Alan Robson — Grisly Trails and Ghostly Tales

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Alan Robson — Grisly Trails and Ghostly Tales (Virgin, 1992)

Introduction
The Border Country
The Berwick Vampire —Berwick's River of Blood — Berwick Castle and the Blood of the Borderers — The Cannibals of Berwick — The Auchencrow Witches — Knock, Knock, Death's at your Door — Carnwath: Planning Permission Denied by the Devil — The Craithcraig Flying Saucer — Dalkieth: Thomas the Rhymer — The Scottish Fisherfolk and the Fingers of Christ — Fatlips of Dryburgh, Berwickshire — The Scarborough Skate Skuttler — The Hobkirk Poltergeist — Jedburg's Bony Finger of Death — The Lammermuir Outcasts — The Mansucker of Melrose — The Weird Wizard of Oakwood — The Golden Thread of Rutherford — The Horse Witch of Yarrow

Northumberland
The Phantom Horseman of Allendale — The Alnwick Zombie — Murder at Alnwick Fair — The Dissected Saint of Bamburgh — Bamburgh's Laidley Worm — Bamburgh: Oh My Darling — The Flower of Bedlington — The Bonny Lass of Belsay — The Spry Family and the Blanchland Horrors — Refugees from the King at Burroden— The Cursed Cattle of Chillingham — The Footless Man of Waskerly Moor — The Roman Legion of Corbridge — The Cragside Queen — The Druid Curse of Craster — Cresswell: There Is Nothing Like a Dane — The Dead Walk at Dunstanburgh — Death at Dilston — Ellingham: the Fried Friar of Preston Tower — The Curse of the Elsdon Gibbet — The Embleton Piper — The Farne Islands and Cuthbert's Ghost — The Haltonchesters Lightning Curse — Haltwhistle: Here Comes the Bride — Hazelrigg: We All Fall Down — The Hexham Walk of Death — The Kraken of Holy Island — The Holy Island Sea Sirens — The Big-Nosed Ghost of Holy Island Castle — Holy Island's Ghost of St Cuthbert — The Treasure of Broomlee Lough — Meg of Meldon — The Haunted Loveseat of Morpeth — The Battle of Otterburn —The Ghastly Cavalier of Rock Hall — Thropton: Going Boo for the Booze — Queen Mab of Whittingham

Tyneside
The Ghost of the Blaydon Races — The Black Plague of Elswick — The Flaming Ghosts of Gateshead — It's Raining Dosh! — Gosforth's Singalongaghost — The Jarrow Reaper—Jarrow's Black Death — The Spirit of the Swan — The Newburn Screamer — The Ghost of the Bigg Market — Auld Clothie of the Cooperage — The Laughing Cavalier—The Massacre of the Moor — The Floating Faces of the Newcastle Flood — The Bodysnatching Business (Tyneside) Ltd — The Cathedral Phantoms — The Black Friars of Blackfriars — The Ghostly Eloper — The Ghostly Head of Earl Grey — Ghosts Galore at Newcastle's Castle — The Witch House of Claremont Road — The Power of the Northern Mind — Rowlands Gill: The Ghost That Would Not Be Recorded — The Phantom Fortune of South Shields — South Shields Old Hall and the Signs of Murder — Tynemouth's Viking Phantom — Walker's Weeping Madonna — The Fire Woman of Whitley Bay — The Witches of Winlaton Mill

Wearside
The Pesky Poltergeist of Chester le Street — East Rainton: The Ghost of Mary Ann Cotton — Fatfield: The Horror of the Havelock Arms — The Fairy Minstrel of Houghton le Spring — The Spooks of Houghton le Spring — The Sexy Spirit of Houghton le Spring — The Lambton Worm — The Ghostly Avenger of Lumley Village — The Phantoms of Lumley Castle — The Curse of the Marsdon Grotto — Pelton's Metamorphic Sprite — The Miracle of the Sunderland Sand Eels — The Cauld Lad of Hylton Castle — The Sunderland Bodysnatcher — Ghost Ship on the Wear — The Freemasonry Plot — Washington's Lady in Red — Washington: The Ghostly Pilot of Nissan — The Silkie of Washington Hall — The Whitburn Poltergeist

