- Joined
- Aug 21, 2001
- Messages
- 680
Purely for your enjoyment...(Hopefully! 
)...
Ever since I was MUCH younger, my Mother has relayed a ghost story of sorts, from HER youth, that intrigued me... in large part because, taking her at her word (Hey, we are talking about my MOTHER here!
), there was tangible evidence to go with the tale.
The story transpires in Italy, pre-WWII. My Mother, then a child, was sent into a "wine cellar" of sorts on an errand. Ahead of her, she saw a light, much akin to a lantern-light, bobbing slightly in the darkness. There was no other way in or out of the cellar, and as she approached the light, calling out, assuming someone was there (brave girl), the light winked out. When my Mom got to the spot, she found a pile of coins. She took them to her Mother - and apparently endured a bit of a thrashing over the find, as they were not well off, and her Mother could not understand where the coins could have come from.
My Mother's recollection is so vivid (I have left out incidental details), and the bit about her Mother's reaction to the coins so believable, that I always assumed things happened pretty much as described. That left skeptical young me to figure out HOW it happened... the first thing I thought of, of course, was that the light WAS a lantern -- someone else had been down there. My Mother insisted, however, that the layout of the place precluded that...no one could have slipped by her, and there was no handy hiding place.
Some years later, in one collection of Forteana or another, I came across an entry on "ghost lights" - apparently, a fairly common tale in folklore throughout Europe, that holds that if you see a ball of light, you should find a way to mark the spot, so that you can return and dig, as you will likely find coins?
The tale still intrigues me... anyone else familiar with this "ghost light"/money connection?
Shadow
)...Ever since I was MUCH younger, my Mother has relayed a ghost story of sorts, from HER youth, that intrigued me... in large part because, taking her at her word (Hey, we are talking about my MOTHER here!
), there was tangible evidence to go with the tale.The story transpires in Italy, pre-WWII. My Mother, then a child, was sent into a "wine cellar" of sorts on an errand. Ahead of her, she saw a light, much akin to a lantern-light, bobbing slightly in the darkness. There was no other way in or out of the cellar, and as she approached the light, calling out, assuming someone was there (brave girl), the light winked out. When my Mom got to the spot, she found a pile of coins. She took them to her Mother - and apparently endured a bit of a thrashing over the find, as they were not well off, and her Mother could not understand where the coins could have come from.
My Mother's recollection is so vivid (I have left out incidental details), and the bit about her Mother's reaction to the coins so believable, that I always assumed things happened pretty much as described. That left skeptical young me to figure out HOW it happened... the first thing I thought of, of course, was that the light WAS a lantern -- someone else had been down there. My Mother insisted, however, that the layout of the place precluded that...no one could have slipped by her, and there was no handy hiding place.
Some years later, in one collection of Forteana or another, I came across an entry on "ghost lights" - apparently, a fairly common tale in folklore throughout Europe, that holds that if you see a ball of light, you should find a way to mark the spot, so that you can return and dig, as you will likely find coins?
The tale still intrigues me... anyone else familiar with this "ghost light"/money connection?
Shadow