Google Alert - spooky creepy ghost

a dream of a vintage ' nightmare ' poster Welcome to Her Nightmare: 'Nightmare Castle' on DVD Memphis Commercial Appeal - Memphis,TN,USA Such titles as "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock," "The Ghost" and "Blood Castle" followed. ... but it's an intriguing film (with an alternately spooky and woozily ...

Charity night in haunted house turns Wrexham friends into ghost ... Evening Leader - Wrexham,Wales,UK ... country house was a very spooky occasion with several incidents taking place. ... It was really creepy. "The medium then closed down the table to all ...

Looking Glass Menagerie Chelsea Now - New York,NY,USA The atonal, eerie score is beyond creepy. Stephin Merritt, the Magnetic Fields ... a pack of rats, ghost children, scruffy dogs, a deranged circus trainer, ...

Google Blogs Alert for: spooky creepy ghost

Tall Drink of Nerd: Ghost Writer | Fierce and Nerdy By amy I'd estimate that 75% of the angel statues have lost their heads and/or broken their wings, which is spooky enough even in broad daylight. Then I spotted a lone crypt in the field holding the remains of a husband and wife. ... He took the creepy right out of me though when he pointed out that the orb light was in front of the metal crypt gate. Oh and just in case I didn't believe that, some other pics from that day had the exact same lens flare. ... Fierce and Nerdy - http://fierceandnerdy.com/

'From the Shadows' & other stories of the "Wee Folk". | Ghost Theory By Javier Ortega "The lot we lived on was about 100 acres and there were five houses and one very old spooky barn." Tammy and her children had two dogs, a cat, two turkeys, six chickens and a couple of ducks, none of which would venture close to the barn. ... "That thing grinned at us and the creepy grin spread from ear to ear and its teeth were a gross brown and pointed or jagged," she said. "It had a bulbous nose and large, deep-set eyes, though I really couldn't tell the color of them. ... Ghost Theory - http://www.ghosttheory.com/

<center>Pennsylvania Haunts & History</center>: Creepy Crum Cemetery By Ron Ieraci Pennsylvania and its neighbors are bursting with tradition, legends, tall tales and ghosts. Each week we'll introduce one or two of their strange and spooky stories to you. Click on Pennsylvania Haunts and History to get to our ... One word of caution before you go ghost hunting. H&H and his trusty fact-checker LC think the tales point to the Windber Crum Cemetery, but there's another Crum cemetery just a few miles away near New Paris in Napier Township, Bedford County. ... Pennsylvania Haunts & History - http://hauntsandhistory.blogspot.com/

Whimsy Folk Artist aka Spooky Hollow Folk Art!: New Ghostly ... By Whimsyfolkartist Most of the wall paper I downloaded and printed. The carpet is even a print! Haunted Doll HOuse Ghost Mistress! New Fine art altered art Charm Bracelet for sale! click here to buy. Creepy Haunted Doll House Corpse! ... Whimsy Folk Artist aka Spooky... - http://wimsyfolkartist.blogspot.com/

"I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost!"-Ghostbusters Review | 360Sync.com By Matthew "RocketJones" Barnette Scenery that looks to be straight out of a amadman's nightmare toys with perspective and screws with your sanity due to a groovy style that gives off the same spooky vibe seen in Gozer's fridge. ... Did I also mention it can be insanely creepy at times too? Ghostbusters doesn't rely on mere nostalgia or even the clever writing and imaginative plot to keep you playing. Capturing ghosts has never been more fun in an addictive combination of Luigi's Mansion meets Gears of ... 360Sync.com - http://www.360sync.com/

Google Web Alert for: spooky creepy ghost

Scary Spooky Creepy Ghost Long Sleeve T-shirts (Dark) - CafePress Shop for unique scary spooky creepy ghost designs on Long Sleeve T-shirts (Dark) . Find custom designs including funny scary spooky creepy ghost Long Sleeve ...

Weird creature captured in Saudi Arabia

Real Ghost caught on tape 100% proof ???

