Christopher Philippo's Blog: Christmas Ghost Stories and Horror, page 5

The Slaughtered Turkey's Ghost (1915)

The Slaughtered Turkey's Ghost

In the dead of the night to the ill-fated sinner,
Whose soul was oppressed with his Thanksgiving dinner,
A weighty repast which, forsooth, got the best of
The sufferer’s overworked organs digestive,
There came, without deigning to ask his permission,
A baleful and dreadful and stern apparition.
It bore no resemblance in form or in feature
To anything human. The terrible creature
Was nothing but bones. It looked like a colossal
Procrustean, stony, Doc Hollandish fossil.
It moved with slow steps, like a girl in a hobble,
And speaking in tones which suggested a gobble
Thus set forth the cause of its ominous visit:
“In me you behold not the fabled what-is-it,
Nor other creation of minds superstitious
Indulging in fancies unworthy and vicious.
I am as you’d see if your brain were not murky
The hapless remains of the Thanksgiving turkey.
Because of your greed I’ve been robbed of existence
To serve on your board as a piece de resistance.
You hacked me to shreds and you fed me in sections
To others who shared your debased predilections.
And now to come back, ’tis my purpose to haunt you—
No rest and no quarter henceforth shall I grant you.”
Appalled by this righteous and fierce condemnation
The sleeper awoke in a state of prostration.
And mopping his brow, he remarked, “If I'm living
And fit to go through with another Thanksgiving
No more in the flesh-pots accursed shall I wallow.
No surfeit in mine with a nightmare to follow.”
The moral is plain, howsoever you view it:
To feast is quite proper, but don't overdo it.
Burgoyne, Arthur Gordon. Poems. [Pittsburgh, PA?], 1915. 16.

Tommybob's Thanksgiving Vision (1888)

Yet another Thanksgiving indigestion nightmare turkey ghost... again, I spared readers the multitude of Christmas variations on these in the book! These are shared here for the sake of gluttons for punishment.

TOMMYBOB’S THANKSGIVING VISION.
By Anna M. Pratt, Author
It was Thanksgiving evening, and Tommybob slept,
While over his pillow Thanksgiving dreams crept;
They whispered, the while he grew rigid with fear:
“Look out, for the ghosts of the slaughtered are near!”



Alack! though he strained and he struggled to rise,
He was held down by pickles of marvelous size,
That stood like policemen each side of his bed,
With revolvers of cinnamon aimed at his head.

Then in walked a turkey, bespattered with mud,
And with gobbles which curdled poor Tommybob’s blood,
The lack of a liver and a load of fine dressing
Made it beat with its drum sticks until ’twas distressing.
It perched on the footboard and whispered, “I’ll stay
And hiccough, young man, till next Thanksgiving Day.”

While an inward commotion young Tommy was feeling,
Some celery sprang from his chest to the ceiling,
And under the shade of its fast-growing trees
A pepper-box waltzed with a piece of green cheese;

Fried oysters rode bicycles made of mince pies,
And each took a “header” right into his eyes;
A plum pudding camped on a terrible ache,
And doubled its fist at a large jelly cake;
While raisins unnumbered fell over in fits—
Which frightened poor Tommybob out of his wits.

As the nuts fell like hail, some one sounded a gong,
And at once all the company joined in a song:
“Woe, woe to thee, Tommybob! Many a night
We’ll dance on thy bed till thou tremblest with fright,
Till thou learnst that thy stomach should not be abused,
For know that thy gluttony’ll not be excused.”

Then at Tommy they sprang. He uttered a groan,
And, lo! they all vanished, and he was alone.
* * * * * * *
Tommybob has decided a greedy young sinner
Has to pay a big price for a Thanksgiving dinner,
And that eating to live will make much finer living
Than living to eat, as he did on Thanksgiving.
—Golden Days.
Sunday Leader [Wilkes-Barre, PA]. November 18, 1888: 4 col 3.
Davis, Harry C. and John C. Bridgman, eds. Brief Declamations. NY: Henry Holt, 1890. 337-338.

Author Anna Maria Pratt (1844-1928) was a teacher who published a few volumes of poetry for children, with additional poems like the above appearing in periodicals, some later collected in anthologies. Possibly(?) she may have been a relative of Louisa May Alcott's brother-in-law John Bridge Pratt; not a sister, but maybe a cousin (the "Alcott family letters to Alfred Whitman" at Harvard's Houghton Library has some correspondence between Anna M. Pratt and Louisa May Alcott). She is interred in Cleveland, Ohio's Woodland Cemetery.

Thanksgiving Day! (1853)

The earliest "Thanksgiving Ghost" mention I'd found is from 1853, though there might well be ones still earlier. Even just 1853 predates Lincoln's significant 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, though.

