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Post by dem bones on Sept 19, 2020 10:22:01 GMT
Peter Haining - The Supernatural Coast: Unexplained Mysteries of East Anglia (Robert Hale, 1992) "Cover illustration shows sunset at Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk (courtesy of Gillian Beckett)" A Night on the Supernatural Coast The Sirens of the Wash The Hell Hound of Cromer The Sea Serpent of Kessingland 'The Walberswick Whisperers’ The Lost World of Dunwich The Devil's Skull in Woodbridge The Witch Finder of Mistley The Phantom Centurion of Mersea Island The Wizards of Canewdon Blurb: The great curve of British coastline that stretches from the Thames to The Wash deserves its reputation as the 'Supernatural Coast’. All around the shore of East Anglia — much of which still remains wild and remote from civilization — there are stories to be heard of sea serpents and devil dogs, of mermaids and ghosts, as well as the practice of witchcraft and satanism.
Discover the terrifying ‘Hell Hound of Cromer', Suffolk's eerie 'Walberswick Whisperers’ and the witch-haunted Essex coast legend of ‘The Wizards of Canewdon.' To these add the mysterious bells still ringing in a drowned town, the evil influence of a skull that belonged to Oliver Cromwell, and the ancient ghost of a Roman soldier who still walks across to Mersea Island, and there is undoubtedly a rich store of exciting reading awaiting!
During his travels, Peter Haining has come across evidence of many old supernatural legends still surviving in the small resorts and seaside towns all along the East Anglian coast.The most fascinating and mysterious of these are investigated in this book, making it an irresistible spine-tingler for residents and holiday-makers alike.A Night on the Supernatural Coast: "Nothing here is easy to dismiss as mere figment of the imagination." As a young reporter on the Chelmsford-based Essex Weekly News Peter, in ghost-hunter mode, accompanies townie-hating James Wentworth Day in search of the Phantom Druid of the Marshes, believed to haunt the sinister woods near Tollesbury. It is a place of evil reputation. "Indeed, when some modern day Satanists came up from London and tried to hold one of their sex and black magic rituals in it, something far more terrifying than they had ever intended to raise appeared and so terrified them that they fled never to return. Local people had always maintained that the place had a reputation not to be treated lightly - as the Satanists had discovered to the cost of their sanity." Haining and guide don't actually find the Druid, but the experience is a spooky one. Peter has an idea for a book. He takes to traipsing the coastline in search of strangeness. The result is that rarest of beasts, a Peter Haining work of non-fiction entirely bereft of illustrative material, which I'm not even sure is actually legal. The Sirens of the Wash: Peter visits Mermaid Sand, a mud-flat near Snettisham, allegedly home to an underwater colony of merfolk, sirens, ghost-crabs and things best not dwelt upon. It seems that all down the centuries there have been reported mermaid sightings along the coast; In 1794, a fisherman named Captain Fortier went so far as to capture one, which he promptly sold for a huge sum to a London showman for display at Covent Garden. Haining quotes from a review in the day's London Gazette. "This nymph of the sea, a woman from the head down to the lower part of the waist, and a fish from thence downwards, was three feet long, having ears, gills, breasts, fins, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers and a contiguous scale covered the fish part." It is hardly a surprise that Peter's quest ends in disappointment; man has polluted the North Sea to such an extent that its aquatic races have relocated far out in the ocean. Will he have better luck hunting down the Hell Hound? TBC
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Post by dem bones on Sept 20, 2020 8:37:35 GMT
