Just in time for Halloween: share an eerie legend from where you live

[aihfl]

One of the most famous North American hauntings, the legend of The Bell Witch, took place not too far from where I grew up in Tennessee and was the basis for the film An American Haunting starring Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek. The Bell Witch was a spirit that terrorized the Bell family farm in the early 19th century, eventually causing family patriarch John Bell to fall ill and ultimately poisoning him. With its earthly mission apparently completed, the spirit departed, promising to return in seven years, which it did. On the return visit, it promised to return in 107 years, which would have been 1935. Perhaps it did return and no one was around to realize it.

One of the better known Central Florida legends is that of the "Interstate 4 Dead Zone." In the late 19th century, the Roman Catholic Church attempted to start a colony on the Florida frontier, called St. Joseph's Colony. The colony was short lived and was wiped out by a yellow fever epidemic. Four members of the same family were buried in the same spot and remained there undisturbed until 1960. Although the land changed hands, landowners knew of the graves and respected them. The land containing the graves were purchased for the Interstate 4 right-of-way in 1959 and the graves were marked for relocation, however, they were not. Apparently on the very day that fill dirt for the new highway was put on top of the graves, Hurricane Donna churning in the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa took a hard right turn and took a path directly over the surveyed route for the new highway. Highway construction was halted for a month. On the day the highway opened, a tractor-trailer hauling a load of frozen shrimp jackknifed in the vicinity of the graves. There have been over 1,000 crashes at the same location since the road opened in 1963, a significant number of them fatalities. Weirdly enough, I witnessed a crash at this very spot and nearly became part of the crash myself.

 

[Xorkoth]

I don't have one from where I live now, but where I used to live, there was this really creepy old graveyard. Every time my friends and I would drive past it at night, it would seem to be slightly lit with a weird green misty light. It was SUCH a creepy feeling going by there. There was a house right next to it, if you were in the basement you had to have been not 20 feet from some bodies. I'm getting chill just thinking about that graveyard now...

 

[leet]

Dredge

There is a large solitary stone called "Carreg y Bwgan" or The Bogey Stone" found on a country road near where I live.

It is said if you walk around the Stone at midnight three times, a headless horseman will appear. He was a highwayman who used to hide behind the rock and rob any travellers, until he tried it with a travelling soldier, was beaten and had his head chopped off. The head will be found at the secret entrance to the stone.

You can also choose to walk around it at midnight with your eyes closed, this will avoid summoning the "Bwgan", the downside of this is when you open your eyes again you might find trapped yourself inside the stone.

 

[Xorkoth]

My town has a bunch of touristy haunted tours. They're too nauseating though so I haven't been on one. I don't really know what the stories are. I know there's supposed to be an apartment downtown that's haunted and you sometimes see weird shit there... I haven't though.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

There is a large solitary stone called "Carreg y Bwgan" or The Bogey Stone" found on a country road near where I live.

It is said if you walk around the Stone at midnight three times, a headless horseman will appear. He was a highwayman who used to hide behind the rock and rob any travellers, until he tried it with a travelling soldier, was beaten and had his head chopped off. The head will be found at the secret entrance to the stone.

You can also choose to walk around it at midnight with your eyes closed, this will avoid summoning the "Bwgan", the downside of this is when you open your eyes again you might find trapped yourself inside the stone.

But have you tried it?

 

[leet]

No!

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

No!

Pussy!

 

[Tubbs]

An old one from southern Illinois.

Kaskaskia Island
Many years ago, Kaskaskia Island was part of the Illinois mainland, but the peninsula was cursed. By 1881, it was completely cut off by the river and nearly was destroyed.

According to legend, a fur trader named Bernard lived in a large home with his daughter, Mari, who fell in love with a young Native American who worked for her father. When Bernard found out, he was enraged and let the employee go. The former employee left town, but promised to return for Maria. Maria and the man escaped and Bernard hunted them down. He had the paramour tied to a log and thrown in the muddy waters of the Mississippi River. Before he drowned, he cursed Bernard and Kaskaskia, said the altars of the churches would be destroyed and swore he and Maria would be reunited.

Within a year, the curse appeared to be coming true. Maria died and was reunited in eternity with her lover. The river changed course and turned Kaskaskia into an island. The church was moved twice so the river would not overtake it, and the altar was destroyed by a flood in 1973.

 

[leet]

That's a great one!

