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Snow Magic
There's an old New England saying that a green Christmas means a full graveyard. This is one of those classic reverse weather predictions, like a sunny Groundhog's Day indicating winter will last a...
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A UFO Sighting in Malden: Reality, Daimons and Hoaxes
Did a UFO land outside Boston earlier this month?According to MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network), a Malden resident reported seeing something strange the evening of December 10 in the skies over either...
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Bigfoot in New England: Sixty-Seven Credible Sightings?
A few weeks ago I was at the supermarket and something caught my eye while I waited in the checkout line. It was this:How could I resist? I'm a big Sasquatch fan and have been ever since I was a child....
View ArticleThe Little People with the Deadly Stare
This post is probably better suited for Lent, but I thought I would share it now because it is also a little bit spooky, and seems appropriate for a rainy gloomy Sunday like today. So here...
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Haunted Happenings and Theater People in Kennebunkport
The other day I was at the Boston Athenaeum poking around in the library's folklore and occult collections. These books are kept way, way down in a deep dark windowless basement, which seems...
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Finding Bigfoot in Maine and New Hampshire
This month Animal Planet aired two episodes of Finding Bigfoot that were filmed right here in New England. I'm not a regular viewer of this show, but how could I resist these two episodes?If you're not...
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The Dogtown Witches
Most of the witches in New England history bore that label unwillingly. They were innocents accused of witchcraft during one of the area's witch crazes, or they were social outcasts called witches by...
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The Devil Tries to Kill A Minister, or Why There Are So Many Rocks in New...
Here in New England we are blessed to live in a landscape filled with rocks. If you like giant house-sized boulders, or even just medium sized rocks, you'll find plenty to love in this part of the...
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A Monster and A Martyr in Puritan Boston
The English writer John Josselyn visited New England for fifteen months in the 1630s. In September of 1639, while he was staying on one of the Boston harbor islands, the following occurred:… The next...
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Movie Review: The Witch, A New England-Folktale (2015)
So last night Tony and I saw The Witch, director Robert Eggers highly praised horror film set in early Puritan New England. As we walked home along the Muddy River (where the estate of executed witch...
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Perry Boney, the Man Who Might Have Been A Fairy
Well, although this winter has been quite mild last night was still pretty chilly so I made Indian pudding and roasted buttercup squash for dinner. Pretty soon it will be too warm for roasting and I'll...
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Ghost Stories and Lewiston Maine's Riverside Cemetery
One of the nice things about writing about folklore in New England is that in almost every place I visit there's some weird or interesting story.Case in point: Lewiston, Maine.Tony and I are alumni of...
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York Maine's Haunted Gaol and the Ghost of Patience Boston
Last weekend while Tony and I were driving home from Lewiston we stopped in York, Maine. York is a really old town steeped in a lot of history, so naturally there are some strange legends there.York...
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Moll Cramer, the Witch of Woodbury
I'm always happy when I discover a new witch story. (I bet you're the same way if you're reading this blog!) Although New England doesn't have an infinite supply of witch stories, it does have hundreds...
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Fighting Joe Hooker and His Women
Lots of interesting and historic things have their origin in Massachusetts. For example, the first public library in America was the Boston Public Library, and the first American college was...
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The Frogman of Silver Lake: A Truly Mysterious Monster
I purchased a bunch of new paranormal and folklore books just the other week, including Monsters of Massachusetts: Mysterious Creatures of the Bay State by Loren Coleman, one of the superstars of the...
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Fish Monsters From Newburyport: Are the Deep Ones Real?
Last week I wrote about the Frogman of Silver Lake. It's interesting to think there might be a humanoid frog creature lurking in Plymouth County, but could there also be humanoid fish people hiding in...
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Ghosts of the Assonet Ledge
Yesterday Tony and I took a trip down to Freetown, Massachusetts to check out the Freetown State Forest. It was a beautiful day, so why not visit someplace reportedly full of weird paranormal...
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Pukwudgies in Freetown: Some Fairy Sightings in Massachusetts
Are there little magical people (fairies, if you will) hiding in the woods of New England? Most people would tell you no, but those who have actually seen them would disagree. And the fairies in these...
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How Did Tituba Become Black?
Tituba is one of the key figures in the Salem witch trials. A slave owned by Reverend Parris of Salem Village, she was one of the first people accused of being a witch. She was also one of the first...
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