weapons in a gravel pit, the remains of a British regiment that was defeated by French forces in 1760. Local legend connects these grisly remains to a mysterious Black Priest, and to a curse that he cast against the Trevec family and all their descendants.

Pooh, says the American; just rural superstition. But strange things begin to happen around the Darrel household. Could the curse be coming for Lys?

You can read “The Messenger” here.

“The Messenger” comes from The Mystery of Choice (1897), another collection of weird tales, but of a somewhat different flavor: less “cosmic” than the King in Yellow. Also, I have to confess, more to my taste.

The first three stories in the collection are connected narratives about Robert Darrel and his life in a Breton village. I like them all, but I chose “The Messenger” because it has a Jamesian, folk horrorish feel: apostate priests, local tradition, the folkloric symbology of animals. All three Breton stories are woven around an entomological theme, in this case about the Death’s Head moth. It’s fairly spooky, and, like an M.R. James tale, the source of the weirdness is suggested, but not entirely spelled out.

Since the narrative makes references to the events of a previous story, I’ve added some footnotes to give a little more context. But for the most part, the tale stands up quite well on its own. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for spending another Winter Tales season with me! May we all have a happy and healthy 2026.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Illustration of a Death’s Head Moth (Acherontia) from the Iconigraphica Zoologica (compiled circa 1881-1883). Date and Artist not specified. Source: Wikimedia.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I have a couple more Winter Tales to share this season, before Epiphany arrives. Today’s story is by England-based Armenian writer Michael Arlen (1895-1956). Though Arlen is little known today, in the 1920s he was a highly popular writer and playwright, producing humorous, satirical novels and short stories about English “smart” society, often laced with a bit of horror. Many of his works were adapted for film, stage and television.

“The Loquacious Lady of Lansdowne Passage,” is a short but sharp little tale, sort of a pair with one of the other tales I’ve shared this season (I won’t say which, so as not to spoil it). There’s nothing wintry or Christmasy about the story, but I like its bite.

George Tarlyon refuses to walk through Lansdowne Passage at night.

…you can tell him that [he ought to know better] until you are blue in the face and he will smile at you and agree with you, but still he will not walk through Lansdowne Passage at night, saying that he is afraid.

Why?

You can read “The Loquacious Lady of Lansdowne Passage” here.

Lansdowne Passage is (or was) a real London location; since I’m not familiar with London or its history, I had to look it up. A little research turned up an old Ordnance Survey map, which, along with this image, helped me visualize the situation. I’ve included the map in the PDF transcription, and added a few historical footnotes of interest.

But you needn’t know the historical details to appreciate the story. Do enjoy!

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Illustration of Lansdowne Passage by Charles G. Harper for Half Hours with the Highwaymen, Vol 1 (1908), also authored by Harper. Source: Project Gutenberg.

It’s Christmas Eve! And I have a gentle ghost story for you to read in front of the crackling Yule Log (or video of a Yule Log, if that’s what you’ve got). This is a fairly well known story, by M.R. James’s friend and fellow antiquarian ghost story writer, E.G. Swain (1861-1938).

The Reverend Mr. Batchel suffers from insomnia on Christmas Eve. He needs to be fresh for the next day’s service and sermon, so he goes to his library in the middle of the night, hoping to find a book he can fall asleep to. But it seems he’s got an uninvited visitor who has other plans for him.

Groping along to where the table stood, Mr. Batchel felt over its surface for the matches which usually lay there; he found, however, that the table was cleared of everything. He raised his right hand, therefore, in order to feel his way to a shelf where the matches were sometimes mislaid, and at that moment, whilst his hand was in mid-air, the matchbox was gently put into it!

You can read “Bone to his Bone” here.

“Bone to his Bone” is quite mild, as ghost stories go, but I’m fond of it for a number of reasons. It’s antiquarian and Jamesian in tone, and I’m a fan of M.R. James. It’s about a haunted library, and I love library-related ghost and mystery stories. And it’s structured a bit like a puzzle or clue-hunt, which appeals to my recently revived interest in Golden Age style whodunnits. Hopefully some or all of these reasons will resonate with you, too.

Incidentally, the book featured in the story—The Compleat Gard’ner, by Jean de La Quintinye, translated into English by John Evelyn—really exists. Evelyn’s translation was published sometime around 1693. Sadly, the passages from the text that the ghost uses to communicate with Mr. Batchel seem to be fictional. I suppose it was too good to be true.

Fictional passages notwithstanding, I hope this antiquarian ghost story provides some pleasant diversion for a holiday evening. Here’s wishing a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, and a joyous day to all who don’t.

For the curious: The Compleat Gard’ner, 1693 edition, from the University of Michigan. Click on “View entire text” to see the entire text on one page, or use the links in the table of contents to see selected sections. The illustrations are unfortunately not included.

If you prefer to somewhat replicate the experience of Mr. Batchel, here are page scans of a 1701 edition, “Now Compediously Adbrig’d and made of more Use, with very Considerable Improvements,” at the Internet Archive. This edition is credited to George London and Henry Wise, not to Evelyn.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Cover of Stoneground Ghost Tales (1912), E.G.Swain’s ghost story collection. Artist unknown. Source: Project Gutenberg.

