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Book Review: Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays

Here are some kind words from a fellow blogger! Thanks, Cristian!

Cristian Mihai

It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring… but are you sure about that? The dark winter nights can hold many secrets, along with tales of both horror and hauntings. In this chilling book, Sylvia Shults has gathered over 120 tales of Yuletide Spirits, Holiday Horrors, and Christmas Catastrophes that give a new meaning to the “dead of winter.”

These pages include rollicking legends of holiday helpers with dark sides; gripping accounts of Christmas season fires, train wrecks, and disasters; winter tales of phantoms and haunted houses; and a collection of Christmas spirits that are sure to send a shiver down your spine! Hearkening back to the days of the paperback anthologies of the 1960s, you’ll be delighted when you unwrap this package on Christmas morning and start turning page after page of eerie and frightening tales. It’s the perfect collection for…

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Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Ten

This story is excerpted from Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays.

 

     One night in December 1942, a British airman stationed in London was out for a stroll. He was crossing Pond Square in Highgate when he heard a strange sound for the mid-twentieth century–the sound of carriage wheels on cobblestone. Then he heard an even more incongruous sound for a chilly December night in the middle of London–the loud screech of a chicken.

The airman looked around in confusion. He couldn’t see a carriage, but he did see a chicken, running in disoriented circles and squawking with fright. And probably also with cold–because this chicken had already been plucked! The airman took a few steps towards the bird, hoping to help the poor shivering creature. But as he got closer, the chicken vanished.

This chicken ghost has been seen in Highgate for over three hundred years. It has a perfectly good reason to haunt Pond Square … and its story affects us even today. You see, that was the world’s first frozen chicken–and it led to a revolution in food preservation.

The story goes that in April 1626, Sir Francis Bacon was riding in a carriage through London with his friend Dr. Witherborne, a physician to James I. The sight of the snow-covered ground led to a discussion of the possible commercial use of snow to preserve food. Looking out at the rolling wheels, and the path left behind the carriage, Bacon pointed out to Witherborne that the wheels were packed with chunks of snow, and the grass revealed by the passing of the wheels looked fresh and green, even in late winter. Bacon’s friend belittled his theory.

Irritated enough to want to prove his point immediately, Bacon ordered the carriage to stop. He trotted to the nearest house and bought one of the household’s chickens. He wrung the hen’s neck, plucked it, cleaned it, and stuffed the carcass with snow. Then he packed more snow around the prepared bird.

Bacon’s experiment worked, and a new era in commercial food preservation was born. Unfortunately, Bacon’s impetuous adventure on the snow led to his contracting pneumonia. He faded quickly, and died on April 9, 1626.

Soon after Bacon’s death, visitors to Pond Square began to hear the squawking of a chicken about to be butchered. But no chicken was in sight. Then the audible became visible. People would see a plucked chicken running in confused circles before vanishing through a brick wall. The airman’s experience in 1943 was just one in a series of naked chicken sightings down through the years.

 

For more Christmas spookiness, read Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, available in both paperback and ebook. And enjoy even more creepy stories at http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/

Today, Darren will be sharing several more stories from Spirits of Christmas. In this episode: “Mrs. Pickman’s Ghost”, “Haunts of Hartland”, “The Things We Do For Love”, “The Christmas Rosebush”, “Please Help”, and one of my favorites, “Footprints in the Snow”. Also, you can hear Darren read “The Chicken Ghost”, the story excerpted above. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to the Weird Darkness podcast, to get more dark weirdness forever! Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.[image error]

Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Nine

Enjoy this throwback to Ghosts of Christmas Past: Lights Out Christmas 2016

 

And the folks at Weird Darkness have some wonderful tales for you too, straight from the pages of Spirits of Christmas. Today they’ll be sharing “The Perfect Christmas Tree” (which ROCKS), “A Rose For Her Hair”, “Eternal Love” (which is all KINDS of awesome), and “Guides in the Snow”. Enjoy the shenanigans at http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/[image error]

Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Eight

Enjoy this throwback to the Ghosts of Christmas Past: Lights Out, Christmas 2015.

 

And don’t forget to check in on the Weird Darkness podcast! Today’s stories from Spirits of Christmas include the deeply creepy “The Mystery of St. Luke’s Church”, “The Guttenberg Poltergeist”, “The Tickling Terror”, and another of my all-time favorites, “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed”. Enjoy more festive shenanigans at http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/[image error]

Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Seven

Oh, have I got a treat for you for today! Here’s another Christmas episode of Lights Out. I sit down for a conversation with paranormal author Holly Nadler, an expert on the ghosts of New England. Pour a cup of eggnog and settle back for a tale of ghosts, betrayal, and Edgar Allan Poe. https://youtu.be/I1o74O6A-aw

 

And enjoy the shenanigans at http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/ In this episode, he’ll be sharing “The Ghost of William Terriss”, “Christmas Hauntings”, “Calvert Mansion”, “The Dana House”, and the super-cool “I Am Your Brother” from Spirits of Christmas. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to the Weird Darkness podcast, to get more dark weirdness forever! Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.[image error]

The Best Christmas Gifts Evoke the Horror of Christmas’ Past

A big thank you and a Merry Christmas to the Haunted Librarian, who kindly reviewed Spirits of Christmas!

The Haunted Librarian

The Best Christmas Gifts Evoke the Horror of Christmas’ Past

The Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, written by Sylvia Shults, debuted last month, appearing in independent bookstores across Illinois. It can now be purchased online directly from the publisher, American Hauntings Ink (https://squareup.com/store/american-hauntings-ink) for $16. The 240 page compendium is overly ambitious—bulging with tales. However, book lovers live by the adage: More is actually, well, more—and the more tales the better! This book is packed with domestic and international folktales and historical events occurring around the Christmas season. Each of the sections could stand as its own title. But for the 2017 Christmas Season, Ms. Shults’ book will warm the bodies circled around the hearth celebrating “the weirdness that has swirled around the Christmas season for many centuries.”

