Author Archives: Wicked Emerald

Marie Leveau, Baron Samedi and A Canadian Connection

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions, Ouija, Tarot, Black Mirrors and Seances

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maman et baronAh, is there no end to human arrogance and general stupidity. I often wonder how we made it this far without killing ourselves off.

Voo Doo. It’s a religion, not a practice. Although many people without the African/Creole/Cajun heritage like to muck about with it; it is not the right of European white folk to appropriate the belief. Voo Doo is a combination of Catholicism and African Paganism. Different tribes from Africa brought with them, when sold into slavery, their belief systems and like the pride and dignity of the slaves, this was something that slave owners attempted to drive out of their “possessions”, using whatever means necessary. Obviously, without complete success because pride and dignity remained and carried forth long after the slave owners had turned to dust as well as did the faith of these victims of inhumanity.

Marie Leveau is, probably, the most widely known Voo Doo practitioner. Her tomb is one of THE most popular tourist destinations in New Orleans. People often leave bits of their own gris-gris in tribute to the woman. Her tomb has been desecrated by numb-nuts over the years, marking X’s on her tomb while committing to some sort of dopey “wish spell”. This practice is relatively modern and not a remnant of the old Vou Dou gris-gris belief. The tokens people leave to Marie Leveau are the focal point of this particular tale of inane behaviour. Not all of the people who visit the tomb are white wannabes; some are actual followers of the true Voo Doo and have the heritage to back them up.

Just a note: some people believe Marie Leveau is in that tomb along with her daughter and family but if you know Vou Dou at all, then you know that the bones of the dead are, arguably, the singular most powerful tool in an Obeah’s mystical tool box. The odds that all of Marie or her daughter rest in that tomb is questionable. I would imagine a curse would have been placed on the tomb to avoid such activity but stupid will be stupid and the lure of power overrides common sense or the affording of human dignity.

This practice of removing bones from the tomb plays a part in this sad tale. No, the tomb was not pilfered per se but something was removed that probably shouldn’t have been.

Voo Doo enjoyed a resurgence of interest beginning in the 1930’s after a brief hiatus from the public eye.

A young man of my acquaintance went down to New Orleans to; ostensibly, meet the REAL followers of the faith. Without the proper connections and being Caucasian, he met only fraudsters and con-men/women. They fed him tales of Voo Doo power and myths from the bayou, tales of the old quarter. He paid for a tour to the cemetery where Marie Leveau is, supposedly, resting for eternity. There were all sorts of tributes left at the tomb, but what caught his eye was a small wooden box. After the tour, when he returned to his hotel, he couldn’t get the box out of his mind and rather than see it for what it was – covetousness; he interpreted it as a message from the world of Voo Doo spirits. He went back to the cemetery the next day, and found the box was still there. Again, this should have been a warning to him but being white, being North American and to my mind, incredibly arrogant, he made off with the box. Even if you don’t believe in Voo Doo, stealing anything from the reputed Voo Doo Queen of New Orleans would seem like the ultimate in unwise life choices, even if said Queen had long since passed.

He secreted the box away, in his luggage. It was small and made of a dark wood, with encryptions; it was also sealed with a waxy substance; I would assume the seal to be made up from wax, fat and the blood of a sacrificial animal of some sort.

Yet another clue to the young man, regarding the inadvisable nature of his actions, past and future.

And in this dark comedy of obvious errors? He broke the seal. There were small bones, some dark object, about the size of a prune and completely desiccated which he could not identify (I would put my money on the heart of the aforementioned sacrifice), there was, also, what looked like rough dirt (Any bets on this being graveyard dust?); there were beads with something hand written on them and a rolled up piece of paper that had fallen victim to humidity or the liquid seeping from the “dried up something”. It fell apart when he tried to unroll it.

He decided, upon returning home, to contact Marie Leveau as she held her court in the Underworld and see if she wouldn’t bestow some Voo Doo knowledge on him. Sure. What could possibly go wrong?

