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Post by ropardoe on Aug 31, 2017 9:34:47 GMT
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2017 12:22:22 GMT
The Pike? The Sucking Pit? And there was me expecting The Bowmen! The Croglin Grange Vampire probably qualifies (the mischievous Augustus Hare also played a significant role in shaping the legends surrounding the Monster of Glamis and Lord Dufferin's Curse). Have thought of a possible candidate, will try write some kind of history of the "haunting" in question this evening ...
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 31, 2017 13:35:01 GMT
The Pike? The Sucking Pit? And there was me expecting The Bowmen! The Croglin Grange Vampire probably qualifies (the mischievous Augustus Hare also played a significant role in shaping the legends surrounding the Monster of Glamis and Lord Dufferin's Curse). Have thought of a possible candidate, will try write some kind of history of the "haunting" in question this evening ... Typical that I forgot the obvious example of "The Bowmen". Another which occurred to me while I was out today was "The Demon in the Cathedral", an article in FATE which claimed to be a true account of events which happened in Mexico City Cathedral, but which was actually a garbled version of "An Episode of Cathedral History". There's an old article by me about it in the Ghosts & Scholars Archive on the website.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Aug 31, 2017 13:40:52 GMT
The Pike? The Sucking Pit? And there was me expecting The Bowmen! The Croglin Grange Vampire probably qualifies (the mischievous Augustus Hare also played a significant role in shaping the legends surrounding the Monster of Glamis and Lord Dufferin's Curse). Have thought of a possible candidate, will try write some kind of history of the "haunting" in question this evening ... Typical that I forgot the obvious example of "The Bowmen". Another which occurred to me while I was out today was "The Demon in the Cathedral", an article in FATE which claimed to be a true account of events which happened in Mexico City Cathedral, but which was actually a garbled version of "An Episode of Cathedral History". There's an old article by me about it in the Ghosts & Scholars Archive on the website. The version of "An Episode of Cathedral History" is the example that occurred to me. In any event, as I told a young relative last night, there is no such thing as the supernatural.
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 31, 2017 14:29:50 GMT
Ambrose Bierce's stories about people vanishing into thin air - Charles Ashmore's Trail, An Unfinished Race and The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. I remember reading various "true" versions of these in "Believe It or Not" type books as a kid, years before I read the original Bierce stories.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2017 14:55:15 GMT
Typical that I forgot the obvious example of "The Bowmen". Another which occurred to me while I was out today was "The Demon in the Cathedral", an article in FATE which claimed to be a true account of events which happened in Mexico City Cathedral, but which was actually a garbled version of "An Episode of Cathedral History". There's an old article by me about it in the Ghosts & Scholars Archive on the website. Here's the direct link: The Demon In The Cathedral: A Jamesian Hoax On a similar note, it's not improbable that J. Wentworth Day had some prior familiarity with Arthur Gray's The Everlasting Club when he contributed The Club Of The Dead Men to John Canning's 50 Great Ghost Stories (Odhams, 1966: Chancellor Press, 1994, & Co.) ....
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 31, 2017 15:02:02 GMT
Ambrose Bierce's stories about people vanishing into thin air - Charles Ashmore's Trail, An Unfinished Race and The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. I remember reading various "true" versions of these in "Believe It or Not" type books as a kid, years before I read the original Bierce stories. The most famous version of this is the disappearance of David Lang. It's not entirely a black and white situation, though. Probably the 'true account' does indeed derive from Bierce's stories, but there's also the possibility that it predates Bierce and was the product of one of the 'lying contests' which used to be held locally in nineteenth century USA. Either way, it's almost certainly invented, which is a great relief to those of us who find the whole scenario disturbing (I'll paste below a comment on this very subject which I made to Michael Dirda in the Everlasting Club several months ago). Also there's a lot on the net about it, e.g. hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_disappearance_of_david_lang/. ***** (From Lady Wardrop's Journal, Everlasting Club May 2017) That mysterious disappearance reported in Frank Edwards' Stranger Than Science is quite a well known tale. It's the David Lang case (of Tennessee, not Kentucky), and I must admit it disturbed me too. As I'm sure you'll agree, it's not the disappearance that disturbs, but the idea that Lang might have been around somewhere, trapped and trying to get back to our world. It reminds me a little bit of Blackwood's "The Wendigo". Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for our peace of mind), there has been a good deal of research in recent years, which has more or less proved that it was a tall story (there are no contemporary newspaper reports of it, and no record of a David Lang who fits the bill). The tale may have been told in the course of one of the "lying contests" which were popular at US county shows and so forth in the 1880s (when the events are supposed to have happened), or it may date no further back than an account in Fate magazine in 1953 (thought to be Edwards' source). If it's the latter, then the inspiration was probably Ambrose Bierce's similar short story, "The Difficulty of Crossing a Field". *****
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Post by Swampirella on Aug 31, 2017 16:43:05 GMT
I used to have 50 Great Ghost Stories (+ 50 Great Horror Stories) it was one of my favorites as a teen. True or not, the writing was good....