As in the below item, the strongest association for the holiday (to the extent it was a holiday) for decades was with the northeastern states, and the actual day was flexible. E.g., a reprinted article with a dateline of Albany, N.Y., Nov. 4 [1808] read in part, "Sons of New-England.—On Thursday evening last, pursuant to previous arrangement the YANKEES of this city, to the number of about one hundred, assembled at the Tontine Coffee House, for the purpose of celebrating the New-England Thanksgiving" [emphasis in original]. (Charleston Daily Courier [SC]. December 16, 1808: 3 col 1.)

THANKSGIVING DAY! The Yankee custom has spread throughout the States and twenty-four members of the confederacy, now join in a common outburst of gratitude for the fertility of the past season. What a grand spectacle!
But what a slaughter of victims! What a murdering of turkeys—what a baking of pies! How many of the feathered race must pay their lives as a token of our thankfulness! "The ghosts of slaughtered Turkeys stalk unrevenged among us"—or find their desire for vengeance glutted by the indigestions, the nightmares, the stupidity of intellect in the gorged body, and all the evils of excess. Guard against that excess, then, if you would escape from the visitation of these Thanksgiving ghosts!
Hartford Courant [CT]. November 24, 1853: 2 col 1.

Thanksgiving-Day (1878)

These Thanksgiving ghosts are on the whole nowhere near as threatening or weird as some of the Christmas ones, but still: their existence is arguably worth remembering as having once been a small part of the holiday, or something that people felt for decades (1853-1940 at least!) should be part of the holiday.

As mentioned earlier, a lot of them have to do with overindulgence and indigestion leading to seeing ghosts, either actual or dreamt in nightmares - a point in common with some Christmas ghost stories. Anyone who might dismiss digestive terrors must never have experienced the horrific pain of kidney stones, gall stones, or ulcers!

THANKSGIVING-DAY.

HAIL, hail, Thanksgiving-day!
	Welcome to saints and sinners—
Welcome to all, both great and small,
	Thou day of royal dinners!
See how they come from far and near,
	A troop of “carpet-baggers,”
To grace the board with one accord,
	And appetites like daggers.

Who cares for Turkish war abroad?
	Who cares for serf of Czar?
Our Turkey lies before our eyes;
	Come and attack—hurrah!
With knife and fork we win the day,
	A truce to care and sorrow;
Eat while we may, Thanksgiving-day
	Will fade before to-morrow.

We’re thankful for a host of things
	Too numerous to mentions:
For sweethearts true and hearts to woo,
	And all things worth attention.
For all and every thing that gives
	Our lives so much of pleasure
We offer thanks. Long may we taste
	Thine overflowing measure!

Then hail, hail, Thanksgiving-day!
	Thou day of royal dinners!
Nor will we care if the grim nightmare
	Should fright the soul within us
When day is done. Let Turkey’s ghost,
	With the nuts and puddings and wine,
In the dead of night begin their fight,
	Still—victory is thine!

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 55(331). December 1877. 158.

Little David and the Turkey (1900)

On January 21, 1917, the Boston Sunday Herald's column "Every-Day Questions by Julie Pride," printed a letter from a reader who had expressed a hope that someone would be able to identify a turkey ghost poem with the lines "'I didn't have much to eat,' said a voice beneath the sheet" and "I regret to disappoint, But two drumsticks, second joint—" The general idea of the poem was described, and the fact that it had been published in a monthly magazine 15 or 16 years ago. Whether they got their answer, I don't know; their memory was fairly accurate, though, as the following will show.

LITTLE DAVID AND THE TURKEY.
A STORY WISE CHILDREN WILL REMEMBER ON THANKSGIVING DAY .
BY JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS.

LITTLE David had been told,
On becoming ten years old,
	He could have just what he wanted for his party;
And he spent the livelong day
In the hardest kind of play
	To be certain that his appetite was hearty.

And this is what that youngster had to eat—
The menu may be somewhat incomplete,
	But as near as I could follow,
	This is what he had to swallow—
	You'll conclude the boy was hollow
To his feet:

After oysters, raw, on ice,
He had chicken gumbo twice,
	Then the turkey took its place in front of Davy.
Two drumsticks and some breast
Went beneath his little vest,
	A second joint, five vegetables, and gravy.

There was chicken pie with crust
(Why that youngster didn't bust!)
	And a pudding all a blazing up with brandy,
Ice cream and frosted cake,
Just as much as he could take,
	And fruit and nuts and raisins——oh, and candy!

Then his sleepy time had come, young David said.
He'd a funny sort of feeling in his—head.
	Oh, his soul was sad and cumbered,
	And he thought his days were numbered;
	But at last the youngster slumbered
In his bed.

All at once he heard—low groans!
Oh, they froze his marrow bones!
	Then a sound of some one limping and a hobbling,
And across the somber gloom
Of his lonely little room,
Step by step, on creaky crutches, came a Gobling!