In a local esoteric store in Ottawa, Ontario, he bought some candles as well as other ritual accessories and laid his plans. He gave me a call and outlined what he was going to do and I couldn’t impress the inadvisability of his actions well enough. I explained that messing around with another culture’s beliefs was not a particularly wise choice, especially Voo Doo but he seemed hell bent on going ahead. He did. He went ahead and he went ahead, alone. No one to help him out, no one to pull him back if things got weird. And weird is a total understatement of the events.

He doesn’t remember much. Abject terror has a way of anaesthetizing the mind and creating a sort of protective amnesia. What I think doesn’t matter; what he thinks happened does. He believes that he was ridden by the Loa and not just any Loa; he firmly believes that he was the vessel fo Baron Samedi, his wife Maman Brigette and Baron’s minions. No recollection of Marie Leveau at all, needless to say.

He began his little foray into the forbidden world of Voo Doo at midnight, like a good little representative of stereotypes. Lit his candles, did the whole protection thing with a salt ring and purified water, added some incense of protection from his own belief, turned on a CD that was reputed to be Haitian Voo Doo drumming, placed the box he had stolen between a couple of the candles and went off to the races, invoking Mme. Leveau to visit with him.

He remembers that the area surrounding his circle went inky black and the music seemed to be getting louder, loud enough that he feared his neighbours would complain. He recollected reaching out to turn down the volume and found himself unable to lift his arms. The smell of cigar smoke permeated the air and he recalls thinking that someone had dropped by for a visit; afraid to have anyone see what he was doing, he turned to blow out the candles and clean up some of the evidence. And again, he found himself unable to move. The circle he had created filled with smoke that reeked of tobacco, he started to cough, it was that strong. As he coughed and sputtered, he became aware that he was no longer alone. He couldn’t see anyone but the feeling of being observed was very strong. The smoke began to swirl and seemed to be taking on the form of a body. It was at this time, that he feels he lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was naked, there was, what appeared to be dried blood and a white powder all over his body. And he was hurting. It took some time for him to be able to move his limbs and clear his mind. He knew the room was lit by the early dawn light and felt very disoriented, confused and frightened.

A few weeks after the incident, we were visiting some relatives in his area and gave him a buzz. We arranged to meet for drinks at his place. I did notice when I called him that his conversation was peppered with unnecessary swearing and this was very uncharacteristic of him. Oh sure, he swore but not every second word, unlike our phone conversation which, had it been on television? Would have been one long “beep”. I didn’t think much of it at the time; it did take on a whole new significance later on in the evening.

We arrived at his apartment; it was an older house that had been converted into smaller lodgings. Going up the stairs to his apartment, I noticed the smell of cigars. Not something I particularly enjoy. There was music or rather the sound of drumming emanating from behind his door and I knocked loudly so that we would be heard. The drumming stopped and the door opened. There was our friend, completely decked out in black, save a purple silk vest. Prior to that visit, I had only ever seen him in rugby shirts and blue jeans. His hair had grown and he was very pale. It was mid-July and while the rest of us were sporting some summer colour, he was the colour of mid-winter. Pasty. He looked very tired and his big grin didn’t meet his eyes which were sunken and bloodshot. He also had a big old cigar hanging out of his mouth, creating an unhealthy haze around his head. I had never known him to smoke, not cigarettes, not even the occasional doob, let alone a big honking cigar. We were invited in and offered a drink; rum and coke. He had a sideboard and it was littered with rum bottles, full, half-full and large collection of empty ones.

