A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery Read online

  DANGEROUS HILL. Adapted from an account in True Ghost Stories, by Marchioness Townshend and Maude Ffoulkes (London: Hutchinson & Company, 1936; reprint, London: Senate/Studio Editions Ltd., 1994). The authors assert that these accounts are “authentic psychic manifestations,” and claim that the house and hill described do actually exist. A passing bell is also called a death bell. It is tolled to announce a death.

  THE WITCH’S HEAD. Adapted from “Mythology of the Aztecs of Salvador,” by C. V. Hartman, in Journal of American Folk-Lore 20 (1907); reprinted in Supernatural Tales from Around the World (op. cit.). This tale has echoes in Asian tales of ghastly flying heads that detach themselves from their bodies before they go to work their evil. I have retold two of these—“The Berbalangs” from the Philippines and “Rokuro-Kubi” from Japan—in my earlier volume, Even More Short & Shivery: Thirty Spine-tingling Tales (New York: Delacorte Press, 1997).

  DINKINS IS DEAD. Adapted from the tale “The Man Who Wouldn’t Believe He Was Dead” in The Doctor to the Dead: Grotesque Legends & Folk Tales of Old Charleston, by John Bennett (New York: Rinehart & Company, Inc., 1943). Folklorist Maria Leach tells a much-abbreviated version of this story, “Tain’t So,” in her wonderful collection (perfect for storytelling) Whistle in the Graveyard: Folktales to Chill Your Bones (New York: Viking Press, Inc., 1974).

  OLD NAN’S GHOST. Adapted from two accounts: “Old Nanny’s Ghost” in A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language: Part B—Folk Legends, by Katharine M. Briggs (New York and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970; paperback reprint, 1991), and “Old Nan’s Ghost” in Fire Burn: Tales of Witchery, by Kenneth Radford (New York: Peter Bedrick, 1990). This story touches on two universal themes in ghostlore: the ghost that cannot rest in its grave because of concern about earthly possessions, and the unquiet spirit that seeks repayment of stolen money.

  THE INTERRUPTED WEDDING. This retelling blends elements from three parallel accounts: one untitled narrative in A Field Guide to the Little People by Nancy Arrowsmith (op. cit.), and two legends, “The Interrupted Huldre Wedding at Melbustad” and “The Interrupted Huldre Wedding at Norstuhov,” both found in Folktales of Norway, edited by Reidar Thorwald Christiansen (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964). Huldre is the name given to the elves or fairies that live in hills or mounds. Known throughout Scandinavia, they are called maanvaki in Finland, pysslinger-folk in Sweden, and by other local names as well. Tall and thin (like the fairies of the British Isles), they are creatures of the night. Between twilight and dawn they tend their cattle, fashion weapons and jewelry and other items, or dance—their favorite occupation. The use of silver bullets to break an evil spell is a familiar motif in world folk literature. Stories of huldre folk are still told in the Midwest, where Scandinavian Americans keep alive this storytelling tradition.

  THE MULOMBE. This story is fleshed out from an article titled “ ‘Mulombe’: A Kaonde Superstition,” by “Africanus” in Journal of the African Society 20 (1920–21). I created the character of Mbizo to provide a focus and dramatic tension to an account of the creation of a mulombe and the demise of the creature and its owner. “Africanus” notes that the account comes from “the Bakaonde, located in the northwest corner of Northern Rhodesia”—now Zimbabwe—“a tribe of the Luba family.” He adds, “The mulombe is also known as mulolo.… It is a snake with a man’s head, made by certain wizards, that kills the people indicated to it by its owner.… The mulombe says to his owner, ‘I want a person to eat.’ The owner then has to indicate a person who it may kill.… It is not long, however, before the mulombe gets hungry again—hungry for killing, that is, for it does not really eat the victim; in fact it leaves no mark, but the expression ‘eat’ is used.… The owner, if he refuses to indicate a person, becomes ill and will not be cured until he gives way to the importunities of his mulombe.”

  THE HAUNTED GROVE. This widely anthologized bit of Canadian ghostlore was first published in the article “Scottish Myths from Ontario,” in Journal of American Folk-Lore 6 (1893). No effort is made to explain the nature of the wood spirit or why such a being would haunt Angus. It may be akin to the malicious tree spirit in “Crooker Waits.”

  THE TIGER WOMAN. Retold from the story “Tiger-Woman,” first printed in Religious Systems of China, by Jan J. de Groot (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1907) and reprinted in Supernatural Tales from Around the World (op. cit.). De Groot comments, “The most horrid specimens of the tiger-demon class which Chinese fancy has created are those who assume a woman’s shape with malicious intent, and then tempting men to marry them, devour them in the end, and all the children in the meantime produced.” Other accounts of were-tigers (first cousins of werewolves) are found in the folklore of Southeast Asia, India, and elsewhere. This story also has echoes in such European tales as “The Swan Bride” or stories of the selkies, the magical creatures that appear as seals but can put off their skins and become beautiful women or handsome men. Some wed mortals, who find and conceal their magical skins. But most stories end with the selkies finding their hides, reclaiming their seal shapes, and either abandoning their human families or taking their children with them to live in the sea.

