Halloween stories: 10 terrifying tales from medieval to modern history

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From medieval hauntings to Victorian messages from the dead, explore ten ghost stories from history…

Shrieking and groaning at Hinton Ampner

The haunting of the Manor House at Hinton Ampner, near Alresford, Hampshire, began simply enough with the inexplicable banging of doors. A groom said he had seen an apparition of its former owner, Lord Stawell.

Mary and William Ricketts had purchased the manor in 1765, and soon began to regret it. When William left for a lengthy trip to Jamaica four years later, leaving his wife and three young children, the poltergeist phenomena began to intensify: Mary began to hear footsteps, knocking noises, and the rustle of silk in her bedchamber. By the spring of 1771, mysterious murmurings, groanings, and shrieks plagued the Manor House.

William was still abroad. Mary’s brother, Sir John Jervis, came to investigate, but could find no rational cause for the disturbances. The family moved out shortly after, and the house was demolished a few years later.

Was it the ghost of Lord Stawell, or perhaps another previous owner, Sir Hugh Stewkeley? A local pauper had told the family that Stewkeley was rumoured to have buried treasure under the floorboards of the dining room.

By Professor Owen Davies

The Haunting of Frodriver

First recorded in the 13th century as part of the Eyrbyggja Saga, and translated by Sir Walter Scott in 1814 in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities.

The story begins as a Hebridian woman named Thorgunna arrives in Iceland one winter. A local woman named Thuirda notices the rich treasures that Thorgunna possesses, and presses her to come and stay with her at her home in Froda.

Thorgunna refuses to part with any of her precious things, but agrees to stay and work as a servant. Soon Thorgunna falls ill and dies, but leaves behind a warning: her bedding is to be burnt, and most of her effects given to local monks. This, she says, is not out of spite, but as a way to protect the settlement from an evil that is coming.

Inevitably, Thurida can't resist taking the rich bedding of Thorgunna for herself, and sure enough the residents of Froda begin to fall victim to a series of grisly accidents, ghostly attacks, and mysterious plagues. After a funeral feast is held, they are beset by a crowd of walking ghouls that refuse to leave, and which gather around the central fire of the main hall each night.

But deliverance soon arrives when Kiartan, the son of Thurida, engages a local priest to stage a trial. The ghouls are charged with staying unlawfully in the hall, and eventually their leader declares, somewhat petulantly: “We have here no longer a peaceful dwelling, therefore will we remove.”

By George Dobbs

Nunnifying Mary Boucher

Mary Boucher was a London servant woman employed by a Catholic lady. According to the clergyman John Gee (d1639), the lady hatched a plot with three Jesuits to convert Mary to Catholicism, and so have her ‘Nunnified’. What better way to persuade Mary to convert to the Catholic faith than to convince her that ghosts returned from purgatory?

One of the conspirators dressed up in a white sheet and approached Mary as she lay in bed one night. The supposed spirit touched Mary with “a hand cold as earth or iron” and claimed to be her long-deceased godmother: “See that you tell my children what you have seen, and how their mother appeared unto you”.

When Mary told her mother about the ghostly visitation, she convinced her daughter that it was nothing but a popish trick. But maybe John Gee, who claimed to have visited Mary to verify the story, was making up his own stories to deflect rumours that he himself was in thrall to the papacy…

By Professor Owen Davies

The ghost with a message for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

There was a man who had spent part of his youth in the same parish where Sir George, the father of the Duke of Buckingham, had lived. He cherished fond memories of old Sir George, who had always treated him kindly.

By February 1628, the man, who was now in his fifties and renowned for his honesty and discretion, was employed as an officer in the wardrobe of King James VI and I at Windsor Castle. One night, at about midnight, his peaceful rest was disturbed by a distinguished-looking gentleman who suddenly appeared by his bed, pulled aside the heavy curtains and fixed his eyes upon him.

“Do you know me?” the visitor asked, but the wardrobe master was too terrified to answer. The spirit asked again whether he remembered him. Of course, he remembered him; it was old Sir George, still wearing the very clothes he used to wear.

