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Chicken Blood and Steel Rods: Magic and Treasure in 18th Century Vermont
In the 18th and early 19th centuries many New Englanders believed the area was riddled with buried treasure. I've written about this a few times before, but basically people thought pirates, or...
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A Lizard Man in Norton, Massachusetts
It happened on a warm night in the summer of 2001. A young man was working late at a store in his hometown of Norton, Massachusetts. At 11:30 pm he locked up and started to walk home.He lived just a...
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Pale, Ghastly, Deadly: An Old Boston Ghost Story and The Politics Behind It
On May 2, 1687, Joseph Beacon was sound asleep in his Boston, Massachusetts home when suddenly someone appeared in his bedroom. It was 5:00 a.m. in the morning.It was Joseph's brother. Joseph, who...
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The Norton Witches: Small Town Legends
Well, it's October. Spooky month, as people say. Every month is spooky on this blog, but I'll try to share some particularly nice stories this October. Let's conjure up those Halloween vibes! *****I...
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Take A Tour of New England's Lovecraft Country
It's October, so let's take a tour. No, not a foliage tour - a tour of Lovecraft country.We've been watching Lovecraft Country on HBO these past few weeks. It's a horror/fantasy series based on Matt...
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The Hideous Crone of Fall River
This story allegedly first appeared in the April 3, 1845 edition of The Weekly News, a Fall River newspaper. Newspapers at that time often published some pretty outrageous stories, so take this one...
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The Two Voices: A Ghost Story from Maine
It's been a busy few weeks, what with Halloween, the election, and some big projects at work. But now I finally have a moment to breathe and work on the blog. So here's a story that was told to me by a...
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Where the Witches Hid: Four Legendary Witch Locations in Massachusetts
When the Salem witch trials happened in 1692, most of the accused were arrested and put on trial. A handful, however, got wind of their arrest and fled Salem. Philip and Mary English escaped to New...
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Bones, Apples, and Pie: Folk Magic for Thanksgiving
Since it's a holiday this week I thought I'd turn away from the usual witches and ghosts to write about something more light-hearted. But fear not! I'll get back to the spooky stuff next week. While...
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Mary Webster, the Half-Hanged Witch of Hadley
Here's something interesting I just learned: Margaret Atwood was inspired by to write her famous novel The Handmaid's Tale by the story of a 17th century Massachusetts woman accused of witchcraft. That...
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The Festival: Christmas with H.P. Lovecraft
You might be surprised to learn that H.P. Lovecraft, Rhode Island's famous master of horror, wrote a Christmas story. "The Festival" was published in Weird Tales in 1925, and like much of Lovecraft's...
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Fat Graveyards, Hay, and Magic Cows: Folk Magic for Christmas
This is definitely shaping up to be one of the stranger Christmases in recent American history, with most of the traditional festivities being canceled due to the pandemic. So why not cozy up by the...
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Easing into the New Year with Weather Magic
I'm one of those people who really love holidays, particularly holidays where we get to do something special. Foods only eaten on special days? Decorations? Costumes? Count me in. This might be one of...
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Let's Scare Jessica to Death: Folk Horror in 1970s Connecticut
It's a classic urbanite fantasy. You'll escape all the stresses of big city life by moving to the country, where you'll live in a big farmhouse, grow crops, and make your own strawberry preserves....
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The Flesher Witch: Menace in the Maine Woods
I'm always excited when I learn about a new weird legend, so I was pretty happy recently when I learned about the Flesher Witch of Haynesville, Maine. Thank you Jeremy for pointing this one out! The...
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Bigfoot Hunters and A Glowing Light in Maine
You may have heard that an Oklahoma lawmaker wants to create a Bigfoot hunting season in his state. Justin Humphrey is the state representative for a district in Southeastern Oklahoma, an area where...
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ZoZo the Demon in Massachusetts: Ouija Boards, UFOs, and Led Zeppelin
On September 1, 1994, Mona Kempka woke up in her bedroom in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was 3:15 a.m. She had been sound asleep but felt someone pressing on her hands. Kempka was quite surprised when...
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Bigfoot Stole My Laundry: High Strangeness in Connecticut
Here's an interesting and very brief story that appears in Phillip Imbrogno's 2010 book Files from the Edge: A Paranormal Investigator's Explorations into High Strangeness. Imbrogno writes:Although...
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Vermont Witchcraft: Wax Images, Thornapple, and the Bible
I've been on a monster kick for the last few weeks here, so I thought I'd add a little variety and write about witchcraft. Here's a witch story from the small town of Newbury, Vermont. Many years ago,...
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Tiny Cavemen, A UFO Abductee, and Fairy Folklore in Massachusetts
Did tiny cavemen live on an island in the Connecticut River in the 1970s? Let's face it, that's a bizarre question to ask. Obviously, the answer is no. And yet that claim was made by Betty Hill in...
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