  PEACOCK’S GHOST. Adapted from the narrative “Louisiana Ghost Story,” in Supernatural Tales from Around the World (op. cit.). The original was printed in Fanny D. Bergen’s article “Notes and Queries: Louisiana Ghost Story,” Journal of American Folk-Lore 12 (1899). I have kept the thrust and language of the original tale, which is essentially the old woman’s story. But I created the contemporary framing story, and held back the fact that the ghost is female, for an extra impact at the end.

  ISRAEL AND THE WEREWOLF. Retold from a number of sources: Tales of Terror: The Enchanted World, by the Editors of Time-Life Books (Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, Inc., 1987), Lilith’s Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural by Howard Schwartz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), and Classic Hasidic Tales by Meyer Levin (New York: Citadel Press, 1966). Israel Ben Eliezer is the young man who became known as the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name). A renowned folk healer, mystic, and charismatic leader of the early Hasidic movement, he lived from 1700–1760. Many legends have grown up around this major Jewish teacher.

  HOICHI THE EARLESS. Adapted and shortened from “The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi” by Lafcadio Hearn, in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904; reprint, Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1971). Another reprint edition is available from Dover Books, New York. Hearn notes, “The biwa, a kind of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in musical recitative.… The biwa is played with a kind of plectrum, called bachi, usually made of horn.… At Dan-no-ura, in the Straits of Shimonoseki, was fought the last battle of the long contest between the Heike, or Taira clan, and the Genji, or Minamoto clan. There the Heike perished utterly, with their women and children, and their infant emperor likewise.… And the sea and shore have been haunted for seven hundred years.… On dark nights thousands of ghostly fires hover above the beach, or flit above the waves—pale lights which the fisherman call oni-bi, or demon-fires.”

  A SNAP OF THE FINGERS. This is based on the story “The Calle Del Puente Del Cuervo” (“The Street of the Bridge of the Raven”), in Legends of the City of Mexico, by Thomas A. Janvier (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1910). “The raven was the guardian of the dead in Christian folklore. The body of St. Vincent was guarded from intruders by a raven. This connection with the dead made the raven a natural symbol of the devil, and St. Benedict reported that the devil appeared to him in the form of a raven. A legend narrated in the Koran (Surah V) says a raven was scratching ‘the ground to show Cain how to hide his brother’s body.’ “—Anthony S. Mercatante, Zoo of the Gods: Animals in Myth, Legend, & Fable (op. cit.).

  NARROW ESCAPE. I first heard this “urban legend” when I was a tenderfoot scout at a campout in the Redwood Regional Park in northern California. Since then, I have come across countless versions of the
story. It is always presented as truth, as something that happened to “a friend of a friend of mine.” Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand gives a version from Utah in his book The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981). Two versions from Indiana, “Assailant in the Backseat Foiled by Truck Driver” and “Assailant in the Backseat Foiled by Station Attendant,” are found in Hoosier Folk Legends, by Ronald L. Baker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). I also found particularly helpful an Australian version of this widely traveled story, “The Killer in the Back Seat,” in The Book of Nasty Legends, by David Austin (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983). It remains a favorite scary tale for campfire and sleepover telling.

  THE BLACK FOX. This is a retelling of a legend presented in verse, “The Black Fox of Salmon River,” by J. G. Brainard, reprinted in A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore In Prose and Poetry, by Samuel Adams Drake (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1884, revised 1906; reprint, Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1971). Another, more elaborate version of the legend, also in verse, can be found in John Greenleaf Whittier’s Legends of New England (1831; reprint, Baltimore: Clearfield Company, 1992). Whittier prefaces his own poem “The Black Fox” with the comment, “There is a strange legend relative to the ‘Black Fox of Salmon River,’ Connecticut … Brainard alludes to it in one of his finest poems: ‘And there the Black Fox roved and howled and shook / His thick tail to the hunters.’ ”

  THE MOTHER AND DEATH. I have adapted and considerably shortened the story originally published as “The Mother and the Dead Child.” It is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s more disturbing stories, sprinkled with startling images and a sense of the overwhelming power of destiny in human lives. The original can be found in any collection of his works that includes the author’s more religious and allegorical pieces. A version of the complete text can also be found in The Eerie Book (op. cit.). For a somewhat similarly themed tale—the inevitability of one’s fate—the reader might want to look at the Persian tale “Appointment in Samarra,” which I have retold in Even More Short & Shivery (op. cit.).

  About the Author

  Robert D. San Souci is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including Short & Shivery, More Short & Shivery, and Even More Short & Shivery. School Library Journal has called these books “an absolute delight.… Young readers will gobble up these thirty thrilling snacks and beg for more.” Widely traveled and a popular speaker, Robert San Souci has lectured at schools, libraries, universities, and conferences in more than thirty states. A native Californian, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.