The Medieval Ghosts of Christmas Past

With the festive season nearly upon us, most of us are running around with our hair on fire making last minute preparations for the big day. Then, of course, there’s the hotchpotch of Christmas traditions to observe, most of which have grown up over hundreds of years. In the Templeton household, however, we make a special effort each year to bring something of the medieval into our celebrations. So far, we’ve experimented with food and drink, brought in the Christmas greenery and learned some of the earliest carols, but this year I fancied something a bit different.

Christmas is here again…

This Advent season I’ve been reading a book of ghost stories, and as the telling of spooky tales is a well-established Christmas tradition I thought I’d see if I could find a few from the Middle Ages to tell around the festive fire. Luckily, it wasn’t long before a surfeit of spirits, revenants and monsters crept out of the medieval woodwork to answer my call. So please pour yourself a glass of mead and join me by the warming flames to delve into the darker side of yuletide.

Pull up a chair for some ghost stories by the fire…

When it comes to seasonal ghost stories, our thoughts instantly turn to Ebenezer Scrooge and his three spectral visitors. But in fact, when Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, he was following a much older festive tradition. Scary tales of monsters and creatures from beyond the grave were being told way back in the Middle Ages. The creepy custom emerged not from any link to the birth of Christ, but instead from the pagan festival of Yule and the Winter Solstice. In the bleak midwinter days of yore, when darkness gathered and the next harvest was but a distant hope, it was believed that the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest, and so the dead could return to visit the living, either for good or evil. Across Europe, people would huddle around the fire with a warming drink and tell bloodcurdling tales to pass the long nights, and many of the fantastical stories survive for us to recount today.

Let the spooky times roll…

In the Icelandic Saga of the People of Floi, written down c1300, a great Christmas feast comes to a terrifying end after a group of boisterous revelers are disturbed by a mysterious knocking at the door. When one of the party goes out to see who’s there, unwisely declaring that ‘it is undoubtedly good news’, he instantly goes mad and dies. A further six group members are then similarly picked off, one by one, each being tempted outside to a grisly end by spectral predators. Interestingly, those in the party who had already gone to bed were spared, perhaps suggesting a cautionary message about seasonal overindulgence. After Christmas, all the dead revelers, together with some deceased locals, return as revenants to cause havoc, and in the end it’s the head of the party, Thorgils, who tackles the unruly undead. Having hit the hay early on the fateful night, Thorgils was smart enough to consign all the bodies to a massive funeral pyre, after which none of the troublesome wraiths were seen again.

It seems that in the Middle Ages, supernatural beings were good at breaking up midwinter feasts. In one of our oldest surviving stories, the Saxon epic poem Beowulf, the monstrous ‘grimma gӕst‘ (meaning ‘spirit’ in Old English), Grendel, terrorises the magnificent Danish mead hall of Heorot ‘for twelve winters’, ruining their feasts with destruction and murder until salvation comes in the shape the heroic warrior Beowulf. Even the Christmas court of King Arthur can’t escape a supernatural intrusion. In the 14th Century epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the legendary king’s yuletide feast is interrupted when a mysterious green stranger, wielding a green axe and riding a green horse, barges in to the dismay of all the guests. The verdant stranger challenges whosoever is brave enough to a deadly ‘Christmas game’ that sets Arthur’s noble nephew, Sir Gawain, on a grand quest during which his knightly virtues are tested to the limit.

The mysterious Green Knight arrives to throw King Arthur’s Christmas into disarray

But medieval ghost stories aren’t limited to ancient sagas and epic verse. The tradition survived the takeover of Christianity, and some of the best tales I found were recorded in chronicles written by men of the cloth. Told through the framework of the Christian faith, the accounts seem to feature the troubled spirits of people who had died ‘bad’ deaths or had transgressed in some way during life. At the end of the twelfth century, the Augustinian canon, historian and chronicler William of Newburgh wrote his History of the Events of England, and he included several accounts of ‘unnatural marvels’ told to him on his travels by reliable witnesses.

