Category: travel
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Spooky History
I cannot recommend the YouTube channel The Museum Guide (@TheMuseumGuide) enough.
The channel provides fascinating guided virtual tours of spooky locations in the UK. The tour guide is clever, thoughtful and very well spoken. Her pacing and the objects she shows are excellent. Even her videos about Tudor history, which are filled with intrigue and murder, are a joy to watch.
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The Dargle Lovers
“A young lady of the locality was faithless to her lover giving her attentions, instead, to another young man who had started to woo her with dash and charm. But while she was singing a favourite song to please him, as she paused between verses, she heard the distant toll of a church bell, unmistakably signifying a death. On inquiring, and with a terrible fear clutching her heart, she discovered that her former lover, stricken by her unfaithfulness, had died of a broken heart.
“Overcome by remorse, she left her new admirer and hurried to the graveyard where they had just buried the youth who had died for her. There, despite the entreaties of her friends, she spent a night of sleet and rain at his graveside. On each following night she came again and, although her worried family tried to dissuade her, she continued her lonely vigil, only going back to her home during daylight hours.
“Indifferent to the pleadings of those who loved her and the entreaties of her new admirer, who had been responsible for her desertion of the dead youth, she continued to spend each night at the graveside determined, it seemed, to die for him who had died for her.
“Eventually, inevitably, her mind collapsed and she told her distraught sister that her lover had risen from the grave and walked with her through the Dargle glen, promising to meet her again and take her to a place where they would be together forever.
“Much alarmed, the girl’s family tried to keep her confined to the house, but she managed to escape. Her absence was discovered a few minutes later and her brother quickly followed her, heading with all speed to the churchyard, where he knew he would find her.
“He arrived too late, only in time to catch a glimpse of her scarf fluttering in the breeze as she ran towards the river. Trying desperately to overtake her, he saw her climb up the huge crag surmounting the Dargle, pause a moment on its treacherous brink and then plunge into the swollen river below, doubtless lured to her death by the phantom lover conjured up by her tortured imagination.” (p. 86 – 87)
From J. Dunne’s Haunted Ireland: Her Romantic and Mysterious Ghosts (1977), online source: County Wicklow Heritage.
“The symbol of the clasped hands were often accompanied with words: ‘farewell’, ‘goodbye,’ and ‘until we meet again.’ The carved hands were almost always portrayed as right hands and they represent a husband and wife sharing a last handshake. One hand is usually flat and loose, its fingers extended, which may be interpreted as either a final embrace, or the deceased leading the living to follow them.”
– arlene stafford wilson: Irish Graveyards -
Chelsea Hotel Ghost Story
I’d love to visit the Chelsea Hotel some day! I’m a big fan of lots of its visitors, namely Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith ❤️
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Elvis Ghost Sightings
According to The Ghosts of Famous Musicians by Ashley Watson of Notebook of Ghosts, the ghost of Elvis is said to haunt various locations, including:
Old RCA Recording Studios (Tennessee). People have reported weird noises coming out of sound equipment, lights blowing out, objects being moved, and the apparition of The King himself.
Room 1016 of the Knickerbocker Hotel (Hollywood). Elvis stayed here when he filmed movies. Visitors and staff attribute the eerily cold temperature of the room to his spirit.
Graceland (Memphis). There’s a couple photos circulating online that supposedly capture Elvis looking out the window.
Las Vegas Hilton. People have seen his spirit in the penthouse, the basement where he hung out with his band, and the elevator he used to avoid screaming fans.
The Ryman Auditorium (Nashville). Lisa Marie Presley claims she heard her father, Elvis, while there. After a performance at the theatre she went to her dressing room, but the door was stuck and she could not get it open. Suddenly, she heard the distinct laugh of her father and the door opened.
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Ghost Encounters at The Whaley House Museum, San Diego, CA
A few of my favorite images of ghosts caught on camera from The Whaley House Museum Ghost Encounters web page.
The Devil's Muse 