And he perched upon the bedside and began:
I've a tale for you to listen to, young man!

“Every Gobling, you're apprised,
After daybreak goes disguised
	In the person of a fowl or dog or kitten.
Monday morning, for an hour,
I availed me of this power—
	And, alas, it was a turkey that I lit on!

“Well, you know the tragic rest.
I could spare a little breast;
	All the grown ups merely left me rather thinner.
But you took so much to eat
That my structure's incomplete;
	I'm afraid I'll have to ask you for your dinner.”

“But I hadn’t—much—to eat!”
Quaked the voice beneath the sheet.
	The Gobling only scowled at frightened Davy.
“I regret to disappoint,
But—two drumsticks, second joint,
	And the white meat! You may keep the giblet gravy.”

Then David, with a shaking in his knees,
Thought he'd try this dreadful being to appease.

“Sir, you're perfect now,” he faltered;
“It would spoil you to be altered.”
	But the Gobling shook his head. “Young sir, you flatter me.
I could spare my outer rims,
But I need my nether limbs;
	So I'll ask you for the rest of my anatomy.”

“I don't want them,” Davy cried;
“But oh, sir, they're down inside!”
	Said the Gobling, “Why, I'll follow them with pleasure.
’Twill be quite a pleasant change—
The surroundings will be strange.
	I can gather my belongings at my leisure.”

Now, the last thing Davy wanted, as you've guessed,
Was a Gobling playing alias in his chest.
	And his teeth began to chatter,
	For he saw he couldn't flatter,
	But he sought to work the matter
For the best.

All at once, a bright idea:
“’Tis the bones you want, I fear,
	And there isn't one within my little inner;
But you'll find them all, I know,
In our Nero down below—
	He was given quite a plateful for his dinner.”

The Gobling sat and mused.
Well, I feel a bit abused;
	Bare bones are rather comfortless at zero.
But if I can find a few,
I suppose it ought to do.
	Well, perhaps I'd better spend a week in Nero.”

So he vanished through the gloom
Of that lonely little room,
	And Davy hid his little head and trembled.
And soon he heard a growl
And a yelp and then a howl,
	And presently his family all assembled.

Oh, he heard them call and scold,
But he never, never told.
	For a week that doggie acted up like forty.
And they never understood
Why their David was so good,
	And their Nero so peculiar and so naughty.
The Puritan 9(2). November 1900. 247-248.

"Gobling" is an archaic, somewhat uncommon, variant spelling for "goblin." E.g. it appears in a definition for "larvated" (itself a curious word): "masqued, or visarded, for the representing some Gobling, or dreadfull Spirit" Phillips, Edward, ed. The New World of Words: Or a General English Dictionary. 3rd Ed. London, Nath. Brook, 1671. "Like forty," in the last stanza, means "with great force" (Word Detective).

California native Juliet Wilbor Tompkins (1871-1956) was the author of numerous poems, plays, stories and novels, some of which were adapted into films between 1919 and 1931.

a turkey whose goose has been cooked

A thought in early November 2020.

image:
Herford, Oliver (1860-1935). "A Thanksgiving Ghost." St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine 13(1). November 1885. 80.

Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, gobble-gobble-gobble

A somewhat common subgenre of Christmas ghost stories that didn't make it into the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume Four involved people being haunted—literally or in nightmares—by the food in which they'd overindulged. That theme also figured in some Christmas poems, jokes, etc.; readers will find in the book a shorter interpolated item that makes use of it. Closely related were stories that featured ghosts of animals, particularly turkeys, but without referencing overburdened stomachs. Both types, unsurprisingly given the foodcentricity of the holiday, also manifested in Thanksgiving variations.

A shape poem for Thanksgiving from 1889 by H. C. Dodge featured a sort of wraith of a turkey, a turkey appearing before the reader prior to the turkey's imminent demise. (A Christmas shape poem by H. C. Dodge is in the book.)



A Christmas ghost song of this general type, written by Fred Gibson and Frank Wood and recorded by at least a couple UK artists in the 1930s was:

The Ghost of the Turkey

Farmer Jenkins had a lot of turkeys but his favorite one was Flo.
He said he would cling to her forever but at last she had to go
When the turkey died she made a vow
She would haunt him every night and now

There’s the ghost of the turkey moaning in the garden every Christmas night
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, on the wall in the pale moonlight.
May the wings and toes, parson’s nose, wriggle in your throat and hurt ya.
You’ve spoiled my end of a perfect day, oo-oo, gobble-gobble gertcha.

