Unhindered by the technological trappings of the modern world, an old Celtic tradition persists in the British Isles that transcends paganism and Christianity.  Almost always characterised by strips of cloth or rags hanging from the branches of trees, clootie wells remain places of pilgrimage reputedly bestowed with magical healing properties.

(Images: Richard Dorrell, cc-sa-3.0; Jim Champion, cc-sa-3.0)

In Scotland and Ireland, pieces of cloth (clooties) are dipped in the holy well or spring and then tied to a branch.  The offering is accompanied by a prayer to the spirit of the well – normally a saint, or a goddess or nature deity in pre-Christian times.  Frequented during healing rituals, or simply to honour the spirit, clootie wells are likely a continuation of the ancient Celtic tradition of leaving votive offerings in wells or pits.

(Image: Ronnie Leask, cc-sa-3.0)

The practice varies depending on local tradition.  At some wells, the affected part of one’s body is washed with a rag, which is then tied to a branch.  At others, the ritual may include circling the well a set number of times before offering a coin, pin or stone.  Votive offerings of rosaries, crosses and other religious symbols may also be hung from branches.

(Image: Jim Thomson, cc-sa-3.0)

Legend has it that the ailment is shed as the clootie gradually disintegrates over time.  Specific clooties also often represent the type of ailment that a sufferer seeks to be rid of.  For instance, an old rag may indicate an ailment, while a new, clean piece of cloth is used as an offering to the saint or other deity.

(Image: I Like, cc-nc-nd-3.0)

Most popular on saints’ days, or the old Gaelic festivals of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain, clootie wells were popularised in Ian Rankin’s novel The Naming of the Dead, which featured the well at Munlochy on the Black Isle.  Such places exist throughout Scotland and Ireland, as well as the English county of Cornwall, an ancient and romantic landscape steeped in myth and legend.  A similar theme is explored in the Robin of Sherwood episode Lord of the Trees, where offerings are left to Herne the Hunter at a summer festival known as the Blessing.  (More on Robin Hood here.)

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The Fisherman’s Chapel and Maritime Myth
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With recent renewed interest in our popular 2010 article featuring eerie urban legends of the natural world, we thought a follow-on would be appropriate, and that urban legends of the “supernatural world” was the perfect counterpart.  So here it is – a selection of chilling tales told and retold around campfires and at parties across the world, from the mischievous Spring Heeled Jack to the bone chilling Bloody Mary.

Spring Heeled Jack

(Images: 1, 2, 3, 4; public domain)

English folklore is rich in tales of fairies and other supernatural phenomena, which probably helped fuel the Victorian superstition of Spring Heeled Jack.  Tall and thin, with fiery red eyes, a black cloak and demonic appearance, Spring Heeled Jack was first reported in 1837 and sightings soon occured all over England, from London to Sheffield and Liverpool, and later Scotland.  Known for his ability to make incredible leaps and evade capture, the frightful entity soon became the subject of contemporary fiction and, with his nature and identity never revealed, has become a well-known urban legend.

(Images: 1, 2, 3; public domain)

Press reports helped fuel mass hysteria throughout the late 19th century, and though fewer, sightings of Spring Heeled Jack continued into the 20th century, with similar apparitions reported in Prague and Texas.  Paranormal theories linked Spring Heeled Jack to ghosts, demons and even extraterrestrials.  But his reputation as more mischievous than malicious led sceptics to label his antics the work of a prankster, or lineage of pranksters.  One suspect was a young Irish nobleman, Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford.  But in a world where nothing is certain, Spring Heeled Jack lives on in the shadows of urban legend.

The Highgate Vampire

(Image: F.W. Murnau, public domain)

In the world of supernatural urban legends, they don’t come much more bizarre than the tale of The Highgate Vampire, which purportedly haunted London’s Highgate Cemetery in the early 1970s.  Abandoned and overgrown cemeteries are strange and evocative places at the best of times, but Highgate seemingly captured the over-active imaginations of several young people including Seán Manchester and David Farrant.

(Images: Anders B., cc-3.0)

In December 1969 David Farrant appealed for witnesses after sighting “a grey figure” in Highgate Cemetery.  Several locals responded, but few sightings had any common traits.  Nevertheless, when Seán Manchester told the Hampstead and Highgate Express that “a King Vampire of the Undead” was buried in the cemetery in the early 18th century, the grey figure morphed into The Highgate Vampire and an urban legend was born.

(Images: Michael Reeve, cc-sa-3.0 ; JohnArmagh)

Manchester claimed the vampire had been summoned by Satanists, and that its body should be staked, beheaded and burned – standard practice for disposing of vampires, but somewhat illegal nowadays.  Rivalry between Farrant and Manchester reached its zenith by 1970 and on Friday 13th March, an “official” vampire hunt saw a mob descend on the Highgate despite police efforts to stop them.  After this strange spectacle, things became even more bizarre, and Farrant – who, according to his website, always opposed the vampire interpretation of Highgate’s supernatural happenings – was arrested in August 1970 allegedly in possession of a crucifix and wooden stake.

