A twelve-year-old boy refuses to leave the house on the night of a full moon — because he's convinced he's becoming a wolf. It sounds like something out of a dusty book of legends. It was written up by doctors and published five years ago.

This week, we follow that one impossible sentence — I am becoming a wolf — back through the centuries. From the oldest werewolf ever written down to the movie rulebook Hollywood invented barely eighty years ago, then out into the real history: the beast that brought a kingdom to its knees in the mountains of France, a thirteen-year-old boy who confessed to being a wolf and the court that showed him mercy, and the cursed loup-garou who came knocking on the doors of French Canada.

Light a candle, get cozy, and come find out why, four hundred years on, our fear still wears the same face.

⚠️ Content warning: This episode includes descriptions of violent death and harm to children, a child confessing to violent acts, and a child experiencing mental-health distress. Please listen with care.

Clinical / the boy & the moon

Origins

The stories

Trials & film

Sir George Mackenzie sent hundreds of Covenanters to suffering and death in the 1600s — then was laid to rest in a fine domed tomb only steps from the very ground where they starved. For three centuries, the two sides of that quarrel kept an uneasy quiet, a few feet of earth apart. Then, one December night in 1998, a man seeking shelter fell through the floor of Mackenzie's mausoleum into the bones below — and the attacks began.

This week we walk into Greyfriars: the real history of the Killing Time and the Covenanters' Prison, the four months a thousand prisoners spent in the open air, and the wreck of the Crown of London. We sit with the man history remembers as "Bloody Mackenzie" — and the question of whether he earned the name or the legend built it for him. And we walk the ground where hundreds of visitors have reported scratches, bruises, fainting's and collapses since 1999, up to the exorcism that may have cost a medium his life. Documented history, recorded legend, and honest doubt, laid side by side — so you can decide for yourself what waits behind that locked door.

Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky.

Sources

•  Encyclopaedia Britannica — ‘Sir George Mackenzie’ (life, career, the Advocates’ Library).

•  covenanter.org.uk & Christian Heritage Edinburgh — the Covenanters, Greyfriars, and the 1679 prison.

•  Orkney.com & The Orkney News — the wreck of the Crown of London and the Covenanters’ Memorial.

•  National Library of Scotland — origins in Mackenzie’s Advocates’ Library.

•  Jan-Andrew Henderson, The Ghost That Haunted Itself — the definitive book on the case.

•  City of the Dead Tours — cityofthedeadtours.com (the operator’s own record of reported encounters).

•  Icy Sedgwick — ‘Meet the Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars Kirkyard’ (sourced folklore write-up).

A note on how we source: this show separates documented history from recorded legend from popular retelling, and says out loud which is which. The modern accounts are reported experiences, not established fact — shared as what people say happened, and left to you to weigh.

Follow & connect

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Welcome to Spooky Stays, where I don't just research haunted places — I spend the night in them. First up: the Beck House in Penetanguishene, Ontario, a red-brick Victorian mansion known online as Canada's most haunted house and now a haunted Airbnb. A grieving mother, a wronged daughter, and a legend that doesn't match the record.

Sources:

CONNECT

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Also check out: Northern Haunts Paranormal -https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernHauntsParanormal

CONTENT NOTE: This episode discusses the historical deaths of adults and children, family estrangement, and a drowning. Nothing graphic — but a heads-up for sensitive listeners.

Four haunted roads, two countries, and one long drive through the dark. From a phantom black dog that's blocked a Maryland mountain pass for two centuries, to a young man forever finishing his last ride on an Ontario back road, to a crowded, cursed stretch of Colorado asphalt, to a woman hanged in an iron cage at a Québec crossroads — these are the roads that refuse to forget. Some of it's pure legend. Some of it's better documented than you'd like. Buckle up.

New episodes every Thursday, 8 p.m. EST.

Content note: references to domestic abuse and a historical execution, the death of a child, and recurring themes of fatal accidents.

Documented history

Regional journalism & research

Folklore & legend

Where a story couldn't be verified — the Snarly Yow's origins, the Ghost Road motorcyclist, the Riverdale jogger — we've flagged it as legend, not fact.

The one your town warns you about. The light your uncle swears he saw. The drive you took once and never took again. Send us your haunted-road encounter — the best ones might end up on a future episode.

📧 Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com
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Stay Curious, Stay Spooky.

Three campfires. Three true stories from the places we go to feel free — and the dark that waits just past the firelight. A painter who knew his lake better than anyone alive, and drowned in it under questions we're still arguing over a century later. Four teenagers who pitched a tent by a quiet Finnish lake one summer night in 1960 — and the morning only one of them came back. And a forest in Transylvania that people walk into, and don't always walk back out of the same. This is the last one before we take a short break. So keep your fire built up, and your back to the flame.

Follow/get in touch:

Have a camping story of your own — a snapped twig in the dark, a light you couldn't explain, a site you packed up and left at 3 a.m.?

Send it to us on Instagram and TikTok @letstalkspookypod. The best ones might end up in a future episode. And if the show keeps you company in the dark, please follow and leave a rating — it's free, and it helps other spooky souls find the fire. www.letstalkspooky.com

Sources & further reading:

· Confirmed: Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor (Random House Canada, 2010). Adding it to the show-notes sources with a link.   Tom Thomson — Canadian Mysteries, 'Death on a Painted Lake': https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/thomson/home/indexen.html

· Tom Thomson — CBC, 'Why the 100-year-old mystery of Tom Thomson's death lives on': https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/blog/why-the-100-year-old-mystery-of-tom-thomson-s-death-lives-on-1.4193463

· Lake Bodom — Wikipedia, 'Lake Bodom murders':   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders

·  Lake Bodom — All That's Interesting, 'The Lake Bodom Murders':   https://allthatsinteresting.com/lake-bodom-murders

·  Lake Bodom — Mental Floss, 'Campsite Killer':   https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/584241/lake-bodom-murders

· Hoia-Baciu — Emil Barnea's 1968 photographs (Patrick Gross archive):https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/picamaro01.htm

· Hoia-Baciu — Astronomer.pro, 'History, Legends, and Reported Phenomena':   https://astronomer.pro/hoia-baciu-forest-history-legends-and-reported-phenomena/

Four abandoned amusement parks. One question: what lingers when the laughter stops? From the haunted rides of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in West Virginia, to Joyland and Louie the Clown in Wichita, to the drowned Six Flags New Orleans, to the Chornobyl Ferris wheel that never turned in Pripyat — a journey through the world's eeriest abandoned theme parks and the real deaths, ghost stories, and dark history buried beneath them. Light a candle, get cozy, and Let's Talk Spooky.

SOURCES

• Wichita Eagle, coverage of the death of Michael King at Joyland (Aug. 23–28, 1982).

•  Wichita Eagle, coverage of the death of groundskeeper Kevin Briley at Joyland (Aug. 28, 1998).

•  Lawrence Journal-World, Joyland Ferris wheel accident & U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Investigation(Apr.–May 2004).

• Mercer County, WV — official history of Lake Shawnee & the Clay family / 'Agony in Stone' memorial.

.History.com— the history of Jazzland / Six Flags New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.

• Jody Arneson, MidAtlantic Daytrips — firsthand overnight paranormal investigation of Lake Shawnee (2022).

• Local histories & family genealogies of the Clover Bottom / Clay family, 1783 (details vary between tellings ).

Grew up near an abandoned park? Snuck into one as a teenager and something made you run? Send us your story — the best ones may feature in a future episode.

Website:letstalkspooky.com   |  

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Ten kilometres off the shore of North Bay, Ontario, five islands float on Lake Nipissing — sometimes literally. The locals call them the Manitous. Older names tell you more: Ghost Island. Devil's Island. Paddle too close, they say, and the biggest island will speak to you — and it is not inviting you in. Tonight: a curse that begins with a fish, a haunting born of war and winter, two lovers who chose the same fire, and a voice that's still talking. No one has ever been able to live on the Manitou Islands. This episode is about everyone who tried.

Acknowledgment

The Manitou Islands and Lake Nipissing lie in the traditional territory of the Nipissing First Nation (Nbisiing Anishinaabeg). The oldest stories in this episode belong to their oral tradition, and we tell them with respect and with the distinction — noted throughout the episode — between documented history, recorded legend, and local retelling.

Sources & Further Reading

•  Islands in the Sky (W. Bliss/P. McLeod, 1991), hosted by Nipissing First Nation — https://nfn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Islands-In-The-Sky.pdf

•  North Bay heritage marker, “Manitou Islands” (full text) — https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=215993

•   Northern Ontario Travel, “Lake Nipissing's Mysterious Manitou Islands” — https://northernontario.travel/northeastern-ontario/manitou-islands-lake-nipissing

•  Northern Ontario Travel, “An Insider's Guide to Ontario's Manitou Islands” — https://northernontario.travel/northeastern-ontario/manitou-islands-lake-nipissing-day-trip

•  The Gateway (North Bay), “The Wreck of the John B. Fraser” — https://gatewaynorthbay.ca/2020/04/05/the-wreck-of-the-john-b-fraser/

•  Northern Ontario Travel, “Is Downtown North Bay Haunted?” — https://northernontario.travel/northeastern-ontario/downtown-north-bay-haunted-find-out-if-you-dare

•  BaladoDiscovery, “North Bay Waterfront” heritage tour (the Star-Crossed Lovers legend) — https://baladodiscovery.com/circuits/1110/poi/12526/north-bay-waterfront

•  Ontario Parks, Manitou Islands Provincial Park — https://www.ontarioparks.ca/park/manitouislands

CONNECT

Website: letstalkspooky.com

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Got a personal paranormal encounter, a piece of local folklore, or a Midsummer tradition from your own family? Send it our way — real listener submissions may be featured in a future episode.

The talking board didn’t begin in Baltimore. It began centuries earlier — in Chinese spirit-writing traditions, in medieval European divination, in the letter-grids of Elizabethan occultists. This week we trace that ancient impulse through the grief of post-Civil War America, across the Pacific to Japan’s Kokkuri-san, and into the hands of the men who bottled it, patented it, and sold it as a parlour game. We’ll get into the real stories behind the legends, the accounts that won’t stay buried, and a haunted house in Oregon where five people got an answer nobody in the room agreed to give. And somewhere in all of it — a man on a roof, and what the board told him to build.

