Sylvia Shults's Blog, page 37

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Six — Lights Out!

Welcome to the Dead of Winter! Today we’re going to revisit a couple of Lights Out episodes from years past. Curl up by the Christmas tree, turn on the tree lights, have a cup of something warm and lovely handy, and let’s go … Lights Out.

Lights Out #66: Christmas 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvAANf27Eb4&t=4s

Lights Out #52: Christmas 2017 — The Roving Skeleton of Boston Bay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1o74O6A-aw&t=27s

Lights Out #51: Plymouth Courthouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZY-ntKexJk

Lights Out #32: Christmas 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alg6AOjuQvE&t=6s

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Five — Forbidden Love

Ah, young love. How often it can go awry … Magdalena was a beautiful girl of fifteen or sixteen years. A parishioner of San Juan Capistrano, she fell in love with a young man named Teofilo. He was a talented artist who painted the wall frescoes, decorating the newly completed Great Stone Church at the mission.

Magdalena’s father forbade her to see Teofilo, as he was not of the same social standing. But love finds a way, and the girl regularly slipped out to see her beloved. One day, though, her father caught the young couple together.

Magdalena’s father made her confess to the priest at the mission. As part of her punishment, she was required to walk to the front of the congregation holding a lit candle of penitence, so everyone would know her shame. The day set for her public penance was December 8, 1812 … but God had other plans that day.

That was the day a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck southern California. Magdalena came to the Great Stone Church for early morning Mass. Chastened by the friars, Magdalena dutifully held her lit candle as she walked up the aisle. She lost her footing as the earth shook underneath her, but still she kept the candle in her trembling hands. The bell tower swayed for a heart-stopping moment, then crashed onto the church. In a few horrible seconds, forty people were buried alive. It took months to clear away the rubble and find the bodies. Among the dead was Magdalena, still clutching a candle in her cold hand.

According to local lore, Magdalena can be seen looking out a window in the Great Stone Church, on nights when a half-moon lights the sky.

You can find more creepy content over at http://www.weirddarkness.com. It’s there! Go find it!

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Four — Io Saturnalia!

Saturnalia was one of the best parties of ancient Rome. Starting on December 17 and going through December 23, slaves would be waited on by their masters, people would give gifts, public banquets made everybody happy, and it was generally a non-stop party for those days. It was seen as a time when everyone was free — slaves, freedmen, plebians, and nobility alike. People gave gag gifts, or small pottery or wax figurines called sigillaria. And did I mention the feasting?

Since Saturnalia starts tomorrow, I’d suggest you get out your best plates and goblets, and have yourself a Roman feast. Candied or dried fruit would be appropriate as appetizers, along with nuts, cheese, olives, and sausage rolls. Roast pork or chicken would make a great Roman main course. Gild the lily with a fruit-based sauce for the meat. Don’t forget the bread — the Romans loved their bread (you could use pita). And the best part of a Saturnalia feast? Dessert, of course! Gingersnaps, pfeffernusse, any spiced cookie would be a perfect ending to your Saturnalia spread. And for Jupiter’s sake, drink wine with the meal!

If you’re feeling squirrely, you could whip up this gorgeous pear pudding, from a recipe by Apicius:

Pear Pudding (Patina di Piris)

3 pears

1/4 t black pepper

1/4 t ground cumin

2 t honey

1 T sweet sherry (to replicate the Roman sweet wine called passum)

2 t fish sauce (I know, gross, but this is the Roman garum, and they put it in EVERYTHING. It really just adds a kick of savory to the dish.)

1 t oil

1 egg

Peel, quarter, and core pears. Place in saucepan, cover with water, and simmer until tender, about ten minutes.

Puree two pears until smooth and return to saucepan. Chop remaining pear coarsely and add to pureed pears. Add pepper, cumin, honey, sherry, fish sauce and oil to pears. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until warm.

Beat egg and add 3 t of hot pear mixture, whisking between additions, to temper. Then stir egg mixture into pear puree and cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened. Makes two servings.

Scoot on over to http://www.weirddarkness.com for more spooky tales of Christmas.

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Three — The Birth of Nero

Nero is one of the Roman emperors that even non-Classics nerds recognize. He’s best known for denying he set the fire that burned for six days in 64 AD and destroyed two-thirds of Rome. (He blamed the Christians.) Four years later, while facing his execution, Nero committed suicide.

He wasn’t buried in Augustus’ mausoleum, the resting place of other members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Instead, he was buried in the family tomb of his ancestors, the Ahenobarbi, on the Pincian Hill. Legend has it that a massive walnut tree grew near his grave, and flocks of ravens came to roost in it.

Superstitious Romans claimed that Nero’s soul was trapped on earth, pinned by the tree and guarded by the spooky ravens. They also claimed that Nero’s evil soul had attracted a bunch of demons who infested the area. Apparently, Nero was still partying in the afterlife — only now his dinner companions were demons. Over the centuries, people living in the area reported feelings of terror, mysterious injuries, possessions, and inexplicable killings. In 1099, the Christian population asked the Pope to do something about the creepy tree, the demons, and Nero’s ghost.