(Image: David Henry Friston, public domain)

Manchester went even further, and in an apparent case of legend tripping placed garlic and holy water in a catacomb that he claimed he was led to by a sleepwalking girl.  He also planned to drive a stake into one body but was dissuaded by a companion.  The bizarre activities of David Farrant and Seán Manchester have cemented The Highgate Vampire’s place in local folklore while fostering a modern urban legend in the process.  Highgate Cemetery is clearly a dangerous place to be a dead body, and visitors from outside the grave seem to be more troublesome than those from beyond.

Bloody Mary

(Image: Youtube via GrinningManPictures, viewer discretion is advised)

Clearly one of the more disturbing urban legends to form around the supernatural, Bloody Mary has many variations, most of which involve chanting her name three to one hundred times while gazing into a mirror.  Often conducted in a darkened room at midnight, participants in this eerie “game” commonly chant “Bloody Mary” thirteen times, after which the the ghost appears behind them and in some versions of the tale, murders them brutally or pulls them into the mirror.  In other versions, summoners chant “Bloody Mary” to invoke the ghost and a deceased person of their choice, with whom they can speak until 12:08am.

(Image: author unknown, public domain)

While Bloody Mary’s true identity remains a mystery, she has been linked to a variety of individuals from a suicidal mother wrongly accused of killing her children to Mary Worth, a name allegedly derived from a victim of the Salem witch trials, and even Queen Mary I, who suffered a number of miscarriages and was known as Bloody Mary for executing countless heretics.  The legend is said to date back to the 1960s, with names borrowed from historical characters or confused over time.  A staple campfire ghost story, the tale often changes depending on who is telling it and has become a modern urban legend.

St. Mark’s Eve

(Image: Xerones, cc-nc-3.0)

Immortalised in the poem by John Keats, St. Mark’s Eve falls on April 24th, the day before the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist.  The day was shrouded in superstition throughout rural England from the 17th to the late 19th centuries, when it was customary to sit in the porch of the village church for three hours from 11pm on St. Mark’s Eve to 1am the following day, for three successive years or sometimes nights.  On the third sitting, the watcher would observe the ghosts of those doomed to die throughout the coming year passing into the church.

(Image: Olga Pavlovsky, cc-3.0)

Most common in northern and western counties of England, the superstition held that the ghosts of those to die soon would enter the church first, with those destined to survive most of the year not passing through until close to 1am.  Other variations of the legend were even more ominous.  Some said the watchers would see headless or rotting corpses, or approaching coffins.  In North Yorkshire, where the legend was at its most unshakable, folk believed that if the watchers fell asleep while observing the ghostly precession, they too would die in the coming year.

Doppelgängers

(Image: Rana X, cc-nc-nd-3.0)

Urban legend or scientific phenomenon?  A doppelgänger is said to be the ghost or double of oneself, usually considered an omen of bad luck, evil or even death.  Ghostly doubles and look-alikes have been woven into the fabric of folklore from the Ancient Egyptians to Norse mythology, but modern occurances and the tale’s perfect suitability to campfire storytelling have made it one of the scariest urban legends.  The sight of your own doppelgänger is said to be an omen of death, while a doppelgänger seen by a person’s friends or family is considered a sinister warning of impending doom.

(Images: Rana X, cc-nc-nd-3.0)

Doppelgängers were reportedly observed by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Abraham Lincoln, while patients at a Bombay hospital claimed to see Indian mystic Osho on several occasions, despite his presence elsewhere.  Even today, some people report sensing or even seeing themselves in their peripheral vision where there was no chance of a reflection.  It sounds like the perfect urban legend, but a 2006 study reported in Nature unexpectly reproduced similar effects in a patient suffering from epilepsy.  On several occasions, when electrical stimulation was applied to the left temporoparietal junction of the patient’s brain, she felt the presence of a person located immediately behind her with body posture identical to her own.

If you enjoyed this article, click the thumbnail below to read about 5 Urban Legends of the Natural World:

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2010 was an exciting year from Urban Ghosts!  Before we begin we’d like to say a belated happy New Year, and thank you very much to all – whether you’ve been a fan from the start or discovered the site in the last few weeks – for your ongoing support and encouragement.  All feedback, be it positive, constructive criticism, or a heads-up about something you feel we should feature, is greatly appreciated.  We’d like to take this opportunity to recap the last 12 months and give you an idea of where we’re heading in 2011 – with some great photos thrown in too!

(Images: David Wilson Clarke, cc-2.5; Sookie, cc-nc-nd-2.0; Snowfalcon; Des Colhoun, cc-sa-2.0)

Last August, Urban Ghosts Media celebrated its first birthday with a hark back to our very first feature about the Angel of the North by Antony Gormley.  We’ll do the same now, returning to the start of 2010.  After a few months finding our feet and learning what this thing called blogging was really all about, January/February 2010 marked the point where the articles (hopefully) became more sophisticated, and our hits jumped from a few hundred each month to in excess of 1,000 per day, and rising.  Early 2010 articles we’re particularly proud of include deserted villages on mysterious Scottish islands, ghost towns and abandoned movie theatres.

