A Ghost Story(ish)
I have always been a fan of spooky.
That irresistible bone chilling excitement as the story unfolds… the urge to both cover your eyes and ears but also sneak a peak through your fingers.
The…’Tell me’…
NO! don’t tell me…
I want to see…
Nooooo ….make it stop!!!
Chilly nights around a crackling fire, tiny glowing sparks drifting aimlessly towards the sky like little orange ghosts…
gripped in the thrill of a horror story…
heart racing….
skin prickling…
breath shallow…
one ear riveted on the story …. the other listening for noises in the woods..
Is something there?
hiding…
Is something watching us right now?
In equal measure I would desperately want to see something spooky but not too creepy and definitely not an actual ghost…
I want to know but please don’t show me any actual evidence….. thanks.
You see, I am rubbish at proper creepy.
My imagination is waaaaay too good,
I can think of things far scarier than most ghost stories and often find myself running up the dark staircase because of who … or what I have just imagined is close on my heels.. breathing down my neck…
or not allowing my foot to poke from my duvet because of the clawed hairy hand that might stroke my toes gently in the night .. lulling me into thinking it’s just my cat until it grabs me and drags me under the bed to an unthinkable end…
Or the creatures in the bushes who watch you when it’s dark outside and you’re in the room with the light on ….
I mean, never ever leave the curtains open .. right?
See?
And I’m being tame here ….
I used to adore watching the original black and white Adams Family and The Munsters at tea time every day after school. My favourite cartoons were Scooby Doo, Duckula ( the vegetarian vampire duck!) and, not forgetting Casper that friendly (and slightly irritating overly ‘nice’ ghost!!). I was also, of course, a huge Ghostbusters fan and just loved anything that involved ectoplasm.
So it’s not surprising that as I got older, I became obsessed with the artwork, design and concepts of movies such as Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, and H,R,Giger’s Alien, The nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride and any of the many brilliant, slightly naff vampire or scary movies that appeared in a demonic flurry in the 90’s.
My absolute favourite moment in Beetlejuice is when the recently deceased Adam and Barbara appear with sheets over them to try (unsuccessfully) to scare the family who have moved into their home. The daughter of the family, Lydia, is the only one who can see them and when she takes a Polaroid she gasps the iconic words ….’No Feet!!’
‘No Feet!’
One of the most famous spooky tropes that has always fascinated me is the ghost in a white sheet.
It’s the simplest and most recognisable ghost imagery.
Haunting and beautiful .. they have a silent presence that I find heartachingy captivating.
The billowing, cloudy bedsheet ghosts that appear throughout the 19th and 20th popular culture were originally inspired the burial shrouds used up until the 19th century by the poor, who, unable to afford a coffin, would wrap their deceased in a simple linen cloth, tied in a knot at the head and feet.
In the 1800’s the idea of the spirit appearing as a ghostly sheet became so popular that criminals began to adopt the costume in order to frighten and rob their victims, even scaring people from their homes so that they could burgle them!
One of the earliest recorded ‘sightings’ of a bedsheet ghost goes as far back as 1584 when Reginald Scott, a member of parliament and witchcraft aficionado, wrote that, “one knave in a white sheet hath cozened [that is, deceived] and abused many thousands that way.”
In his book, ‘The Haunted. A social history of ghosts’ Owen Davies explains that the popularisation of the sheet ghost image gave rise to a ‘scourge’ of bedsheet ghost impersonators ..
“They were most commonly perpetrated in urban areas where the streets and churchyards, even at night, provided a large and captive audience. In 1761, residents around Westminster Abbey and St John’s churchyard, Millbank, got up a subscription of five guineas as a reward for any person or persons that captured a ghost impersonator that was terrorising the neighbourhood and frightening the ‘weak minded’.
It became a huge problem well into the 1800’s with robbers, crooks and even sexual predators using the bedsheet ghost costume as guise for their ill intentions. It had the dual benefit of being utterly terrifying to their victims as well as hiding their faces.
Eventually it came to a head with the famous case of the Hammersmith ghost. Starting in 1803 residents of Hammersmith began reporting sightings of a white sheet shrouded figure.
Fear gripped the city as stories of violent attacks and murders where spread throughout the neighbourhoods.
This particular story ended with the unfortunate shooting of the innocent Mr. Millwood who happened to be a tall man and was walking home one evening wearing his white bricklaying work clothes. Mistaken for the ghost he was shot by vigilante neighbours who were out ghost hunting.
It turned out that the entire episode had been manufactured by a local shoemaker who made up the story to scare people.
Ironically, it is now said that the ghost of Mr. Millwood now haunts the Hammersmith streets.
Sheets rigged with wires or over dummies were also used by mediums to convince their customers that they had indeed summoned spirits.
In the 1860’s a photographer named William Mumler was the first person to capture a spirit in a photograph… these ghosts were often relatives of Mumlers customer and became incredibly popular especially after experts admitted they couldn’t find anything ‘fake’ about the images.
Eventually Mumler was ghost busted and tried for fraud ( he was found innocent but his career was over) but his work led new experiments in spooky photographic techniques and many others followed his lead.
In the late 19th century a French photographer called Edouard Isidore Buguet began publishing his own version of ghostly photographs in which the apparitions appeared as ghostly figures in white sheets. He served a year in prison after admitting his photos were simply pre-exposed film with models and white sheets.
So the bedsheet ghost has its roots way back in our cultural history and in recent times has been adopted by kids ( and adults!!) at Halloween. Of course, these cute little ‘no feet’ ghosts have feet and have had to cut little holes in the sheets to be able to see.
And so the cutest, spoopiest bed sheet ghosts were born … far away from the morbid origins or shady criminals.
So, there you go ….. this Halloween, grab your sheet and head out there and, when you do …. always remember…
Never go into the basement.. especially without the light on..
Never EVER say ‘I’ll be right back’…
DON’T invite someone into your home if you suspect even for a moment that they might be a vampire.
And never EVER feed them after midnight!
Boo!
‘The Haunted. A social history of ghosts’ - Owen Davies
Photos courtesy of Unsplash:
Thalia Ruiz
Florian Lidin
Simon Caban
Carlos Nunez