We don’t drink rum as a general rule and settled on a coffee, instead. While he was in the kitchen, preparing the coffee, we had the chance to look about his living room. It was a mess. There were unlit candles everywhere, some on plates, some on those aluminum tart things, some just melted over furniture. The air was stale, with that horrible cigar smell and just general uncleanliness. There was a stack of mail on the floor, most of them looked like bills. It was disturbing. Okay, he was a youngish man and not a neat freak but even for him, this was a disaster area. He came back with the coffee and apologized, he had no milk or cream so we drank it black. He apologized for the mess and claimed he hadn’t been feeling well. We chatted and I brought up his visit to New Orleans, his regrettable actions at the cemetery and his ritual plan. He became very agitated. Sprang off his chair and started pacing back and forth; most of what he said made little sense to me. He opened up his sideboard and withdrew something. He offered it out to me – it was that damned box (unintended pun). I am nobody’s fool and I refused to touch it. It was bad. It was a very bad thing. You could feel it and to this day, I don’t understand how he couldn’t have felt it; I had always known him to be very sensitive to energies. He had often picked up on things that I had missed. How he didn’t feel the…”evil” (?) coming from that thing is beyond me. Maybe he was right and this was some sort of message but one he should have ignored. I just don’t know. I do know that whatever transpired the night of the ritual, changed him. Gone was the pleasant, open guy of our acquaintance. Gone was the inquisitive mind and cheerful demeanor.

He became a bit cheesed that I wouldn’t take the box and actually swore at me. I figured our visit had reached its end and gave the signal that husbands everywhere understand – “It is TIME TO GO!!” Our friend wasn’t about to let us get off that easily. He started to give us a lecture on Voo Doo, on the concept of the Loa, the Guédé clan and the history of the slaves, what they had taken from them and what they had brought with them that could never be taken – their beliefs. I asked him about his ritual and what had occurred to have made him such a believer in a faith that was so foreign to his birth, to his own beliefs.

He related the aforementioned ritual to me and started to cry but only for a minute or so; he seemed to actually “snap out of it” and began to make light of the whole thing. I was feeling extremely uncomfortable, like I had been dropped into an alternate reality or something. I just wanted to get out of there. The unease was being replaced by actual fear. I don’t know if I was afraid of our friend, if I was afraid of what I feared had happened to him or if the entire apartment wanted me out of there. I was in no mood to debate the question with myself, and picked up my purse, nodded to the husband and turned to our friend. He was looking at me with such malice that I was taken aback. We said our good-byes, issued our phony promises to meet again, soon (Not a hockey puck’s chance of that happening!) and we beat it out the door.

I heard from him shortly after our visit. He had lost his job and was unable to hold his apartment any longer. He said that it wasn’t all bad, that he was looking at a job near the city of Toronto and that he’d let me know. He did call me once more, he had landed a job, it was the one he had mentioned and it came with a small house. He was the head caretaker of a cemetery. I haven’t heard from him since. I have heard from friends, through the gossip grapevine that he was virtually friendless and had become a recluse in that little home, on the edge of the cemetery.

Crowley, Ouija and Bad Choices

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

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magic-manMoving along to stupidity example number 2:

I was at a non-Pagan social event. If you are Neo-Pagan or an Occultist, you will be familiar with “spotlight on the eccentric guest” thing. Where the host/hostess or even one of the guests introduces you as a “Witch” or something along that line, depending on your public identification. And you kind of stand there while people toss the usual silly questions at you.

My significant other and I withstood the spotlight and eventually people moved on to far more interesting topics like “Is there more beer/wine/punch?” or “What IS in that dip!” I was talking to a friend when a woman, an acquaintance of the hostess, pulled at my arm. (I hate that, by the way – I like my personal space and poking at me or pulling at me violates my damn space!) Digressing…back on topic…the woman wanted to introduce me to a friend of her son. Social protocol demanded that I accompany her to meet this young man. Oh lordy…he was all dressed in black, he had the whole Emo hair over one eye thing, happening and the compulsory, badly done, black eye makeup. The carefully constructed look of boredom with the sheeple, slightly aloof and, I’m sure he was hoping for “mysterious” but failed. He had a massive pendant on, I mean massive. I’m sure that it was visible to passing satellites. The universal hexagram. It is a symbol most commonly associated with Aleister Crowley and the O.T.O. This kid was young enough to have but a nodding relationship with a Bic razor and most certainly shouldn’t have been mucking about with anything Crowley.