(Images: cypherone, cc-nc-sa-2.0; U.S. Navy, public domain; NOAA, public domain)

In other popular articles we chronicled the short and long lives of the enigmatic RMS Titanic as well as the impressive American aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, which was deliberately sunk to create an incredible dive spot now known as the Great Carrier Reef.  Another first was discovering incoming links from Wikipedia.  As it happens, someone added our article about the failed “UFO Houses” (aka Sanzhi Pod City) in Taiwan to the external links of the abandoned resort’s Wikipedia entry.  Thanks very much, whoever you are!

(Images: U.S. Air Force; ja:利用者:Citrinitas, cc-sa-3.0; SearchNet Media, cc-nc-2.0; howzey, cc-nc-nd-2.0; Mark Ahsmann, cc-sa-3.0; David290)

So what can you expect in 2011?  The answer is more of the same, and so much more!  We currently have several ongoing series, such as Lost American Airfields of the World (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and Abandoned Towns and Cities of the World (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) to name just a few.  We’re also steadily cataloguing various abandonments in group format (all works-in-progress to be continued throughout the coming months).  These include Abandoned Aircraft, Airfields and Terminals, Abandoned Hospitals, Hotels and Schools, Abandoned Railways, Trains, Stations, Tunnels & Bridges, and Abandoned Arcades, Markets and Shopping Centres.

(Images: Яick Harris, cc-sa-2.0; Angela Anderson-Cobb, cc-2.0; Christopher Michel, cc-2.0; Luca & Vita, cc-2.0; Google)

Urban Ghosts began as an online magazine about abandoned and forgotten places of historical significance, many of which still exist but are lost to our modern world (such as those strewn across the Rult Belt, isolated island settlements and tiny Pacific atolls formerly home to all manner of military testing and equipment).  That is still very much our bread and butter content, and we’ll continue to dig-up more fascinating and unique places to write about.  But we’ve also explored other avenues:

(Images: Henrickson, cc-sa-3.0; Frank Godwin, public domain; Edwin Austin Abbey, public domain; Hustvedt, cc-sa-3.0; Ian Carroll, CC-2.0; Babirusa, CC-SA-3.0)

We’ve started expanding our Legend and Art & Architecture categories to become an increasing focus of the year ahead, but tied in more effectively to our pillar Abandoned content.  We use the term “legend” broadly, examining some decidedly modern myths such as top secret aircraft that may or may not exist, as well as folktales (see also Little John’s grave/Robin Hood) and ancient traditions that occasionally find their way into modern society.  We’ve also covered bizarre hauntings and unsettling urban myths of the natural world, and intend to fill this category with more offbeat legends, both old and new, over the coming year.

(Images: Denis Zilber; Dominic Greyer; Ray Villafane; Christophe Dessaigne; Street Advertising Services, cc-sa-3.0; mira66, cc-3.0; Daniel Dancer; Matt Brown, cc-3.0)

Although it’s not been a main focus so far, we’ve delivered several popular articles on (urban) art, and even experimented with posts on digital art and animation to mix things up a bit, as seen in the fantastic work of Denis Zilber.  Articles include the award-winning and fantastically funny signpost photography of Dominic Greyer, the wonderfully freaky post-apocalyptic art of Christophe Dessaigne, creative post-Halloween pumpkin carving, environmentally friendly “reverse graffiti“, Daniel Dancer’s Art for the Sky, incredible warplane art (real jets!) and even chainsaw carving.  (More here.)

(Images: Mikey Ashworth.  Copyrighted by London Underground and reproduced with permission)

The plan for 2011 is to deliver more articles like these, but ensure they’re tied in appropriately with our core mission focussing on abandoned places, hidden history and alternative travel.  One perfect example that managed to combine both art and abandonment – becoming the most popular Urban Ghosts article to date with 26,000 hits on StumbleUpon – was our report of vintage posters discovered in an abandoned section of Notting Hill Gate tube station in London.

(Images: Evelyn Simak, cc-sa-3.0; Matt Lambros, reproduced with permission)

None of this would be possible without your constant encouragement, support and feeback, which we’re incredibly grateful for.  As the site grows into a repository of information, please continue to explore our archives and tell your friends if you discover any fun pieces they’d be interested in.  If you’re new to Urban Ghosts, there are a variety of ways in which you can follow our content, including Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit.  You can also subscribe to our RSS feed or receive updates by email (simply enter your email address in the right sidebar to have stories delivered to your inbox).

(Image: Matt Lambros, reproduced with permission)

Last but certainly not least, a massive thank you to all the photographers who have allowed us to use their work either through direct permission or via the Creative Commons network.  Thanks also to Chris Ingham Brooke (founder of Environmental Graffiti) for inviting us into his excellent network, Scribol, and offering much appreciated advice and encouragement on how to grow and improve Urban Ghosts.  We’d also like to thank Alex, Joe and Miss Cellania from Neatorama, as well as Avi from Dark Roasted Blend, a top blog focussing on all things weird and wonderful, who gave us the opportunity to co-author an article with him for publication on DRB.

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