Forget Krampus, Greece Has Something Worse: Defecating Goblins!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and
unexplained coming up in this episode. If your kids think

(00:31):
elf on a shelf is creepy, just tell them that
kids in Greece and its surrounding countries are terrorized each
Christmas for a full twelve days by nocturnal goblins that
like to defecate all over your home. The ghost of Mary,
Queen of Scots makes your presence known on Christmas Eve
nineteen hundred, or does she? A serving of poisoned Christmas

(00:54):
pie causes the death of Captain David pay on Christmas
Day eighteen eighty two, But who had a motive? People
worldwide have been celebrating Christmas for hundreds and hundreds of years,
but not all of those years were joyous for everyone.
For example, those who happened to be black living in
America while slavery was still legal, what was Christmas like

(01:18):
for them? In that song It's the most wonderful time
of the year, there is the line there will be
scary ghost stories. Why on earth would a Christmas song
have a line like that. We'll look at that song
and other Christmas songs that are a lot darker than
you might know. We're all familiar with the classic Christmas
ghost tale, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. But before

(01:41):
that novel, there was another ghost story of Christmas, a
purportedly true story. In eighteen ninety seven, doctor philippil Hanlon
was asked by his young daughter whether Santa Claus was real.
His suggestion for her to find an answer has resulted
in something so famous it has practically become a meme.

(02:02):
December sixteenth, nineteen sixty five, Gemini six and seven have
just completed the first ever manned rendezvous between spacecraft, making history.
But they were about to achieve another first in space exploration,
and a first for Christmas. Now bolt your doors, lock

(02:22):
your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me
into the weird darkness.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
It was a.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Cold, dark morning in outer space. On December sixteenth, nineteen
sixty five. Two astronauts aboard the spacecraft to Gemini six,
Walter i'm Shira and Thomas P. Stafford, had rendezvous the
previous day with Jim and I seven and their fellow
astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. It was the first
crude space rendezvous in human history. Unless the Atlanteans were

(03:14):
up to something we don't know about. But just before
re entry, Gemini six reported something very out of the ordinary.
The following is hard to understand in some areas of
the recording, but listening closely, Roger seventh.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
We have an object of life. Boys who popit of
polar orbits even a very low projectory, that have a
very high appligmate racial looks like the fun to be
a a bottom thing, very low.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
A uh, what you just heard was this is Gemini six.
We have an object looks like a satellite going from
north to south, probably in a polar orbit. He's in
a very low trajectory traveling from north to south and

(04:14):
is a very high climbing ratio. It looks like it
might even be a very low looks like he may
be going to re entry pretty soon. Stand By one
looks like he's trying to signal something. Was it a
UFO ground control? Then heard something they probably never expected.

(04:51):
Jingle bells started playing on harmonica and the sound of
literal jingle bells were heard in the background. Gemini six
just performed Christmas time practical joke in space. We got
him two six. Gemini's seven's Jim Lovell responded with laughter,
you're too much sake, You're too much six. Elliot c

(05:15):
ad Mission Control added it was all a prank set
up by the two Gemini six crew members who practiced
their skit right before takeoff. No one else knew what
they had planned. In nineteen sixty seven, Shira donated his
Tiny Honer Little Lady Harmonica to the Smithsonian. According to
Smithsonian Magazine, it's the first musical instrument ever played in space,

(05:39):
with jingle bells being the very first outer space concert performance.
The Caliconsoi are naughty and sometimes evil underground goblins who

(06:04):
emerge during the twelve days of Christmas and then disappear
into the earth on the eve of Epiphany. In the
folklore of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey and Bosnia. They are
responsible for many bad things that happen to people during
the Christmas time between Christ's birthday and Epiphany on January sixth.
These creatures do not come with Christmas gifts. Instead, they

(06:28):
appear to give people real troubles because these demonic spirits
are mischievous, tricky, and even dangerous. The Greeks say that
it wouldn't be hard to confuse the twelve days of
Christmas with the twelve days of Hell. No one is
ever waiting for the Calikansuroy's coming, but they always come.