SOURCES

•  Smithsonian Magazine, “Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond”

•  The Strong National Museum of Play — Ouija board collection and archival research

•  Skeptical Inquirer, “Demoniac: Who Is Roland Doe?”

•  Yokai.com Encyclopedia, “Kokkuri-san” (citing Inoue Enry■’s Meiji-era research)

•  Zeitlin, Judith T. “Zhang Dai’s Planchette Writing.” T’oung Pao, vol. 84 (1998) Baltimore Magazine, “The Dark and Fascinating History of the Ouija Board”

•  Atlas Obscura, “How the Ouija Board Got Its Name”

•  Jefferson Public Radio, “As It Was: Ouija Board Chases Ghost Sleuths from ‘Haunted’ House”

•  UK Intellectual Property Office Blog, “The Ouija Board: The Invention That Named Itself”

•            Uncanny Japan Podcast, “Kokkuri Spirit Boards”

•            The Ghost in My Machine, “Kokkuri-san: How to Play the Spirit of the Coin”

•            American Hauntings, “The Mystery of Patience Worth”

•            All That’s Interesting — Roland Doe coverageTier 4 — Aggregated community accounts

Used only for the real experiences segment. Presented as oral-tradition-style accounts, not verified fact.

•            Reader’s Digest, reader-submitted Ouija stories

•            Reddit r/Paranormal — cross-corroborated Ouija accounts

•            BuzzFeed Community, reader-submitted Ouija stories

This episode contains discussion of death, grief, and alleged demonic possession, including a contested historical exorcism case. One brief, non-graphic historical mention of a suicide attempt appears in the closing segment. No method or detail is discussed. Listener discretion advised.

Website: letstalkspooky.com

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Loved this episode? A rating or review helps other curious souls find the show. Stay Curious, Stay Spooky.

For Canada Day, we’re taking a six-province ghost story road trip — from an abandoned BC sanatorium to a 275-year-old Halifax church still bearing a scar from 1917.

Content Warning: This episode discusses tuberculosis and institutional death, the historical mistreatment of Indigenous patients within Canada’s healthcare system (including forced hospitalization and non-consensual medical procedures), suicide, the death of a child, and a mass-casualty disaster (the 1917 Halifax Explosion, approximately 2,000 deaths). Nothing is depicted graphically, but listener discretion is advised.

Stay curious, stay spooky.

Sources Tier 1 — Primary & Institutional Kamloops Museum & Archives, Tranquille Sanatorium collection · Parks Canada, Fort George National Historic Site · St. Paul’s Anglican Church official history page · CBC News, “Canada’s oldest Anglicanchurch marks 275 years” · APTN News, “Former Edmonton hospital still haunts families” · Ghosts of Camsell research project & “Camsell” documentary (Edmonton Heritage Council / Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail)

CTV News, “Ghostly tales endure at War of 1812 site FortGeorge” · The Globe and Mail, MP Brenda

Chamberlain account · Atlas Obscura, “Face in the Windowat St. Paul’s Church” · Canadian History Ehx

(Craig Baird), Halifax Explosion & Charles CamsellHospital coverage · NUVO Magazine, “Who Haunts the Halls of Canada’s GrandHotels?”

Ghost Walks of Niagara-on-the-Lake · Tourism Winnipeg,“Stories of the Macabre” · Discover Halifax, haunted Halifax guide · The Wren, Tranquille history & timeline · Friends of Fort George ghost tour materials · Squarepeg Tours, Fort Garry Room 202

Assorted ghost-tour operator anecdotes and guesttestimonials cited within tourism and paranormal interest sites; used only for the “people claim to see…” texture, not as historical fact.

Regional Journalism & Established OutletsResearched Tourism & Local History SitesFolklore & Tourism-Operator Accounts (legend texture only)

Website: letstalkspooky.com |  Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com  | Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast  | TikTok: @letstalkspookypod

Have footage, photos, or a story of your own from any of these six locations? Send it our way — we’d love to feature it. And if this one had you in a road-trip mood, a quick rating or review helps other curious souls find the show.

On the brightest night of the year, a woman walks into a hill that everyone else avoids — and finds a feast, a fairy King and Queen, and a workbench where small hands shape weaponsmeant for the unsuspecting. It's a story she really told, in 1662, in the Scottish parish of Auldearn — one of the most detailed witch trial confessions ever recorded, given, as far as we know, without torture. This episode follows Isobel Gowdie's testimony from the Fairy Hill to her unexplained disappearance from the historical record, travels north into the bonfires, flower crowns, and pole-dances of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish Midsummer tradition,makes a brief stop in Gaelic Cape Breton, and closes with the real rituals — protective herbs, threshold blessings, and a few you can still try tonight — tied to the longest day of the year.

Content note: this episode discusses historical witch trial testimony and execution. Light touch on detail — see the standalone content warning card for full wording and placement.

SOURCES (tiered)Peer-reviewed / academic

•     Wilby, Emma. The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (2010) — and her related work, Cunningfolk andFamiliar Spirits.

•     Hall, Alaric. “Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials.” Folklore 116 (2005): 19–36.

•     Davidson, Thomas. “Elf-Shot Cattle.” Antiquity 30 (1956): 149–155.

•     Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database, University of Edinburgh.

•     National Records of Scotland — Privy Council registers, July 1662.

•     Scottish Parliament, Petition PE1855 — pardon and memorial for those convicted under theWitchcraft Act 1563.

•     National Museum of Denmark — Sankt Hans Aften and bonfire tradition history.

•     SmithsonianMagazine, Atlas Obscura — coverage of the Witches of Scotland campaign and the2022 formal apology.

•     The Copenhagen Post, The Local Denmark — reporting on Sankt Hans Aften witch-effigy tradition and its origins.

•     Spookyscotland.net,Willow Winsham's research blog, Hoydens & Firebrands — secondary folklore writing on Isobel Gowdie, cross-checked against academic sources above.

•     The Old Farmer's Almanac, The Pagan Grimoire — general Midsummer/Litha customs acrossSweden, Norway, Finland; used for cultural texture, not as primary historical authority.

Website: letstalkspooky.com

Email:letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Got a personal paranormalencounter, a piece of local folklore, or a Midsummer tradition from your ownfamily? Send it our way — real listener submissions may be featured in a futureepisode.

Archival / institutionalRegional journalismResearched folklore resources (flagged, used forcolor/cultural detail)CONNECT

On a dark Venezuelan highway, a truck driver hears something that shouldn't be there — a whistle, seven notes, rising and falling. What he doesn't know is that the closer it sounds, the further away the danger really is. In this bonus deep-dive, we go back to a legend first touched on in Episode 4 and give El Silbón — the cursed soul of the Venezuelan plains — the full story he deserves: the murder that created him, the real man who may have inspired him, the bones he carries and counts outside your door, and theThe whistle paradox has kept two countries listening for two hundred years.Primary / Academic:

Bonilla, Valentina S. — “The History Behind El Silbón: Exploring Historical and Psychological Elements to the Urban Legend” — University of North Florida,PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas, Vol. 5. Peer-reviewed academic paper.

Pérez Montero, Carmen — “Mitos y leyendas predominantes en el Estado Portuguesa” — Regional oral history collection; source of multiple llanero eyewitness testimonies referenced in this episode.

Gebauer, Juan Fernández — Fantasmagorias documentary series on Latin American monster legends; field research conducted in the Portuguesa region, Venezuela.

Oral History & Regional Cultural Sources:

Cuenta el Abuelo — “Vivencias Llaneras del Abuelo: Testimonios sobre El Silbón” — transcribed testimony from the Pérez Montero collection, including the LorenzoGarcía family-connection account and the Eladio Antonio Moreno encounter narrative.

Venezuela Narrada — “La Leyenda del Silbón” — biographical detail on Joaquín Flores, including birth record claims, family members, and the disputed final confrontation with his father.

Mythlok — “El Silbón: The Whistling Spirit That Hunts inVenezuelan Folklore.” Wild Hunt — Alan D.D., “Column: El Silbón, a Venezuelan Legend About the Ancestors.”

A Note on Source Credibility:

This episode draws on a tiered range of sources. The cultural and historical framework — the Independence War context, the llanero way of life, the structure of the legend itself — is supported by peer-reviewed academic research. The biographical details of Joaquín Flores and the modern encounter account that opens the episode are drawn from regional oral history and cultural blogs; they cannot be verified against official archival records and are presented as oral tradition rather than confirmed historical fact. This distinction is consistent with how folklore scholarship treats such material — and, frankly, it's part of what makes the story worth telling.

CONNECT WITH LET'S TALK SPOOKYWebsite: letstalkspooky.com

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Listener Favourites

We’re taking a week off to let the team rest, recharge, and get ready for more spooky stories — but we didn’t want to leave you without something eerie to listen to.

This week, we’re revisiting a few listener-favourite episodes: the ones that stayed with you long after they ended.

These episodes explore the places where folklore, history, fear, and belief begin to blur. From the true stories behind terrifying urban legends, to changelings, doppelgängers, thin places, and lost time, each episode asks the same unsettling question: what if the old stories were not just stories after all?

Episode 45: When the Legend Was Real — True Stories Behind History’s Scariest Urban Legends
Urban legends are often dismissed as campfire stories, but sometimes the truth behind them is even darker. This episode looks at the real events, fears, and historical moments that helped shape some of the scariest legends we still tell today.

Episode 48: Changelings
For centuries, families believed that something unnatural could steal a child and leave something else behind. This episode explores changeling folklore, the fear beneath the belief, and the unsettling real-world consequences of stories told to explain what people could not understand.

Episode 41: Doppelgängers: The Double Across Cultures
What would you do if you saw yourself — or if someone else saw you where you could not possibly be? This episode follows the doppelgänger across cultures, from omens and spirit doubles to stories that suggest seeing your own double may be more than just a strange coincidence.

Episode 32: Thin Places, Lost Time
Some places feel different, as though the world has worn thin and something else is pressing through. This episode explores thin places, missing time, and eerie stories where people step out of the ordinary world — and return changed, confused, or not quite sure how long they were gone.

Because sometimes, the stories that haunt us most are the ones that feel a little too real.

