Christmas Ghosts

A Talk by Kirsty Hartsiotis on 10 December 2024.
Report by Stan Morrissey.

When we gathered for our December talk I think we expected stories of benign Dickensian ghosts and strange happenings. That was a mistake! Kirsty Hartsiosis promised to send a shiver down our spines with grisly tales of dark deeds, and shiver we did. Kirsty is a writer, storyteller and museum curator and clearly relishes her subject. She pointed out that, in medieval times, the season for ghost stories was Christmas rather than Halloween; stories abound of visitations and evil happening on Christmas Eve in particular.

Our earliest British records describing supernatural interventions are stories of King Arthur’s court, documented in the fifteenth century from much earlier traditions. For example in Gawain and the Green Knight, the Knight is clearly an unearthly being. At Arthur’s Christmas court he challenges Gawain to chop off his head, which Gawain promptly does. The following Christmas the Knight reappears and claims he has a right to cut off Gawain’s head. Fair enough I suppose, but Gawain is let off because of his good deeds. So, a ghostly morality tale, reflecting the growing Christian influences at the court but retaining the old beliefs in the supernatural.

Incidentally, there’s an interesting early homily from this source: “What is it that women most desire?” See below for enlightenment!

Our modern Christmas, with Father Christmas, tree, goose and presents really came into being in Victorian times, supplanting older traditions which were far darker. This is not confined to Britain. Germany had Krampus, a winter goat devil who carried off naughty children. Ireland had a Yule Cat who might eat you if you met him. Whitby had its own devil, Khun, long before Dracula, who roamed the wintry streets. Winter, it seems, is rife with unpleasant characters.

Father Christmas was not always the jolly man in a red coat and beard who brings presents down the chimney. St Nicholas is a Christianised version of the original. Early tales showed him reviving a boy chopped up by a butcher (very Christmassy!) so able to raise the dead. The theme of rebirth is attached to St Nicholas Day (19 Dec). He was a gift-bringer (hence Christmas presents), giving dowries to three girls too poor to marry by throwing a bag of gold through their window. The sleigh and other accoutrements came much later!

Winter ghost stories abound in Gloucestershire. Locally, white pigs have been seen crossing the road at Caldicott; fires are lit to deter the newly dead at Minchinhampton; at Tetbury the old wassailing ceremony, dating back to antiquity to ensure the fruitfulness of cider apple trees, has been revived; Chavenage House near Tetbury has been reported as having a resident poltergeist since around 1700; and at Yorkley people still put out bowls of water for the fairies’ Christmas bath. St Mary de Lode church in Gloucester boasts a ghostly vicar – it seems a previous incumbent promised his congregation that he would always conduct the Christmas service and his apparition appears to fulfil this obligation (though not every year now it seems – even dead vicars need to rest sometimes).

A common story, often set at Christmas, is that of a wife or daughter who is playing hide and seek and gets locked in a cupboard or trunk. She is found years later and now haunts the house as a ‘lady in white’. These tragedies occurred usually in the nineteenth century; noteworthy is that all stories are of women being locked away, never men or boys, that it is accidental, usually while playing a game, and that the poor victims are not found despite searching (but how many hiding places are there even in a large house?). Ghosts of white ladies are common – Over Court has one – though not all have such a convenient explanation.

Kirsty explained that all ghost stories came in two parts: the Front where a ghost is seen and the Back which offers an explanation. Which comes first probably depends on the audience. Unexplained phenomena, often in old houses, need to be explained, but equally a ghost has been a good tourist attraction from earliest times. Ghosts of course can appear at all times of the year, but in the dark days of winter, and Christmas in particular, imagination runs rife.

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• “What is it that women most desire?” “To choose their own way”. I guess nothing changes.