“You are Sir George,” he stammered out, to which the spirit answered that he was right. The ghost then demanded a service from him: he was to take a message to his son, the Duke of Buckingham, and tell him that “if he did not do somewhat to ingratiate himself to the people, or, at least to be able to abate the extreme malice they had against him, he would be suffered to live a short time.”

The ghost, having said its piece, vanished, leaving the man alone in the silent darkness. However, once recovered from the initial shock of the unsettling experience, he managed to persuade himself that it had been nothing more than a bad dream. Turning over, he slept soundly until morning.

The next night, the wardrobe master received another visit from Sir George. This time, the spirit seemed rather less friendly than it had been the first time. It asked him if he had done as he was asked, but the man had to admit that he had not. At this, the ghost reprimanded him sharply and warned that he would enjoy no peace of mind, but would always be harassed until he did as he had been asked.

The man promised to obey but, upon waking up in the morning, he believed himself once again to have been the victim of a vivid dream. In any case, how could a man of his lowly standing gain access to the duke and, even if he were admitted into his presence, how could he expect the duke to believe his story? Although the man could not shake off a feeling of disquiet, he dismissed the idea of obeying the ghost’s command and going to the duke.

A short while later, old Sir George appeared again to the wardrobe master. This time the spirit was clearly very angry with him. The man, trembling with fear, summoned the courage to tell the ghost that he had been putting off obeying his command because he thought it would be too difficult to gain access to the duke since he had no friend who could introduce him. Moreover even if he could secure an audience, he would never be able to make the duke believe who had sent him and why. He feared he would be thought mad, or else he would be seized by the duke’s enemies and made to abuse him, thereby placing himself in very grave danger.

The spirit merely replied at it had done before, that the man would never find peace until he did as he had been told; and therefore, he should get on with it. The ghost then assured him that access to the duke was known to be very easy, and that very few had to wait any length of time to see him. In order to give his message credence, the ghost gave him some information that only the duke would know, and that he was to tell no one but the duke, who would then believe everything he had to say. The ghost then repeated its threat before leaving the man alone.

This time, the cold light of day brought no comfort for the wardrobe master. Convinced now that the ghostly appearances had been no dream, but were real, he made his way to London and the court. Here, he encountered Sir Ralph Freeman, a lawyer who had married one of Buckingham’s relatives. The man told him, though without going into detail, what had happened to him. Sir Ralph knew the wardrobe master to be a sober and upright man and he was inclined to believe his extraordinary story. The man added that he had much to tell the Lord of Buckingham, but that he required privacy. Sir Ralph promised that he would speak to the duke on his behalf.

Sir Ralph was as good as his word and he approached Buckingham who, having been assured that the wardrobe master was a man of good character, agreed to see him. He told Sir Ralph of his plans to go hunting early the next morning and, should the man care to be at Lambeth Bridge by five o’clock in the morning, he would grant him an audience for as long as necessary.

On the following day Sir Ralph duly presented the wardrobe master to Buckingham, who received him with all the cordiality for which he was renowned. The two men walked together for an hour, while Sir Ralph kept watch from a distance. Although Sir Ralph could not hear what passed between the duke and the wardrobe master, he noticed that on occasion, Buckingham became greatly agitated. When the man returned, he explained to Sir Ralph that when he mentioned the secret pieces of information that were to gain him credence, the duke’s colour had changed, and Buckingham swore that the wardrobe master could only have known what he did if the devil had told him, for the information was so secret that only he and one other knew them, and the other knew better than to speak of them.

Later, Buckingham mounted his horse for the hunt, but he could not enjoy the exercise. Instead, he spent the morning riding aimlessly, lost in worried thoughts. Before the morning was out, the duke went to see his mother, the Countess of Buckingham who lived in Whitehall, and the two of them remained shut up together for two or three hours. Their conversation was agitated to say the least, and the noise of their discourse disturbed those in the rooms adjoining theirs. When Buckingham finally emerged, it was noticed that he was troubled and angry, which appeared strange because mother and son normally got on remarkably well. For her part, Buckingham’s mother was found in tears and overcome by emotion.