 

[leet]

Witches were so feared and hated that they were blamed for everything going wrong in the lives of villagers, from various maladies to the deaths of valuable farm animals or even human beings.

An ancient law also advocated the death by hanging of any witch found guilty of such deeds.

However, in 1736, this old law was repealed because Parliament became concerned that too many charges against such women were based on very unsafe evidence, so from that year on, no woman paid with her life just for being a so-called witch.

The trouble was that old beliefs died hard. In some areas, people started taking the law into their own hands - a kind of summary justice - by hounding a group of witches into a open boat, which had no sail, oars, or any other means of steering.

It was then launched into the open sea. The hope was that, sooner of later, a gale would spring up, causing waves to swamp the boat and send its occupants to a watery grave at the bottom of the sea. In that way, no one could be held liable for their deaths.

Where I live there is an old tale about a community of witches, there are two explanations for the story.

The first one tells of the sudden arrival of an open boat, full of wet, bedraggled women, that had been swept on the sands of the local beach by a strong tide.

Its occupants looked half dead. As they tried to drag their exhausted bodies out of the boat on to the relative safety of the sands, they were seen by nearby fisherman.

News of their arrival spread like wildfire through the village, and in no time at all most of the population had turned out on the beach.

They had guessed the identity of the strangers but held no pity in their hearts for them. They had all gathered there with every intention of bundling the whole lot back out to sea.

In the ensuing struggle, in which the strangers were being steadily pushed back towards the tide line, one witch, in her desperation, caused a spring of clear, fresh water to gush like a fountain out of the sand.

The villagers were so stunned by this display of magical powers that they fell back, and parleyed with the strangers. An agreement was quickly reached. Whether it was prompted by fear or good fellowship, by expectation of plenty or by sheer apathy, is not known. But the locals agreed to let the witches - if that was what they were - to remain, provided they made their settlement outside the village. It was a terrible mistake.

The newcomers made themselves homes outside the village and quickly established themselves as a powerful force in the region. They bullied the villagers, lorded it around the place, and paid for no goods in the shops or from the farmers fields, simply taking what they wanted.

They put charms and spells on farms and on animals and charged to have them removed. The men - wearing distinctive red neckties - became renowned as smugglers.

When the customs officers got too close, the men would, according to the legend, release swarms of deadly black flies from their neckties that flew into the officers faces blinding them, leaving the men to carry on with their criminal activities.

There are dozens of stories about these Witches. Bella Fawr (Big Bella) and Siani Bwti were two of the most famous. Siani Bwti (meaning Short Betty) was apparently less than four feet high and, with two thumbs on her left hand, she had all the classic hallmarks of a witch.

The second story has much the same theme, but with some variations.

During one stormy night in the teeth of a howling gale, a Spanish ship was driven hard on to the sandy beaches. It was held fast and soon started to break up under the battering of the waves.

The crew had to abandon ship and try to struggle through the seething waters to safety. Most downed in the attempt, but the survivors who succeed in reaching dry land turned out to be part of a Spanish circus troupe that had been travelling on the ship.

Although it was dark, they eventually found a steep, crumbly path that led to a cliff top at one end of the bay. When dawn broke, they saw that they had reached a piece of rough moorland overlooking the sea.

On the beach below, the ship was wrecked beyond repair, leaving them with no hope of returning to their homeland. So they had to settle for making this piece of moorland a home for the whole group.

However, the villagers took exception to this intrusion by total strangers, who looked so different in dress and behaviour and spoke another language, and had no possessions. Most of the strangers were diminutive midgets with red hair - a feature, it is said, of a certain area in Spain.

Midgets, of course, were popular entertainers in circuses, but not at all acceptable in the wilds.

The locals tried their best to eject these trespassers, but the strangers retaliated by using all their circus skills in acrobatics, sleight of hand and magic tricks to confuse and bamboozle them. It was their only means of defence.

The upshot was that they finally won the day and were reluctantly accepted and allowed to stay.
As time passed, the Spaniards lived together on the moorland, keeping very much to themselves.

This only fuelled local suspicions that they were actually witches. In fact, Siani Bwti (Short Betty) became the chief suspect because she had two thumbs on her left hand and was only 44 inches in height - all the supposed hallmarks of a witch.

So this nest of so-called witches brought much notoriety to the area.

I've got another one about a cat that's mentioned in the Mabinogion, but not now I'm getting high