(06:49):
Of all supernatural Christmas visitors, the most vividly realized and
believed in that the present day are probably the Greek calicansroi.
They're the terror of the Greek peasant during the twelve
days in the soil of his imagination, they flourish luxuriantly,
and to him, the peasant, they are very real and
a living nuisance. According to Clement A. Miles, who wrote

(07:11):
in his book Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and
Pagan people believe that they usually appear when darkness falls. Therefore,
they try to use some Christian precautions to protect themselves
by staying indoors, scratching a cross on their doors on
Christmas Eve, burning incense, or leaving the fireplace lit all
night to scare the goblins away and to keep them

(07:33):
from coming down the chimney. They are half human, half animal, monsters,
black hairy with huge heads, glaring red eyes, goats or asses, ears,
blood red tongues always hanging out, ferocious tusks, monkeys, arms
and long curved nails in the legs of an ass,

(07:54):
or a goat with cloven hoofs. Their size also varies.
Them are reported as small, but a few can be
several meters tall. Among different theories, one suggests that these
goblins are linked with the masquerades associated with the winter
festival of Dionysus, which is still celebrated in Greece. Perhaps

(08:15):
the creatures are ordinary people in just bizarre costumes and masks. However,
this does not match with the Colakansroi described as naked.
Some have suggested the creatures are products of the imagination
of the so called elevated people participating in Christmas feasting.
Could they be nightmares. Perhaps It's believed that mythical goblin

(08:38):
like Klikansari dwell underground, sawing the world tree to finally
die along with the earth. In Norse mythology, needhog is
also gnawing at the root of the sacred tree Ygdrasal,
and so do other creatures like four stags, Dane Dunair, Durathroar,
and Devalin, which chew ygdrasals, leaves and branches. None of

(09:02):
them is a friend to the tree, and all of
them don't wish the tree well. Calicanceroy has a very
similar goal to accomplish. However, according to folklore, when they're
about to saw the final part, Christmas comes and interrupts
their evil work around the world tree, they forget the tree,
come up to the surface and bring trouble to mortals.

(09:23):
Their annoying deeds are mentioned in John Tompkins's book Haunted, Grease, Nymphs, Vampires,
and Other Exotica. He describes the goblins disastrous twelve day
long Christmas mission on Earth as the Calicanceroy cause mischief.
They intimidate people, urinate in flower beds, spoil food, tip
things over, and break furniture. They also urinate on fire,

(09:45):
and it would never be possible to light a fire
in that place again, and annoy people by trampling all
who got in their way, breaking into mills, eating some
of the flour, and fouling the rest by defecating on it.
In houses, they would break furniture, eat and drink food,
and defecate all over the place, and even try to
kill people by choking them in their beds at night
by sitting on their chests, leaving them half suffocated and

(10:08):
nearly dead with fright. In Crete, they were believed to
carry cradles of thorns on their backs, into which they
would put babies they had stolen, to carry them back
to their caves and drink their blood, Especially in Greece.
Calikansroy describes several short, ugly and usually malicious beings in folklore.

(10:29):
If you wake up one Christmas morning to find poop
smeared all over your bed, walls and furniture, it might
not have been the dog. Up next, the ghost of Mary,

(10:51):
Queen of Scots, makes her presence known on Christmas Eve
nineteen hundred or does she? Plus a serving of poisoned
Christmas pie causes the death of Captain David pay on
Christmas Day eighteen eighty two, But who had a motive
to kill him? And we're all familiar with the classic
Christmas ghost tale A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. But

(11:12):
before that novel, there was another ghost story of Christmas,
a purportedly true story. These tales and more, when weird
darkness returns. The following was printed on page four of

(11:39):
the Cincinnati, Ohio Inquirer on December twenty ninth, nineteen hundred,
headline ghost of death heard in the Tower of London
Christmas Eve. A bad omen from the New York Journal
London Correspondent. The ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots, which
appears in the Tower of London before the death of

(12:00):
a crowned head, made itself heard on Christmas Eve. The
fact has been carefully concealed from the Queen because of
the extreme grief into which the death of the dowager
Lady Churchill threw her, but it has caused the greatest
alarm in court circles. Mary Queen of Scott's was imprisoned
by Queen Elizabeth in the Constable's Tower and was led
from it to execution in the tower Quadrangle. Before the

