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Your Favourite Ghost Story

Steven

Steven

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Mine is actually one from here, posted in the Ghost Tales From Everyday People thread:

Extract ~

'All very standard haunting so far, with only minor details standing out. Such as, it liked spoons: they often had spoons - and only spoons, never other silverware - go missing, sometimes right off the table when their backs were turned, they said. Once they found two spoons lying in a patch of dirt by the side of the garage, but usually the spoons just vanished. They blamed the banshee.'

An interesting tale but what really made me shiver was the speculation in a poster's reply:

'That is a really disturbing story. The best horror tales are always of some menace only glimpsed or half heard. I wonder if the 'thing' liked spoons because they act like mirrors?'

Gulp. It's funny how such little details of a ghost story are often the most effective; like the 'holding hands' part of The Haunting of Hill House.

Do you have a favourite?

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Full 'Banshee' post on this page:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...rom-everyday-people.45034/page-2#post-1107574
 
From Andy Gilbert's 'Credible Witness' books (will check which one)

Police officer engaged in a stolen car chase pulls his car up into a deserted farmyard to allow himself a view of the road and wait. A bulky red haired farm labourer in a checked shirt holes into view and the officer braces himself for a "get off my land!"-type confrontation. However, the farm hand doesn't appear to notice him and then walks straight through a solid brick wall...!
 
Though not really a ghost story, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan has been really influential on other writers of such tales. The novella's character Helen Vaughan is unforgettable...as are the villainous and sexist 'heroes'. It's so easy to see how the story greatly influenced Straub's Ghost Story.

Also...what absolute fools some leading critics at the time of publication were. And far too keen to libel authors as being degenerate, unsound, and even seditious:

'Reviewing the novella for the magazine Literary News, Richard Henry Stoddard criticised the story as "too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind". The art critic Harry Quilter's review of the book, titled "The Gospel of Intensity", and published in The Contemporary Review in June 1895, was even more harsh. Quilter warned that Machen's books were a dangerous threat to the entire British public and that they would destroy readers' sanities and senses of morality. Quilter went on to attack the story's publisher, John Lane, as well as Machen himself: "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?"'
 
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Steven said:
Though not really a ghost story, Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan has been really influential on other writers of such tales. The novella's character Helen Vaughan is unforgettable...as are the villainous and sexist 'heroes'. It's so easy to see how the story greatly influenced Straub's Ghost Story.

Also...what absolute fools some leading critics at the time of publication were. And far too keen to libel authors as being degenerate, unsound, and even seditious:

'Reviewing the novella for the magazine Literary News, Richard Henry Stoddard criticised the story as "too morbid to be the production of a healthy mind". The art critic Harry Quilter's review of the book, titled "The Gospel of Intensity", and published in The Contemporary Review in June 1895, was even more harsh. Quilter warned that Machen's books were a dangerous threat to the entire British public and that they would destroy readers' sanities and senses of morality. Quilter went on to attack the story's publisher, John Lane, as well as Machen himself: "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?"'
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The big problem with The Great God Pan was that the character Mary had sex with Pan.

At the time there was no acceptable way to convey this scandalous episode to the reader. Machen was reduced to having a male character whisper it to another, who looked suitably shocked to hear it, and hope the reader would infer the infamy correctly.

Books and stories were often read aloud to groups. That one wasn't getting performed at the Sunday Literary Circle! :chuckle:
 
Techy has hair-raising personal supernatural stories. I've posted some on'ere.

Have to say that an account of weirdness from the horse's mouth trumps anything I can read about in a book or see described on TV.

That introductory Now I don't believe in ghosts but there was this one time... followed by a sincere description of something so downright strange, you might remember it last thing at night and shudder.

Solid gold. :cool:
 
escargot said:
Techy has hair-raising personal supernatural stories. I've posted some on'ere.

Have to say that an account of weirdness from the horse's mouth trumps anything I can read about in a book or see described on TV.

That introductory Now I don't believe in ghosts but there was this one time... followed by a sincere description of something so downright strange, you might remember it last thing at night and shudder.

Solid gold. :cool:
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Can you do some links please? Any you've not shared yet you could add here?
 
Frideswide said:
Really? shine a light! I missed that!
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Quoting myself'ere -

At the time there was no acceptable way to convey this scandalous episode to the reader. Machen was reduced to having a male character whisper it to another, who looked suitably shocked to hear it, and hope the reader would infer the infamy correctly.
 
I'm with @escargot I love made-up ghost stories of the Classic Era (M R James, et al) but find modern ghost stories can be a bit too 'try hard'. Not enough weirdness and too many jump-scares or too much gore. Sometimes less is more. But real ghost stories, in all their mundanity, are far more frightening.
 
catseye said:
I'm with @escargot I love made-up ghost stories of the Classic Era (M R James, et al) but find modern ghost stories can be a bit too 'try hard'. Not enough weirdness and too many jump-scares or too much gore. Sometimes less is more. But real ghost stories, in all their mundanity, are far more frightening.
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There are some modern ghost stories that are good, are you talking about film/TV ones? You mention jump scares, so I presume you mean those?