Cumbria
The Citadel, Carlisle — The Bassenthwaite Bleeder — The Radiant Boy of Corby Castle — Cumberland's Deathly Battalions — The Isle of Man's Hound from Hell — The Keswick Canoodler — The Witches of Knott — Talkin: It's Just Auld Maggie — The Terror of Talkin Tarn— Thumbs Down for Thumbs Up — The Rapist's Hook — The Workington Prince of Darkness

Durham and Teesside
The Shepherd and Shepherdess at Beamish — The Bishop Auckland Boar— The Faery Folk of Bishopton—Brancepeth: Bobby Shafto and the Love He Left Behind — Darlington's Curse of St Barnabas — The Durham Forcefield — Durham: The Story of Mary O'Brian — Sanctuary Denied in Durham — The Fairies of Ferryhill — God's Assassin in Guisborough — The Serpent of Handale — Toad in the Hole, Hartlepool — The Saintly Poltergeist of Hartlepool — Langley Hall: Any Body for Me? — The Pickled Parson of Sedgefield — The Spinning Saucer of Shotton Colliery - Sir John Conyers, Dragonslayer of Sockburn — Stainmoor and the Bloody Hand of Glory — Stockton Sexpot — The Teesside Airport Spook

The North Riding of Yorkshire
Robin Hood of Barnsdale Forest — The Bingley Fairies — The Headless Corpse of Burton Agnes Hall — Conisbrough: Watch the Skies Over Yorkshire — Darrington: Scargill's Ghost — The Flamborough Flibbitygibbet — The Slumbering Knights of King Arthur — The Witchhunter in Yorkshire — Haworth: The Ghost of Emily Brontë — Knaresborough: The North Yorkshire Nostradamus — Leeds: The Disco Inferno — Long Marston: Cromwell's Ghost— Malton: How Now, Spotted Cow — The Norton Barguest — The Grandfather Clock of Piercebridge — Richmond's Little Drummer Boy — The Dove of the River Dove — Sandhutton: A Pint for the Jolly Murderer — A Bit of a Letdown in Scarborough —Vampires in Whitby? — How to Spot a Vampire — The Yorkshire Witches

A Final Word
The First Live Broadcast from a Black Magic Ritual

Blurb:

Welcome, fellow ghoul-hunters, to the spine-chilling world of evil witches and headless corpses, legendary knights and enchanted lovers…
Come with me on a grisly trail of horrific happenings and strange sightings into a bizarre other world – right on your doorstep…
See the ghostly lovers of Bedlington and the kippered Druid of Craster. Hear the Handale Serpent’s sinister hiss and the eerie wails of the Embleton Piper…
I’ve gathered together over 150 terrifying tales from ordinary people all over the North. Weird. Spooky. Frightening. True?
I’ll leave you to decide.

Robson's initial volume of Grisly Trails ... received serialisation treatment in one of the Sunday magazines. Don't know which — saved the clipping but didn't note the source (thought it was News of the World, but most likely isn't. Date would have been circa Feb. 1992, as the book was due to be published the following month.

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The Scarborough Skate Skuttler: 1743. When Elizabeth Munro, a young passenger aboard the The Hawk, fell overboard at Aberlady to be sucked down by a whirlpool, her lover, Philip the cabin boy, dreamt she'd been reincarnated as a huge white skate. When the ship reached Berwick, the youth leapt into the water to violate the first skate he set eyes upon. Needless to say, the flatfish transformed back into his fiancée! Wedding bells, confetti, etc.

"This seems very peculiar, yet the male skate has a sex organ very similar in size and shape to a human male, and the female skate has genitalia almost identical to a human female! This is why in supermarkets you never see a whole skate, only skate wings. Also according to fishermen when they prepare these fish for sale they have to curtain off the filleting area, because it so shocks tourists and passers-by. They also say that to satisfy lust at sea in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s they used to strap a skate to a mast, and let the sailors relieve their sexual desires' as it is claimed to feel similar to a woman."