The Hell Hound of Cromer: Haining relates two strange encounters with, respectively, an eerie black hound and a heavy breathing horse during his pursuit of Black Shuck. There is some dispute as to just how the Hell Hound actually is. Suffolk folk regard the monster dog as harmless if left alone, unlike Norfolk people, who believe those it appears to are doomed to die within a year. Eyewitness descriptions vary: it's generally agreed that the creature is black, huge and breathes fire, though one school insists it can change shape at will. Some say its eyes are fiery and saucer shaped, others argue the beast is cycloptic. A head is, apparently, optional. The chapter meanders on and off topic as author allows himself to be sidetracked by Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, etc, gets back in its stride with a mini gazetteer of local hauntings: " .... the lonely stretch of coastline around the little community of Happisburg ... has the reputation of being haunted by one of the most gruesome spectres on record. The ghost is said to be that of a legless smuggler whose appearance is made all the more hideous because his head hangs down backwards between his shoulders and is only attached to his neck by a thin strip of skin." Chapter bears no relation to Shuck story featured in author's The Hell Hound & Other True Mysteries (1980). Haining references John Harries' The Ghost hunter's Road Book and Joan Forman's Haunted East Anglia (both 1974) Joan Forman - Haunted East Anglia (Fontana, 1976, 1977. Robert Hale, 1974) Cover photograph by Alan Kemp Introduction
A Tolling Bell, a Chair and the Portrait of a Lady (Norfolk) Walking Boots and Pigs and Spanish Noblewomen (Lincolnshire) Smugglers, Two Children and the Handsome Earl of Sandwich (Suffolk) Love Letters, a Bridge and the Life of Cromwell's Cavalry (Huntingdonshire) A Watchman, a Poltergeist and the Rattling Thing in the Coalhouse (Cambridgeshire) A Grocer, a Searcher and a Homesick American Airman (Hertfordshire) Fires and Laughter and the Unlucky Witches (Essex) A Pail, a Queen and a Voice from the Middle Ages (Northamptonshire) Conclusion
IndexBlurb: Haunted East Anglia is more than a collection of ghost stories, though the Tolling Bell, the Walking Boots, the Rattling Thing in the Coalhouse and the Handsome Earl of Sandwich, among others, are ghosts enough for anyone. It's a fascinating blend of history, fable and myth, of country lore and scenes, of magic and witchcraft.
`From Norfolk to Northampton, Essex to Lincolnshire and Suffolk, from Mary Queen of Scots to Boadicea, an astonishing, never-ending trail of ghostly antics fills the pages'. - EVENING NEWS
`A fascinating book which should appeal to all lovers of East Anglia' - SUFFOLK FAIR
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Post by Swampirella on Sept 20, 2020 11:41:30 GMT
The Hell Hound of Cromer: Haining relates two strange encounters with, respectively, an eerie black hound and a heavy breathing horse during his pursuit of Black Shuck. There is some dispute as to just how the Hell Hound actually is. Suffolk folk regard the monster dog as harmless if left alone, unlike Norfolk people, who believe those it appears to are doomed to die within a year. Eyewitness descriptions vary: it's generally agreed that the creature is black, huge and breathes fire, though one school insists it can change shape at will. Some say its eyes are fiery and saucer shaped, others argue the beast is cycloptic. A head is, apparently, optional. The chapter meanders on and off topic as author allows himself to be sidetracked by Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, etc, gets back in its stride with a mini gazetteer of local hauntings: " .... the lonely stretch of coastline around the little community of Happisburg ... has the reputation of being haunted by one of the most gruesome spectres on record. The ghost is said to be that of a legless smuggler whose appearance is made all the more hideous because his head hangs down backwards between his shoulders and is only attached to his neck by a thin strip of skin." Chapter bears no relation to Shuck story featured in author's The Hell Hound & Other True Mysteries (1980). Haining references John Harries' The Ghost hunter's Road Book and Joan Forman's Haunted East Anglia (both 1974) Joan Forman - Haunted East Anglia (Fontana, 1976, 1977. Robert Hale, 1974) Cover photograph by Alan Kemp Introduction
A Tolling Bell, a Chair and the Portrait of a Lady (Norfolk) Walking Boots and Pigs and Spanish Noblewomen (Lincolnshire) Smugglers, Two Children and the Handsome Earl of Sandwich (Suffolk) Love Letters, a Bridge and the Life of Cromwell's Cavalry (Huntingdonshire) A Watchman, a Poltergeist and the Rattling Thing in the Coalhouse (Cambridgeshire) A Grocer, a Searcher and a Homesick American Airman (Hertfordshire) Fires and Laughter and the Unlucky Witches (Essex) A Pail, a Queen and a Voice from the Middle Ages (Northamptonshire) Conclusion
IndexBlurb: Haunted East Anglia is more than a collection of ghost stories, though the Tolling Bell, the Walking Boots, the Rattling Thing in the Coalhouse and the Handsome Earl of Sandwich, among others, are ghosts enough for anyone. It's a fascinating blend of history, fable and myth, of country lore and scenes, of magic and witchcraft.
