Twenty Eight Terrifying Tales

Question 1

The Grinning Granny Ghost

Answer 1

House in Fishburn Park, occupant told me about a ghost that haunted the upper floors of the house, which was also seen by other occupants.

He woke one night to the sight of an old, grinning lady looking down on him in bed. Her grin and demeanour transfixed him to the bed and he was filled with a feeling of dread at what this spectre was about to do to him.

But nothing happened and instead she just vanished into thin air.

The family’s dog also saw the old lady’s spectre and would be found at the bottom of the stairs whimpering and cringing as it looked up them, towards the bedrooms’ lobby above.

Question 2

The Captain’s return

Answer 2

1986

Esk Terrace, a road down near the Marina NEW FROM NOTES

Two holidaymakers staying in a flat in Esk Terrace, man and wife. Man wakes up and sees a man in red checked shirt, standing at the bottom of the bed hands clasped tightly in front and looking at him.

He shouts loudly at man to go away, man disappears. On asking, he was told that a sea captain had once lived in the house.

Told to me 20/07/86 by townsperson

Question 3

Ghosts of Bagdale Hall

Answer 3

Bagdale Hall, south end of Baxtergate, Tudor style building, Bagdale Hall, once the home of the Conyers family, one of the oldest buildings in the town.

Several years ago, maid working in bedroom heard a noise behind her, turned and saw a woman in old fashioned dress that frightened her. She instinctively turned back to the bed to avoid woman’s gaze and found sheets that she had just laid out gone, as she soon was. - Scopaesthaesia. The sense of being stared at. Morphic resonance. Extending your power of the mind outside of your body via sight or thought . - NOW DO AN EXPERIMENT WITH THE AUDIENCE!

Bells ring without cause, crashing sounds heard in the kitchen’s china cupboard, these continued even after cupboard had been moved? In the main wooden staircase, the tread of footsteps is often heard for on them over prolonged periods, cuprit is said to be a live -n poltergeist that the owners have called Jeffrey.

English Civil War ghost of Captain Brown Bushell is sometimes seen patrolling the staircase. He at first fought for parliament and then changed sides to the King. Escaped at war’s end and became a privater captain harassing East Coast shipping. He was captured and beheaded at Tower Hill for treason.

Question 4

The man in the top hat

Answer 4

George Hotel on the other side of the road from Bagdale Hall towards round about - NEW FROM NOTES

1985 - A top hatted Victorian man appeared twice to a woman in the bar of the George Hotel.

He tapped her on shoulder on each appearance. She has never returned since the second manifestation.

Question 5

The Burning Girl

Answer 5

1917, local woman told me of a terrible accident happened that year to a girl working in a town bakery.

Cold winter’s day, girl went into bake house of bakery she was working in for warmth. She had beautiful long auburn flowing hair, of which she was very proud.

Somehow her hair came into contact with bakery fire, enveloping her in flame, she staggers out into shop and is taken to the old hospital in Grape Lane.

Injuries fatal, and as she lies dying, she asks her mother if her hair its still beautiful, mother says yes, as she knows her girl is dying.

Her ghost has appeared in the bakery, girls working there have said they are sometimes too frightened to enter bakehouse for fear of feeling her presence or actually seeing her ghost.

Question 6

A Great War Ghost

Answer 6

Baxter gate by the Post Offce

Blackout

Attack in 1914 by the Derfflinger and Von der Tann

Mother and daughter see headless soldier

Family’s son had died (decapitation) at the WWI battle front, at the same time that the women were passing the family’s yard

Crisis apparition

Question 7

Restless Spirits in Haggersgate

Answer 7

Ancient street of Haggersgate, West side, two manifestations,

Father, mother and young daughter living there, Mother wakes one night and sees the top half of a person floating on the bedroom wall, it is and blurred, indistinguishable. Terrified, she wakes husband who thinks it’s a refection through the window from the street lights. He pulls back bedroom curtains but the manifestation is still there. Other manifestations included hearing footsteps in the house’s rooms and one night, both feel as though they are being choked whilst in bed. Eventually, daughter is sent to grandmother, they sleep on sitting rom floor and move.