Leeds: The Disco Inferno: Spontaneous human combustion on the dance floor of an unidentified West Yorkshire venue, the female victim allegedly obliterated mid-Trammps classic. According to eyewitness Frank Simons, the girl continued dancing and smiling throughout, entirely oblivious to the flames that consumed her but left her clothes untouched. Soon there was nothing left to show for her but a dress, two platform shoes, a handbag and a mound of ashes.

Jedburgh's Bony Finger of Death: Jedburg Abbey, October 1285. Death gatecrashes the wedding fancy dress reception of fun-loving Alexander III and Fair Yolane ("the Charles and Diana of their day") in the guise of a skeleton. A forewarning of the young King's death in a riding accident the following spring, punishment for his failure to observe Lent.

The Sunderland Bodysnatcher: The "apelike" ghost of William Burke haunts the toilet of a Wearside steelyard. You can tell it's him because the arms are too long for the body.

The Stockton-on-Tees Sexpot: Do you believe in sex after death? Letter received by author in 1987, from an anonymous widow whose late husband nightly returns in spectral phwoarm to fulfil his "marital duties."

The Hobkirk Poltergeist: When his time came, the Reverend Nichol Edgar's reward for ridding a Roxborough church of its terrible resident spectral vandal was to be buried on the outskirts of the village to prevent his wandering the kirkyard at night. Rev. Edgar was having none of it.

Fatlips of Dryburgh, Berwickshire: Her lover's death in the battle of Naseby proved too much for one Royalist, who took to the cellars below Dryburgh Abbey to live out her days a hermit. The ghost, however, is not hers, but that of a kindly dwarf who brought her food and emptied the toilet.

The Bonny Lass of Belsay: Flirtatious ghost in long, rustling silk dress, thought to be that of Carolyn, a seventeenth beauty killed in a riding accident. There's no malice in her, but non-swimmers who take to following her should keep their wits about them, as her preferred haunts are the lake and the waterfall.

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Featuring the Sawney Beane clan, the Hook, Auld blood sockets, a mad brain-feaster at Melrose Abbey, etc.

The Berwick Vampire: The "vampire," a deranged tramp with fangs, bit through the throat of a young woman in a farmyard toilet, then repeated the abominable deed on a guard escorting him from the magistrate's court. A search party, headed by the first victim's intended, tracked him to a tunnel dug into a bankside. The poor lunatic was dragged from his hiding case, decapitated with a spade, and beaten to a pulp.

The Rapist's Hook: Yes, that Hook, relocated to the Lake District during the 1930s, and a Lover's Lane overlooking Crummock Water. John Morris and Gillian Thompson are the amorous couple interrupted mid-grapple.

The Mansucker of Melrose: The depraved reign of medieval psycho priest of Melrose Abbey, who used a metal tube to suck blood and brain fluids from the skulls of the unwary. Caught in the act, the fiend was dragged cursing to the stake.

The Cannibal of Berwick: The Sawney Beane legend retold with gusto.

Auld Clothie of the Cooperage: Ghost of Henry Hardwick haunts the Newcastle Quayside, where once he dared resist a press-gang. They gouged out his eyes and cut off his balls as an example to others.

The Laughing Cavalier: Spectre of Roger Weatherly, jovial as he was recklessly brave, who once stood atop a mound of mixed Royalist and Roundhead corpses in defiance of a Parliamentary hit squad and defied them to do their worst. Reported sighting across Newcastle. Evidently likes a night out on the toon.

The Massacre of the Moor: As its name suggest, Gallowgate, the site on which Newcastle United FC's St James' Park stadium now stands, was once notorious as a Geordie Tyburn. The public hangings came particularly thick and fast during the Witch hysteria of the mid-late seventeenth century. Unusually, author has been unable to discover any ghost stories relating to the site. He can, however, claim first-hand experience of the Grey Lady of Delaval Tower.

Jarrow's Black Death: In 1988, a Mrs. Shirley Gallagher reported an encounter with a ghostly plague victim in rags, face a mass of septic black boils, outside the Clock public house. At first she mistook it for her husband whom she arranged to meet for a drink.