Scary Ghost Video (Real Ghost)

Scary last footage

Scary Ghost Footage

The missing twins

I've never been one to have a "real" encounter of an unexplainable event, except for maybe a little ESP, and dreams telling me what the future holds (Which happened only twice, once warning me about a fire, and the death of someone close to me...needless to say, my neighbour's house caught on fire after the dream, and my grandmother passed away.) But this story has to do with a friend of mine, twin babies, and a ghost.

Nearly a year ago, a friend of mine, Julie, went to visit her aunt and uncle for a month or so while her parents fought out a messy divorce. Her relatives house was an older farm house which had survived at least a hundred years. While visiting, her aunt and uncle decide to go out, and invited Julie along. Having had along tiring day, Julie declined and offered to watch the twins.Her aunt an uncle agreed, happy to be going out alone.

Julie had a great few hours with the twins, who where nice quiet babies (So she says:) As it grew later, she placed the children in their crib and tucked them in for the night placing a small teddy bear in the crib with them. She headed down the steps into the kitchen to clean up after dinner and bake some cookies. As she waited for the cookies to be done, she sat at the table and decided to read a book. A few minuets later, she heard the kitchen door, which lead to the back yard open. Looking up from the book,she expected it to be her aunt and uncle. no one was there, so figuring it was the wind, she got up and shut it. Nearly ten minutes later, the same thing happened, though this time she latched the door.

It was around this time that she had a strange, feeling.... She thought she heard some strange noises from upstairs...The baby intercom she had with her ringed out the sound of the baby crying...Then it suddenly stopped. She swore she heard footsteps as well, and afar away voice talking to the kids. Thinking at once about the babies and their safety she went to go check on them....When she entered the room, she heard nothing at all which scared her the most. She looked into the children's crib, and both babies were gone. Neither or them could walk yet, being only six months old.

Being only 16 at the time, she had no idea what to do and was in a panic. She ran as fast as she could over to one of the neighbour's houses, and from the called the police. Before the police came, her neighbour walked over to the house with her. Together they went into the babies room, and both children were there. Terrified, she scooped up both babies and stood outside and waited for the police and her aunt and uncle (which she also called) While waiting outside, she saw one of the kid's toys....It was exactly like the teddy bear she had placed in their crib.

She asked one of the neighbours to go inside with her, and as she thought, the bear was no longer in the crib either. To be on the safe side, once her aunt and uncle had come back, she asked if the kids had two bears, they said no. They also confessed about hearing soothe gentle voices talking to their kids on the baby intercom, from time to time.

The Ghost at the Piano

Felice awoke to the sound of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata wafting its way up from the inn's conservatory. She had just checked in two hours ago, bleary eyed from the four hour drive en route to her next concert in Seattle. All she really wanted to do was get some sleep before she finished the journey in the morning, so who in the world would be playing downstairs at 3:00 a.m.?

Finally irritated enough to drag herself out of bed, Felice padded down the master staircase and across the main hall to the doorway of the conservatory. She froze there, her eyes irresistibly anchored on the handsome man at the piano. He didn't seem quite of this era in his vintage tuxedo and slicked back hair. Felice vaguely wondered if he was an actor who put on shows about the inn's heyday in the roaring twenties. Indeed, there was even a glass of gin on the piano top.

Without a sound from Felice, the man looked up as though he had expected to see her there all along. "Hello Felice, I've been waiting for you...for quite some time." Felice was mesmerized by his deep black eyes, and felt compelled to move toward the piano.

"You and I have a duet to play, Felice. Come sit on the bench beside me". Felice found she couldn't resist the man's command, and she slowly sank onto the bench next to him. A sudden shiver overtook her as she felt a distinct chill in the air.

"Put your fingers on the keys, Felice", the man gently coaxed with a predatory gleam in his eyes. As if of their own volition, Felice's hands reached for the keyboard and settled there ready for the next command.

"Now play. You know the tune." Felice hesitated, but her hands no longer obeyed her, and they began to play the sonata that had drawn her down the stairs. The man fell into accompaniment, and as they played, both figures slowly faded out of site.

It was Felice's final performance.

Behind the Tombstone

The old tombstone was beginning to crumble, but it looked like as good a site as any to set up. Aidan and Mark set the recorder on the ground between them and scanned the darkened cemetery with their flashlights. There wasn't a sign of a caretaker, and they hadn't really expected to see one given the dilapidated state of the graveyard.

