Death At The Heart Of Christmas: Why We Love Festive Ghost Stories

Steven

Steven

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Not too sure about the article's premise, but there's some interesting bits in the feature:

'When we think about Christ in the manger, we see the added vulnerability of babies born in poverty, especially in societies with high rates of child mortality. No wonder that The Woman in Black, a story in which the ghost of an unwed and grief-stricken mother heralds the death of village children, was originally written as a story told on Christmas Eve. Susan Hill’s 1983 novel is set in the Victorian period, and this era, with its juxtaposition of rising fortunes and biting poverty, has always been a suitable background for such tales.'

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ats-why-we-love-to-tell-festive-ghost-stories
 
Where I live I don't think anyone tells festive ghost stories. Perhaps it is just a UK thing.
 
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

The author of that article is a bit light on the Eliot interpretation. It isn't simply that when we hear of the birth, we know that the crucifixion must follow; it's also that by accepting the truth of His birth, one accepts the death of all that one has known before—the old you. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, if Christianity is false, it is of no importance (regardless of all it has inspired, I might add), but if it is true, it can only be of infinite importance—it would be impossible to carry on as one did before while labouring under such an enlightenment. And as the final stanza above makes clear, birth for one is death for another: the alien people with their imaginary gods, labouring under misapprehension, are doomed—though they do not yet know it—to be washed away by a new and more virile faith.

Edit: no, to be fair, I must have scrolled over a paragraph in my first reading of the article. She does cover this, but perhaps understandably, skips the Darwinian inter-faith struggle.
 
Xanatic* said:
Where I live I don't think anyone tells festive ghost stories. Perhaps it is just a UK thing.
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You need to start a new tradition. :nods:
How about a storytelling session in a cafe? You could call it, say, Baristas and Boggarts. That would cover all eventualities. :chuckle:

Ghosts and the supernatural are popular. You might have a success on your hands.
 
Yithian said:
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Click to expand...
Right time of year anyway.
 
I've always thought it is the long dark nights, rather than Christmas per se. I mean, there isn't the same tradition of ghost stories in countries like Australia, where they still have Christmas, but it's the middle of summer.
 
I always think we get a 2nd mini Halloween and Guy Fawkes in the Festive season with Christmas Ghost stories and then fireworks at the stike of 12 on NYE/NYD.
 
I was reminded how this theme goes back in British tradition to the 14th century and the story of Gawain and the Green Knight.

On Christmas Day, the Green Knight appears at King Arthur’s court. He’s a giant with green flesh and a green horse, green clothes embroidered with birds and butterflies, and he’s carrying a holly branch. Scholars sometimes read the Green Knight as a descendent of the pagan Green Man, who symbolizes the natural world, chaos, and rebirth. He’s come to this place of knights and kings and empire, and he has a challenge for them.
The Green Knight offers to stand perfectly still while one of Arthur’s knights strikes a blow at his head. And then a year and a day later, he says, that knight must stand still while the Green Knight strikes a blow at hishead.
Most of Arthur’s knights are too afraid to rise to the challenge. But Gawain, Arthur’s nephew and the youngest of his knights, volunteers.
Gawain is related to Arthur through their mothers: Arthur’s half-sister Morgause is Gawain’s mother. She’s also the mother of Arthur’s son Mordred, who will later kill Arthur. And her full sister, Arthur’s other half-sister Morgan Le Fay, is a powerful witch who toggles back and forth in the legend cycle between helping Arthur and his knights and being their enemy. So magic is in Gawain’s family. He takes the Green Knight up on his challenge and strikes off the Knight’s head in a single blow.
But then: blood, gore, and supernatural horror. The Green Knight’s blood spurts out, staining his green clothes. His head rolls onto the floor, over to where the rest of Arthur’s knights are sitting. And then the Green Knight picks up his own head by the hair while he is still bleeding out, reminds Gawain to come find him in a year and a day, and rides off with his head. It’s incredibly creepy.
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SimonBurchell said:
The death at the heart of Christmas that is often glossed over is the massacre of the innocents, when Herod ordered the young children of Bethlehem to be killed.
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When I was about 7 or 8 our teacher got us into groups to draw sections of the Christmas story on sheets of tracing paper which were then put up, in order, on the class room windows. On my eager suggestion me and Andrew Sandford opted for the "bit where Herod kills all the babies." Andrew was really good at drawing Roman soldiers and we had great fun drawing stabbings and babies being thrown out of windows.

I may have mentioned this elsewhere but when I told an older Japanese friend about the tradition of a Christmas ghost story she was surprised. In Japan the tradition is to tell ghost stories in summer as they say the shivers help you cool down. Fireworks are a summer thing as well. The whole of August is firework season.
 
pandacracker said:
On my eager suggestion me and Andrew Sandford opted for the "bit where Herod kills all the babies." Andrew was really good at drawing Roman soldiers and we had great fun drawing stabbings and babies being thrown out of windows.
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These days, the school would get your parents to take you to see a psychiatrist after doing that.
 
Mythopoeika said:
These days, the school would get your parents to take you to see a psychiatrist after doing that.
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Drawings from kids of that age are generally unintelligible.
 
Don’t think “ghost stories for Christmas”, think “ghost stories for the shortest day of the year.”

Darkness encroaches ever earlier, food supplies are dwindling, the cold whitens our fingers as the beasts howl closer in the murk beyond the pale.

We all huddle together in the hall, husbanding the firewood, distracting ourselves by whistling in the dark; telling tales of unquiet spirits and red eyes glinting in the torchlight as we pass, the creatures poised for our gaze to shift and our throats to be exposed…

Ghost stories are cathartic.

maximus otter
 
It also occurs to me that one of the Kings/Magi/Wise Men brought from the east a gift of myrrh for Jesus.

Although it doesn't turn up in Matthew, tradition suggests it was Balthazar.

I seem to recall that this was a resin or resin-based oil used in the process of embalming bodies; Jesus is no sooner born than destined for death.
 
Yithian said:
It also occurs to me that one of the Kings/Magi/Wise Men brought from the east a gift of myrrh for Jesus.

Although it doesn't turn up in Matthew, tradition suggests it was Balthazar.

I seem to recall that this was a resin or resin-based oil used in the process of embalming bodies; Jesus is no sooner born than destined for death.
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Both Frankincense and Myrrh were involved in embalming in ancient Egyptian funerary rites. The whole point of the story of Jesus is that it closely mirrors the miracles performed by the gods of ancient egypt. Jesus was described as performing those miracles because he had to, it was the expected acts of a god or messiah.
 
Hmmm. According to the writings of my associate Doctor Wikipedia, myrrh also has medicinal qualities *dramatic music*. The plot chickens thickens...(I'm ignoring that one of said qualities is a kind of mouthwash.)
 
maximus otter said:
Don’t think “ghost stories for Christmas”, think “ghost stories for the shortest day of the year.”

Darkness encroaches ever earlier, food supplies are dwindling, the cold whitens our fingers as the beasts howl closer in the murk beyond the pale.

We all huddle together in the hall, husbanding the firewood, distracting ourselves by whistling in the dark; telling tales of unquiet spirits and red eyes glinting in the torchlight as we pass, the creatures poised for our gaze to shift and our throats to be exposed…

Ghost stories are cathartic.

maximus otter
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That was pretty much what I said above. Australia celebrates Christmas (from my experience) much as we do, with the trees decorated, the bands playing, the Christmas carols etc, but because it's the middle of summer there is no tradition of huddling around the fire and exchanging 'the scariest thing that ever happened to me' stories. They are all round the pool eating ham salad.
 
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