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2017 17:04:34 GMT
I used to have 50 Great Ghost Stories (+ 50 Great Horror Stories) it used to be one of my favorites as a teen. True or not, the writing was good.... Agree that it's very entertaining. Will put the details on another thread, and see if it jogs any memories. Love your new name by the way! A personal favourite, the Gorbals Vampire Hunt of 1954. There was, of course, a later case of mass hysteria involving hoax blokes, self-manufactured vampires, ever-changing "incontrovertible evidence," the odd non-fatal death & Co., which .... ... which I'll thank everyone in advance for not mentioning. No surprise that the name Peter Haining should appear on this thread. I'm sure it was Ro alerted us to cryptozoologist Dr. Karl Shucker's article, Loch Watten's Missing Monster, wherein he accuses Peter of recycling a George 'The Fly' Langelaan invention as the 'true' story of Colonel Trimble's encounter with a Caithness equivalent of Nessie.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 31, 2017 23:21:29 GMT
The Vicar Of Ratcliffe WharfBack in 1971, Man, Myth & Magic, a popular part-work devoted to matters paranormal, were stuck for a short filler article to run on the back page of issue # 105. Frank Smythe, a staff writer on the magazine, obliged with a lurid ghost story concerning the activities of an eighteenth century clergyman who ran a seaman's mission in East London's dockland. The Vicar of Ratcliffe Wharf, Limehouse, was well thought of in a community unaware of his terrible secret past-time - murdering the wealthier clients and dumping their corpses in the river. Frank even quoted the eyewitness testimonies of some no-nonsense construction workers who'd been startled by this sinister priest hobbling around the site. Good copy. Reminds me a bit of The Terribly Strange Bed via the dubious annals of The Newgate Calendar. Andrew Green of the SPR was among the first to run with the story in his Our Haunted Kingdom: More than 350 authenticated hauntings or case histories recorded in the UK over the past 25 years, (Wolfe, 1973). "The ghost has regularly been seen in the evening, usually in July and August, and it is for this reason that, according to one lighterman, 'the dock was always closed at five o'clock as no-one would work there after dusk." Next aboard the bandwagon was Peter Underwood, who repeated the story in Haunted London (Harrap, 1973/ Fontana, 1975). I doubt they were best pleased when two years later, Smythe confessed in The Sunday Times to fabricating the entire story. But still there were people willing to swear blind they'd seen the ghost! As late as 1977, Colin Wilson, long wise to the deception, devoted an episode of his TV series, Leap In The Dark, to a criminally entertaining costume docu-drama exploring the imaginary Vicar's non-existent crime spree and subsequent haunting of the docks. Pub action. A rowdy Sea Shanty. Minor bad-sex action. An experiment in hypnotism. No shortage of witnesses. Worth 35 minutes on anyone's time. Leap in the Dark: In The Minds Eye, BBC2, February 1977. Starring Howard Goorney as the Vicar, Diane Collett and Gillian Rhind as his "parlormaid-cum-wotsit" accomplices, Chris Harris as their victim, and Wapping (as was, pre-gentrification), the staff of The Town Of Ramsgate (whose clientèle also include the spectre of Judge Jeffreys), Jilly 'Riders' Cooper, Andrew Green, Colin Wilson and Frank Smythe as themselves.
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Post by Swampirella on Aug 31, 2017 23:38:14 GMT
I remember enjoying that story in Man, Myth and Magic. Too bad the story was faked. I'm glad the new name meets with approval I finally realized the old one had nothing to do with horror so tried for something creepy/amusing that went with the avatar....