Farmer Jenkins, can’t get any slumber, stays awake each morn ’til two
Since that turkey’s chassis filled an oven and her giblets made a stew
Every night a voice cries mournfully
Oo, ya dirty crook you twisted me

There’s the ghost of the turkey moaning in the garden every Christmas night
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, on the wall in the pale moonlight.
May the wings and toes, parson’s nose, wriggle in your throat and hurt ya.
You’ve spoiled my end of a perfect day, oo-oo, gobble-gobble gertcha.

(quietly)
There’s the ghost of the turkey, coming in the garden every Christmas night
(gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble) oo-oo-oo (gobble-gobble-gobble), oo-oo-oo (gobble), on the wall in the pale moonlight (gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble-gobble)
May the wings and toes (gobble-gobble), parson’s nose (gobble), wriggle in your throat and hurt ya.
(emphatically)
You’ve spoiled my end of a perfect day, oo-oo, gobble-gobble gertcha.

talking turkey — with a Thanksgiving Ghost Story

November 3rd may seem too early to mention the Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Volume Four . That said, 2020's been an odd year; I have neighbors who've already celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas due to where family members will be later in the year and uncertainties about travel advisories. For that matter, variables like supply chain issues and slowed postal service might make thinking about Christmas gifts and ordering them early advisable rather than waiting until December.

As the book's editor it's of necessity been on my mind all year. For my own part, I actually am disappointed that things like Sirius and Music Choice's "Sounds Of The Seasons" skip from Halloween to Christmas. Why not play things today like "Election Songs of the United States" and "Presidential Campaign Songs, 1789-1996"?

That jump across November has been happening for decades, though. A 1947 article remarked, "The ghosts of Santa Claus hovered so near the Halloween spirits that poor Thanksgiving was utterly neglected by all except the Doctor Miles calendars. Pre-Halloween decorations were on aisles next to Christmas ornaments in several of the five and ten cent stores, without so much as turkey feather hanging up to remind shoppers of Thanksgiving" (Springfield Leader and Press [MO]. November 26, 1947.)

In discussing the tradition of Christmas ghost stories, it warrants mentioning that newspapers used to have ghost stories year-round; poems, short stories, and serialized novels were a much more common feature than now. Thus, there certainly were ghost stories published on Thanksgiving Day periodically, and it's reasonable to suppose they would even appear on Election Day and Remembrance Day. However, they lacked the frequency or degree of intent of Christmas ghost stories or the later generation of Halloween entries. As with Christmas ghost stories, the Thanksgiving ones that in some way actually tie into the holiday seem more worthy of the label.

Worth thinking about, a 2019 blog post on the Smithsonian Magazine's website, "Do American Indians celebrate Thanksgiving?" Some people do celebrate it, some don't, some recognize it instead as a National Day of Mourning. Having at least some misgivings about the day is nothing new. In the below short story from 1912, published the year New Mexico became a state, an uncredited author takes on the spirits of the holidays and their observance.

Days We Celebrate

THE ghost of Thanksgiving Day and the ghost of Christmas met and shook hands in that debatable land where spirits wander at large. The Thanksgiving ghost was plethoric with turkey and of a comfortable rotundity. The Christmas ghost was built like a huge dollar sign, and had the sanctimonious air of one who has been spent in a good cause.
The ghost of Thanksgiving smiled broadly. “It’s to be a good season,” he said.
“Fine,” agreed Christmas.
“Thousands of turkeys will lay down their lives at my shrine,” said Thanksgiving complacently.
“Thousands of dollars at mine,” said Christmas proudly.
“Preachers proclaim my goodness, and all the world gives thanks,” said Thanksgiving, as he strutted about in a most superior way.
“Fortunately, thanks are not a competitive commodity, and they can be given in any quantity without disturbing my trade,” said Christmas maliciously.
That started the row.
“The president of the United States issues a proclamation announcing my arrival,” said Christmas.
“I gorge myself to prove the world’s prosperity,” said Thanksgiving.
“The money is but accumulated to be spent on me,” retorted Christmas.
“Big football games are played in my honor,” said Thanksgiving.
“The world is decked with holly and mistletoe for me and I divide honors with none,” said Christmas.
“I am a national holiday,” said Thanksgiving.
“I am celebrated the world over,” said Christmas.
“The most famous dance in the world, ‘the turkey trot,’ is named for me,” said Thanksgiving.
“I wouldn’t tell it if I were you,” said Christmas.
“You are a hypocrite,” said Thanksgiving.
“You are a braggart,” said Christmas.
Just then the ghost of the Fourth of July, badly singed and smelling of gunpowder, drew near.
“You had best stop quarreling and watch your cues. Bringing it right down to a fine point, neither of you are the most important national holiday. I am," said the Fourth of July.
“The impertinent thing,” said Thanksgiving and Christmas in one breath.
“He is saying things derogatory to our dignity,” said Christmas.
“We will not deign to answer him,” said Thanksgiving.
Albuquerque Journal [NM]. November 24, 1912: II 1 cols 6-7