Telling ghost stories at Christmas, popularised by Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, became a cherished Victorian tradition. RACHAEL ELIZABETH reveals seven other spooky stories to enjoy over the festive period…
Christmas is the time for merriment and cheer – and also ghost stories!
Telling ghost stories at Christmas was primarily a British Victorian tradition, mostly due to the cold, dark evenings that left people craving entertainment; telling spooky stories by candlelight, huddled around a crackling fire would have made the perfect backdrop for sharing ghostly tales.
The connection between Ghost stories and Christmas time was made popular by Charles Dickens and his 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, and although Dickens didn’t invent the idea of ghost stories at Christmas, he certainly helped project the tradition into popular culture.
A Christmas Carol may be one of the most well-known ghost stories around the festive period, but many other brilliant British paranormal writers wrote, by invitation, for Charles Dickens and his popular magazine, Household Words, which would also include a Christmas special edition.
If you would like to read some chilling, Victorian ghost stories this Christmas, below is a collection of seven superbly supernatural tales perfect for a cold, dreary December night…
The Open Door by Margaret Oliphant
This particular Scottish author was known for her strange tales, and how she was able to write in such a way that her tales ooze with apprehension, guaranteed to keep her reader unnerved throughout.
The Open Door was published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in January 1882 and is a ghost story based on a mysterious voice taunting Colonel Mortimer, a retired officer, as he and his family move into the remote Scottish mansion of Brentwood.
The Wondersmith by Fitz James O’Brien
The Wondersmith is considered a Christmas horror story, written by Irish-American author Fitz James O’Brien. O’Brien was, and still is, considered one of the forerunners of science fiction novels, as this novel was the first of its kind to explore the concept of robots.
The story is based around shop owner, Herr Hippe, who is believed to be an evil wizard; he conspires with another ominous character, Madame Filomel, who collects evil souls in bottles.
They plan to construct an array of wooden dolls and allow the souls to possess the toys, so when they are opened and Christmas day, the dolls will murder the children who open the presents.
The Mistletoe Bough/Ginevra by Samuel Rogers
The Mistletoe Bough gained popularity in 1859 when it was released as a song by T.H. Bayley and Sir Henry Bishop and became a ‘national occurrence’ to be sung around Christmas time. But the dark tale in question originated in the form of a poem by Samuel Rogers in 1823 titled, Ginevra.
The poem is said to be based on a true story in which a bride, who partakes in a game of hide and seek on the morn of her wedding, disappears, and many years later her skeletal remains are found in a chest stowed away in the attic.
Many stately homes have claimed to be the location of the story, such as Bramshill House in Hampshire, Castle Horneck in Cornwall and Minster Lovell Hall in Oxfordshire.
The Signal Man by Charles Dickens
The Signal Man is a short story by Charles Dickens that is based on one of his own harrowing experiences.
In June of 1865, a train from Folkestone to London, in which Dickens was travelling, derailed whilst crossing a viaduct in Kent.
The carriage plummeted down an embankment, before crashing into a dried river bed; 10 passengers were killed with another 40 seriously injured. The accident is said to have deeply affected Dickens.
A year after the disaster, Dickens published The Signal Man, an immensely atmospheric ghost story in which the narrator meets the signalman. However, the man is haunted by a malevolent spirit whose apparitions come just before terrible rail accidents.
The Old Nurses Story by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Old Nurses Story was featured in the 1852 Household Words magazine, founded by Charles Dickens and is the first ghost story Gaskell had ever written.
The story follows Hester, the old nurse, who tells the children of Miss Rosamond an ominous story from their mother’s youth. Much like a standard ghost story, The Old Nurses Story combines disembodied music, a gloomy mansion and the apparition of a ghostly child…
The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Body Snatcher is a terrifying horror-crime story written in 1884 by Robert Louis Stevenson, who based his characters on the infamous criminals employed by surgeon Robert Knox, Burke and Hare.
The tale follows two doctors who supply bodies for dissection for their medical classes, however, one of the men believes the other may have murdered one man in particular, as he ends up at the autopsy table.
The two men dissect the body in hopes of concealing any involvement, but as they travel to dig up another body, they find that the body they had previously dissected wasn’t so easy to discard.
A Strange Christmas Game by Charlotte Riddel
This ghost story, written by Riddel in 1868, is about a brother and sister, Clare and John Lester, who unexpectedly inherits an old, spooky house.
The strange noises that fill the corridors and echo through the ramshackle house set them on a quest to find out the catalyst of the noises, but their morbid curiosity leads them to witness a ghostly re-enactment of a brutal murder.
Many of the stories above contain all the elements to create a beautifully ominous and atmospheric ghost story; from haunted mansions to dark magic, all of these tales have the power to send a chill down your spine this Christmas.
So, why not light a few candles, wrap yourself in a cosy blanket and indulge yourself in a traditionally spooky Christmas?
What’s your favourite ghost story you enjoy around Christmas? Tell us in the comments section below!