"Turn it on and let's begin" Aidan said. Mark flipped the recorder switch on, and Aidan's questioning began.

"Is there anyone with us tonight?" Nothing filled the silence except a slight scritch-scritch from somewhere behind the stone. Unperturbed, Aidan asked the next question.

"Can you tell us your name?" Again, the only sound was a scritch-scritch.

"Can you show yourself?" As before, just a scritch-scritch from behind the stone.

"Are you afraid of us?", asked Aidan. This time there was no scritch-scritch, but the atmosphere suddenly seem thick and malevolent. Neither young man noticed the towering dark shadow that rose from behind the tombstone until it was too late. The darkness swooped down and engulfed them until neither one could see the other, and just as suddenly, Aidan, Mark and the black shadow vanished into the ground.

The next morning when the old caretaker showed up, he found the recorder laying on the ground in front of the tombstone. He turned it on, and in the silence that followed each of Aidan's questions, you could now hear the following replies.

"Yes...I am always here."

"My name is never spoken by your kind, but it is very old."

"I'll show myself, but it is the last thing you'll ever see..."

"You are mine!"

The caretaker quietly pocketed the recorder, looking around to assure himself he was truly alone. He took the only evidence that anyone had been at the stone and tossed it in the pile with the rest back at the tool shed.

The Ghost Child

I heard this story from a friend, so I can't authenticate it: Some years ago a man bought a 'fixer-upper' house and after several hours work,decided to eat a cold supper, sleep there, and continue early the next day. As he was lying in bed, thinking about what to do the next day he heard the wailing of a small child. Sitting up in his sleeping-bag he looked across the room towards the staircase and saw the figure of a small child, hardly more than an infant,descending the stairs, crying. He called out to it, but it ignored him, and passed in front of him and went into the living room.

As he rushed into the room he saw the figure, still crying, pass through the wall next to the fireplace. The wailing sound continued, and then died away. Severely shaken, the man nonetheless went to sleep, but rose early the next morning and attack the wall where he had seen the phantom leave the room.

Imagine his surprise and horror when he found the skeleton of a young child inside the wall! He promptly called the sheriff's office, who removed the skeleton, and after the necessary paperwork he and the two officers held a token funeral service at the local graveyard. That night the man waited expectantly, but saw nothing. However, just as he was beginning to fall asleep, he heard the faint sound of laughter. No visions, just the sound ofa child laughing. But that was all. And from that time until today, he has heard nothing else.

The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak
and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a
tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber
door;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon
the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of surrow, sorrow for the lost
Lenore,.
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name
Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me---filled me with fantastic terrors never felt
before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood
repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber
door,
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door.
This is it, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came
rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened
wide the door;---
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to
dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no
token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
"Lenore?",
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word,
"Lenore!"
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me
burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than
before,
"Surely," said I, "surely, that is something at my window
lattice.
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
'Tis the wind, and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of
yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or
stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my cham-
ber door.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber
door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it
wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art
sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the
nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Pluton-
ian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so
plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his cham-
ber door,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his cham-
ber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did
outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he
fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered,"Other friends have
flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown
before."
Then the bird said,"Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and
store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful
disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one
burden bore,---
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never---nevermore."

But the raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and
bust and door;,
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of
yore,
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous
bird of yore
Meant in croaking, "Nevermore."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my
bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease re-
clining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated
o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating
o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an
unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted
floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these
angels he hath sent thee
Respite---respite and nepenthe from thy memories of
Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost
Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or
devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee
here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore:
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me I im-
plore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or
devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we
both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant
Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name
Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name
Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked,
upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Pluton-
ian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath
spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above
my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form
from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is
dreaming.
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws the shadow
on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on
the floor
Shall be lifted---nevermore!

HAUNTED BRITAIN (p1) Real Ghost Stories

The Ghost in the Stacks

I saw her out of the corner of my eye while I was studying in a remote corner of the second-level stacks in the library. She was pretty, with reddish hair and pensive, wide eyes in an intelligent face. I straightened up, patted my hair to make sure it was smooth, and took another look. She was gone. I felt my shoulders sag a bit as I turned back to my books. Oh well. There were more important things, like studying hard so that I got into medical school when I graduated next year.