William of Newburgh fully believed the stories he recorded in his work

One story hails from our old home of Buckinghamshire, and tells of a man who had died, leaving an ‘honourable’ wife, and was buried ‘with full customary rights’. However, he wasn’t ready to let go of his marriage, because for three consecutive nights following his funeral, he came back to bother his missus in the marital bed. Terrified, the woman arranged a neighbourhood watch team of friends and family to intercept the amorous ghost, and the next night when he appeared he was driven away by the ‘alarmed shouts of the watchmen’. The restless spirit then turned his wrath on those who were keeping him from his beloved, making a nuisance of himself and scaring folk out of their wits. Something had to be done.

The community consulted the church authorities, suggesting the old pagan practice of burning the body. But the bishop felt that would be too sacrilegious, and offered instead to prepare a ‘scroll of absolution’ to be placed on the dead man’s chest in his grave, which should then be re-sealed. To everyone’s relief, the plan worked. Whatever sin the man had been guilty of in life was absolved with the scroll, and the revenant was never seen again. According to William of Newburgh, the account of these events came not only from the people themselves, but also from the bishop who had saved the day with a little help from the Christian doctrine.

A spirit haunting a woman, although I’m sure our Buckinghamshire lady’s husband, having only just been buried, was better looking than this one…

One of the most fascinating collections of ghost stories, dating from around 1400, was left to us by a Cistercian monk from Byland Abbey in Yorkshire. On hearing the accounts directly from ordinary local men and women, the monk decided to write them all down on some blank pages he’d found within an old manuscript. The volume miraculously survived the dissolution of the abbey, but we have the medieval scholar and consummate author of ghost stories M R James to thank for our knowledge of them today. In 1922, James transcribed the monk’s Latin accounts and published them in an academic journal under the title of Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories.

Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, were the Cistercian monk recorded his twelve ghost stories over 600 years ago

In one curious story, a tailor with the odd, but suitably seasonal name of Snowball, was riding home one night when he encountered a shape-shifting spirit. First appearing as a wounded crow with sparks flying from its sides, the spectre attacked him before changing into a dog. After crossing himself and invoking the protection of God, Snowball commanded the creature to speak. A ghostly voice then explained that he had committed crimes in life and was suffering in purgatory, so he needed absolution to be freed. Snowball obtained the necessary scroll and buried it in the man’s grave before meeting with his ghost again. The spirit appeared first as a goat, and then took a human, albeit rather dead form, and said ‘God be praised … I and thirty others will enter into eternal joy’.

A page from the Byland Abbey ghost stories
(Source)

In another tale, a man was riding home with a heavy sack of beans when his horse went lame and he was forced to carry the load on foot. As he went on his way, he was alarmed to suddenly see before him a phantom horse ‘rearing up on its hind legs and striking the air with its front hoofs’. The man invoked divine protection against the fearsome presence, but the equine apparition followed him. Further on, in another attempt to get the man’s attention, the spirit transformed itself, of all things, into a ‘whirling heap of hay with a light shining in the middle of it’.

The man finally addressed his pursuer, asking it to get lost, at which point the ghost finally morphed into a human, said its name and explained ‘the reason for its distress’. It then tried being nice, offering to carry the sack of beans as far as the river. With the spirit unable to cross the water, the sack then reappeared on the man’s back. For this kind favour, the man ‘made sure arrangements were made for masses to be sung so that the spirit which had appeared to him might be helped and absolved’.

We’re not told what exactly was ailing the ghost in this tale, but it seems that, in essence, the same issues caused the restless dead to haunt the living all that time ago as they do today: unfinished business, and a troubled conscience. And once the earthly issues have been resolved, the ghosts can move on, leaving the living in peace again.

Medieval scholar and master of ghost storytelling M R James (1862-1936), who transcribed and published the Byland Ghost stories in 1922.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our brief delve into the medieval world of spine-chilling tales. But the truth is, this is only the tip of the spectral iceberg. My research turned up more stories than I could have imagined, and now I’ve discovered a whole new area for study. From what I’ve learned so far, though, if over yuletide you should encounter a ghost from the Middle Ages, I recommend you either help it, or hide from it. Either way, with a couple of new books on the subject, I think I’ll be telling medieval ghost stories around the fire for many Christmases to come…

Wishing all my readers a very merry – and a very spirited – Christmas!