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Post by ropardoe on Sept 1, 2017 10:26:03 GMT
The Vicar Of Ratcliffe WharfBack in 1971, Man, Myth & Magic, a popular part-work devoted to matters paranormal, were stuck for a short filler article to run on the back page of issue # 105. Frank Smythe, a staff writer on the magazine, obliged with a lurid ghost story concerning the activities of an eighteenth century clergyman who ran a seaman's mission in East London's dockland. The Vicar of Ratcliffe Wharf, Limehouse, was well thought of in a community unaware of his terrible secret past-time - murdering the wealthier clients and dumping their corpses in the river. Frank even quoted the eyewitness testimonies of some no-nonsense construction workers who'd been startled by this sinister priest hobbling around the site. Good copy. Reminds me a bit of The Terribly Strange Bed via the dubious annals of The Newgate Calendar. Andrew Green of the SPR was among the first to run with the story in his Our Haunted Kingdom: More than 350 authenticated hauntings or case histories recorded in the UK over the past 25 years, (Wolfe, 1973). "The ghost has regularly been seen in the evening, usually in July and August, and it is for this reason that, according to one lighterman, 'the dock was always closed at five o'clock as no-one would work there after dusk." Next aboard the bandwagon was Peter Underwood, who repeated the story in Haunted London (Harrap, 1973/ Fontana, 1975). I doubt they were best pleased when two years later, Smythe confessed in The Sunday Times to fabricating the entire story. But still there were people willing to swear blind they'd seen the ghost! As late as 1977, Colin Wilson, long wise to the deception, devoted an episode of his TV series, Leap In The Dark, to a criminally entertaining costume docu-drama exploring the imaginary Vicar's non-existent crime spree and subsequent haunting of the docks. Pub action. A rowdy Sea Shanty. Minor bad-sex action. An experiment in hypnotism. No shortage of witnesses. Worth 35 minutes on anyone's time. Leap in the Dark: In The Minds Eye, BBC2, February 1977. Starring Howard Goorney as the Vicar, Diane Collett and Gillian Rhind as his "parlormaid-cum-wotsit" accomplices, Chris Harris as their victim, and Wapping (as was, pre-gentrification), the staff of The Town Of Ramsgate (whose clientèle also include the spectre of Judge Jeffreys), Jilly 'Riders' Cooper, Andrew Green, Colin Wilson and Frank Smythe as themselves. I always loved the back cover stories in Man, Myth and Magic, but I do wonder how many were made up, like that one. I didn't know that "The Phantom Vicar of Ratcliff Wharf" was entirely fictional - it's quite well done of its type. Another which fooled me at the time, and which I found very haunting and disturbing, was the account of the disappearance of Lucy Lightfoot on the Isle of Wight in 1831 (this was the back cover story of issue 66). She's supposed to have been so obsessed with the effigy of a crusader knight, Edward Estur, in Gatcombe church, that she would spend hours gazing at it. Eventually, during a storm, she was seen riding up to and entering the church, and was never seen again. The theory was that she was so in love with the knight that some sort of timeslip took her and deposited her in his time. In 1865 a manuscript was discovered which gave an account of the life of the crusader knight and, in an "extraordinary coincidence", it turns out that accompanying Edward was "a brave and beautiful woman from the district of Carisbrooke Castle. Her name was Lucy Lightfoot." Even when I first read this, back in 1971, I thought that revelation was just a bit too farfetched, but I assumed that there was a kernel of truth in the story and that a Lucy Lightfoot had lived and disappeared. Turns out the whole thing (apart from the effigy in the church) was a fiction, made up by the then vicar, Rev. James Evans, presumably as a bit of fun and maybe to encourage visitors. I'm not sure whether he invented it specifically for Man, Myth and Magic or whether it predates the appearance there by a few years. Anyway, if he wanted more people to visit to church, it's worked! The website for the village still plugs the story and encourages people to come and see the effigy. The story is given, without the hoax explanation, in several places on the Net (others, including the Wikipedia page, are more reliable). There's a good debunking of it in Shadows in the Nave: A Guide to the Haunted Churches of England by Eddie Brazil, Paul Adams and Peter Underwood (2011). Apparently there have been several works of fiction based on the supposed events.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 1, 2017 11:09:26 GMT
Typical that I forgot the obvious example of "The Bowmen". Another which occurred to me while I was out today was "The Demon in the Cathedral", an article in FATE which claimed to be a true account of events which happened in Mexico City Cathedral, but which was actually a garbled version of "An Episode of Cathedral History". There's an old article by me about it in the Ghosts & Scholars Archive on the website. The version of "An Episode of Cathedral History" is the example that occurred to me. In any event, as I told a young relative last night, there is no such thing as the supernatural. Of course, I'm not always right.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 1, 2017 18:29:59 GMT