`From Norfolk to Northampton, Essex to Lincolnshire and Suffolk, from Mary Queen of Scots to Boadicea, an astonishing, never-ending trail of ghostly antics fills the pages'. - EVENING NEWS
`A fascinating book which should appeal to all lovers of East Anglia' - SUFFOLK FAIR The horrible ghost of Happisburgh and other Norfolk ghost stories/legends can be found at this excellent site:
Once certain UK used book sellers start shipping again to my neck of the woods, I'll get a copy of Supernatural Coast. As for Joan Forman's books, they're all top-notch.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 20, 2020 16:29:59 GMT
Once certain UK used book sellers start shipping to my neck of the woods, I'll get a copy of Supernatural Coast. As for Joan Forman's books, they're all top-notch. The Supernatural Coast is a joy for Haining fans. Some photo's and, especially, press cuttings would have been nice, but my one major criticism is the lack of an Index. The Sea Serpent of Kessingland: "Just to the south of Lowestoft ... there is a chance of a very different kind of excitement for anyone who chooses to spend some time looking for what is said to be a real life version of the Loch Ness Monster." What the ... real life version? Mr. Haining, how could you? And this from the man who (semi-)wrote The Monster Trap! The Suffolk sea monster doesn't sound up to much from the report quoted from The Gentleman's Magazine for 1750, when, according to an eyewitness, it was a mere five feet long. However, by 20th July 1912, when Lilias Rider Haggard reported her sighting in a letter to her famous novelist father, the beast had filled out to an impressive sixty feet with "a sort of head at one end and then a series of about 30 pointed blobs which dwindled in size as it neared the tail. As it went along it seemed to get more and more submerged and vanished. You can't imagine the pace it was going." As would be expected of any responsible citizen in a Peter Haining book, having first interviewed his servants, Rider Haggard fired off a letter to the local newspaper, The Eastern Daily, who duly published same in their Wednesday 24th July edition under the heading Sea Serpent off Kessingland. The author wished to ask: "(1) Has anybody else seen a peculiar creature in the sea off the East Coast? and (2) Could what my daughter and her two companions saw have been a school of porpoises travelling at a great rate?" A more recent sighting of 'the Orford Ness monster' was that reported to the editor of East Anglian Magazine. A holidaymaker, who wished to remain anonymous, spotted a thing with a long neck and several humps while sunning themself on the beach. 'The Walberswick Whisperers’: Next a brief boat-ride across the River Blythe to the exuberantly haunted village of Walsberswick, home to "a mysterious man and his companion waiting to catch a ferry, a wailing spirit that haunted the old vicarage and the ghost of a miser believed to stride about the Common. Plus a phantom animal, the spectre of a soldier named Black Toby, and" - a cliffhanger to end on - "a haunted inn where the mysterious behaviour of some bedclothes may have inspired one of the finest modern ghost stories."