At Haggersgate start of street, stands the Mission to seamen, once the Yeoman family mansion. They were the first to send ships to Whaling grounds from Whitby with the Walkers in 1753. A ghostly, spectral coach has manifested itself there that is seen to pull up outside the house, pause for several minutes. It’s door is suddenly heard opening and closing after which it drives loudly off over cobbles, even though the street was tarred over a considerable time ago and no cobbles exist.

Buzane - couple choking in bed wake up to hear a ghostly coach moving along a wet cobbled street

Question 8

The Lighthouse Ghost and The Stone Tape?

Answer 8

West Pier Lighthouse, built 1831, Doric column, late 1950’s. Young girl and mother climbing the steep inner staircase. Girl stops as she sees a man collapsed and lying on the stairs in front of her. Her mother eggs her on, but she tells her mother about the man, which apparently her mother cannot see. The girl turns back to the fallen man to find his body has gone.

Girl now a woman, writes to the local paper in the 1980’s telling of her experience. I was a Harbour Officer at the time and asked one of the harbour masters f they had any idea who the ghost could be? There had been an amputee after an accident on the cliffs, who worked the lighthouse in the 50’s and he had only one arm. One day he collapsed on the steps whilst going to the top, exactly where the girl had seen the ghost. He had had a heart attack and died. He was wearing the traditional seaman’s smock that you can buy in the town and was apparently dressed in exactly the same way as the woman described the man she had seen in her story to the Gazette. Though from what the Captan said, he may have had the heart attack because he saw the ghost of a previous man who had died on the lighthouse steps?

Jane Asher, Brian Blessed, the maid’s ghost on the staircase, the ancient malevolence that caused it, The Stone Tape 1970s

Question 9

The White Wraith - Multiple Manifestations

Answer 9

1. 1905, evening, old gentleman I talked to was. boy scout and on the beach one night at a campfire below the Captain Cook statue with friends. They suddenly felt the need to look up and saw a white misty figure, manifestation, begin to slowly descend the open space in front of the cliff from its top. They ran to where they would thought it would land, but just as it was about to touch the sand it vanished.
2. About 20 years ago, the same apparition mentioned to me, seen at exactly the same spot by a woman with husband and dog walking along the beach. She tells me that it vanished before it hit the sand as before. She turned to her husband to point it out, but he and the dog had also vanished in terror and he denied he ever saw it when she caught up with him.
3. My experience when I was in panto when girl cast member saw the white wraith, this time in the props area at the back of the theatre and opposite the cliff where he other manifestations had began. She saw woman walk across backstage, but strangely dressed for this panto. She disappeard into some props, behind which was a bricked up doorway that I discovered when I moved the prop scenery she had been seen by the girl to vanish into. I examined the area but the spectre had gone. Presumably it may have descend the cliff outside and could have been seen on the cliff as before?
4. A Wilkie Collins, Woman in White connection, as he stayed in the Royal Hotel with his mistress, which is located directly opposite the Spa Theatre and Cliff?

Question 10

The Fish will Flow!

Answer 10

David Naitby story circa that he gathered whilst walking in the area, 1817-18, a ‘strange queer story’.

Janey Furness a Whitby woman, who after death became a ghost and would sometimes be seen on the prow of departing fishing boats, this denoting that the boat’s catch would be an excellent one.

Question 11

The little girl at Bridge Street and the fire

Answer 11

Pregnant mother living in a house there saw a child walking upstairs in old fashioned cloths.

Later, her daughter woke her up that same night to say she had seen a fire outside and described the same little girl (seen by the mother) who she saw was outside of the house on the window-ledge looking in. She (the daughter) held her hand out towards the girl outside (the ghost). The girl outside (ghost) then held her hands out, and moved towards the girl (daughter) inside and then passed right through her.

Apparition possibly activated by pregnant mother psych triggering a previous tragedy at the house?

Question 12

The Silken Shawl

Answer 12

Pirate fisherman Captan, several centuries ago, probably someone like Stephenson who sailed with the notorious pirate Bartholomew Roberts and who was hanged for his indulgence at a slave castle on the West Coast of Africa after his capture by the RN.