(12:22):
death of every King or Queen of England. Since her day,
her spirit has been reported as having appeared. An officer
of the Guard on duty in the Constable's Tower on
Christmas Eve heard a long whale from the top of
the tower. He stopped to listen and heard it again.
Footsteps followed, and a third time the whale rang out
over the fog bound river and the sleeping city. He

(12:43):
went to search for a cause, but found none. How
severe a shock to the Queen was the death of
Lady Churchill may be gathered from the following extract from
today's Court circular quote. The Queen has sustained another and
a great loss in the death of the dowager Lady Churchill,
who has been a devoted and intimate friend of the
Queen her Majesty, While sorely grieved by this sudden loss

(13:06):
of one for whom she entertained the warmest affection, has
not suffered in health from the great shock. Private reports
say that Christmas at Osborne was a day of awful depression.
The plans for its celebration were canceled as the Queen's
condition of overpowering grief filled the house with gloom. The
Queen regards it as an evil omen that the last

(13:27):
Christmas of the century should bring the Angel of Death
under her own roof. This is the first death in
a house with the Queen since that of the Prince Consort.
Lady Churchill was the Queen's oldest and closest companion. They
lived in personal intimacy, spent most of the day together
and slept in adjoining rooms. What gave the Queen a

(13:47):
particular shock was the knowledge that Lady Churchill died within
a few feet of her, separated only by the thickness
of a wall. Numerous recent tragedies, such as the deaths
of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Christian, and several particularly
respected old friends, added to this latest have had a
telling effect on the Queen. Superstitious people are prophesying many

(14:09):
gloomy events, and the ghost of Mary in the Tower
has caused more than a sensation. Okay, an amazing Christmas tale,
and since it was printed at a legitimate newspaper, how
could you not accept it as truth?

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Right?

Speaker 1 (14:24):
But the story mingles fact and complete falsehood. The Tower
of London was built in the nineteenth century on the
site of a medieval tower that was used to house
prisoners during the reign of Elizabeth. But Mary, Queen of
Scott's was never imprisoned in the Constable's Tower or anywhere
in the tower complex, and she was certainly not led

(14:45):
out of it to her death in the Tower quadrangled.
She was held captive in various manor houses well away
from London, and was executed at Fotheringhay Castle in fifteen
eighty seven. Nineteen hundred. Was indeed an ennis horribility us
for the Queen. Queen Victoria's second son, Alfred, Duke of Saxe,
Coburg and Gotha and until eighteen ninety three, the Duke

(15:07):
of Edinburgh died on July thirtieth, nineteen hundred. Prince Christian
Victor of schleswing Holstein was Queen Victoria's grandson by her
daughter Helena. He died October twenty ninth, nineteen hundred of
typhoid fever in South Africa. The Dowager, Lady Churchill, was
senior Lady of the bed Chamber and, as the article says,
a close friend of Queen Victoria. She was found dead

(15:29):
in her bed at Osborne House on December twenty fourth,
nineteen hundred, at the age of seventy four. Queen Victoria
mourned in her diary, it is a horrible year, nothing
but sadness and the horrors of one kind and another. Mary,
Queen of Scott's, was a romantic figure to the Victorians
and an overwhelmingly popular apparition. As she is even today,

(15:51):
so perhaps it's natural that she was believed to be
the whaling ghost. The Habsburgs had their White Lady of
the Hohenzollerns, who appeared before Imperial deaths. One wonders if
the British royal family felt that they needed their own
royal death apparition, even though there was a tradition, probably
no older than the nineteenth century, that if the ravens

(16:12):
at the Tower of London flew away, either England would
be conquered by her enemies or a member of the
royal family would die, and a beautiful beheaded queen is
much more appealing than croaking black birds. More likely, this
is a piece of journalistic poetic license. Other later versions
of this piece elaborate on the basic story and ad

(16:32):
what appears to be quotes from guards at the tower,
or describe how the ghost of Mary appeared to Queen
Elizabeth the First before her death. Still, despite the historical inaccuracies,
a wailing ghost the banshee would have been familiar to
many readers of the story as an omen of death,
and a banshee keening in the dark within the haunted

(16:53):
environs of the tower is a perfect image for a
Victorian Christmas story, also to point out that this was
written in nineteen hundred and Queen Victoria died January twenty second,
nineteen oh one, almost a month after this reportedly happened.