It’s Christmas week, the time when I traditionally share some gentler and more humorous ghost stories. Today I have a somewhat goofy, but fast paced and rollicking tale that appeared exactly 120 years ago, to the day!

Jane Morgan’s fiancee Joe severely injures his right arm in a silk mill fire, rendering him unable to work. He, Jane, and Joe’s elderly mother are on the verge of starvation, when Jane hatches a daring scheme. She’s going to hunt for the legendary treasure of John Lombe, which is said to be secreted somewhere in his old silk mill. The hunt will be on Christmas Night, per a mysterious poem:

“Whoe’er would John Lombe’s riches seek,
Must be a maid both pure and meek.
No selfish greed must urge her quest,
For she must act at love’s behest,
No grizzly ghost can do her ill
If these conditions she fulfil,
And perhaps a ghost may point the way
To where old John Lombe’s treasure lay,
If she goes on the night of Christmas Day.”

You can read “The Haunted Silk Mill” here.

John Lombe (1693-1722) was a real person, and Lombe’s Mill a real silk mill. The story of Lombe and his brother stealing the Italian silk throwing process and importing it to England is historically accurate. And there really is a legend that the King of Sardinia sent a female assassin to kill the brothers in retaliation. She got John.

“The Haunted Silk Mill, or, The Ghost-Guarded Treasure” first appeared in the Derby and Chesterfield Reporter, Dec. 22, 1905—before the 1910 fire that destroyed Lombe’s original mill. The tale comes from the prolific pen of James Skipp Borlase (1839-1909), a Cornwall-born solicitor and author, who spent much of his careers (both of them) in Australia. He wrote historical romances, crime, adventure, and lots of pulpy Christmas ghost stories, including this one.

He also apparently plagiarized some of the work of fellow Australian author Mary Fortune, one of the earliest women detective writers in the world. But I’m pretty sure this one is all his. While it’s not exactly scintillating literary fiction, it is, I think, a whole lot of fun. Do enjoy!

A collection of Borlase’s Christmas stories, edited by Christopher Philippo.

A Christmas Crime story by Mary Fortune that I posted a few years back.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Alfred John Keene, The Silk Mill during the fire of 1910 (1910). Yes, this is Lombe’s mill. Source: Wikimedia.

Daa-da da da, da da, da-da-da, dum-dum-dum, da-da-dadada… That’s my best rendition of the opening to the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy,” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Even though the ballet is an ubiquitous annual holiday tradition with ballet companies here in the States (and elsewhere), I have to confess I’ve never seen a professional performance of it.

But I do remember being in kindergarten, dressed in a little pink tutu and tights, and spinning around like a top, my arms in some approximation of fifth position, while attempting to “dance” in a circle with all the other little girls in my class to the music-box-like strains of “Sugar-Plum Fairy.” I think the little boys danced to “March of the Toy Soldiers” (Pum, pa-pa-rum-pum, rum-pum-pum….). I hope our parents were amused.

Do you have a similar memory?

Anyway, I recently discovered that the The Nutcracker is based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King, a fairy tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann1, originally published in 1816. I’m a fan of Hoffmann’s short stories, so this immediately caught my interest. Time for a Winter (Fairy) Tale!

Little Maria Stahlbaum finds a wooden Nutcracker under the tree on Christmas morning. She’s quite charmed by it.

The longer Maria gazed upon the little man whom she had taken a liking to at first sight, the more she was sensible how much good nature and friendliness was expressed in his features. … “Ah, dear father,” exclaimed Maria at last, “to whom belongs that charming little man by the tree there?”

Maria stays up late that night, playing with the Nutcracker and her dolls, when she witnesses an invasion of mice, led by the seven-headed Mouse King. The Nutcracker rallies her brother’s toy soldiers in an attack on the invading mouse hordes. Who will win? And what’s going on??

You can read The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King here (With illustrations).

This is quite a long piece: 14 chapters! A novella, really. It’s two interlinked stories: the story of Maria and her nutcracker, and the tale of Princess Perlipat and the Lady Mouserings. You can interpret the whole thing as a figment of Maria’s lively imagination—or as an extended fairy tale that “really happened.” As you like.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King is not a ghost story, of course, but it is quite Christmasy, and I thought it would be fun to post. This version is a public domain English translation from 1853, by Mrs. Saint Simon. I’ve included the illustrations from the D. Appleton & Company edition, and added a few footnotes.

Next week is Christmas week, and I’ll be doing my customary gentler ghost stories, one on Monday, and one on Christmas Eve. In the meantime, do enjoy this version of another venerable Christmas tradition.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

• Mina Lowry, Nutcracker (c. 1941). Source: Wikimedia (CC0 1.0)
• Peter Carl Geissler, illustration for Nußknacker und Mausekönig (1840). Source: Wikimedia.

1. Technically, it’s based on Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 The Tale of the Nutcracker, itself a translation/adaptation of Hoffmann’s original work.︎