Ship captured by him, captain’s wife walked plank, pirate grabs shawl off her

In Whitby, pirate’s wife in Sunday best looks in mirror to admire shawl, sees captain’s wife’s drowned ghost bleached figure in death agony, it points and accusing finger at her

Pirate’s wife goes mad with terror and soon dies

The Prospect of Whitby - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_of_Whitby

Question 13

The Bosun’s Chair

Answer 13

Shipyard Club at back of harbour in the old Whitehall Shipyard. Now a club and bar, was an old shipwright’s sailing loft for the harbour’s ships in shipping heyday.

Staff member (my friend Peter) was helping out after hours, moving barrels in the evening. Bar stools were in fact bosun’s chairs normally used for transferring people between moving ships at sea.

That night, all bosun’s chairs still, save one that moved forward and backward, ropes creaking, no one sitting in it, empty, but moving as if someone was in it!

Peter was terrified. and left immediately.

Question 14

The Phantom in Black

Answer 14

East side, Market Square, old town hall, Old Black Bull Inn now a tea shop walrus and carpenter, opposite Black Horse Inn, turning into Church Street

1950s, knocker upper for Railway, long pole

Mysterious figure of a man, face blurred, long swirling black cape,

Passed right through him, knocked him down and disappeared into Sandgate

Question 15

The Terror of the Waft

Answer 15

A Waft - a gliding spectre, the semblance of a living person of whose death the supposed appearance of the waft is said to be a denotation’

Doppelgänger, German double goer, double walker, shadow self

Get tha ways yome with yea!

Seeing them is death in Whitby but can cause confusion as may appear to relatives at point of death (crisis apparition same as Post Office ghost), probably German or Norse in origin and adopted here,

Question 16

Barguest Hell Hound, gytrash, scriker, pad-foot.

Answer 16

Monstrous black hound, red glowing eyes, a chilling shriek or roar, which is a portent of death for those who hear it.

Next day in town, man/woman asks who heard the hound’s scream, everyone near them are repulsed, he/she’s going to die, they heard the barguest dog!

His/her life is squeezed out of them that day and their soul is taken by Death, the Grimm reaper

This phenomenon is known all over the North, possibly Norse in origin like many myths and legends in Yorkshire (Dane law), i.e., Garmr or Garm, the hound or wolf guardian of the Goddess Hel’s domain, she being the Norse ‘Goddess of Death and the Underworld’ hence Hel’s gate. She is assigned by Odin to - “administer board and lodging to those sent to her, and that is those who die of sickness or old age.” She also receives ‘the wicked’ who pass through Hel for punishment in Niflheim (Niflheim) aka (Misty Hel).

Goddess Hel- her hall is called Eljudnir, her plate is called Hunger and her knife is called Famine. Her bed is called Sick Bed and her bed’s hangings ‘Glimmering Misfortune’.

The maiden Modgud, warden of the bridge to and of Hel

Dreadful Nastrond, the shore of the corpses

In Norse mythology, Éljúðnir (sometimes Anglicized to Eljudnir) is Hel’s hall located in Niflheim

Question 17

The Drowned Bells

Answer 17

1539, Crown seizes abbey, monks pensioned off, lead taken from roof, bells loaded aboard ship to be taken to London for sale. Monastery now abandoned and left to fall into ruin.

As bells are being loaded however, the town’s children began running through the town’s streets shouting, ‘The bells are going to be drowned!’.

As the transport ship left the mouth of the harbour and turned south out of the roads, it became unstable, capsized and sank to the bottom with the bells near the Whitby rock.

Legends began to emerge about the dull tolling of the bells under the sea on certain nights, as if they were ‘being rung by unseen hands’. Also they toll whenever a Whitby ship founders or when a Whitby man drowns at sea, anywhere in the world.

A fanciful poem exists about their theft by pirates in an 1899 book by Rev. Parkinson.