Still, I kept seeing the girl's pretty face whenever I closed my eyes, and I was still thinking about her as I left the library. A few of my friends shouted to me and I walked over to their gathering place.

"Where've you been, Tony?" my friend Jeff called.

"At the library," I said, patting my backpack for emphasis.

"You have been studying?" Jeff asked incredulously.

I grinned. "I've gotta crack down now so I can get into med school," I replied to his jibe. "Can't always be partying with you losers!"

That set them off, as I had intended, and kept the jokes flying until dinnertime.

Although I didn't admit it to myself, I chose the same spot in the stacks for my studies the following afternoon, hoping to see the pretty girl again. I was in luck. After about an hour, she appeared among the shelves, browsing intently. I noticed that she was wearing the same red flowered dress with a buttoned-down white sweater. She must like that outfit. It was time for me to do some browsing too, I thought, straightening my shirt and rising casually. I turned to walk into the shelves and stopped abruptly. She was gone! I was astonished. She must be quick, I thought. It had only taken me a few seconds to rise and turn, but in that short time she had managed to move away without me seeing her do so. I walked casually through the stacks, glancing this way and that, trying to spot her again. No luck. With a sigh, I turned back to my seat and my studies, a frustrated man.

I didn't see the girl again for several weeks. Then one day, as I rushed out of the stacks towards my friend Jeff, who was impatiently beckoning to me to hurry up, I saw her rising from a seat in a far corner. I stopped abruptly and turned, hoping to catch her eye as she moved into the stacks, but she did not turn her head. Ignoring Jeff, who was calling my name impatiently, I backtracked in the hope of at least walking passed her and saying hello. I stopped at the entrance of the stacks where the pretty girl with reddish hair had just walked. There was no one there. I shivered a bit. This was getting spooky. Was she avoiding me? Why? We had never spoken, and I certainly could not be accused of staring at her, since I had only seen her for a total of maybe thirty seconds! Shaking my head at the mystery, I went back over to Jeff and exited the library.

Later that week, I decided to skip the football game to cram for a big exam. Just about everyone else was at the game, so the library was nearly deserted as I strolled over to my favorite study spot in the stacks on the second level. I'd given up on seeing the pretty girl with the reddish hair. Obviously, some things were just not meant to be.

I was deep into my studies when I heard the sound of books and shelves tumbling to the floor. I leapt up and ran toward the sounds. To my horror, the pretty red-haired girl whom I'd been trying to meet lay on the floor with books all around her. She was unconscious, and my heart gave a painful thump when I realized that there was blood staining her red dress. And then, right before my eyes, she vanished. I sat down abruptly on the floor, my legs shaking too hard to hold me. I had just seen a ghost.

It was then that I remembered the story of the girl who had been murdered in the library back in the sixties. I knew at once that it was her. I had just seen the reenactment of her final moments of life. I buried my face in my shaking hands, feeling a terrible grief at the tragic loss of such a beautiful girl. From what I had heard, her murderer was never apprehended. It made me furious to think that justice had never been served. Slowly, I uncoiled my body and rose to my feet. The aisle between the stacks was empty now, and so was my heart. I was too unnerved to study anymore in this deserted place, so I grabbed my books and went back to my room.

I saw the girl one more time before I graduated. I was reading at my favorite study cartel when I felt a chill in the air. I shivered and looked up. And there was the ghost of the pretty girl, standing a few feet away from me. Our eyes met, and I saw fear and despair in her face. Immediately, my own face twisted in sympathy, and I impulsively held out my hand toward her. At the sight of my distress, she reached her hand back toward me as if to comfort me, and she gave me a tiny smile. Then she was gone.

In that moment, I knew wherever the girl had gone after her death, she was just fine. And I felt sure that someday, somewhere, her killer would be brought to justice; if not in this world, then most assuredly in the next.

The Bloodstain

The Phelps place was an old, abandoned property with a monstrous, decrepit Victorian house that was supposed to be haunted. It should have been a good resting place for the local deer hunters, but they would not go near it. A few that tried came away before midnight with tales of ghostly thumping noises, gasps, moans, and a terrible wet bloodstain that appeared on the floor of the front porch and could not be wiped away.