And don’t forget — we’re always looking for listener stories for an upcoming listener story episode. If you have a paranormal experience, local legend, strange encounter, haunted object story, or something you just can’t explain, we would love to hear from you.

Send your stories to letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com or reach out to us on social media.

Stay curious, stay spooky.

CONTENT WARNING

This episode contains discussion of the murder of three children (Camp Scott, Oklahoma, 1977), documented sexual abuse at summer camps, predatory behaviour toward minors, and the legend of Elias White, which involves the hanging of an enslaved man. Please take care if any of these topics are difficult for you.

Every sleepaway camp has a monster. Not the same monster — each one builds its own, passed down from counselor to camper, summer after summer, until no one quite remembers where the story started. Only that it’s true. Only that it happened here.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we’re going to camp — all of them at once. We’re meeting the monsters that haunt the American sleepaway camp tradition: Hatchet Annie, the wronged camper who came back with an axe. The Banana Man, the predatory counselor who never quite left. The Man from the Farm, the ordinary man from next door who walked into the woods one night and decided to stay. Elias White, the enslaved man whose hanging made an entire forest forbidden. And the cluster of drowned children, grieving ghosts, and hermits on islands that haunt every dock, swamp, and cabin in the country.

CONNECT

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If you enjoyed this episode, a rating or review wherever you listen takes 30 seconds and helps new listeners find the show.

Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

SOURCES

Folklore & Scholarship

• USC Digital Folklore Archives (folklore.usc.edu) — Hatchet Annie, the Banana Man (informant KM,

2022); Mary Brown / Troy Camp (Taylor, 2015); The Hermit, Maine all-boys camp (BM, 2023); Elias

White, Bass Lake CA; Camp Seven Hills, western NY (2019)

• Bill Ellis — “The Camp Mock-Ordeal: Theater as Life,” Journal of American Folklore, 1981

• Jay Mechling — “The Magic of the Boy Scout Campfire,” Journal of American Folklore, 1980 Camp Scott (1977)

• Victims: Lori Lee Farmer (8), Michele Heather Guse (9), Doris Denise Milner (10) — June 13, 1977, Mayes County, OK

• Suspect Gene Leroy Hart acquitted March 1979; died June 1979, age 35 — case officially unsolved

• 2019 DNA testing: inconclusive but pointed toward Hart; eliminated other suspects. Real-World Underpinning

• CBS News (2018) — 500+ documented cases of sexual abuse at U.S. camps over 55 years

• Jon Conte, University of Washington — structural risk factors at camps

• Regulatory gap: 8 U.S. states have no overnight camp licensing; 18 states have no mandatory staff background checks

Content note:

This episode contains discussion of racial violence, lynching, and the racially motivated expulsion of an entire Black community in 1912 Georgia. It also includes detailed accounts of multiple drowning deaths and body recovery. Additionally, this episode covers the colonial erasure of Indigenous spiritual tradition. Listener discretion is advised.

In July 2023, three men died at Lake Lanier in Georgia in a single weekend. Lake Lanier is one of the most visited recreational lakes in the United States. It is also one of the deadliest — and once you understand what is sitting beneath its surface, the death toll stops feeling like a coincidence.

This week, we visit two dangerous lakes and hear their haunting tales.

LAKE LANIER

Georgia Department of Natural Resources — annual drowning reports (primary source for all death statistics)

Forsyth County Sheriff's Office — official press release, Thomas Milner death, July 2023

Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (W.W. Norton, 2016) — primary source for

1912 Forsyth County racial history

CNN — interview with rescue diver Buck Buchanan, 2020

Adventures in Cemetery Hopping — Alta Vista Cemetery, Delia Parker Young / Susie Roberts grave

documentation

OKANAGAN LAKE

BC Coroners Service — annual provincial drowning reports (primary source for all death statistics)

Elder Marlene Squakin (Yamxwa) — N'ha-a-itk tradition, documented via Summerland Museum / Castanet.net,

March 2024

Summerland Museum — working with Syilx knowledge keepers on N'ha-a-itk cultural framing

BC Wildlife Act, 1989 — Ogopogo protected status

Have a story, a local legend, or a documented case you'd love to hear covered on Let's Talk Spooky? Send it in. We want to hear from you.

letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

www.letstalkspooky.ca

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What's the oldest fear in the human record? Not vampires. Not werewolves. Not anything that hunts in the dark. It's the person sitting across from you at dinner—the one who poured your drink.

In this episode, we're diving into one of history's most chilling archetypes — the woman poisoner. From the prison cells of ancient Rome to a TikTok trend that exploded in 2024, the legend of the woman who knows what grows in the dark has never really gone away.

Four women. Four centuries. One very uncomfortable truth about trust, proximity, and the people who feed us.

Content Warnings:

This episode contains discussion of: poison and poisoning, domestic violence, child death (including infant death), execution, and serial homicide. Please take care of yourself.

Sources & Further Reading

Locusta

Send us Fan Mail

Episode Description

A campfire walk through some of the most feared women in world folklore, from a four-hundred-year-old spider waiting in a Japanese mountain house, to a wailing figure outside an Irish window at midnight. We travel through Slavic rivers and summer wheat fields, down dark roads in South Asia, into Colombian mangroves and the deep Brazilian Amazon, and onto the forest trails of Indigenous North America. What you start to notice, when you put these women side by side, is that almost every one of them was wronged first. Mothers who lost children. Brides who were murdered. Women buried wrong. They came back anyway. They came back hungry. And every culture on earth seems to have remembered them, independently, in its own language, in its own forest, on its own river, at its own time of day. Light a candle. Lock the door. Don’t answer if someone calls your name from past the streetlights.

Sources meterial

• Lady Anne Fanshawe, Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe (composed 1676, first published 1829). The earliest detailed first-person Banshee account in print.

• Karel Jaromír Erben, Polednice (“The Noon Witch”), 1853. Czech folklore ballad foundational to Polednice in modern memory.

• Edo-period ynkai collections, including the Taihei Hyaku Monogatari and the Tonoigusa, for Jorngumo in her earliest written form.

• W. B. Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888). Foundational survey of Irish supernatural tradition, including Banshee accounts.

• Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (1887). Nineteenth-century compilation of Irish folklore.

• Lady Augusta Gregory, Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1920). Documented Banshee sightings from West Ireland oral tradition.

• Tupi-Guarani oral tradition, recorded by sixteenth-century Jesuit missionaries in Brazil, for the earliest written references to Caipora.

• Slavic folklore scholarship on the Rusalka and Polednice traditions, including ethnographic work from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries across Russia, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland.

• Indigenous storytellers, writers, and scholars for the deeper teachings of Deer Woman. See contemporary Indigenous-led folklore podcasts, anthologies, and community-published resources.

Content Note

This episode discusses themes of murder, death in childbirth, violence against women and children, drowning, and historical injustice. It is intended for adult listeners.

Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

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A grieving widow develops a roll of film and finds her dead mother in the back seat. A WWI airman steps into a squadron portrait two days after his funeral. A Boston photographer swears he can capture the dead — and P. T. Barnum takes the stand to prove him wrong. Tonight, the photographs that came back heavier than they went in. 

Before the smartphone, before the camera roll — before there was a way to carry your dead in your pocket — people wanted to keep the faces of the ones they loved. Some of them tried very hard. Some of them, it seems, succeeded a little too well.

In this remastered episode, we’re climbing back into the strange, tender, deeply uncanny history of postmortem and spirit photography — from Victorian iron posing stands and painted-on eyes, to

William Mumler’s scandalous Boston studio, to the back seat of a quiet Ipswich car on a Tuesday afternoon in 1959.

Featuring the Mabel Chinnery photograph, the ghost of Freddy Jackson, the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, the haunted faces in the wake of the S.S. Watertown, Mary Todd Lincoln’s most famous portrait, and three modern firsthand-style accounts that have been quietly circulating online — the kind of photograph you delete six times, and it keeps coming back.

Postmortem Photography & Victorian Death Culture

• Stanley, Liz, and Sue Wise. “The Domestication of Death: The Sequestration Thesis and Domestic Figuration.”

Sociology, vol. 45, no. 6, 2011, pp. 947–62. JSTOR. (jstor.org/stable/42857592)

• Slate Magazine: “The Eerie History of Spirit Photography and Child Mortality in the 19th Century.” October 2017.

(slate.com/human-interest/2017/10/spirit-photography-and-child-mortality-in-the-19th-century.html)

• Victorian Visual Culture blog: “Photos of the Dead.” December 2020.

(victorianvisualculture.blog/2020/12/14/photos-of-the-dead/)

William Mumler & Spirit Photography

• Cao, Maggie M. “Spirit Photographs and the Civil War.” American Art, vol. 31, no. 2.

• Kaplan, Louis. The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer. University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

• Court records of The People v. William H. Mumler, New York, 1869.

Freddy Jackson

• Goddard, Sir Victor. Flight Towards Reality. London: Turnstone Books, 1975.

• The Black Vault Case Files: “The Ghost of Freddy Jackson.”

(theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-ghost-of-freddy-jackson/)

Mabel Chinnery

• Sunday Pictorial, April 19, 1959 — original publication and expert analysis.

• Anomalies database (Garth Haslam): “1959, March 22 — Mabel Chinnery’s Strange Photograph.” (anomalyinfo.com/Stories/1959-mabel-chinnerys-strange-photograph)

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

• Country Life magazine, December 1936 — original publication of the photograph by Captain Hubert Provand and Indre Shira.

• BBC News: coverage of Raynham Hall and the Brown Lady. (bbc.com/news/uk-england-36389581) S.S. Watertown

• Service News, Cities Service Company company newsletter, 1924–1925 — primary publication of the photographs and crew accounts.

• Hervey, Hal. “Ghosts of the Watertown.” True Strange Stories, 1929.

• Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Ynkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. University of California

Press, 2015 — for context on shinrei shashin in Japanese popular tradition.

• Behrend, Heike, et al., eds. Spirits in Politics: Uncertainties of Power and Healing in African Societies. Campus Verlag, 2015 — for a broader cross-cultural context on photography and the spirit world.

• Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast

•Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

• Subscribe/follow wherever you listen, and please leave a review — it helps more spooky souls find the firelight.