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House on Netflix is worth a watch, very slow and subtle.

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Ogdred Weary said:
There are some modern ghost stories that are good, are you talking about film/TV ones? You mention jump scares, so I presume you mean those?

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House on Netflix is worth a watch, very slow and subtle.

​

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Even the written ones have jump scares - although they are more of the 'startle, too scared to turn the page' nature.
 
I was deep in horrified concentration on a book about ghosts and witches once. What confronted me, as I turned over a new page, was not the writing I'd anticipated but a full-page picture of Vincent Price as Dr Phibes in full-face skeletal make-up. Naturally I reacted with all my renowned composure, maturity, and elegance, and only screamed like a goat falling off a cliff three times.
 
catseye said:
I'm with @escargot I love made-up ghost stories of the Classic Era (M R James, et al) but find modern ghost stories can be a bit too 'try hard'. Not enough weirdness and too many jump-scares or too much gore. Sometimes less is more. But real ghost stories, in all their mundanity, are far more frightening.
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It's a self-limiting genre innit; dead person returns from the grave, causes trouble. The only mystery might be how soon we find out who the ghost is.

When people tell me about a weird experience they've had I feel privileged to hear it. Much more interesting than any fiction.
 
escargot said:
It's a self-limiting genre innit; dead person returns from the grave, causes trouble. The only mystery might be how soon we find out who the ghost is.

When people tell me about a weird experience they've had I feel privileged to hear it. Much more interesting than any fiction.
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I think a lot of the problem is that a ghost story has to be just that, a story. There has to be a narrative, you can't just have 'a weird thing happened and I'm not sure what it was'; the reader needs to know what it was. With a real life story it can remain a weird thing with no resolution - and that's what's fascinating.
 
Yes, it's striking how often real-life accounts end with something like:

'Later on, a barman/house owner/local person told me that the place was once home to a suicide/was notoriously haunted.'

Given that so many people are well aware of the clichés implemented in fictional ghost stories, and that using these in real-life accounts threatens to undermine credibility, it's remarkable how often those clichés bookend reports of hauntings. Story is arguably essential to human beings - often, a narrative proffers a much-needed explanation & stability in a confusing, spontaneous world - but this need of yours shouldn't perhaps be viewed cynically; sometimes, the truth is simply truth.
 
Steven said:
Yes, it's striking how often real-life accounts end with something like:

'Later on, a barman/house owner/local person told me that the place was once home to a suicide/was notoriously haunted.'

Given that so many people are well aware of the clichés implemented in fictional ghost stories, and that using these in real-life accounts threatens to undermine credibility, it's remarkable how often those clichés bookend reports of hauntings. Story is arguably essential to human beings - often, a narrative proffers a much-needed explanation & stability in a confusing, spontaneous world - but this need of yours shouldn't perhaps be viewed cynically; sometimes, the truth is simply truth.
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That's when the doubts start to creep in when someone has told me a 'true' ghost story - if there's a narrative. The most compelling stories are those on which nobody has tried to impose structure. As soon as we get to the 'it is said....' bit, I switch off.
 
catseye said:
I think a lot of the problem is that a ghost story has to be just that, a story. There has to be a narrative, you can't just have 'a weird thing happened and I'm not sure what it was'; the reader needs to know what it was. With a real life story it can remain a weird thing with no resolution - and that's what's fascinating.
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There are skilled writers who collect people's personal weird stories and present them in books for public perusal. Those were my favourite books as a child and teenager. They're a little rarer now but still great fun.

This is the bandwagon Danny Robins jumped on, well, updated a little for our times. :nods:
 
catseye said:
Me too. True ghost stories and time slips - you can keep your UFOs and ABCs, I'm here for the hauntings!
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They rarely show their vaporous faces* though, more's the pity.

*Mental image nicked from some true hauntings book. After learning of an apparent mass exorcism, a disappointed would-be ghost hunter remarks that 'the whole crew were thrown out on their vaporous necks'. :chuckle:
 
My favourite is an obvious FOAF tale about a young female student who took up lodgings in a dilapidated house.
At first everything was ok (as it usually is) but she started waking during the night and heard knockings and strange noises from her wardrobe. This continued for a while until she woke one night to a whining noise and looking around in the gloom saw her hairdryer on full hot blow inside the wardrobe and heard a voice wailing ‘It’s so coooold’.
 
A ghost once walked along behind a line of care home workers including me, witnessed by another colleague. She stammered out 'Who's that?' and nearly fainted. :omg:

She'd seen a Victorian-style kitchen maid heading towards the Dry Pantry. I rushed in there and found nobody.
So that's my favourite. I was there, and saw nothing. :chuckle:
 
catseye said:
Even the written ones have jump scares - although they are more of the 'startle, too scared to turn the page' nature.
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Written jump scares? The barbarians are no longer at the gates, they are here and we are them.

Truly the End of the World cannot come soon enough.
 
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