I always loved the back cover stories in Man, Myth and Magic, but I do wonder how many were made up, like that one. I didn't know that "The Phantom Vicar of Ratcliff Wharf" was entirely fictional - it's quite well done of its type. Another which fooled me at the time, and which I found very haunting and disturbing, was the account of the disappearance of Lucy Lightfoot on the Isle of Wight in 1831 (this was the back cover story of issue 66). She's supposed to have been so obsessed with the effigy of a crusader knight, Edward Estur, in Gatcombe church, that she would spend hours gazing at it. Eventually, during a storm, she was seen riding up to and entering the church, and was never seen again. The theory was that she was so in love with the knight that some sort of timeslip took her and deposited her in his time. In 1865 a manuscript was discovered which gave an account of the life of the crusader knight and, in an "extraordinary coincidence", it turns out that accompanying Edward was "a brave and beautiful woman from the district of Carisbrooke Castle. Her name was Lucy Lightfoot." Even when I first read this, back in 1971, I thought that revelation was just a bit too farfetched, but I assumed that there was a kernel of truth in the story and that a Lucy Lightfoot had lived and disappeared. Turns out the whole thing (apart from the effigy in the church) was a fiction, made up by the then vicar, Rev. James Evans, presumably as a bit of fun and maybe to encourage visitors. I'm not sure whether he invented it specifically for Man, Myth and Magic or whether it predates the appearance there by a few years. Anyway, if he wanted more people to visit to church, it's worked! The website for the village still plugs the story and encourages people to come and see the effigy. The story is given, without the hoax explanation, in several places on the Net (others, including the Wikipedia page, are more reliable). There's a good debunking of it in Shadows in the Nave: A Guide to the Haunted Churches of England by Eddie Brazil, Paul Adams and Peter Underwood (2011). Apparently there have been several works of fiction based on the supposed events. Not sure I'd heard of Rev. Evans' wizard wheeze until I read your account - particularly like that the tragic Lucy Lightfoot has spawned a mini-industry. Would be interested to learn which stories owe a debt to the Reverend's inspired mischief. Man Myth & Magic came too soon for me. The bound volume which turned up on a mate's market stall only incorperates issues #1 to #6 - taking us from the 'Aberdeen Witches' through to 'Australia.' They'd yet to introduce the back cover stories, more's the pity. On the plus side, #3's free 'Black Magic horoscope' has survived the years in good nick. As a particularly boring coda to the Vicar Of Ratcliffe business, The Town Of Ramsgate and Wapping Old Stairs are maybe a hundred yards along the road from the Little Free Library urban tiger box, and there's a tiny park alongside which overlooks the river. Mercifully, they have escaped the wholesale redevelopment that has ripped the soul from the area. Understandably the park is a popular draw during the summer but, for me, its at its most beautiful and atmospheric on a gloomy, drizzly evening during Autumn and Winter. Anyway, circa late-nineties, in previous "serious v*mp*re researcher" cum overnight-ace-local-historian incarnation, I'd ask a cross-section of people encountered in sundry local pubs if they'd met with, or were even aware of this terrifying ghost. The response was a unanimous "F**k orf, mate, you're making it up!" or words to that effect. The guys were just as bad. Could be bad luck, a case of hitting on the wrong people, but it left me with the impression that eyewitness accounts are thinner on the ground than was the case during the bogus phantom's heyday.
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Post by ropardoe on Sept 2, 2017 14:12:50 GMT
I always loved the back cover stories in Man, Myth and Magic, but I do wonder how many were made up, like that one. I didn't know that "The Phantom Vicar of Ratcliff Wharf" was entirely fictional - it's quite well done of its type. Another which fooled me at the time, and which I found very haunting and disturbing, was the account of the disappearance of Lucy Lightfoot on the Isle of Wight in 1831 (this was the back cover story of issue 66). She's supposed to have been so obsessed with the effigy of a crusader knight, Edward Estur, in Gatcombe church, that she would spend hours gazing at it. Eventually, during a storm, she was seen riding up to and entering the church, and was never seen again. The theory was that she was so in love with the knight that some sort of timeslip took her and deposited her in his time. In 1865 a manuscript was discovered which gave an account of the life of the crusader knight and, in an "extraordinary coincidence", it turns out that accompanying Edward was "a brave and beautiful woman from the district of Carisbrooke Castle. Her name was Lucy Lightfoot." Even when I first read this, back in 1971, I thought that revelation was just a bit too farfetched, but I assumed that there was a kernel of truth in the story and that a Lucy Lightfoot had lived and disappeared. Turns out the whole thing (apart from the effigy in the church) was a fiction, made up by the then vicar, Rev. James Evans, presumably as a bit of fun and maybe to encourage visitors. I'm not sure whether he invented it specifically for Man, Myth and Magic or whether it predates the appearance there by a few years. Anyway, if he wanted more people to visit to church, it's worked! The website for the village still plugs the story and encourages people to come and see the effigy. The story is given, without the hoax explanation, in several places on the Net (others, including the Wikipedia page, are more reliable). There's a good debunking of it in Shadows in the Nave: A Guide to the Haunted Churches of England by Eddie Brazil, Paul Adams and Peter Underwood (2011). Apparently there have been several works of fiction based on the supposed events. Not sure I'd heard of Rev. Evans' wizard wheeze until I read your account - particularly like that the tragic Lucy Lightfoot has spawned a mini-industry. Would be interested to learn which stories owe a debt to the Reverend's inspired mischief. The Wikipedia page for Lucy Lightfoot lists three fiction titles, of which I know nothing. There's also a short story by Jan Edwards in Leinster Gardens, her collection from Alchemy Press, which sounds more our sort of thing! alchemypress.wordpress.com/alchemy-publications/2015-publications/leinster-gardens/
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