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 20, 2020 19:08:37 GMT
Once certain UK used book sellers start shipping to my neck of the woods, I'll get a copy of Supernatural Coast. As for Joan Forman's books, they're all top-notch. The Supernatural Coast is a joy for Haining fans. Some photo's and, especially, press cuttings would have been nice, but my one major criticism is the lack of an Index. The Sea Serpent of Kessingland: "Just to the south of Lowestoft ... there is a chance of a very different kind of excitement for anyone who chooses to spend some time looking for what is said to be a real life version of the Loch Ness Monster." What the ... real life version]? Mr. Haining, how could you? And this from the man who (semi-)wrote The Monster Trap! The Suffolk sea monster doesn't sound up to much from the report quoted from The Gentleman's Magazine for 1750, when, according to an eyewitness, it was a mere five feet long. However, by 20th July 1912, when Lilias Rider Haggard reported her sighting in a letter to her famous novelist father, the beast had filled out to an impressive sixty feet with "a sort of head at one end and then a series of about 30 pointed blobs which dwindled in size as it neared the tail. As it went along it seemed to get more and more submerged and vanished. You can't imagine the pace it was going." As would be expected of any responsible citizen in a Peter Haining book, having first interviewed his servants, Rider Haggard fired off a letter to the local newspaper, The Eastern Daily, who duly published same in their Wednesday 24th July edition under the heading Sea Serpent off Kessingland. The author wished to ask: "(1) Has anybody else seen a peculiar creature in the sea off the East Coast? and (2) Could what my daughter and her two companions saw have been a school of porpoises travelling at a great rate?" I daresay its just as well Rider had given up hunting himself by that stage in deference to the memory of poor Bob, the black retriever heartlessly mown down by a locomotive but who had returned to say good-bye to his master in a dream; otherwise he may have been tempted to grab his twelve bore and bag the beast, Hunter Quatermain style. As a sort of companion piece to Haining's book; does anyone else remember an episode of the old Country Tracks show where Pete McCarthy did a coastal walk between Aldeburgh and Southwold? I distinctly remember him stopping at Dunwich to report the tolling of the ghostly bells.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2020 16:54:41 GMT
Ah yes; the doom that came to the real Dunwich.
The Lost World of Dunwich: The author visits a tiny hamlet on the Suffolk Coast, all that remains of a once thriving city port long swept into the sea, where, to this day, the phantom bells of its lost churches toll mournfully beneath the waves. Haining also inspects the grave of John Brinkley Ease, which has clung precariously to the cliff edge since 1826 *, the huge All Saints church and adjoining cemetery having finally toppled into the gloomy grey waters in 1919. It's dramatic stuff. The great man closes his chapter with a flourish, introducing a Dunwich connection to the legend of the Green Children of Woolpit Grange.
The Devil's Skull in Woodbridge: The unparalleled, death-dealing wanderings of Oliver Cromwell's severed head. Did the Lord Protectorate strike a pact with Satan on the eve of the decisive Battle of Worcester, or is that just a myth promoted by sore loser Royalist sympathisers. Guest starring John Keir Cross (the famous attempt to raise the devil for the BBC), and Robert Thurstone Hopkins.
The Witch Finder of Mistley: Questions, questions. Does the ghost of Matthew Hopkins haunt the old Thorn Inn, Mistley, where he would receive informers and plot his campaign against Satan's concubines? What became of the Devil's own list of all the witches in England and how came Hopkins to obtain it. When, where and how did he meet his death - is their any truth in the fiendish, Tales from the Crypt-style poetic justice version of events?
We'll never know.
* The gravestone has since either joined the rest of the churchyard in the North Sea, or been removed to neighbouring St. James.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 22, 2020 8:02:53 GMT
The Phantom Centurion of Mersea Island: A ghostly legionnaire patrols the Strood, sometimes in the company of fellow spectral soldiers, just as often alone. Possibly emanates from a mound on Barrow Hill. Neighbouring woodlands also reputedly haunted by invisible army and sound of clashing swords. A neatly rounded article but all told, this chap compares unfavourably with the flamboyant, roving skeleton of Riva celebrated in Haining's The Restless Bones& Other True MysteriesThe Wizards of Canewdon: An extended version of The Master of Witches ( The Monster Trap & Other True Mysteries, 1976), celebrating the dark and mysterious doings of powerful black and white sorcery exponent, James 'Cunning' Murrell. Author introduces a modern successor of sorts, George Pickingale, who flourished pre-WW1, but the crafty one was always going to be a hard act to follow. So you turn the page expecting more but ... there isn't. Seems a strange place to end. Haining is usually good for an 'Appendix' or two, and it really does feel as though more book was intended.
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