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On Christmas Eve in 1689, a Swedish farmer and his wife carried their ten-year-old son to the manure heap at the edge of their farm and left him there overnight to freeze. They believed, sincerely and devoutly, that he was a changeling — and that the elves would come in the night and return their real son by morning.

He was not the first child this happened to. He would not be the last.

This week, host Shauna takes you deep into the changeling tradition — into where the lore came from, what our ancestors believed a changeling was, and the documented historical record of what they did to the children they were certain were not their own. From a courtroom in Tralee in 1826 to a Lutheran pulpit in Wittenberg in 1532 to present-day West Africa, this episode walks through five hundred years of folk diagnosis, folk cure, and the children who paid the price.

Sources & Further Reading

• The Gotland Trial Records, 1690 — bound in the Swedish dombok (court book), held in the Swedish National Archives, Stockholm. Studied in detail by Ilmar Arens and Bengt af Klintberg in Rig: Kulturhistorisk Tidskrift, 1979.

• Martin Luther, Tischreden (Table-Talk), volume 5 — first printed 1566; standard scholarly edition in the Weimar edition of Luther's collected works (Weimarer Ausgabe).

• Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, c. 1200 — British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian DX.

• Tralee Assizes Trial Records, July 1826 — the case of Ann Roche; contemporary court reports and transcripts, excerpted in 19th-century Irish folklore writings.

• John Francis Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 1860–1862, four volumes — The Smith and the Fairies is in volume 2. Public domain; available free at archive.org and on Project Gutenberg.

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Episode Summary

On the night of March fifteenth, eighteen ninety-five, eight people in a small Irish kitchen watched a

man named Michael Cleary set his wife on fire. Not one of them tried to stop him. They all believed the

same thing he did: the woman on the bed wasn't his wife anymore. The fairies had taken her.

In this episode, we use the death of Bridget Cleary as a doorway into something much larger. We trace

fairy belief across five cultures and two centuries —through documented court cases, ethnographic

records, modern road bends, and a billionaire's fall — to ask the splinter-under-the-skin question: why

does almost every culture on Earth, independently, agree that there are beings just adjacent to us, and

That there are rules?

This is fairy folklore as our great-great-grandparents understood it. Not the wings and wishing dust of

the Disney version. Something older. Something stranger.Something a man would burn his wife alive

over, with eight witnesses who agreed he was doing the right thing.

Sources & Further Reading

On Bridget Cleary and Irish changeling cases:

• Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary(1999)— the definitive scholarly account.

• Joan Hoff & Marian Yeates, The Cooper's Wife is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary(2000).

• Carole Silver, Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies andVictorian Consciousness(1999) — for

documented Welsh and Irish changeling cases.

On Welsh and broader Celtic fairy belief:

• Elias Owen, Welsh Folk-Lore(1896) — first-hand 19th-century ethnography.

• Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies(1976) —the standard reference.

• W. Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries(1911).

On Icelandic Huldufólk:

• AP and BBC reporting on the Álftanes case (2013–2015).

Let's Talk Spooky · The Fair Folk · Show Notes 4

• Terry Gunnell, University of Iceland — academic work on Icelandic folk belief.

On Filipino engkanto belief:

• Francisco R. Demetrio, S.J., "The Engkanto Belief: An Essay in Interpretation" (1969).

• Maximo D. Ramos, Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology(1971).

On the Sean Quinn / Aughrim Wedge Tomb story:

• Irish Independent, "Sean Quinn's downfall is fairies' revenge say locals in Cavan" (2011).

• RTÉ, biography excerpt of Sean Quinn (2022).

Connect with the Show

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For listener stories, episode requests, and feedback:visit the website's contact page.

If this episode moved you, the kindest thing you can do is share it with one person who likes this kind

of story, and leave a rating wherever you listen. It helps more than you'd think.

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This is a remastered episode — new research, new stories, new folklore. Worth a re-listen.

We pull on a blue silk dress in 1884 Boston and follow the thread back through the strange, unsettling history of secondhand things. From the rag pickers of Victorian London to the smallpox-laced wardrobes of the dead, from The Hands Resist Him to the Crying Boy paintings that wouldn’t burn, from a haunted wine cabinet in Oregon to a green velvet chair no one should have brought home — tonight we’re asking the question every thrifter eventually whispers to themselves: what lived in this thing before I did?

Sources

Thrifting & Victorian secondhand: Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life (2005); Mayhew, London Labour and the

London Poor (1851); Le Zotte, “The Surprisingly Sanitized History of the Thrift Store,” Time (2017).

Mourning culture: Lutz, Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge, 2015).

Folklore traditions: Foster, The Book of Yokai (UC Press, 2015); Nigal, Dybbuk Tales in Jewish Literature.

Hands Resist Him: Bill Stoneham’s artist statements (billstoneham.com); Snopes, “eBay Haunted Painting.”

Crying Boy: The Sun, “Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy” (Sept 4, 1985); David Clarke, Fortean Times investigation.

Dybbuk Box: Mannis’s original 2003 eBay listing; Haxton, The Dibbuk Box (Truman State Press, 2011); LA Times

coverage (July 2004).

Listener folklore: r/ThriftStoreHauls Reddit thread.

Connect with the Show

Got your own haunted thrift story? I want to hear it.

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

TikTok: @letstalkspookypod

Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast

Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

Written, researched, and produced by Shauna.

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Inside one of the most haunted buildings in Canada — the Ottawa Jail Hostel, formerly the Carleton County Jail at 75 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, Ontario. From 1862 to 1972, this limestone prison housed up to 150 inmates in cells barely three feet wide, with no heat, no plumbing, and no light. Three men were hanged on its still-standing gallows: Patrick James Whelan in 1869 for the assassination of the Father of Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, William "Billy" Seabrooke in 1933, and Eugène Larment in 1946 — the last public hanging and the last execution in Ottawa's history. Roughly 140 unmarked graves were uncovered beneath the site's parking lot.

Today, paying guests sleep in converted death-row cells. Visitors and staff report a dark figure at the foot of the bed, the Lord's Prayer whispered in empty corridors, sudden nosebleeds near Whelan's unmarked grave, sleep paralysis in the old Warden's office, and the unmistakable sense of being watched on the eighth floor. We walk the building room by room — the basement "Hole," the women's wing, death row, the gallows, and the courtyard — and ask the harder question this place keeps raising: what does it mean to turn a site of real human suffering into somewhere you pay to spend the night?

Visit the Carleton County Jail & Ottawa Tours

If this episode pulled you in, the building itself is open to visitors. For guided historical and ghost tours of the Ottawa Jail and surrounding heritage sites, we recommend reaching out to our friend at Ottawa Tours by TAF — local, knowledgeable, and passionate about the haunted history of the capital. OTTAWA TOURS BY TAF

Carleton County Jail & Ottawa Heritage Tours Website: ottawatoursbytaf.ca

Connect With the Show

Subscribe, share, and tell a friend who loves haunted history. Every listen helps us find the next story. Folklore · Haunted History · Urban Legends Website: www.letstalkspooky.ca

Sources

• Historical Society of Ottawa & Today in Ottawa's History

• The Globe (1869), Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette (1933) — archival coverage

• The Canadian Encyclopedia & Dictionary of Canadian Biography — Whelan / McGee

• Lorna Poplak, Drop Dead (Dundurn, 2017)

• Heritage Ottawa & Ottawa Police Service historical archive

• Globe and Mail (Roy MacGregor, 2015); Canadian Geographic (Robin Esrock, 2024)

• Hostelworld — Jeff Delgado interview; Haunted Walk of Ottawa

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What if the scariest urban legends were real? Not metaphors. Not campfire exaggerations.

Actually, verifiably, documentable real — and the communities telling them knew something terrible was happening long before anyone with authority chose to listen?

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky — a solo-narrated folklore and haunted history podcast — we follow four true horror stories hidden within four legends you thought you already knew. Visit letstalkspooky.com  to connect with our socials and see what's new!! 

Connect with us: 

If this episode got under your skin — share it. The best way to help Let’s Talk Spooky grow is to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and to send it to one person you know who loves a good dark story. Word of mouth is still the most powerful algorithm there is.

Sources & Further Reading

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

• Lüneburg Manuscript (c. 1440–50); Hamelin Town Chronicle (1384); Stained glass window, Marktkirche

Hameln (c. 1300); Rattenfängerhaus inscription, Hameln, Germany. • Mieder, Wolfgang. The Pied Piper: A

Handbook. Greenwood Press, 2007. • Udolph, Jürgen. Linguistic surname research linking Hamelin to Polish &

Pomeranian records. • Kadushin, Raphael. “The Grim Truth Behind the Pied Piper.” BBC Travel, 2020.

The Greenbrier Ghost

• The Greenbrier Independent & The Monroe Watchman, 1897 (archived, WV Division of Culture and History). •

Baltimore American. “Mother-in-Law’s Vision as Evidence.” July 5, 1897. • Greenbrier County Courthouse —

trial records and autopsy report, 1897. • Lyle, Katie Letcher. The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives. Quarrier

Press, 1999. • e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. “Greenbrier Ghost.” wvencyclopedia.org.

Cropsey & Andre Rand

• Zeman & Brancaccio, dirs. Cropsey. Antidote Films, 2009 (Tribeca Film Festival). • Rivera, Geraldo.

Willowbrook: The Last Disgrace. WABC-TV, 1972. • The New York Times — coverage by Todd Purdum (Aug.

6, 1987) and Elizabeth Neuffer (Aug. 14, 1987). • The Charley Project — case files for all confirmed and

suspected victims. charleyproject.org.

The Black Volga

• Czubala, D. Wspónczesne Legendy Miejskie. Uniwersytet nlnski, 1993. • Brunvand, J.H. Encyclopedia of

Urban Legends. ABC-CLIO, 2001. • Kunicki, M. “The Red and the Brown.” East European Politics and

Societies, 2005. • Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Warsaw — Piasecki case archival materials.

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the chilling lore, cultural warnings, and unsettling history behind the Wendigo and the Skinwalker. These are two of the most searched and most misunderstood figures in Indigenous folklore, Canadian legend, and North American supernatural storytelling.