34 thoughts on “The Medieval Ghosts of Christmas Past”

  1. It’s a strange tradition isn’t it, all huddling around a fire and trying to scare the crap out of each other, giving each other insomnia and a fear of the dark? You’d think some nice sweet fluffy fairy stories would be more appropriate… Nah, far too boring!

    Another fabulous post my love. I love all the Christmas Ghost stories as you know, and a lot of these are new to me. I’m looking forward to hearing more around the fire this Christmas! Mind you, I think I’ll avoid any Scandinavian mead halls this winter – far too many bad things can happen it would seem – I certainly won’t be answering the door!

    Merry Christmas!

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    • It seems the Scandi countries have some very dark tales indeed! So maybe this Christmas we’ll unplug the doorbell! 😉

      I always thought that was an odd way to pass the long winter nights too. But then again, I suppose if you drink enough mead the revenants and shape-shifting ghosts might take on a fluffy fairy appearance! Those good old mead goggles… 😀

      Glad you enjoyed the ghosties though. I Plenty more where they came from…

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    • Thanks, Carol, glad you enjoyed the spooky tales of yore. I can recommend the audiobooks of MR James read by Derek Jacobi if you fancy listening to them instead. They’ll give you goosebumps though, so be warned! 😉

      Have a great Christmas too, Carol, and thanks again. 🙂

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  5. Reading the comments below, I do have a slightly ghostly story…

    Quite a few years ago now, my mother, her friends and I were on our way to a New Year’s Eve Scottish Country Dance at Ingleton. To get to Ingleton from Skipton, you have to drive over Clapham Common – a fairly high and very lonely stretch of common.

    This particular night it was very misty. As we drove along the high common, peering into the thick mist, suddenly a white lady appeared at the side of the road in a long dress looking straight at us.

    We all saw it and were rather taken aback. Then Vera, my mother’s friend, said;
    “Oh it’s so-and-so”

    It was a lady who we said we’d pick up on the way to the dance… quite often we used to ‘wear long’ for the New Year’s Eve parties – I certainly liked to. We all had a good laugh at it on the rest of the journey!

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  7. I never thought I would be sat reading about ghosts in the middle of the night at Christmastime, but here I am doing just that. I’m not sat around the fire either, as the reason I woke up was because I could hear that the central heating wasn’t working if that makes any sense.
    Back in medieval times they didn’t have this problem though, but it seems that they had plenty of other things to worry about which your post has vividly brought to life (!) I very much enjoyed the way you’ve retold these tales Alli, and you certainly do have a great way of bringing your subjects into our homes – although not literally on this occasion I hope.
    As a sidenote, I met a real life ghost once. You probably don’t remember a TV show called Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). I won’t go into what the storylines were all about, but Marty Hopkirk was a ghost who helped a private detective called Jeff Randall. The ghost Marty Hopkirk was played by the actor Kenneth Cope, who I just happened to be sat next to in the bar of The Pilchard on Burgh Island once. It was the first time I had a conversation with a ghost – and hopefully, the last. We had a good laugh though 😊
    Anyway, it’s great to see you back with a Christmas spring in your step Alli and hope it’s not too long before we have some more Medieval Wanderings, and while we’re on the subject, I also hope that Templeton Towers doesn’t get a visit from any spirits, unless it’s one of those from the top shelf – but then again, that’s probably got a lot to do with these ghostly appearances in the first place.
    I’ve just had a shiver go down my spine, but I think that was more to do with a lack of heating than Jacob Marley making his presence known, so I think it’s time to go back to bed. I hope you all have a great Christmas, and if it’s a white one, let’s hope it’s not just somebody in a white cloak 😊

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    • Hey, it did work after all then! 😀 Thanks for the lovely comments, as always Malc, and for such a thorough response. And very amusing. 😉