Ms. Shults rarely delves into any paranormal events circulating around these horrific stories. Instead, she…

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Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Six

Can’t get enough spooky stories? Then head on over to https://www.americanhauntingsink.com for a whole website full of the strange, the mysterious, true crime, and ghosts galore! Troy Taylor, one of the country’s premiere paranormal investigators, has written well over a hundred books on the macabre and the supernatural. Fans of true crime and of ghostly tales will find well-loved stories and hidden gems among Taylor’s many works. Love history? Visit  troytaylorbooks.blogspot.com for tales from America’s past.

 

Be sure to stop by http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/ to see what the folks at Weird Darkness are up to today! Today, Darren will be bringing you several stories from Spirits of Christmas: “The York Museum Ghost”, “The Sea Captain’s Ghost”,  “The Frozen Lovers”,(another of my favorites!), “Ghost Cat”, “Saying Goodbye”, “The Death Coach”, and “Sir Geoffrey Walks”. Sit back and enjoy a full evening of Christmas spooky, brought to you by myself and Weird Darkness. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to Darren’s podcast.Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.

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Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Five

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.

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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.

For more Christmas monsters, check out Spirits of Christmas, available online at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon. And possibly other places too.

And hop on over to  http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/ for more holiday happenings. Today Darren brings you “The Aircraft Carrier Glory“, “Number 149 Squadron” (one of my personal favorites!!!), “Back Already?”, “Told You So”, “Dear Theodosia”, and “Last Wishes”. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to the Weird Darkness podcast, to get more dark weirdness forever! Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.

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Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Four

I grew up surrounded by books (lucky me!!!). When I was in fifth grade, I discovered a book at my grandmother’s house called Mysterious New England. I blame this book in part for encouraging my childhood obsession with the weird and strange.

One of the stories in the book that has stayed with me all these years is the tale of the Vermont Resurrections. In the 1880s, a man wrote in to a Vermont newspaper to tell a tale he’d found in his uncle’s diary.

The uncle had been invited to a cabin deep in the Vermont woods to witness a strange and shocking process. Six people — two women, four men — were going to be frozen alive.

One of the men was young, only about thirty, but was crippled. The other five people were elderly. All six of them were given some sort of drugged drink. When they were knocked out, they were undressed down to their underclothes, and taken outside and placed on wooden boards. There, as the winter night fell and the hours dragged past, they were allowed to freeze. Their limbs stiffened, and their faces, hands and feet turned waxy. When they were considered ready, they were buried in a deep pit and covered with straw, then branches to keep out predators. The people overseeing this process encouraged the narrator to come back in May, when the frozen corpses would be brought back to life.

The narrator was appalled at this, but he couldn’t stay away. The next spring, he came back. The bodies had been dug up and placed in tubs full of warm water. After several hours, color began to seep back into the waxen faces, and one by one, the people blinked, sat up, and looked around. They seemed none the worse for wear — refreshed, in fact, by their long winter’s nap.

Do you call shenanigans on this story? It seems crazy, too strange to be true. I read it as an impressionable fifth-grader who wanted to believe. There were strange things afoot in the New England woods in the nineteenth century. Was this just a tall tale? Or did six people actually sleep the Vermont winter away under twenty feet of snow?

Find more tales of winter weirdness in Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, available online at Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and at fine booksellers everywhere. And please visit Darren Marlar at http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/ for even more spooky winter fun. Today, Darren brings you “Strange Happenings at Tod House”, “Professor Gladstone and the Murderer”, “The Mackey Haunting”, “The Dug Hill Booger”, and “The Old Royal Ascot Hotel” from Spirits of Christmas. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to the Weird Darkness podcast, to get more dark weirdness forever! Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.

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Twelve Night(mares) of Christmas: Day Three

It was four days after Christmas in 1876, and the Lake Shore Pacific Express was behind schedule.

The express train traveled through the dark night, pulled by two massive locomotives, “Socrates” and “Columbia”. A storm made for slow going, even with the two engines. Winds in excess of 40 mph blew drifting snow over the tracks and cut visibility. The engineer riding in “Socrates”, the first locomotive, peered out through the whirling dark. The bridge over the Ashtabula River was just ahead, and a thousand feet beyond that was the station. Socrates pulled Columbia behind her, and they both pulled two express cars, two baggage cars, one smoking car, three sleeping cars and three coaches through the dark night.

The engineer listened intently to the clickety-clack of Socrates’ wheels as the train started across the bridge. In the blowing snow, with limited visibility, the engineer was guiding the train mostly by the cone of light in front of him and the sound of the wheels underneath.

Suddenly that sound changed from a steady, reassuring clacking to a jarring jolt. The cone of warm yellow light from the train’s headlight illuminated only dark blank sky. The bridge was collapsing, and taking the train down with it.

The engineer shoveled coal into Socrates’ boiler in a frantic race against time and gravity. Socrates surged forward, her engineer urging her to the other side of the bridge, to safety. The weight of the rest of the train hung in the air for a bare moment, and Socrates’ engines glowed red-hot with the strain …

 

Read the rest of the story in Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores.

 

And please visit http://darrenmarlar.com/2017/11/28/twelve-nightmares-christmas/ for more holiday strangeness. Today, Darren will be sharing “Merry Christmas from the Bell Witch” and “The Murder of Thelma Todd” from Spirits of Christmas. If you like what you hear, you can always subscribe to the Weird Darkness podcast, to get more dark weirdness forever! Visit www.weirddarkness.com to subscribe.[image error]