We begin with the Wendigo, a terrifying figure found in the traditions of Ojibwe, Anishinaabe, Cree, Algonquin, Innu, and other Algonquian-speaking Nations. Often connected to winter, starvation, greed, isolation, and transformation, the Wendigo has become one of the most haunting presences in Canadian folklore, forest legends, and Indigenous oral tradition. We also explore real historical cases from Canada, including Swift Runner in Alberta and Jack Fiddler in Ontario, and examine how Wendigo stories were shaped, misunderstood, and reinterpreted through colonial history.

From there, we move into the deeply feared and widely misunderstood figure of the Skinwalker, known in Diné (Navajo Nation) tradition as yee naaldlooshii. Unlike pop culture versions of shapeshifters and monsters, the Skinwalker belongs to a specific cultural framework and should not be treated as generic paranormal folklore. In this episode, we discuss the Skinwalker carefully, focusing on public knowledge, cultural context, and the reason these stories continue to inspire fear across discussions of forest spirits, dark folklore, paranormal legends, and unexplained creatures in the woods.

This episode is for listeners interested in Wendigo stories, Skinwalker lore, Indigenous legends, Canadian supernatural tales, creepy forest creatures, dark folklore podcast episodes, and unexplained cryptid stories. As always, we approach these traditions with care and deliberately avoid sacred ceremonial or ritual details.

If you’re drawn to stories about haunted forests, forest spirits, ancient warnings, cryptids, supernatural creatures, and the darker side of folklore, this episode is one you won’t want to miss. 

A Note on Consent and Representation

This episode deliberately omits ritual and procedural details from both traditions. No sacred ceremonial knowledge has been reproduced. The accounts included are drawn from publicly shared oral histories, published journalism, and documented community storytelling. The producers of this podcast encourage listeners to seek out Indigenous voices directly.

Sources and Further Reading

Cultural attributions:

Recommended reading:

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Step into the firelight and into one of the most fascinating festivals of the ancient Celtic calendar. In this remastered episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore Beltane, the ancient Celtic fire festival that marked the beginning of summer and the thinning of the line between the human world and the spirit world. From ancient pagan rituals and sacred bonfires to fertility traditions, protection rites, fairy folklore, and the darker side of May Day legends, this episode digs into the history, mystery, and magic behind one of the most powerful seasonal celebrations in folklore.

We’ll talk about the origins of Beltane in Celtic tradition, why fire played such a central role in cleansing and protection, how people believed the fae were especially active, and how old customs surrounding witches, spirits, and supernatural forces shaped the night. Whether you’re interested in pagan holidays, European folklore, the history of witchcraft, seasonal traditions, or the eerie folklore tied to May Eve, this episode brings together the beautiful and unsettling sides of Beltane.

If you love stories about ancient festivals, folklore and superstition, Celtic mythology, fairy beliefs, witch lore, and the haunted edge of old-world tradition, this episode is for you.

Sources: 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Beltane” — strong overview of Beltane’s meaning, timing, and pastoral/fire customs. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Belenus” — helpful for the older connection between Beltane and fire symbolism. 

Historic Environment Scotland, “Behind the Fire – the Symbolism of Beltane Fire Festival” — useful for Scottish fire symbolism, cleansing, and community ritual. 

Dúchas.ie, “May Day Customs and Beliefs” — excellent folklore source for beliefs about fairies, witches, fire, cattle, milk, and protection. 

Dúchas.ie, “Bealtaine Eve” — great source for May Eve customs, dew washing, may boughs, and fairy beliefs. 

Dúchas.ie, “Béasaí agus Nósanna Lae Bealtaine” — useful for household luck, primroses, ashes, and May Day prohibitions. 

Historic UK, “May Day Celebrations” — broader context for Beltane within May Day tradition. 

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore two of Canada’s most unsettling locations—places where history didn’t just happen… it stayed behind.

We begin in Halifax at The Five Fishermen, a historic building that once operated as a funeral home. This site played a role in the aftermath of the RMS Titanic disaster and the devastating Halifax Explosion, where victims were brought, identified, and prepared. Today, staff and visitors report eerie encounters—reflections that don’t match reality, unexplained movement, and a lingering presence that refuses to fade.

From there, we travel west to Vancouver and step inside the Vancouver Police Museum—once the city’s morgue, autopsy room, and coroner’s court. A place where death was not only witnessed but examined repeatedly over decades. Connected to real cases, including the “Babes in the Woods” and early violent crimes in Vancouver, the building now houses reports of unexplained sounds, shifting objects, and an unsettling sense of being watched.

Two locations.Two very different kinds of hauntings.

One question remains— Do these places hold onto the people who passed through them…or the weight of what happened inside?

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow Let’s Talk Spooky wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you’ve ever experienced something you couldn’t explain—a place that didn’t feel quite right… We want to hear your story.

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On March 17th, 1995, six teenage boys from Pickering, Ontario, disappeared in the early hours of the morning after leaving a house party near the shoreline of Lake Ontario.

What followed was a large-scale search, an investigation built on fragments, and a timeline that—decades later—still feels incomplete.

While the official explanation points to a tragic boating accident, the available evidence does not fully establish how—or when—the events of that night unfolded.

SOURCES

Send us Fan Mail

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If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow Let’s Talk Spooky, leave a review, and share it with your fellow spooky souls 👻

Got a story of your own? We’d love to hear it.

Description: 

What if someone saw you… Somewhere you’ve never been?

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the unsettling idea of the doppelgänger—an identical double said to exist alongside you, ahead of you, or even completely separate from you.

From ancient beliefs to modern encounters, the idea of a second self has appeared across cultures for centuries. In ancient Egypt, the Ka was believed to be a spiritual double tied to one's existence. In Norse folklore, the Vardøger was said to arrive before you—your presence echoing forward in time. And in Celtic traditions, seeing your double was often considered a warning… something not meant to be witnessed.

But these stories didn’t stay in the past.

We move into real documented accounts, including the chilling case of Émilie Sagée—a teacher reportedly seen in two places at once by dozens of witnesses—and modern experiences where people have been seen, spoken to, or encountered… without ever being there.

Because sometimes, the most unsettling stories aren’t the ones that feel impossible—

They’re the ones that feel almost normal… until they aren’t.

📚 Sources & Further Reading 

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of history’s most unsettling disappearances—cases where people didn’t just go missing… they seemed to vanish.

From children who disappeared in broad daylight, to pilots lost mid-sentence, to historical figures who stepped out of reality itself—these stories challenge what we think we understand about time, space, and human experience.

Some of these cases may have explanations.
 Others… feel like they slipped through something we can’t quite see.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

Case-Specific Sources

Archival & Research Resources

Books & Deep Dives

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Leprechauns are often seen as cheerful little shoemakers guarding pots of gold—but their origins are far more complex, and much darker.

In this episode, we explore the folklore roots of leprechauns in Irish mythology, tracing their connection to older fairy traditions, solitary spirits, and trickster entities. We look at how these figures evolved through oral storytelling during times of hardship—particularly during the mass emigration of Irish people in the 19th century—and how their image was reshaped into the playful mascot we recognize today.

But beneath the green coats and gold coins lies something older… something not always friendly. 

Sources & Further Reading (Condensed & Credible)

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Japan is home to some of the most chilling urban legends in the world.

Stories whispered in school hallways, shared on quiet train rides, and passed between friends late at night. Some of these legends have existed for decades… while others were born on the internet and spread like wildfire across message boards.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore four of Japan’s most haunting urban legends.

A vengeful spirit that drags herself across the pavement searching for victims.

A masked woman who asks a terrifying question before revealing her true face.

A ghost said to haunt the bathrooms of Japanese schools.

And a train station that doesn’t appear on any map.

Join us as we dive into the eerie folklore and modern legends behind:

These stories blend folklore, fear, and modern storytelling — proving that urban legends continue to evolve with the world around us.

But one thing never changes.

If you hear footsteps behind you at night…
 or a voice asking a strange question…

You might already be part of the story.

Sources

Teke Teke

Kuchisake-onna

Hanako-san

Kisaragi Station

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The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, stretching more than 2,000 miles across the eastern United States. For generations, the people who lived in these mountains have shared stories about strange encounters in the woods, mysterious creatures, and folklore that seems to blur the line between history and legend.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the lesser-known legends said to originate in the Appalachian region. From ancient Cherokee folklore to stories shared by hunters and hikers in the mountains today, these tales reveal how deeply storytelling is woven into Appalachian culture.

We’ll dive into stories about:

• Appalachian Mimic Legends – Stories of voices in the woods that sound almost human.• The Wampus Cat – A mysterious creature said to roam the mountains and forests.• The Moon-Eyed People – A strange group described in Cherokee traditions who were said to move through the mountains only at night.• Appalachian Witch Traditions – Folk healers, “granny women,” and the folklore surrounding witches in the mountains.• Spearfinger (U’tlun’ta) – One of the most chilling Cherokee legends about a shapeshifting predator that could disguise itself as an old woman.

The Appalachian Mountains are full of stories, and many of them are still told today by the people who live closest to the forests and hills where these legends began.

So gather close, dim the lights, and join us as we explore the strange folklore and eerie legends hidden deep in the Appalachian Mountains.

And remember…

Stay curious. Stay spooky.

Sources: 

Books & Academic Sources

Mooney, J. (1992). Myths of the Cherokee. Dover Publications.(Original ethnographic work documenting Cherokee legends, including Spearfinger)

Jones, W. (2009). Appalachian Ghost Stories and Other Tales. Globe Pequot Press.

Briggs, K. (1976). An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. Pantheon Books.(Background on regional folklore traditions)

Folklore & Historical Sources

North Carolina Folklife Institute⁠https://ncfli.org⁠

Smoky Mountain News – Cherokee folklore archives⁠https://www.smokymountainnews.com⁠

Georgia Historical Society – Moon-Eyed People references⁠https://georgiahistory.com⁠

Folklore & Legend Collections

Appalachian History Project⁠https://www.appalachianhistory.net⁠

Atlas Obscura – Appalachian folklore and legends⁠https://www.atlasobscura.com⁠

Additional Folklore References

Cherokee Nation Cultural Resources⁠https://www.cherokee.org⁠

Smithsonian Folklife & Cultural Heritage⁠https://folklife.si.edu⁠

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In Part One of this two-part series, we explore real missing person cases connected to the Appalachian region and the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail.

Appalachia stretches from Georgia to Maine, cutting through national forests, deep mountain hollows, and some of the most rugged terrain in the eastern United States.

