charliesmum: (Default)
charliesmum ([personal profile] charliesmum) wrote2004-10-25 06:36 pm
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The virtual campfire

I thought, since it is the week before Halloween, we should share spooky stories. So this week I am going to post all my favorite scary stories, to the best of my abilities. And if anyone has a story they want to share, bring it on! As long as it isn't the 'bloody hook' story. Or the hitchhiker story. We've heard them, I'm sure.

Since I'm from New Jersey, and many of you aren't, I thought I'd start with the Legend of the Jersey Devil. So huddle under your blankets, turn out the light, and prepared to be scared!

Many, many years ago in the middle of the Pine Barrens located near the South Jersey shoreline there lived a family called Leeds. They were one of the first settlers in this area, and the land even today is known as Leeds Point. Mrs. Leeds had many children, and was not happy to find herself pregnant with her thirteenth. Some say she cursed the baby in the womb, so say she wished the child were a devil, and some say perhaps it was because the child was born under an unlucky number, but whatever the reason, the child Mrs. Leeds gave birth to was anything but human. Born with leathery wings, hooves instead of feet and a head shaped very much like a horse, Mrs. Leeds thirteenth child gave an unearthly shriek that chilled the bones of all who heard it, and flew up the chimney to make its home in the Jersey Pine Barrens.

Soon known as "The Jersey Devil" the creature is said to have made off with farmer's livestock, frighten hunters as they stalked their prey, and terrify campers with its chilling cry, even to this day.

In the early part of the 20th centry the Jersey Devil was seen all along the Jersey shoreending up in Knights Park right here in my own home town of Collingswood. There was newspaper articles chronicling the sightings.

So if you ever find yourself in the dense forest known as the Pine Barrens, listen for a rustling of the pine leaves, perhaps the heavy tread of a cloven foot, and the unearthly cry of New Jersey's own Devil.

[identity profile] vampirehobbit.livejournal.com 2004-10-26 08:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, here in Malta we've got loads of history (descendents of the Phoenicians, ya know), civilization older than the pyramids, so naturally we're just teeming with ghost stories; most of them involving the Knights of St. John who goverened the country for about 250 years. I do believe there's even a war-ghost story circulating somewhere in the family, but I can't remember it so I shall tell one of the most famous ghost stories of Malta, which is much more sad than it is scary.

In the days when Malta was governed by the Knights of St. John there was once a Grandmaster by the name of Emmanuel de Rohan. The Grandmasters had built for themselves a beautiful little palace overlooking the only woodland in Malta (being that it's so small) where they and theirs dwelt.

The story goes that de Rohan had a niece who was promised to a suitor who she didn't love at all. Angry, her rejected suitor locked away in her room in the palace until she agreed to marry him, which she would never do. One day, whilst locked in her room she'd had enough, so she climbed out of the window and fell to her death.

Legend has it that she began to haunt the palace wearing the blue dress that she had been in when she'd died, giving her the name of the Blue Lady. There are actually meant to be quite a few ghosts haunting the palace, which is surprising, as, I've been there and it's not really that big, but there are several accounts from different people occupying it (it's used as a presidential palace these days).

[identity profile] charliesmum.livejournal.com 2004-10-26 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I like that story! Sad.