Phelps was an Englishman who had purchased land some 20 miles off the Mendocino coast in the 1880s. He had built a huge, fancy Victorian house all covered with gingerbread trimmings and surrounded by lovely gardens. When everything was arranged to his liking, he sent out party invitations to everyone within messenger range. It was the biggest social event of the year, with music and dancing and huge amounts of food. Sawhorse tables were set up with refreshments, and drinks were set out on the front porch. People came from miles around. The only one missing was old man McInturf's son-in-law. They had had a terrible fight that afternoon, and the boy had stalked off in a rage, threatening to get even with the old man.

Around midnight, the musicians took a recess and old man McInturf went out on the front porch with some friends. Suddenly there came the thunder of hooves rushing up the lane. A cloaked figure rode towards the lantern-lit porch. McInturf put down his drink. "That will be my son-in-law," he told his friends as he went down the steps. The cloaked figure stopped his horse just outside the pool of lantern-light. There was a sharp movement and two loud shots from a gun. Old man McInturf staggered backwards, shot in the throat and the chest. The cloaked man wheeled his horse and fled down the lane as friends ran to the assistance of the old man.

They laid McInturf down on the porch. He was bleeding heavily and they were afraid to move him much. There was some talk of fetching the doctor, but everyone knew it was too late. So much blood was pouring from the old man's wounds that it formed a pool underneath his head. McInturf coughed, once, twice; a hideous, gurgling, strangling sound that wrenched at the hearts of all who heard it. Then he died.

McInturf's body was laid out on the sofa, and the once-merry guests left in stricken silence. The servants came and wiped the red-brown bloodstain off the floorboards. The next day, a wagon was brought to the front of the house and McInturf's body was carried out onto the porch. As the men stepped across the place where McInturf had died, blood began to pool around their boots, forming a wet stain in exactly the pattern that had been wiped up by the servants the night before. The men gasped in fear. One of them staggered and almost dropped the body. They hurriedly laid McInturf in the back of the wagon, and a pale Phelps ordered the servants to clean up the fresh bloodstain.

From that day forward, the Phelps could not keep that part of the porch clean. Every few weeks, the damp bloodstain would reappear. They tried repainting the porch a few times, but the bloodstain would always leak through. In the county jail, McInturf's son-in-law died of a blood clot in the brain. A few months later, one of the Phelps servants went mad after seeing a "terrible sight" that made his head feel like it was going to exploded. Folks started saying the house was being haunted by the ghost of McInturf, seeking revenge. The property was resold several times but each resident was driven out by the terrible, gasping ghost of McInturf reliving his last moments and by the bloodstain that could not be removed from the porch. The house was eventually abandoned.

The Bells

There once was an evil priest who did not fear God or man. His duties for the church included counting the offerings and ringing the bells to summon people to Mass. But his heart was filled with greed, and he began to take advantage of the good people of his parish. The priest stole money out of the offerings to keep for himself, and when he had filled a chest full of gold, he killed a man and buried him with the chest so the murdered man's ghost would guard it. Anyone who tried to dig for the treasure would be devoured by the skeleton of the murdered man.

The evil priest planned to return to Spain with his ill-gotten treasure, but he fell ill with a fever a week before his ship was scheduled to leave. On his deathbed, the priest repented of his crime. He swore to his confessor that his soul would not rest until he returned the gold to God. The priest died before he could reveal the place where the treasure was buried. As he gasped out his last breath, he said: "Follow the bells. They will lead you to the treasure."

The Padre who attended the dying priest did not heed his words. But the sweeper who was working in the hallway at the time of the evil priest's death was struck by the notion of buried treasure. He was very poor and wanted a better life for himself and his family, so the sweeper determined to take the treasure for himself. Each night for a week, he took a shovel and dug in the monastery gardens, searching for the priests treasure. He found nothing.

One night the sweeper was awakened from his dreams by the sound of the parish bells ringing out loudly in the darkness. He leapt to his feet, fearing some emergency, and then realized that his wife and children had not stirred in their beds. Remembering the evil priest's last words, the sweeper felt sure that the mysterious ringing of the bells was for his ears alone, to lead him to the treasure.