The woman prattled on about this kid and his knowledge of Occult and the…yes…Ouija board. I did my polite thing, nodded politely and tried to think of an escape route that wouldn’t cause me to trample too many people. The kid mumbled something and after a few awkward moments, my husband signaled for me and I was able to exit the uncomfortable introduction with some dignity.

I didn’t give the kid another thought, to be honest. Just another kid trying to shock the straights and his parents.

A couple of months later, I ran into the woman who had made the introduction…in the local supermarket. She spotted me before I spotted her and left her basket, practically bowled me over with the Quebec hug and two cheek kiss, like we were old friends. In a voice, a little too loud for my comfort, she began to relate a “histoire” regarding the young Emo-esque boy from the Bar B Q. I didn’t remember him at first but she insisted that I knew him and rather than argue, I just smiled and nodded, praying for an earthquake.

Apparently the kid had managed to get himself into some trouble with his dabblings. This woman’s son had spilled the beans about his friend, the Emo. How much is truth and how much is organic/chemically recreational fun induced is up for debate. The impact on the young man, however, was not. According to the woman, the kid wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, wouldn’t leave his room. A teenage boy who wasn’t eating or sleeping definitely sounded the alarm bells. Teenage boys do three things very well, and two of them are eating and sleeping. The other…well, not relevant to this story.

Apparently, a Ouija board and Goetia was involved. Seeing the two in one sentence causing an involuntary face palm… The internet used to be a terrific thing but it has become a double-edged sword that, far too often, injures as would any sword when wielded by the inexperienced or just dumb. To be brutally honest, I was not interested in helping the kid out. I figured this would be a lesson that he needed to learn and learn well but this woman, yakking on about demons in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, insisted that I needed to help the kid out. I figured, I would tell her what she wanted to hear so that she would shut, the hell, up and go away. I didn’t figure I would hear from the kid. Naturally? I was wrong.

A few days later, my doorbell rings and it is the woman’s son with Master Emo in tow. And frankly, he looked like shit. He still wore black but gone was the pendant, the eye make-up but most noticeable was the disappearance of the “attitude.” I had one scared, no – terrified, little man in front of me. I didn’t want to let them in the house; there was just something about the kid that made me want to keep him out of my sanctuary, so I invited them to sit in the backyard with me. The story was all too familiar. Kid had pulled out the Ouija after creating a talisman and chalking a particular set of symbols on his basement floor. (I’m sure his mom and dad were thrilled..) He was being bullied at school and wanted someone bigger, someone tougher, and someone scarier in his corner. What could be scarier than a demon? He had limited success, considering the outcome; I sincerely doubt that he had invoked the demon he thought would best serve his needs, a certain Asmodeus. That he had summoned something unsavoury seemed pretty evident but what? I don’t know, to this day, I simply don’t know.

He was being plagued by shades or shadows. His sleep was interrupted by nightmares and he couldn’t shake the smell of rotten eggs in his nostrils which was causing him to be nauseated and unable to eat. The only place he felt safe, although not completely so, was his room. He kept incense and candles burning whenever he was in residence and it was my understanding that this was most of the time. He was waking up with scratches on his body, particularly his arms. He often experienced the sense of being touched by something cold. It didn’t matter where he was, he always had something dark and shadowy standing in his peripheral vision, he couldn’t quite see what it was and he didn’t want to see. This kid was in a high state of panic and fright. I asked him what he had done the night of the invocation. What procedures he had followed. Turns out and colour me shocked, he hadn’t followed any recognized method as he felt he could handle whatever came at him. Lesson learned – he couldn’t. I must confess to detecting a slight odor of sulphur around him. It is possible and probable that he was farting but the odour was there, none the less and I found myself smoking just to mask the smell.

He looked at me and asked for help or advice. Frankly, I had none to give. He didn’t follow any set procedure, he certainly didn’t use any method with which I was familiar. I had to seek outside advice. I told the kid to call me in a couple of days and in the meantime, throw out the damn Ouija board and any Occult material that he had in his possession.