In this episode, we examine documented disappearances, including:

• Dennis Martin (1969) – 6-year-old boy who vanished in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park• Trenny Lynn Gibson (1976) – A teenager who disappeared during a school trip near Clingmans Dome• Louise Chaput (2001) – Quebec woman murdered while hiking in the White Mountains

These cases remain either unsolved or deeply debated.

SOURCES 

• FBI – Highway Serial Killings Initiative⁠https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2009/april/highwayserial_040609⁠

• National Park Service – Great Smoky Mountains⁠https://www.nps.gov/grsm⁠

• Disappearance of Dennis Martin⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Dennis_Martin⁠

• Trenny Gibson CaseTennessee Bureau of Investigation

• Louise Chaput CaseAppalachian Trail Noir (archival reporting)Backpacker Magazine reporting on NH cold cases

• Samuel Little – FBI Archives⁠https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/samuel-little-serial-killer⁠

• Gary Hilton Case Documentation

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the most haunted universities in North America and the UK — from abandoned asylum buildings and Gothic towers to medieval cathedral ruins and anatomy theatres linked to real historical crimes.

These aren’t urban legends pulled out of thin air. Many of these campuses are built on documented history involving:

📚 Sources

Ohio University & The Ridges

University of Toronto

Queen’s University

University of St Andrews

University of Edinburgh

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Valentine’s Day is often framed as a celebration of romance — roses, chocolate, candlelight.

But beneath the surface, February 14th carries a far older and darker history.

In this bonus episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the lesser-known folklore and urban legends connected to Valentine’s Day — from early martyrdom and ritual superstition to backroad ghost stories and industrial-era mining lore.

Sources & Further Reading

If you enjoyed this bonus episode:

💌 Follow Let’s Talk Spooky
⭐ Leave a rating or review
🖤 Share with someone who loves a little history with their hauntings

Until next time…
 Stay curious. Stay spooky.

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore modern accounts of time slips, missing time, and parallel reality experiences shared by users on Reddit.

From waking up in impossible locations with no memory of how they got there… to stepping into what felt like another universe… these first-hand accounts blur the line between psychological phenomenon and paranormal mystery.

Are these glitches in perception? Dissociation? Dimensional shifts?
 Or something far stranger?

Stay curious. Stay spooky.

📚 Sources

Stories sourced from public Reddit threads on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix and r/ParanormalEncounters.
 Additional references include folklore accounts of time slips and psychological research on dissociation and missing time.

⚠️ Disclaimer

The stories discussed in this episode are shared from public Reddit forums and reflect personal experiences and interpretations of the original posters. These accounts are not independently verified.

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Time slips don’t arrive with spectacle.
They happen quietly—on familiar roads, well-marked trails, and in places people believe they know.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the folklore, historical accounts, and modern experiences of time slips: moments when people report briefly stepping outside linear time. Across cultures and centuries, these encounters share the same unsettling details—sudden silence, altered landscapes, missing hours, and the instinctive certainty that staying would be a mistake.

We move from early folklore warnings about “thin places” and forbidden roads into documented case studies and contemporary accounts, including travelers who pass through villages that no longer exist and hikers who narrowly avoid stopping in places that feel profoundly wrong.

Fear appears to end the experience. Movement restores the world. And those who return are left with the same quiet certainty: something real happened, even if it cannot be explained.

This episode isn’t about proving time slips.
 It’s about recognizing the patterns they leave behind—and what they suggest about how fragile the present moment may be.

Condensed Sources & Further Reading

Historical & Documented Cases

Folklore & Cultural Context

Psychical & Modern Accounts

TikTok: @letstalkspookypod 

Insta: @letstalkspooky 

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com 

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore four ships whose stories continue to drift through maritime history and folklore. These ships reveal how maritime disasters don’t always sink into history—they linger, resurface, and sometimes drift back into view.

SS Valencia (1906)

SS Atlantic (1873)

Baychimo (Abandoned 1931)

Pass of Melfort

🎧 Content Note

This episode blends documented maritime history with regional folklore and later retellings. Where stories move beyond archival evidence, they are presented as cultural responses to loss and danger along Canada’s coast.

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In 1863, the quiet fishing village of Sandy Cove was forever changed by a single, unsettling discovery.

Along the rocky shoreline, locals found a young man sitting alone on the beach—both of his legs freshly amputated, his clothes still fine, his expression calm but distant. When asked who he was or how he came to be there, he spoke only one word:

“Jerome.”

Over the next fifty years, Jerome would become one of Atlantic Canada’s most enduring mysteries. He lived out his life moving between homes and institutions across Nova Scotia, refusing to explain his past, lashing out violently when pressed, and guarding his silence with almost supernatural determination.

Was Jerome a sailor punished for mutiny? A political exile from Europe? A victim of organized crime—or a man deliberately erased? Sources & Further Reading- Primary & Historical Sources

Secondary & Folklore Sources

Online & Reference Materials

Episode Links- 

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/NgYX0NnAXZb

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/10mSdwwAXZb

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New Orleans has always belonged to the night.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we step into the gas-lit streets of the French Quarter to uncover the vampire legends that took root in the city’s earliest days—where European superstition, colonial fear, and scandal blurred the line between myth and history.

We trace how Old World vampire folklore crossed the Atlantic and embedded itself in New Orleans, shaping burial customs, whispered convent legends, and tales of blood-drinking figures who walked openly among society. From the unsettling story of the Carter Brothers to the infamous legend of Jacques St. Germain, these vampires were not creatures of castles—but of parties, parlors, and disappearing acts.

This episode explores how fear of the undead reflected real historical anxieties about death, disease, and identity in one of America’s most haunted cities—and why New Orleans remains inseparable from vampire lore to this day.

Pour yourself a drink, lock the doors, and walk with us into the dark.

 📚 Sources & Further Reading

Historical & Folklore Sources

New Orleans–Specific Sources

Jacques St. Germain & Vampire Lore

Cultural & Pop Culture Context

📸 Follow @letstalkspookypod on TikTok & Instagram ⭐ Leave a review to help fellow spooky souls find the show 📩 Have a vampire story or local legend? Send it in for a future listener episode

Until next time…

🖤 Stay Spooky 

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Long before Dracula, Ireland was already telling stories of the dead who refused to stay buried.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore ancient Irish vampire lore—legends of revenants, blood-drinking dead, and cursed burials rooted in fear, famine, and unresolved death. From the tragic tale of the Dearg-Due to the violent legend of Abhartach, these stories reveal a darker understanding of the undead, where vampires were not romantic outsiders, but neighbors, rulers, and lovers.

These early Irish legends would go on to shape many of the vampire-slaying traditions found across Europe, leaving behind a legacy of fear, ritual, and ancient hunger.

Sources & Further Reading

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Long before Christmas became a season of comfort and light, midwinter was a time of hunger, fear, and moral reckoning. Across Europe, stories emerged of creatures who roamed during the longest nights—watching households, judging behavior, and punishing those who failed to prepare for the harshness of winter.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the folklore of three of the most unsettling Christmas figures: Grýla, her monstrous companion Yule Cat, and the Alpine enforcer Krampus. We also examine the darker legends surrounding Saint Nicholas, including the infamous tale of the pickled children—revealing how fear, morality, and survival shaped early holiday storytelling.

These were not stories meant to entertain. They were warnings. And in the depths of winter, they mattered.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

Send us Fan Mail

Long before the Twelve Days of Christmas became a cheerful song, they were feared.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the ancient folklore surrounding the Twelve Days — a liminal stretch of time between Christmas and Epiphany when the boundaries between the living and the dead were believed to weaken. Across Europe, people feared that spirits roamed freely, animals spoke, omens appeared, and the Wild Hunt rode through winter storms.

Drawing from Germanic, Norse, Alpine, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh traditions, this episode examines why silence, restraint, and ritual protection were believed to be essential for survival during midwinter. From ancestral spirits returning home, to dangerous thresholds and supernatural processions, the Twelve Days were not meant to be celebrated — they were meant to be endured.

Because when the year was dying, and the new one had not yet begun, people believed the world was listening.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

Primary & Scholarly Sources

Regional Folklore & Traditions

Additional References

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They came singing.

They came smiling.

And sometimes… they came to kill.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we step into the dark side of a tradition meant to spread cheer. From ancient winter rituals and threatening songs to Victorian-era fear tactics and modern urban legends, we explore the unsettling history of Christmas caroling—and the moments when those voices at the door were anything but welcome.

Caroling wasn’t always harmless. In some places, it was loud, aggressive, and dangerous. In others, it became a mask for violence, home invasion, and terror hidden behind song.

So if you hear singing outside your door tonight…

You may want to think twice before answering.

Source Material & Further Reading

This episode draws on historical folklore research, social history, and cultural analysis, including:

Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain

Jacqueline Simpson & Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore

BBC Culture, “The Dark Origins of Christmas Carols”

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20141219-the-dark-origins-of-carols

The British Library, “Christmas in Victorian Britain”

https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/christmas-in-victorian-britain

Old Bailey Online, historical records of public disorder and group violence

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org

Jan Harold Brunvand, The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Atlas Obscura, articles on dark holiday traditions

https://www.atlasobscura.com

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Victorian England may be remembered for its carols, holly, and festive cheer—but beneath the flickering glow of candlelight, Christmas was once the season for ghosts. In this chilling holiday episode, we delve into the forgotten tradition of telling supernatural tales on Christmas Eve, long before Halloween claimed the spotlight.

We delve into the Dickens-era fascination with spirits and the supernatural, unraveling why Victorians believed the veil thinned during midwinter. We also travel through some of the era’s eeriest Christmas hauntings, including the classic tale of The Phantom Coach and a final, haunting encounter with The Lady in Black.

Blending historical commentary, folklore, and immersive narrative storytelling, this episode reveals the darker side of Christmas that Victorian families once gathered around the fire to hear. So grab your mulled wine, settle into the lamplight, and journey with us into a winter world where the shadows are long, and the spirits still wander.

Stay curious, stay spooky—and happy haunted holidays.

Condensed Source Breakdown — Haunted Victorian ChristmasHistory.com – “The Forgotten Tradition of Christmas Ghost Stories”

Used for background on why Victorians told ghost stories at Christmas, the connection to older midwinter beliefs, and the decline of the tradition in the 20th century.

