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Old Nabbie: Witchcraft In Wells, Maine
Old Nabbie.That's a name that rolls off the tongue. Say it out loud: "Old Nabbie." It's a great name for a gold prospector in a Hollywood movie, or maybe it's the name of a farmer's beloved cow.In...
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Is The Scarlet Letter A True Story?
I was on vacation last week, and what book is better for beach reading than Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter? Secret sins, illegitimate children, adultery, repressive Puritans, and...
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Melonheads Part I: A Trip Down Dracula Drive
If you ever travel the back roads of Connecticut's Fairfield County late at night, you might see an old blue Ford Granada barreling down the road. In 2015 Granadas are officially antique cars, but...
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Melonheads Part II: Why So Many Big Heads?
This is the second of two posts about the Melonheads. Read part one here!One of the many interesting things about Melonheads is that in New England the legend is only found in Connecticut. But it is...
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Is There A Ghost In This Photo?
More specifically, is there the ghost of a witch in this photo?A few months ago I wrote about Mary Nasson of York, Maine. According to legend, Mary was an herbalist accused of witchcraft and her ghost...
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New England Folklore in the Media: Witches, Slang, and the Bridgewater Triangle
There has been some interesting stuff about New England folklore in the media this week. First off, The New Yorker has a lengthy article about the Salem witch trials. Author Stacy Schiff writes very...
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America's Stonehenge: "The Most Weird and Fantastic Tales..."
Last weekend Tony and I met our friends David and Wayne at America's Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire. What? You didn't know that England's famous megalithic site has a southern New Hampshire cousin?...
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The Ghostly Twins of Albino Road
Was there a place in your hometown where teenagers went to get scared? I grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and the Countess's Grave in the Rocks Village neighborhood was out local scary spot. It was...
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Ominous Lore About the Whippoorwill
Hear that lonesome whippoorwillHe sounds too blue to flyThe midnight train is whining lowI'm so lonesome I could cryHank Williams Sr., "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (1949)I've never heard a lonesome...
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Secrets of the Skull and Bones Tomb
A few months ago I was in charming New Haven, Connecticut for a conference. I managed to visit not just one, but two fantastic cemeteries while I was there. I also saw a few other interesting sites,...
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The Witches of Bristol, Connecticut: Witches Rock, Evil Spirits, and Troubles...
Readers of this blog might know the following things about me: I love stories about witches, and I love stories about weird rocks. This is New England and happily we have plenty of both.In Bristol,...
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Harry Main and the Black Cats from Hell
Here's an old ghost story from Ipswich that is perfect as we gear up for Halloween.Back in the 1600s, a man named Harry Main lived in Ipswich. Harry was not a good man. He was a pirate, a smuggler, and...
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The Modern Fairies of New England: Have You Seen a Pukwudgie?
When the earliest English settlers came to New England they noticed that something was missing from their new home.Back in merry old England, humans lived in a landscape inhabited by various...
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A Nantucket Ghost Story: The Specter Whalemen
Well, October 31 has come and gone. But don't be sad! Every day is Halloween on this blog, and I'm in the mood for a ghost story.This story is from 1841, and first appeared in a publication called The...
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Folk Magic for the New Moon
What do you think of when you hear the words "new moon?"If you are young, you might think of the second installment in Stephanie Meyer's teen vampire romance epic, The Twilight Saga. I believe that in...
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Old New England Pie Crust: Tough Recipes for Tough People
My mother has always made the same Thanksgiving menu, consisting of turkey, squash, potatoes, turnip, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Appetizers might vary, but the main meal always remains the same....
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The Devil and Jonathan Moulton
I was going to write something about Thanksgiving this week, but I found myself inspired to write about something the exact opposite: the Devil. Thanksgiving is about gratitude, sharing and love. The...
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Boston's Haunted Gay Bar?
My last few posts have been about topics deep in New England's historic past, so today I'm shaking things up and writing about a more modern concern: does Boston have a haunted gay bar?It's an...
View ArticleThe Man Who Sold His Genitals to the Devil
Here's another story about someone making a deal with the Devil. It's a little raunchy, and was recorded among the Penobscot Indians of Maine in the 1930s by anthropologist Frank Speck.*****Many years...
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Ghosts for Christmas: "What the Reef takes, the Reef will give back..."
There'll be scary ghost stories And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago It's the most wonderful time of the year...Andy Williams, It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (1963)So what...
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