Question 18

Legends of St Hilda

Answer 18

Lady Hilda, King Oswald of Northumbria’s niece, became the Abbess of the Saxon Abbey founded 657 after battle. Whitby then called Saxon Streonshalh

A nun Begu, at nearby Hackness monastery where Hilda dies, has a vision pf her apotheosis and the soul of Hilda being borne to heaven by angels. Her shrouded ghost appears in an Abbey window, Charlton gives directions, but thinks it is just mythology of the ‘vulgar’

Ammonites - with whip (beheaded) or prayer (turned to stone, gorgon effect) by Hilda. If children crossed shoes at night appointing to Abbey, wishes
granted

Seabirds fall to the ground as they reach the clifftop, paying a reverence to the saint

Faithless knight Marmion ( poss West Tanfield, Marmion Tower), seduces nun Constance de Beverley who renounces her vows and dresses as a page boy to be his lover. He seduces another nun Clare, enraging Constance, who with a confederate, tries to poison Clare. She is discovered and along with her henchman, is walled up in the Abbey, her ghost being seen haunting the abbey. Marmion the faithless knight dies at the battle of Flodden Field (Poem Sir Walter Scott)

Question 19

Tales from the Crypt

Answer 19

Sacrament piece - 30 pence, begged from 30 poor widows, exchanged with vicar for half-crown piece from church mass plate donations, walk up and down aisle nine times to hallow, hole drilled, worn around neck, anti epilepsy

Coffin ring - cleaved from coffin by bribed grave digger, worn on finger to relieve cramp

The Church Grimm - Norse, Kirke varsal, killed to protect church, entombed, vicar viewed in window to see if those being buried destined for heaven or hell. Also, Armenian director Sergi Parajanov - The Georgian folk tale, The Legend of Suram Fortress, warrior bricked up alive in fortress wall to ensure it will stand and not collapse as it had done before.

St mark’s Eve - April 24th those about to die, pass by or enter church by main door. Done between bell tolling 11.00PM and 1AM, watchers first circle church before sitting, variations include sometimes rotting headless corpses, approaching coffins, sometimes done over three days earliest to die first seen.

Buzane - Georgian warrior with talisman around neck and coffin ring, embedded in St Mary’s Church Wall for 3 days on St Mark,s Eve, bells toll and a panting greyhound sits by his right side. As he looks out from his entombment, he sees spectral figures at 11PM, some walking past its door, some going in. Suddenly people sitting in the church porch scream with terror and shout, Me!’

Question 20

The Bargheist Coach.

Answer 20

St Mary’s Churchyard, great black funeral coach, six huge coal black horses, manifests itself in Green Lane, lit by blazing torches carried by two ghostly outriders and driven at breakneck speed by a coachman all dressed in black velvet

Careers along lane to church stopping suddenly by dead seaman’s grave, its door creaks open and a parade of ghostly mourners step out, who silently parade around seaman’s grave three times

After third circuit, the seaman’s ghost appears, joins them and they climb aboard the coach which then rushes down the steep donkey road (aka Church Lane), a sharp right into Henrietta Street, then into Haggerlythe and at its end the coach soars off the cliff and vanishes into the foaming sea below, the souls of seamen are not allowed to lie in land bound graves, but are reclaimed by the sea to dwell in her depths for eternity.

Question 21

The Wake or Why so Many Ghosts

Answer 21

Whitby’s East Side, narrow yards

Old crone two young girls, howling wind, guttering candles, rattling windows

Crone begins tales of previous wakes. A corpse’s hand moved, ghostly shimmering shroud appears around dead woman’s body and points at someone whose family member is about to die

Girls terrified and become hysterical, but inflict the same on new girls at next wake and perpetuate the terror

Question 22

Another custom of St. Mark’s eve 24th April

Answer 22

Footprint of those about to die in cold ashes of fireplace the next morning

Husband to see spell for 24th April, St Mark’s Eve, the face of her future husband will appear on her smock if she holds it up in front of the fire that night - a somewhat dangerous practice.

Question 23

Dreams of Fair Maidens

Answer 23

New year, first moon worship, girls buy a new black silk handkerchief, mustn’t look at moon before casting spell.

Handkerchief held taught in front of face and gazing through it, recited the poem - New moon! New moon! I hail thee, This night my truelove for to see; Not in his best nor worst array, But his apparel for every day; That I tomorrow may him ken, From among all other men.

Then she walks backward into bed, talking to no one and if she sleeps before midnight, her husband-to-be will appear in her dreams

If this fails, another go on 21st January St Agnes Day. She must fast all day, no food or drink, before going to bed recites a prayer to St Agnes na if sleeps before midnight, she will dream of her husband to be.

If this fails, ‘dumb cake’, 3 girls needed to bake using first egg laid by a young hen. Baked before bedtime, divide into three, each girl eats a morsel and wraps the remainder in a stocking taken from her left leg and hides parcel under pillow. Again she walks backwards onto bed, but must not speak at all or spell is broken - hence ‘dumb cake’. If sleeps before midnight, will dream of husband to be.