I placed a call as soon as the kid left and discussed the problem with an old friend, far more experienced in these matters than was I. He e-mailed me a few procedures for the kid to try and told me to stay away from any of it. The kid needed to fix this on his own and not put anyone else at risk.

I sent the boy an e-mail, outlining what he needed to do. He e-mailed me back a couple of days later – it hadn’t worked. I went back to my friend and we came up with something else. Had the kid work that one. Nothing. Another call and we had a third method. I sent the e-mail but did not receive a response. I had to believe that the kid had come to his sense or else, found something else that worked.

That wasn’t the case. He tried to take his own life and was hospitalized. I don’t know what happened to him, aside from his being released to his parents some days later. I never heard from him again.

Ouija; Never Ends Well

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

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Ouija boardNever been a big fan of the Ouija board, any type of Ouija board – Milton Bradley/Hasbro or homemade. I don’t like ’em, I don’t trust ’em and I would just as soon put a wet finger in an electrical socket than use one.

An analogy, for me, would be; using the Ouija is akin to putting all your valuables in your front hallway, turning on a strobe light with accompanying siren, then leaving your front door wide open. I don’t care who you think you are – a Ouija board is Occult for Extreme Dummies. You will never control who does or does not respond. You will never know what you have contacted. Whatever is out there can lie as well as any politician and then some. Without exaggeration, I have never known the regular use of a Ouija board to turn out well.

Just to prove my point and as Ouija is popular sport come Samhain, a few tales that have come my way over the years….take ’em or leave ’em but don’t go crying to anyone should something “bad” happen. The warning is given – do what thou wilt shall be…you know the rest.

Some years back, I used to throw my doors open to the Pagan community and host various events; workshops of different sorts, group meetings for practitioners of witchcraft, I was even involved with a school – Horn and Crescent, for a bit. During that time, I came into contact with a variety of folks with their own stories to tell. To a person, everyone who felt the compulsion to pull out that stupid board ran into problems of the unexplained sort.

Example #1: A young person had lost a relative and wanted, understandably, to find out if the deceased loved one had made it to the other side. She had a few friends over for an evening and the talk turned to death and contacting the other side. A few days prior to the evening, the young lady had picked up a Ouija board at a flea market. It wasn’t a new board but was in good condition. She brought the topic up to the group and it was decided that it would be interesting to try the thing out. After a few false starts, fits of giggling and general frivolity, the group settled down and took to the task of summoning a spirit in earnest. They achieved, what they felt was the desired response and after some accusations of someone or other moving the planchette, they felt confident that they had, in fact, made contact. Questions were asked, primarily yes or no but then they started with more complex questions, requiring spelling.

The girl reported that the room, as expected, became cold but not everyone felt it. The group began to feel uneasy. They had lit the mandatory candles and a couple went out. They asked if the entity was the girl’s deceased relative and the answer came back affirmative. This wasn’t proof enough for one of the young men in attendance and he asked the relative’s name be spelled out. The name was spelled and it wasn’t the relative’s name. The name made no sense to the group but they were all rather unnerved and called an abrupt end to the session. Lights were, hastily, turned on but the fun had gone out of the evening and the group dispersed.

Now, if you are familiar with summoning of anything, you will note there were some important precautions that were not taken. There was no protection work done, the group was diverse and had never worked together in matters of the occult before. And? Probably the two most important errors were as follows – they asked a name and never dismissed what they had summoned. Not that I believe a normal dismissal would have worked in this case.

As should have been expected, the young lady started to experience unnerving incidents as early as that evening. Even with everyone gone, she felt like she was not alone. Her cat, normally a friendly little fellow, had disappeared (don’t worry, he was fine – he was hiding in her closet and refused to come out). She was so off balance that she left the lights on in her apartment. It took her a long time to fall asleep that night. When she woke in the morning, the lights were off. She was also missing a small silver ring. Not unusual, we all misplace jewellery, except, she reported that it had been on her finger. It wasn’t something she ever removed, in fact, she told me it was hard to get over her knuckles and that’s why she left it on.