The Whitburn Poltergeist: According to landlord William Bloxham, The Jolly Sailors pub came under sustained poltergeist attack throughout 1983; flying furniture, an unexplained abominable stench, door slamming, etc. It's worth noting that his regulars remained oblivious to the uncanny activity.

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The Cragside Queen: Grounds of Cragside Hall, near Rothbury, are patrolled by a petite phantom in a long white or cream gown with light orange feather boa draped across her shoulder. In 1956 she caught the eye of a Mr. Gordon Cragg who watched her vanish through a wall. "I couldn't believe it. I almost chatted up a ghost."

The Keswick Canoodler: A groping ghost making a sex nuisance of itself near Lake District campsites. Uncertain if same entity as the phantom dogger of Derwent Water, catch phrase; "Go on, bitch! f**k him! f**k him!"

Daily Mirror, 3 June 1989.

The Sexy Spirit of Houghton le Spring: Terrifying ordeal of Mrs. Lynn Arkley, 29, persecuted by a phantom rapist over several nights. Pentecostal pastor Norman Humphrey exorcised the house, and Lynne and admirer reverted to being just good friends.

Vampires in Whitby?: A ghoul raiding freshly dug graves for his dinner and a young Dracula obsessive who got way carried away while administering a love-bite on startled boyfriend's neck.

Fatfield: The Horror of the Havelock Arms: Poltergeist activity and the glowing ghost of a former landlord, Long John Waistcoat, who died there.

Miracle of the Sunderland Sand Eels: A shower of the slippery customers fell on a Wearside suburb in August 1918.

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Haltwhistle: Here Comes the Bride: It should have been the happiest day of the local beauty, Abigail Fetherstonehaugh's young life but, alas, it ended in horror, the blushing bride and handsome groom hacked to pieces by her drunken ex. The killer torched the marriage cart, gored corpses and all, for good measure. The victims' sad and bloody ghosts appeared before campers Marge and Frank Coles at Knarsdale in November 1989.

The Kraken of Holy Island: Feared and despised as a feaster on the eyes of drowning sailors, the sea serpent has kept a low profile since the end of the eleventh century, but you never know.

The Bingley Fairies: Familiar to many as the Cottingley fairies. Famous 1917 hoax perpetuated by cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, who claimed to have photographed little people at play in the Beck. Also, of more recent vintage, an elf-eating black dog prowls the North Riding.

Knaresborough: The North Yorkshire Nostradamus: The uncannily accurate prophesies of the fifteen century wise woman, Old Mother Shipton. Cars, submarines, air balloons, TV, the Black Death, the construction and collapse of the Crystal Palace, the end of the world, etc.

Haworth: The Ghost of Emily Brontë: Haunts a waterfall on the Moors, seemingly in search of something or someone. Spotted among the mourners at sister Charlotte's funeral.

The Flamborough Flibbitygibbet: Headless ghost of Jenny Gallows, official village bully and suspected serial poisoner. Lost her head when thrown from her horse after local children fed a tripwire across the bridle path at Dane's Dyke. Three-hundred years later, she is still useful to parents minded to traumatise the little ones. If you misbehave, Jenny Gallows will get you.

The Headless Corpse of Burton Agnes Hall: Anne Griffiths loved her home so dearly that, approaching death, she had her surviving sisters promise to remove the head from her corpse and seal it into a wall of Burton Agnes for eternity. Anne's truncated ghost has returned to float along the hall on the few occasions a descendent has dared remove it.

The Saintly Poltergeist of Hartlepool: Culprit is one of either a sex nun taking a secret passage from the convent to meet her lover in the Cosmopolitan pub, or another of the sisters, accidentally walled up alive in the aftermath of St. Hilda ridding Eskdale of snakes.

Dalkieth: Thomas the Rhymer: The magician-prophet and his saw of gory justice versus Campbell the Bloodseeker, mass axe-murderer and rapist, "the worst brigand ever to roam the North country."

The Haunted Loveseat of Morpeth: A haunted bench classic. A hair-pulling, choking, throat-slitting phantom haunts a row same backing onto Carlisle park.

As a Britain's number one ghost hunter myself, I love that, given three variations on the same haunting, Robson, by his own admission, will unfailingly go with the most sensational.