Finally, a nationwide custom date occurred on June 23rd, when girls could practice some ‘simple magic’ to discover who their husbands would be.

Buzane - Girl in bikini with hat in the shape of the moon, Morris dancing with a black hankie in one hand and a stocking of 3 colours full of cake in another. She stops regularly and shouts ‘I’m hungry and thirsty Agnes twenty one!’. Frustrated she dances 23 steps more and stops suddenly saying, ‘June, that’s magical!’

Question 24

Customs of the Seafolk - Charms, defences and Invocations

Answer 24

In olden days, fishermen walking to their boats would stop and turn back home if they saw ill luck omens such as a pig, drowned dog or kitten, or if they came face-to-face with a woman, even their own daughters or wives. Woman seeing fishermen coming, would turn away or down alleys to avoid their faces being seen.

Childermass day, 28th December, Herod’s murder of the innocents, unluckiest day of all. The day it fell on in any year was considered possibly dangerous for the rest of the year. No fishermen would go out on the 28th of December, one who boarded a ship to travel that day, was pulled off the ship by his wife, but died with all hands on the next ship he caught several days later, because he had already boarded the first ship and was therefore already cursed.

Woman would wear their underskirt shifts turned inside out to bring fair winds and prosperous voyages for their seamen husbands.

Lucky ribbons given to whalers by wives and sweethearts when leaving for the Arctic, to be made into mast Mayday garlands by most newly married men when they got there. It remained there for the rest of the voyage and was seen as the ships arrived back home. When ships were leaving in March/February, old shoes were thrown after them by the women for luck.

Children’s poem in summer, when they were ‘spelling’ a good wind for their fathers - jumping up and down they shouted, ‘Suther wind, Suther, An blow ma faather hem t’mah muther’.

Buzane - Burley fisherman walking down to boat after Childermass he has a blindfolded wet pig on a lead. He’s wearing a woman’s underskirt with ribbons and a toy Maypole tied into his beard. Suddenly a wooden clog drops out the sky and hits him on the end, concussed he roars out the children’s poem

Question 25

Fairy Folk and Fallen Angels

Answer 25

At night the fairy folk emerge in Whitby’s environs. Small flints found by children in the surrounding fields would be attributed to spiteful elves, who shot them at cattle’s bottoms to annoy them, these being called ‘awfshots’ or ‘elf-shots’. The cure for an awf-shotten cow was to give it water in which an elf-shot had been dipped.

It was thought that fossilised prehistoric animal teeth found on Whitby’s cliffs, are ‘giants teeth’ and that fossils bones are the remains of angels who fell from Heaven with Lucifer.

Claymore well beyond Sandsend and near Kettleness, was said to reverberate with the sound of banging at night caused by fairies. Some thought that strange fairy rituals or gatherings were going on, but most people attributed it to nothing more than the fairy folk doing their washing and the banging sound was the sound of their battledores, or beating sticks that they used to beat the dirt from their fairy attire.

Mulgrave Woods, Sandsend, young drunk farmer is challenged in the pub and vows to go and call out Jeanie O Biggersdale. a terrifying sprite that lived in the woods. He goes to the den where she is said to live and shouts ‘Jeanne air yea in?’. Suddenly she appears in all her wrathful glory and he promptly rides off on his horse in an attempt to escape and avoid her revenge. He rides for the nearby stream as sprites cannot cross running water. Just as his horse leaps in the air, she lashes out with her terrifying claws cutting the horse in two. Fortunately, he is on the front end of the unfortunate horse, which lands on the opposite bank and he escapes with his life. Connection to Burns’ Cutty Sark myth of Tam O Shanter and running water and also the Ring Wraiths in The Lord of the Rings. Britiish folklore in diverse areas mentions the act of crossing running wafer, to evade Evil as it cannot do this.

Real witches say it’s. fiction that got incorrectly misinterpreted with their magic circle and, or, assembly ritual.