Her cat remained in the closet and she was forced to move the litter box and the cat’s food next to the closet door. Yes, the door started closing. She would leave the bedroom, come back and the door would be closed, her cat mewing at her from behind the door.

Other pieces of jewellery started to go missing, always her silver pieces. The gold and the costume plated were left untouched. This continued for a week. Then the dreams started – there would always be a stork but it would have red eyes and was never a positive representation of the bird. She felt fear and found herself trying to run away from it but it was always there. In her dreams, she would turn a corner and the bird would be there, staring at her and screeching.

She was told to give me a call by a mutual acquaintance. After flitting around the real reason for her call, I invited her over. She looked like hell (pardon the pun). She looked exhausted and totally strung out. We sat down and had some coffee, she started with the flitting about but I don’t have much patience for mundane coffee klatch stuff so I told her to cut the crap and get to the point. She related the story to me and pulled out a piece of paper with the name that had been spelled out that night. I’m relatively familiar with angels and demons but this name didn’t ring any immediate bells. I hauled out one of my books and sure enough, there he was. A demon. Not one of your common ones and definitely not a name with which many would be familiar.

Take this for what it’s worth; this demon is known to be (surprise, surprise) a liar with a penchant for silver. He is also represented as a stork with a loud, unpleasant voice. Not terribly difficult to dismiss but it should never have happened. Messing about with things we don’t understand that can have unpleasant consequences in, in a word, stupid. I told her what to do and apparently, it was successful. She told me after dismissing the demon, she put the board in a green garbage back, tied it up tight and tossed it in the trash.

I have a few more examples for you but it’s the Witching Hour and I’m exhausted.

Ghosts In The Family Part II

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions, Poltergeists and Things That Go Bump

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We have had “incidents” in our current home. Things have been very quiet over the past few years but during the late nineties to about 2008, life was not all that pleasant around here.

Below is an just an example of the things experienced in our home, it was written by one of our sons; he wanted to document the events.

“It’s currently 3:00am… And I refuse to go turn my music off. So I am going to sit here and wait until it has finished the 5 disk cycle… this could be a while.

Why do I refuse to turn it off? Because I refuse to leave this room. Not only have I seen something repeatedly, a picture flew off the wall… a good 6-7 feet. Music volume going up and down… feeling weird brushes against my arm as I walked/vacuumed. The cake I baked at 12 o’clock move a good 3 feet across the table between the time I left to have a cigarette. And the birds are still squawking…. They have been for quite some time… and every time they start… they are facing another part of the rooms. The vacuum moved as well… Has been quite an active night for whatever occupies this house with us. Cold chills. Brushing. Things moving – both violently and innocently.

The first event tonight was the brooms falling down the stairs. Oddly enough, I wasn’t on the stairs, I was in the kitchen baking my cake. This is LONG before I went down there to paint my toolbox. I thought nothing of it and brought them back up. (birds begin squawking)

While making the icing for the cake, something brushes my arm, Several times. Not once, not twice, pushing toward 5 or 6 times. In the middle of the kitchen. I wasn’t hitting the counter of fridge, it was always in the same spot. About 5 feet back from the counter, almost directly in the middle. (bird fairly quiet, just the usual “Let me sleep chirps”)

At about 2, I went outside to have a cigarette, I wrapped the cake delicately with saran wrap and placed it on the icing rack. The icing rack was on the left side of the table… Closest to the birds. When I came back, my cake was on the other corner. This is when I began getting weird vibes. (Birds are STILL squawking, this time Percy seems like she is having night fright and jumping/crashing into the four corners of her little caged world)

The light in the dining room began to swing and the temperature dropped significantly. (Birds-all- Acting as if suffering from night fright. Severely.

At about 2:15 I was pushed in the hallway between the basement and bathroom. Did not trip, was pushed. Not heavily, just a light shove forward.

The picture flew off the wall in the front hall way at about 2:30, along with the volume fluctuations.”