Used for context on Dickens’ influence on Christmas ghost storytelling and the popularity of serialized supernatural tales during the Victorian era.

Primary source for the mid-episode narrative retelling and an example of a classic Victorian Christmas ghost story.

Used to support atmospheric details, cultural customs, and inspiration for the final “Lady in Black” narrative.

Used to frame Victorian interest in the supernatural and explain the popularity of ghost stories during the holiday season.

Charles Dickens & Victorian Ghost Fiction J. Sheridan Le Fanu – “The Phantom Coach” (1864) General Victorian Folklore & Winter Hauntings Background on the 19th-Century Spiritualist Movement

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In this episode, we wander into the shadows of early modern Europe and North America to uncover the unsettling history of witch marks—the mysterious symbols carved into thresholds, hearths, barns, attics, and even hidden inside old furniture. These markings, long misunderstood and often misattributed, were believed to protect homes from malevolent forces. Today, they tell a quieter but no less eerie story about fear, folklore, and the lengths people went to in order to keep themselves safe.

Whether you love folklore, hidden history, or the mysterious little details we leave behind, this episode is for you. Turn down the lights, take a closer look at the walls around you… and let’s talk spooky.

Below are the historical, academic, and credible sources used to shape the episode’s folklore, dates, examples, and terminology.

These elements were blended, res

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Episode Show Notes

Welcome back to Let’s Talk Spooky, the podcast where eerie tales, strange encounters, and whispered folklore come to life.
Tonight’s episode is a special one — because every story you’re about to hear came from you. From shadowed hallways and childhood bedrooms to lonely highways and ancestral homes that hold more than memories, these listener submissions prove one thing: the world is far stranger, and far more haunted, than most people realize.

Whether you’re here for brush-ups with the unexplained, ghostly warnings, or those moments that make you question what you really saw in the corner of your eye… this collection has it all.

In This Episode

You’ll hear stories featuring:

Each narrative is read in a storytelling format to preserve the voice, emotion, and atmosphere of the original experience.

Want to Be Featured in a Future Listener Episode?

Have a ghost story, strange encounter, cryptid sighting, or family legend you’re brave enough to share?
 You can submit your story through:

Your tale could be featured in the next Listener Special.

Support the Podcast

If you enjoy tonight’s episode:

Music & Production

Produced and hosted by Shauna
 Original stories submitted by our amazing listeners
 Soundtrack and ambience curated to maximize the chills

Until Next Time…

Stay curious. Stay spooky.
 And remember — if something feels like it’s watching you… maybe it is.

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 In this episode, we travel to Bell Island, Newfoundland — a place where iron ore, phantom miners, UFO theories, and unexplained explosions collide. From the tragic history beneath the island to eerie firsthand accounts of shadow figures in the mines, Bell Island remains one of Canada’s strangest paranormal hotspots. 

 Sources & Further Reading

Call to Action

If you loved this episode, don’t forget to:

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Before the costumes, the candy, and the porch lights, there was a fire burning on the hills of ancient Ireland. It was called Samhain — the night when the veil between the living and the dead grew thin.
In this Halloween special, we travel back through time to uncover how a pagan festival of harvest and remembrance became the night we now know as Halloween — from the fires of the Celts to the prayers of medieval England, the tricks of Stingy Jack, and the playful magic of the Witching Night.

Hear the echoes of history in every flickering jack-o’-lantern, every mask, and every whispered story shared by candlelight. Because on this night, even now, the veil grows thin.

Sources & References

Celtic & Samhain History

Christian Adaptation & All Hallows’ Eve

Stingy Jack & the Jack-O’-Lantern Legend

The Witching Night – Halloween Games & Customs

Modern Traditions & Folklore Today

Storytelling & Original Script

💀 Credits & Socials

Written and narrated by Shauna
Produced by Let’s Talk Spooky
Editing, sound design, and original script by Shauna

Follow for more spooky folklore:
 🎧 TikTok / Instagram / Pinterest: @LetsTalkSpooky
📬 Send your ghost stories: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

🌐 Listen on: letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com

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Remember those creepy games we dared each other to play at sleepovers — Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror, the Pencil Cross game at school, or hiding from a possessed doll in the dark?In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the origins and unsettling folklore behind the games we were warned never to play.From the mirror rituals that trace back to old divination practices, to the Japanese legend of Hitori Kakurenbo — “One-Man Hide and Seek” — where dolls become vessels for the dead, these so-called “games” blur the line between childhood curiosity and ancient superstition.We’ll uncover how these traditions evolved from European love omens and séance parlor tricks to modern internet dares, and why we keep playing them — even when we know something might be watching back.👁️ “Three Games We Shouldn’t Have Played” —
 Because sometimes, playtime opens the wrong door.🔦 Listen wherever you stream your favorite spooky stories.🎃 Follow @LetsTalkSpooky on TikTok and Instagram for episode visuals, behind-the-scenes lore, and listener submissions.

📚 Sources & References:

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In 1878, the small town of Amherst, Nova Scotia became the stage for one of Canada’s most chilling and violent hauntings.

When nineteen-year-old Esther Cox narrowly escaped an attempted assault, strange disturbances soon followed—objects hurled across rooms, violent knocking that answered questions, and spontaneous fires that defied explanation. Witnesses swore the events were real. Skeptics called it hysteria.

Enter Walter Hubbell, an actor turned investigator, who lived in the house and documented every terrifying detail. His account would become The Great Amherst Mystery—a case that still blurs the line between trauma, belief, and the supernatural.

Was Esther haunted by something beyond this world—or by the echoes of her own pain?

So, gather close, and let’s talk spooky.

 Sources & References

🎙️ About This Episode

Written, researched, and narrated by Shauna
Produced by Let’s Talk Spooky Podcast
Sound design & post-production by Shauna

📬 Follow & Connect

👻 Instagram: @letstalkspooky

🎧 TikTok: @letstalkspooky

📧 Share your stories: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

🌐 Listen on Buzzsprout: https://letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com

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Scarecrows—just straw and cloth, right? Or something much older, stranger, and darker?
 In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we wander the fields to uncover the chilling history and folklore of scarecrows. From the tragic tale of Albert Engel in Wisconsin, to Celtic effigies carved from turnips, to Japan’s kakashi festivals and the uncanny scarecrow village of Nagoro, these figures have always been more than just guardians of the harvest. They’ve been seen as protectors, omens, and even restless watchers that blur the line between the living and the supernatural.

So grab your lantern, keep to the path, and join me as we explore why these silent sentinels continue to haunt our stories and our nightmares.

Folklore & History

Historical & Cultural Accounts

🔗 Connect With Let’s Talk Spooky

Send us Fan Mail

Episode Summary:
Our haunted road trip comes to its final stop — the legendary supernatural hotspots of Vancouver Island. From the tragic tale of Yow Kum in Victoria’s Chinatown to phantom ships, haunted lighthouses, ghostly nuns, and one of Canada’s most haunted cemeteries, this episode ties together a journey across some of the island’s darkest and most unforgettable places.

Join me as we explore:

This episode is the grand finale of the Haunted Road Trip Edition, weaving history, folklore, and ghost stories into one last spooky ride across the island.

📌 Sources & Further Reading

🔮 Connect with Let’s Talk Spooky

👻 Follow on Instagram & TikTok: @letstalkspookypodcast

🎧 Listen & subscribe on Buzzsprout: https://letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com

📩 Share your spooky stories: DM on socials or email letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Description:
British Columbia is a place where wilderness and legend intertwine. From the shadowy forests where Sasquatch walks, to the foggy shorelines haunted by the shapeshifting Kushtaka, to the deep black waters of the Salish Sea where Cadborosaurus might rise—tonight’s episode explores the creatures that have shaped Indigenous stories, inspired modern sightings, and kept mystery alive in Canada’s wild west.

Join me as we uncover the lore, the sightings, and the warnings carried through generations… and decide for yourself what waits out there in the wild.

In This Episode:

📚 Sources & References

Sasquatch

Kushtaka

Cadborosaurus (Caddy)

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Episode Summary:

Tonight, we check into one of Canada’s most haunted hotels — the legendary Banff Springs Hotel. Hidden within its luxury and history are tales that chill even the most seasoned traveler. From the tragic Ghost Bride still seen gliding down the grand staircase, to Room 873 — a room that was allegedly sealed off after a horrific murder-suicide — and Sam the Bellman, the ever-polite ghost who still helps guests with their luggage…

But the hauntings don’t stop there.We explore unsettling guest stories, phantom phone calls, eerie elevator rides, and lingering spirits that make this hotel more than just a historic landmark — it’s a living, breathing legend.

Welcome to the Castle in the Rockies. Check in… if you dare.

Website: ⁠https://letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com⁠Instagram & TikTok: @letstalkspookypodContact: ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠🎧 Subscribe, rate, and leave a review to keep the stories flowing!

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In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we journey across Alberta’s eeriest landscapes — from ancient stone guardians to the forgotten towns they watched over.

First, we explore the haunting Indigenous legends behind the Hoodoos of the Alberta badlands — towering rock formations believed to be petrified giants, guardians of sacred lands, and even cursed beings struck down by the spirits.

Then, we travel through time into four of Western Canada’s most chilling ghost towns:

We explore the tragic history, eerie encounters, and the folklore that lingers long after the last train left.

🔍 Referenced Legends & Lore:

📚 Sources & Further Reading:

📲 Stay Connected:

🔗 Website: letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com
 📸 Instagram & TikTok: @LetsTalkSpookypod
 💬 Got a local legend to share? Email us at letstalkspooky@gmail.com

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In this episode, we buckle up for a journey through some of the world’s most haunted highways. These roads are more than just routes — they’re stitched with ghost stories, legends, and unexplained encounters that have left even seasoned drivers shaken.

Featured Locations & Legends:

📚 Sources & References

Send us Fan Mail

Episode Summary:

They sound sweet, playful… harmless.
 But behind the sing-song melodies of childhood lies something far older — and often far darker.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we peel back the innocent surface of familiar nursery rhymes to uncover the bloody history, buried warnings, and folkloric origins they carry. From the burning martyrs behind “Three Blind Mice” to the sinister symbolism of “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” and the terrifying legend of “The Muffin Man,” we explore how these rhymes became time-traveling vessels for superstition, grief, and hidden truths.