When, a few months later, the countess was told that her son had been murdered, she showed no surprise, but received the news as if she had anticipated it. Curiously, considering how close she had been to her son, Clarendon asserts that the countess did not express the sorrow that would be expected from a mother at the loss of her favourite son.

By Josephine Wilkinson

The Bathkeeper

From The Dialogi of Gregory the Great, published in the mid-10th century. Translated by EG Gardner in 1911, and published in Medieval Ghost Stories, by Andrew Joynes

A priest is visiting a hot spring when he comes across a man he hasn't seen before. The man promptly begins to attend to him, helping him to take off his clothes and shoes, and the priest naturally assumes that he is one of the servants there.

The priest then visits the baths several more times, and each time the man appears to him and offers to help him, but doesn't extract any form of payment. Eventually the priest decides that he should give the man a reward. He returns the next time with two Eucharist loaves, and offers them to the man with his gratitude.

When the man sees the loaves, he becomes distressed. He explains that he cannot eat holy bread, for he isn't a living man at all, but an apparition of the former overseer of the baths. He entreats the priest to intercede on his behalf so that he might find peace in the afterlife, and when he finishes speaking he vanishes, so that the priest knows for certain he has seen a ghost.

The priest offers up prayers, and sure enough the ghostly attendant never returns to him.

By George Dobbs

The haunting of Susan Lay

In 1650 an Essex servant girl named Susan Lay went to her local magistrate in great distress, saying that she was haunted by the ghost of her mistress, Priscilla Beauty, the wife of an alehouse keeper. Lay had given birth to illegitimate children by both Beauty’s husband and her son, William. Both children died in infancy.

Priscilla passed away at Easter 1650. Three days after she was buried, Susan – who was then living in the alehouse barn – began to be visited by the pale ghost of her mistress calling to her, “Sue, Sue, Sue”. The anguished Susan thought the spirit of her mistress had come back from the dead to punish her for her sins – “oh this woman will be the destruction of me”, she said.

When Susan threatened to commit suicide, William told her, “this is a just judgement of God upon you for if she walks, she walks to you and nobody else.”

By Professor Owen Davies

Byland Abbey Ghost Stories

From fragments in a late 14th-century manuscript, transcribed by MR James in 1920 in Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories
There are many ghost stories recorded by the Monk of Byland. One such tale features a man trying to make his way home with a load of beans after his horse meets with an accident. He sees a terrifying apparition of a horse, and after he tries to scare it away it begins to stalk him. The spirit then appears as a glowing ball of light in a cloud of hay.

Finally the man confronts the spirit in the name of the lord, and a ghostly figure appears in front of him. The spirit claims that it means the man no harm, and asks to carry his load of beans for him. The man agrees, and the load is carried across a river, before reappearing on his back. After this, the spirit vanishes.

In another local story, a spirit accosts two farm labourers, attacking one of them. The man calls on the lord, and the ghost confesses that it was the canon of Newburgh, excommunicated for theft. The labourer digs up a set of spoons stolen by the ghost, and afterwards its spirit rests in peace.

Medieval ghost stories, then, often fall into the category of exempla – cautionary tales intended to reinforce Christian values. But they can also show the exchange of cultures happening over a large expanse of time.

The events at Frodriver read like a mixture of a Christian exempla with more traditional Nordic notions of the undead, while the events described at Byland in Yorkshire feature the kind of aggressive, physical apparitions that Vikings were fond of describing.
MR James – perhaps the most influential modern writer of ghost stories – was also an important medieval scholar who rediscovered many of these stories. He revived features of medieval folklore in his tales, including ghosts that transform into objects, and dangers that lurk in everyday settings. So perhaps our own ghosts are closer to the medieval than we might think…

By George Dobbs

A ghostly tenancy dispute

In February 1834 four men applied to the Bristol magistrates to nullify the tenancy agreement they had signed because their rooms were haunted. One of the men said he saw the ghosts of two women, one wearing mourning clothes. Another’s daughter claimed she also saw the ghost of a woman with light hair and grey eyes, who wore a cap with lace strings. She felt a draft of air as the ghostly woman passed by her bed. As well as these visions, all four tenants complained of a strange blue light appearing in their rooms.