Pope Pascal II retreated for three days of fasting and prayer. It’s said he was visited by the Virgin Mary, who told him how to settle the situation. The Pope ordered the tree cut down, and Nero’s tomb destroyed. The human remains found in the tomb were burned and thrown into the Tiber River. To consecrate the ground, a church was built on the site and dedicated to Mary. In 1472, Pope Sixtus V rebuilt the church and named it Santa Maria del Popolo (from the Latin populus, people, because it was the people who had demanded the demons be removed).

It’s said Nero’s ghost still wanders the Piazza del Popolo at night, scaring unwary tourists. The emperor had his own run-ins with ghosts during his life. He tried really hard to kill his mother, Agrippina. He tried drowning her in a collapsible boat, but she swam to safety. He had her bedroom ceiling rigged to collapse on top of her, but that failed to kill her. Finally, he stopped messing around and had one of his guards just stab her. After Agrippina’s death, her ghost came back to haunt him. Nero tried to conjure her spirit with the help of necromancers and magicians, to beg her to leave him alone, but no — she haunted him for the rest of his life.

Hmm … I wonder what’s going on over at http://www.weirddarkness today? You should go see. (I hear they’ve got cookies.)

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day Two — Today I Learned …

Twin sisters Lorraine and Levinia Christmas decided on the spur of the moment to deliver presents to one another’s houses on Christmas Eve 1994. The country road between their villages in Norfolk, England was treacherously icy and the 31-year-old sisters were involved in a head-on crash — with each other. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Eye-popping Oddities)

What’s going on over at Weird Darkness today? Go check it out! You! Yes, you! Go on! Shoo!

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day One — Christmas Monsters

Boy, 2020 has been a year, hasn’t it? Monsters would feel right at home here, I think. Let’s meet one of them.

Okay, here’s a weird one for you.

What do you get when you cross a horse’s skull, a bedsheet, and a book of Dr. Seuss?

…

Well, the Welsh get Mari Lwyd.

Mari Lwyd is definitely what you’d call a party animal. The “Gray Mare” is a bedazzled horse’s skull that’s carried around on a pole, the bearer being hidden under a white sheet. Mari Lwyd and her entourage go from house to house (or from pub to pub, because booze) singing Christmas carols and being generally rowdy. When Mari Lwyd shows up at the door, her posse and the folks inside have an insult contest in rhyme — a “yo mamma” fight brought to you by Dr. Seuss. No matter who wins, Mari Lwyd is invited into the house (or the pub, because BOOZE). The theory is that she is so disturbing that evil spirits are freaked out just by looking at her, and vacate the premises.

In Celtic Britain, the horse was a symbol of power and fertility. White or gray horses were thought to have the power to cross between this world and the next. So the Gray Mare, dressed in white with ribbons and spangles decorating her skull, returns from the Underworld at the turning of the year. She brings luck to any place she enters, in keeping with the Christmas spirit.

And the monstrous fun coninues! Ask a Mortician is here to school you on some of my favorite monsters of Christmas. Yay! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdX3BqF1s9Y&t=8s 

For more Christmas monsters, check out Spirits of Christmas, available online at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon, and at http://www.bookshop.org. When you order from Bookshop, you’re supporting independent bookstores — Bookshop puts all the profit into a kitty, and divvies it up at the end of the month between small bookstores. So they all benefit when you buy there.

The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas is being brought to you with the help of Weird Darkness, your home for, well, weirdness! Go check out the podcast at http://www.weirddarkness.com. And tell Darren Marlar I said hey.

2021 is Coming — Are You Ready?

We’re nearly through 2020, thank goodness! Let’s enjoy 2021 with a ghost story for every month. I’ve put together a calendar for you guys, which you can order by contacting me via Facebook Messenger, or by using the Contact Me button at the top of this page. Price is $12, which includes the cost of shipping it to you. These stories are taken from Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories, coming to you in 2021. (I should point out, though, that there is an extra bonus story in the calendar that will NOT be included in the book.) This is just a taste of the ghostie goodness in store for you when the book is published. For now, though, enjoy the tales that will take you through the year. I promise to keep you entertained, no matter what 2021 brings!

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Today I Learned …

December 7 not only marks the anniversary of Pearl Harbor — it’s also something a lot sweeter. National Cotton Candy Day predates the Pearl Harbor attack by fifty years. It was a collaboration between confectioner John C. Wharton and dentist William Morrison, who thought up the occasion in 1897.

A Early Christmas Present!

Hey there! I’ve got an early Christmas present for you guys! My friend Nick Sarlo, of Shadow Hunters, is presenting a holiday special on the Shadow Hunters YouTube channel. You know that line from the Christmas carol, “There’ll be scary ghost stories”? Well, Nick’s making your scary dreams come true! On Sundays, December 6, 13, and 20, Nick will be sharing spooky tales of the season. (And rumor has it that he’ll be reading a couple stories from Spirits of Christmas, so that’ll be fun!) Tune in to https://www.youtube.com/c/ShadowHuntersYouTubeSeries to be entertained by the chill of winter.

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Lights Out!

Here we go with another episode of Lights Out! This time we’re visiting the Queen of Heaven Mausoleum. The mausoleum at Queen of Heaven Cemetery is a massive collection of marble, art, and dead people. Join me for a stroll through the beauty of this exquisite resting place. https://youtu.be/CFeQU5pJDQo

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