Taking his shovel, the sweeper followed the sound of the church bells up and up into the hills. He was gasping for breath when he reached the source of the sound. He was on a wide ledge overlooking the valley. Two trees guarded the spot, and it was beside these trees that the glowing, ghostly church bells hovered. Taking his shovel, the poor sweeper dug a deep hole among the roots of the trees. After several moments, his shovel hit something hard! Eagerly, he swept the dirt away from the object and found a small chest. He hauled it out of the ditch with trembling hands, placed it on a rock, and broke the lock with the edge of his shovel. when he opened it, piles of yellow gold met his dazzled eyes. He gathered up a handful of coins, reveling in the weight of so much money. The coins were cool to his touch, and he felt the smoothness of the metal as he rubbed the coins between his fingers. And that was when he heard the moaning...

Looking up, the sweeper saw the skeleton of the murdered man whom the evil priest had buried with the treasure. It was rising out of the pit under the trees, eye sockets glowing with blue flames. "Mine," the skeleton intoned, stretching its bony arms toward the sweeper. "Mine!"

The sweeper screamed in terror and leapt away from the box of treasure, dropping the coins that he held in his hands. He ran down the hill as fast as he could go, the skeleton in hot pursuit. Behind him, the bells began to ring again as he fled for his life from the ledge.

The sweeper kept running long after the sounds of pursuit ceased, and did not stop until he reached his home. It was only then that he realized he had left his shovel back with the buried treasure on top of the hill. it was an expensive shovel and he could not afford to lose it.

Waiting until daylight, the sweeper went reluctantly back up into the hills to retrieve it. When he reached the ledge, there was no sign of the skeleton, the chest of money, or the hole he had dug the night before. He found his shovel at the top of a tall tree whose first branches began nearly twenty feet above his head. The skeleton must have placed it there after it chased him down the hill, he decided grimly, knowing that there was no way he could retrieve it.

Turning sadly away, the sweeper's eye was caught by a gleam in the bushes near the rock where he had placed the treasure chest the night before. Carefully, keeping his eye on the place where the skeleton lay buried, the sweeper felt around the rock until his hand closed on two gold coins that the ghost had missed. Casually he put the coins in his pocket and hurried from the ledge. When he got home, the sweeper put the coins into a sock and hid it under the floorboard for safekeeping.

The sweeper never went back to the ledge to retrieve the evil priest's buried treasure, though sometimes he was still awakened by the mysterious sound of the bells. He knew it would take someone more pious than himself to banish the ghost of the murdered man and reclaim the money for God. But he did use the gold coins to send his eldest son to school, and with the left-over change, he bought himself a new shovel.

Ghosts, Spirits & Demons

Ghostly images

what is a Ghost?

A ghost has been defined as the disembodied spirit or soul of a deceased person, although in popular usage the term refers only to the apparition of such a person. Often described as insubstantial and partly transparent, ghosts are reported to haunt particular locations or people that they were associated with in life or at time of death.

A widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they were composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Anthropologists speculate that this may also stem from early beliefs that ghosts were the person within the person, most noticeable in ancient cultures as a person's breath, which upon exhaling in colder climates appears visibly as a white mist. This belief may have also fostered the metaphorical meaning of "breath" in certain languages, such as the Latin spiritus and the Greek pneuma, which by analogy became extended to mean the soul. In the Bible, God is depicted as animating Adam with a breath.

In many traditional accounts, ghosts were often thought to be deceased people looking for vengeance, or imprisoned on earth for bad things they did during life. The appearance of a ghost has often been regarded as an omen or portent of death. Seeing one's own ghostly double or "fetch" is a related omen of death.

A White Lady were reported to appear in many rural areas, and supposed to have died tragically or suffered trauma in life. White Lady legends are found around the world. Common to many of them is the theme of losing or being betrayed by a husband or fiancé. They are often associated with an individual family line, as a harbinger of death. When one of these ghosts is seen it indicates that someone in the family is going to die, similar to a banshee.

Legends of ghost ships have existed since the 18th century; most notable of these is the Flying Dutchman. This theme has been used in literature in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.