My husband and I were away that weekend and when we returned, we found our son had ended up sleeping in the car. He was simply too unnerved to return to the house.

A few examples of other incidents:

  1. Our Yule tree flew across the living room; it didn’t fall over, it flew, along with the stand it was in, about 6 feet from its original location. I was sitting on the sofa, reading at the time. Prior to the tree flying, I had seen a shadow move across the kitchen. A solid shadow, you couldn’t see through it but at this point, we were used to “seeing” things in the home.
  2. We had 4 parrots at the time. Every so often, day or night, they would all freak out – squawking and behaving like a cat was in their cages.
  3. Doors would open and close on their own.
  4. I was in the kitchen, one afternoon, doing up some dishes when someone put their hand on my shoulder. I thought my husband had come home early and turned around. There was, of course, no one there. It wasn’t a slight brush of my shoulder – it was the pressure of a hand. I do know the difference.
  5. There were the sounds of footsteps in empty rooms and the definite feeling that one was not alone.

The final straw was what occurred with my youngest son, as described above. We ended up having to do several cleansings and in time, the disturbances lessened and have, thus far, ceased all together.

Ghosts In The Family

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions

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female ghost Every nationality has its own belief in ghost or specters but it would seem none more so than the Irish.  A very superstitious lot, are the Irish.  From the legends of the little people to the terrifying banshees; the Irish have the bases covered.

 My family is, predominately Irish and as a result, I grew up surrounded by tales of ghosts, legends and practices of the paranormal type.   Tea leaves, potions, curses and rituals were as natural as breathing to them as were ghosts.  The concept of ghostly visitations were a given; there were no disputes or arguments, no debates pro and con, ghosts were an accepted part of life.  And, whether delusions, illusions, imagination or the susceptibility of the family because of their belief, actual regular visitations were the order of the day/night.

 The first real ghost story was told to me by my grandmother and was a narrative of something that happened to her.   My grandmother was from Newfoundland, a very small fishing village; she had a large family, as was the norm for Newfoundland in those days.  Child mortality rates were very high.  Newfoundlanders were, primarily, sailors and fishermen; there was a lot of naval traffic in and out of the various ports of call along Newfoundland’s rugged coastline.  Sailors from all over the world could be found in port during the shipping season.  One sunny day, an Italian ship came into port and impacted my grandmother’s family forever.  The captain was an Italian and apparently, quite a good looking man.  He was also, as rumour would have it, married but sailors are renowned for their wandering eye and his eye wandered over to my great-aunt Theresa, my grandmother’s slightly older and truth to tell, favourite sister.  She was, by all accounts, a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty and immediately the captain went about the business of seduction.  She was as naïve as any babe in the woods and fell, head over heels, in love with him and my guess would be, to his dismay – he had fallen in love with her.  The inevitable happened and he had to go back to Italy.  She was inconsolable and I gather, considering what he decided to do, the captain was as well.  They decided that she would return to Italy with him.  What he planned to do about the wife in the home country is beyond me. A further obstacle to these star crossed lovers was my great-grandfather, who, of course, absolutely forbid Theresa from ever seeing this dastardly foreigner again.

They came up with a plan; Theresa would sneak away and the two would sail off into the sunrise, ostensibly to Italy and live happily ever after.

Theresa secreted herself away and boarded the ship.  The captain was waiting and they weighed anchor, sailing out into the Atlantic and Italy.  A storm moved in and Atlantic storms are legendary.  The ship sank, killing all aboard.

My grandmother was unaware that Theresa had run off with her captain.  The night the ship sank, she was startled awake by Theresa.  She was standing at the foot of her bed, soaking wet.  My grandmother asked her what had happened, why was she wet?  The weather was so cold.  Theresa sat down and looked at her, with what my grandmother describes as great sadness and then, she disappeared.  My grandmother thought she had been dreaming but the dream didn’t explain the water on the floor or the wetness of her bed clothes.

A few days later, the news came to the family; Theresa had drowned at sea, with her Italian captain and all his crew.