Tales of animal ghosts are usually relegated to the periphery of ghost story collections, but in this episode, we showcase this class of apparition. Our stories were collected in a volume from 1915 called Human Animals by Frank Hamel.  It covers werewolves, animal transformations through witchcraft, possession by totemic animal spirits, and the phantom animals that haunt lonely roads, ancestral homes, and the storytellers’ imaginations.

Fairy tales featuring cats are generally pleasant. After our last show about malformed births, we thought, Andrew Lang’s story, “The Colony of Cats” might be a pleasant tonic, albeit one with a bizarre punishment sequence included. Published in 1909 in Lang’s Crimson Fairy Book, this story (read by Mrs. Karswell) seems to be a version of the tales discussed in our July 2022 show, “Heads in a Fountain, Bones in a Bag.”  Lang provides no background on his sources, but it’s presented as an Italian tale.

For centuries, strange births, often sounding like mythological monsters, were regarded as portents of ill omen. We hear a number of these fantastical accounts, including a description of the birth of the”Monster of Ravenna” believed to foreshadow not only the defeat of Louis XII’s forces during the 1512 Battle of Ravenna but also taken later as a sign of God’s wrath and religious turmoil roiling up in the Reformation.

The accounts related are compiled in the 1820 volume, edited by R.S. Kirby, and entitled Kirby’s wonderful and eccentric museum; or, Magazine of remarkable characters. Including all the curiosities of nature and art, from the remotest period to the present time, drawn from every authentic source.

A self-crucifixion that occurred in 1806 on the island of San Servolo in the Venetian lagoon is the topic of our story this time around.  The perpetrator and object of this crucifixion was Mattio Lovat, anglicized in our text as “Matthew Lovat.”  The selected narrative comes from an 1826 collection edited by Henry Wilson called Wonderful Characters: Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the Most Remarkable Persons of Every Age and Nation: Collected from the Most Authentic Sources.

An illustration of the event from Wonderful Characters…

An Irish ghost story seems a good way to add a bit of Halloween spice to your St. Patrick’s Day. Our selection, which will be read by Mrs. Karswell, comes from the 1825 publication Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.  It’s the first of three volumes of stories told by the Irish antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker, one of the earliest collector of the island’s folk tales.

Epitaphs can sum up the life of the individual buried beneath or can comment on the human condition generally. From the melancholy to the absurd to the catastrophically caustic, we survey in this episode a spectrum of final thoughts and grim punchlines culled from a favorite 19th-century volume.

A potpourri of peculiar tales culled from a favorite 19th-century volume. This episode features some outstanding  British eccentrics, an extraordinary case of delusional morbidity, lethal religious fanaticism, graveyard shenanigans, and more. Plus, more black-humored poetry from Harry Graham in “Karswell’s Corner”

Enjoy with us a collection of short curious tales culled from a favorite Victorian volume —  the Stone Eater of London, a mariner’s report of fire from the sky, the rise and fall of a French giant, 18th century blasphemies involving a donkey, and more.  Plus, more sardonic verse from Harry Graham in “Karswell’s Corner”

The fire that destroyed P.T. Barnum’s American Museum on July 13, 1865 was a luxuriantly surreal and tragic event, one described beautifully in a contemporary New York Times piece, which we share in this episode verbatim. Doomed whales in enormous tanks, fleeing snakes, sideshow celebrities, and melting wax mannequins are all part of this fantastic tale.

The episode also includes details on Bone and Sickle’s new format for 2023 (more and shorter shows) a morbid bit of poetry from Mrs. Karswell as well as a snippet of a 1920s recording of German soprano Frieda Hempel recreating a performance by Jenny Lind, “The Swedish Nightingale,” promoted by Barnum on immensely successful international tours.

The Christmas Eve ghost story is a fine old tradition associated with Victorian and Edwardian England, one now making a comeback on both sides of the Atlantic. Since 2018, Bone and Sickle has enthusiastically embraced the custom.

Our offering for 2022, is “Smee” written by A.M. Burrage in 1931 and read for us by Mrs. Karswell.

Previous Christmas ghost stories are linked here in our website show notes  (2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021).