🕯️ What You’ll Hear:

📚 Referenced Articles & Sources:

🔮 Listener Note:

This episode includes references to historical violence, child death, and folklore with dark origins. Listener discretion is advised.

💀 Want More Spooky in Your Feed?

Be sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts — and share the episode with your favorite folklore lover.

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In Part Two of our funeral superstitions series, we explore the eerie traditions and strange rituals people have used across history to keep the dead from rising — and protect the living from what might return.

We cover:

📚 Sources & References:

🧠 Listener Tip:

Superstitions weren’t just fear-based — they were survival stories. Whether it was disease prevention or spiritual defense, many of these practices were born out of lived experiences and local lore.

🔗 Follow & Subscribe:

Listen to more eerie episodes of Let’s Talk Spooky at:
🎧 letstalkspookypodcast.buzzsprout.com

Follow on TikTok & Instagram: @LetsTalkSpooky
 Tag us with #LetsTalkSpooky to share your own funeral superstitions or family lore!

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In this chilling first part of a two-part series, Shauna takes you on a journey through centuries of funeral rituals shaped by both reverence and terror. From sin-eaters in rural Britain to ancient Greek coins meant to pay the ferryman, this episode unearths the spiritual, folkloric, and at times horrifying ways humans have tried to ensure the dead stay at rest. With stories that span from historical rituals to near-death modern miracles, we peel back the veil on how humanity has tried to say goodbye… and why we’re still afraid it might not be enough.

Key Topics Covered:

Sin-Eaters:Davies, Owen. The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts.Ronald Hutton’s work on British folklore and folk magic"The Last Sin Eater" (historical references to Richard Munslow, Shropshire)Ancient Greek Burial Customs:Garland, Robert. The Greek Way of DeathArchaeological studies of obol placement in 5th–4th century BCE gravesClassical mythology of Charon and the River StyxPremature Burial and Wake Traditions:Jan Bondeson, Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal FearVictorian mourning rituals & the role of wakes before embalmingCase study: Susan Armstrong (1839) [urban legend and folklore reports]Cross-Cultural Funerary Practices:Egyptian Book of the Dead references to DuatNorse burial ships and coin offeringsHaitian Vodou rituals involving Baron SamediReddit User Story (modern legend):Shared by u/missymaypen on Reddit’s r/Paranormal

Have your own eerie tale or hometown haunting?Email: ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠Follow Instagram @letstalkspookypodcast on TikTok @ letstalkspookypod

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This week on Let’s Talk Spooky, we unlock the doors to two haunted homes that history tried to forget.

First, we travel to the tangled fields of Goa, India, where the tragic legend of the D’Mello House still lingers—two brothers, one house, and a silence that never truly settled.

Then, we journey to Nova Scotia’s oldest town to visit the Bailey House, a Georgian-era home where ghostly perfume drifts through the halls… and a pale woman is said to still wait by the window for a ship that never returned.

Ghost stories, historical echoes, and the kind of hauntings that don’t scream—they watch.

📚 Sources & References

🏚️ D’Mello House – Goa, India

Local legend compiled from regional folklore, local accounts, and oral retellings

Anecdotes from tourist blogs and video entries of midnight visits (e.g., Goa-based haunted places on YouTube)

Mentioned in articles like:

Haunted Places in Goa - Holidify

India Times - Haunted Houses of India

🕯️ Bailey House – Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia

Built c.1770, Georgian-style house

Historical context from:

Historic Places Canada Registry – Bailey House

Annapolis Royal Heritage Tour Guides

Folklore and ghost sightings gathered from:

Local tourism and B&B guest testimonials

Ghost stories featured in Nova Scotia supernatural forums and books like Haunted Canada series

Destination Halifax Haunted Highlights

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Some forests welcome you. Others… watch you.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore two of the world’s most haunted forests: Aokigahara, Japan’s mysterious Sea of Trees, known for its silence, sorrow, and restless spirits... and Germany’s Black Forest, where werewolves roam, witches cast curses, and tall shadowy figures are said to follow wanderers home.

If you’ve ever felt the woods were watching — maybe they were. 

Content Warning:

This episode contains discussion of:

Listener discretion is advised.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please know you are not alone.
 📞 Canada & U.S.:
National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Dial 988 (24/7, free, and confidential)

📞 For Canada (Talk Suicide Canada):
1-833-456-4566 | talksuicide.ca

📞 For listeners outside North America:
Visit https://findahelpline.com for international resources. 

Sources & Further Reading:

Connect with Us:

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In this chilling episode, we step behind the crumbling walls and flickering lights of some of the world’s most haunted hospitals. From the infamous death tunnel of Waverly Hills Sanatorium, to the mysterious and tragic lore of Sayama Hospital in Japan, to the silent echoes trapped inside the overgrown halls of Riverview Hospital in British Columbia, we explore what happens when pain lingers long after the patients are gone.

🧠 Topics Covered:

Dark history of Waverly Hills Sanatorium (Louisville, Kentucky)

Sayama Hospital and the cultural impact of the Sayama Incident (Japan)

The rise and fall of Riverview Hospital (Coquitlam, British Columbia)

🔗 Resources & References:

Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Waverly Hills Historical Overview: https://www.therealwaverlyhills.com

“The Haunted History of Waverly Hills Sanatorium” – Legends of America

Personal testimonies and ghost tours via [YouTube – Ghost Hunters & BuzzfeedUnsolved]

Sayama Hospital & Sayama Incident

Background on the Sayama Incident: Human Rights Now – Sayama Case

Creepy Reddit encounter near Sayama: r/Paranormal

Cultural impact and hospital myth: [r/UnresolvedMysteries]

RiverviewHospital

Riverviewhistory via BC Archives: BC Government Heritage Site

CreepyReddit tales and eyewitness accounts:

r/coquitlam– haunted places

r/Paranormal– bus ghost story

r/britishcolumbia– abandoned buildings

📲 Connect With Us:

👻 Instagram: @letstalkspooky

📩 Email Your Stories: letstalkspooky@gmail.com

🎧 Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen!

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In this episode, we delve into the eerie world of garden folklore,where healing herbs and haunted hedgerows blur the lines between magic and myth. You'll hear the tragic true tale of Agnes Sampson, explore the deadly cry of the mandrake root, and wander into the modern urban legend of the Witch Garden on Widdershins Lane. We’ll also uncover ancient traditions such as moon planting, spirit gardens, and poison plots.

 Topics Covered:

Further Reading & Resources:

Agnes Sampson – North Berwick Witch Trials
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-North-Berwick-Witch-Trials/Mandrake Folklore & Medicinal History
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4658872/The Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle
https://www.alnwickgarden.com/the-garden/poison-garden/Lunar Gardening Guide (Folkloric Perspective)
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/gardening-by-the-moonVictorian Floriography and Symbolism of Flowers
https://www.languageofflowers.com/Witch Gardens in History and Myth
https://www.learnreligions.com/herbs-of-the-witchs-garden-2562107https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/pendle-witches-witch-trials-what-happened/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

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Show notes: 

In this episode, we head deep into the forest to explore two chilling legends that haunt campers and hikers alike. First, we meet The Whistling Man, a sinister figure inspired by Venezuela's El Silbón, who might just follow you home if you dare to answer his eerie four-note tune. Then, we unravel the mystery of The Last Campsite, a ghostly clearing in the woods that some say doesn’t exist—except to those who vanish there.

🧾 Stories Featured:

The Whistling Man

Origin: Inspired by the legend of El Silbón from Venezuela

Key themes: Isolation, whistling as a supernatural warning, cultural punishment folklore

Modern retelling set in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

The Last Campsite

Type: Urban legend / Creepypasta-style folklore

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⚠️ Listener Discretion Advised:This episode discusses themes of death, including child mortality and era-specific religious beliefs. Listener discretion is advised.

Step back in time as we explore one of the most hauntingly intimate traditions of the Victorian era: postmortem and spirit photography. In this chilling episode, we peer into a time when families memorialized their loved ones not just in portraits of the living, but in final images of the dead. Discover how technological innovation, religious beliefs, and grief collided to create a tradition that is both unsettling and deeply human.

We’ll uncover:

🔮 Whether you're a believer in the beyond or just intrigued by eerie history, this episode will have you second-guessing the next old photo you stumble across…

Want to See the Photos?Check out our Instagram page ⁠@letstalkspookypodcast⁠ to view some of the images discussed in the episode, including the ghostly figure believed to be Freddy Jackson. Got your own eerie photo or family ghost story? Tag us or send it in—you might hear it featured in a future episode!

Sources & Further Reading:

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This episode unravels the eerie side of second-hand shopping. From a ghostly Victorian dress to a haunted eBay painting and a sinister vintage chair, we explore real stories and folklore that beg the question: Can objects carry emotional residue or even spiritual energy?

Let's find out!  

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Stay spooky, friends  👻 

This episode covers: 

Got a haunted thrift story of your own?Email at: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.comFollow us on Instagram: ⁠@letstalkspookypodcast⁠

Sources & References:

👻 Credits:Written, researched, and produced by Shauna Taylor.

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Episode One:

Step into the flickering firelight of ancient tradition as we explore the rich history and folklore of Beltane, the Gaelic fire festival that marks the beginning of summer. This first episode unpacks the origins of Beltane, its ties to fertility, fire rituals, fae folklore, and centuries-old superstitions. Discover how this sacred seasonal turning point once shaped communities—and how it still enchants those who celebrate today.

Light a candle, stay close to the flames, and get ready to talk spooky. 🔥🌸🧚‍♀️

Show notes:

In This Episode:

The origins and meaning of Beltane

Fire festivals and fertility rituals across Celtic lands

The Maypole and its symbolic significance

Hawthorn flowers, handfastings, and ancient marriage customs

Faeries of the old world—mischievous, powerful, and dangerous

Beltane superstitions and protections

A haunting Irish legend of a forgotten offering to the fae

Beltane’s connection to witches and cunning folk

Resources & Further Reading:

History.com: Beltane

Historic UK: May Day Celebrations

Folk Lore: or, Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland by James Napier

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your fellow spooky friends.
Until next time – stay curious, stay safe, and stay spooky. 🌙