The magistrate tried to convince them that there were no such things as ghosts. But the men refused to believe it, with one of them citing the Reverend John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, as an authority on their reality. Alas, the law could do nothing for the haunted tenants.

By Professor Owen Davies

A ghost appears to Charles I

This account can be found in John Mastin’s The History and Antiquities of Naseby, published in 1792.

In June 1645, shortly before the battle of Naseby, Charles I with an army of less than 5,000 foot and a similar number of horse, mustered his men at nearby Daventry to prepare for the battle that would be fought the following day.

The battle would see Charles I’s royalists face Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army for the first time, and is seen by many as a key battle in the English Civil Wars.

Shortly after everyone had settled down for the night, a tremendous clamour was heard coming from the king’s chamber. When his servants rushed in to see what had caused it, they found Charles sitting up in bed looking very agitated, but nothing could be found that would account for the noise they had heard. Charles, his voice shaking, said he had seen an apparition of Lord Strafford, whom he had executed four years before. After reproaching the king for his cruelty, Strafford had told him he had come to return good for evil. The spirit continued, saying in no uncertain terms that Charles must not fight the parliamentary army that was at that time quartered at Northampton, because he would never be able to conquer it by arms.

The following day, Charles announced that he had changed his mind and would not go to battle after all but instead would march northwards. He knew the parliamentary forces were sparser in the north and, with the help of the discontented Scots, he might fare better. However, the king’s nephew, the courageous Prince Rupert, berated Charles so that he resolved to go ahead with the battle notwithstanding the ghostly warning.

That night, Charles’s sleep was disturbed again by the ghost of Lord Strafford. This time, the spirit was angry that Charles appeared to have ignored his counsel. The ghost assured the king that this was the last time he would be permitted to offer advice and that if Charles continued in his resolve to fight, he would be undone.

Charles wrestled with his fears and, finally summoning up his courage, made the firm decision to ignore once again the advice the spirit had given him; he would march into battle at Naseby as planned.

The battle proved to be the disaster the ghost had predicted for the royal forces. Moreover, Charles would never again be able to muster an army large enough to defeat the enemy. He was often heard to say that he wished he had “taken the warning and not fought at Naseby.” (Mastin, p.191)

Few who heard him understood what Charles meant by this, but he had given express instructions to those in whom he had confided that the affair of the ghost of Lord Strafford was always to remain a closely guarded secret. The story, however, was related to Mastin by a man who claimed to have been a soldier in his majesty’s horse.

By Josephine Wilkinson

A murder revealed by a ghost?

One evening in January 1861, several men and women were gathered at the fireside in the cottage of Joseph Allinson, in Kendal, when terrible knocking sounds emanated from the room above where Joseph’s bedridden, purblind wife lay.

The alarmed fireside congregation proceed upstairs to investigate the cause of the mysterious noises. Mrs Allinson revealed to them that she had just been visited by an apparition of a grim, rough-looking man dressed in black. It breathed in her face, causing the bedside candle to burn dim before being extinguished by some unseen hand.

The ghost pointed to the floor and in a thick, husky, hollow voice told her that she must dig under the hearthstone in the cellar, and there she would find something buried. The ghost then vanished.

Joseph and his friends immediately headed down to the cellar to carry out the spirit’s instructions. On removing the hearth flagstone they found, just below the surface, a quantity of long-buried bones, thought to be human, and a scattering of hops. Were they the remains of a murder victim? Was the ghost that of the murderer, or the murder victim?

By Professor Owen Davies