      Glad you liked the stories – I was amazed by quite how many I found! So, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased): yes I knew about the show because they did a remake of it a while ago with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer in the title roles, and we watched those – they were really good. So if I’d been with you that day in The Pilchard, I’d have met the wrong ghost! 🙂 What we will be watching on Christmas Day is the sadly last ever episode of our favourite TV show, funnily enough called ‘Ghosts’. So I guess, in a way, there will be some spirits in Templeton Towers this Christmas! But they’ll be very welcome. 🙂

      The New Year will indeed bring more Medieval Wanderings, including one major one which I think I mentioned in a recent email. Looking forward to that, as well as my fellow wanderer’s future posts as well. 🙂

      As for deleting the other comments, I’m very happy to keep them if it’s ok with you, as the problems you had give me the opportunity to say, wait for it… that there was obviously a ghost in the machine! 😉

      Anyway, thanks again for the comments, and my very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to you too. 🙂

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      • I didn’t see the Reeves and Mortimer version, but I can imagine they would have made a good job of it. I suppose Kenneth Cope was the ghost from Christmas past in that case. I think you’ve mentioned ‘Ghosts’ before, but I’ve never seen any of it. In fact, if I’m honest I don’t watch much tely at all these days.
        It makes no difference to me at all Alli if you want to keep the other two comments in, but why this happens, I’ve no idea. I left the paragraph spaces out just in case it helped shorten the comment, and it worked for some reason.
        Thanks for the card by the way and hope you got my reply 😊

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      • We hardly ever watch TV either, but there are just a couple of shows we enjoy, and ‘Ghosts’ is one of them. Sadly though, it’s the last one on Christmas night. 😦

        I meant to mention that the last time I commented on your site it wouldn’t let me either, and I had to try several times, so sorry if my comments sometimes appear more than once – at least it shows I don’t give up easily! Maybe our sites aren’t communicating properly again. We’ll have to watch that.

        And yes, thanks, I did get your reply for the card, which I also meant to mention to you. I hope you have a lovely Christmas, and that Nadine has a great time in New York (how adventurous!). Apologies again, I’ve got a brain like a sieve at the moment – even more than usual! You’ll have to come and visit me when they lock me up… 😉

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      • I would rather see 2 or 3 comments than none at all Alli. I’m well aware that communicating between sites isn’t as it should be, and it’s not just ours either, and like you, I won’t give up.
        As regards having a head like a sieve, I think the men in white coats will be knocking on my door first 🙂

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  10. Hi There

    Great ghostly article and as a teenager we often use to head to a local ruined church and tell ghost stories and especially around Christmas time! As you can imagine, some were leaders and better at it than others! We also use to camp out in the summer, on fine nights, with a fire and sleeping bags. The flickering shadows from the flames made the perfect setting for tall story’s.

    As for this Christmas, it’s Oliver Postgate’s autobiography, with looking forward to reading his inspiration with Noggin the Nog.

    Also getting into listening to podcasts so “ I can recommend the audiobooks of MR James read by Derek Jacobi if you fancy listening to them instead.” Is now on the to listen to list.

    Looking forward to 2024 selections and revelations!

    Steve A, Norfolk

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    • Hi Steve, thanks for visiting, and I’m glad you enjoyed the medieval ghost stories. It’s great to meet a fellow fan! Love the image of spooky tales being told around summer camp fires as well as the winter flames!

      Funnily enough, I have all the Derek Jacobi audio books of M R James’s ghost stories on CD, and they make very atmospheric listening whilst out driving on a cold, dark winter’s night! Makes you wonder what’s really out there just around the corner!

      Hope you’ve had a good Christmas and all the best for 2024. 🙂

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    • Hi Martha, forgive me, I’ve been out of the blogsphere altogether over the festive season, but am hoping to get back into it next week when life has settled back to normal again. In the meantime, Happy New Year! 😀

      So glad you enjoyed reading about medieval ghosts. I thought of you when I was writing the Icelandic story. Thanks for the link to the Auden poem – really enjoyed it! 🙂

      ..and what a wonderful family name – Little Snowball! 😀 💜

      Looking forward to catching up soon, and thanks for the lovely comments. 🙂

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