Question 26

Dracula in Whitby - The Story Itself

Answer 26

Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1890, Dracula’s ship, Demeter from Varna on Bulgaria’s coast in the Black Sea - It was then part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878 (Dimity from Narva Estonia, in reality as per newspapers. Dracula annihilates the ship’s crew and the captain is tied to ships wheel. In his pocket is found a small bottle inside which is a written account of the voyage and how all the crew were hunted down and killed by the count. Ship drifted in fog, the last thing being it hitting the beach at Tate Hill Pier.

As the ship hits the beach, Dracula metamorphosis into a great black dog (the Whitby Barguest dog) scampers up the 199 steps to the suicide’s grave on unhallowed ground at the cliff’s edge. Mina and Lucy Told stories by old salt Mr Swales about the nearby suicide’s grave Dracula starts to inhabit.

Funeral procession in harbour for captain, traditional parade of boats(this was done for those killed at sea), captan’s body is carried up the 199 steps for burial,

Mina Harker and Lucy Western’s favourite bench is directly next to this grave on the cliff’s edge by St Mary’s church. Mr Swales is found slaughtered by the count after the ship’s wreck. Dracula begins to suck Lucy’s blood at night in their hotel in the Royal Crescent and is seen one night by Mina from the Royal Hotel, North Terrace’s Cliff, bleeding Lucy on their favourite bench as Mina stares across the harbour in terror.

Dracula vanishes before Mina can get across the harbour to rescue Lucy and catch him in the act. Mina initially thinks the two puncture marks on Lucy’s neck have been caused by a shawl pin, but they are Dracula’s fang marks. She gets Lucy back to their hotel, Lucy is now weak with being bled. Dracula continues to appear at Lucy’s hotel window to bleed her and she will eventually weaken and die when they get home. Lucy becomes a Vampire and has to be hunted down and slaughtered with a wooden stake through her heart in her tomb. Dracula eventually attacks Mina in the story and there is a chase across Europe to the Borgo Pass, where the heroes eventually corner Dracula and destroy him.

Johnathan Harker

Mina Harker

Quincy Morris

Van Helsing

Dr Seward

Lucy Westenra

Dracula

Question 27

Dracula’s Whitby Origins,

Answer 27

Stoker came to Whitby on holiday in 1890 to get a break from being Henry Irving (the great actor’s) manager and at his suggestion. He, stayed at Mrs Veazey’s guesthouse at 6 Royal Crescent, the same crescent as the girls’ hotel is in the story. A woman whose house I bought in nearby Grosmont, surname Harker, said her great grandmother worked as a maid in a hotel there.

Old salts like Swales in abundance in the town from whaling and cargo ship days. Swales actually talks of boh-ghosts and barguests in the book (the same Whitby hell hound), The Demeter from Varna in present day Bulgeria, was taken from the name of the real ship Dmitry from Narva in Estonia , which grounded in 1885 and before Stoker’s visit, a local cobble had collided with a deserted ship off the coast. Mina, Lucy and her mother were probably based on three woman staying at Stoker’s lodgings in Royal Crescent. The Dracula figure, possibly a glance at the phantom in black story that happens by the old town hall that Stoker may have heard of? I.e. write about what you know!

Barguest dog equates to Dracula’s hound,. The story based in all probability on the history of a Wallachian knight and prince Vlad Tepes that Stoker came across at the local library. He discovered it in a book at the then public library near Coffee house End. The book he found there had been written by the British Consul in Bucharest, William Wilkinson in 1820 and was about the 15th century Wallachian prince Vlad Tapes (son of the dragon). He impaled Turks on spikes and was known for his ruthlessness e.g. the burning of the building with his country’s criminals are snide it during a supposed feast as a way of reducing the country’s prison population. Note that Dracula in Wallachian means devil.

The novel was published in 1897

Note also that the grave Stoker used for Lucy and Mina’s suicide is long gone over the cliffs so please don’t harass the vicar as he may get upset!

Question 28

Have you liked learning these flashcards about Whitby’s ghosts?

Answer 28

If so, please consider buying the book with the stories in full, in either Kindle, paperback or Audiobooks and available at the weblink below.

Doing so will help me create more card sets, save me from penury and the terrifying avariciousness of the taxman. This starving author thanks you in anticipation.

Link to Amazon for purchasing the book is as follows: -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whitby-Ghost-Book-Paul-Fitz-George-ebook/dp/B00E675MBU