(17:31):
On Christmas Day eighteen eighty two, Captain David W. Pay
Lay dying with symptoms so severe and unusual that three
physicians had been called to his home in Fishkill, Landing,
New York to consult on the case. For the previous week,
Pay had been violently ill, with a burning in his throat,
pains in his stomach, and an unquenchable thirst. Doctors Teal,

(17:54):
Wilson and Jones concluded that Pay was stricken with arsenic poisoning.
Late that night, in great agony, Captain Pay died. At
the time, arsenic in small doses was believed to be
a cure for impotence, but Captain Pay swore, as God
was his judge, that he had never taken anything to
cause this illness. Though he did not accuse his wife, Mary,

(18:17):
of poisoning him, he believed that the poison had been
in a pie that she had baked. He had eaten
heartily of the pie, he said, while his wife had
just a little. Mary Pay tearfully denied this, saying that
she had eaten most of the pie herself. It would
have been an act of contrition for missus Pay to
bake her husband a pie. They just recently reconciled after

(18:39):
a very tumultuous month. David Pay was a forty four
year old Hudson River boatman who was planning to retire
from the river due to rheumatism. About four years earlier,
he had married eighteen year old Mary Ferguson, daughter of
a brickyard laborer, and two years later they had a daughter.
All seemed well with the marriage until Captain Pey began

(18:59):
to feel the effect of a life on the river.
As he spent more time at home, he began to
suspect that his wife was unfaithful. Captain Pey confided to
his friend J. D. Tallardy that a young man named
William Crawford would come to his house when Pay was
out and stay with his wife until late at night.
Sometimes she would meet Crawford at the house of Alan Hornton,

(19:19):
where Crawford boarded. Pay said once he'd gone to Horton's
looking for her and found Crawford lying with his head
on Mary's lap. In the bitter argument that followed, Mary
Pey told her husband that he was not the father
of their daughter and accused him of drinking and spending
money in a society of disreputable women, and made other
accusations not of a character to be published. She moved

(19:41):
out and went to live at Horton's. Over the course
of the following month, articles of furniture and bedding were
removed from his house by Mary and taken to Horton's.
In spite of his anger, Captain Pay pleaded with his
wife to come home. She finally relented after they both
signed a written agreement in the presence of the Justice
of the Peace stating the conditions under which she would return.

(20:05):
One of the conditions was that he not make trouble
for her because of an alleged forgery of his name
to draw money from the bank. Mary returned to her husband,
but it was not a happy household. A post mortem
examination of Captain Pay's body confirmed what the doctors sud suspected.
He had died of arsenic poisoning. The coroner's inquest concluded

(20:28):
that Captain Pay had been murdered by poison administered by
his wife, and Mary Pay was arrested for the crime.
The case was brought before a Duchess County grand jury,
but there was no hard evidence against Mary Pay. The
testimony against her was all gossip and speculation. The jury
failed to find a bill of indictment and Mary Pay

(20:48):
was released. She was appointed administrator to his estate, in
fact amounting to a few hundred dollars. In November eighteen

(21:12):
forty three, Charles Dickens published a slim novella that was
fully titled A Christmas Carol in Prose a ghost Story
of Christmas. It sold for five shillings and was praised
as wonderful, playful and sparkling, and one of the smartest
little books for a Christmas present that we have ever seen.
Almost everybody today knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and

(21:35):
the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, even if
that knowledge comes from the version told by the muppets.
But Dickens's popular tale was not the first Christmas ghost story.
There is a much earlier story, and this one is
purported to be true. We find it in an edition
of Jackson's Oxford Journal from seventeen sixty two. More than

(21:56):
eighty years before Dickens wrote his famous story and two
three thirty years before the Muppets updated it. The story
concerns a man named Taylor who lived with his daughter
in a house in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. It was over a
period of several nights during Christmas seventeen sixty one that
Taylor and his daughter were terrified by strange noises at
the doors of their house. The noises were described as

(22:19):
the knocking and scratching of a ghost. One night, Taylor
met with an unnamed gentleman and described the troublesome affair.
The gentleman advised Taylor to draw circles on both sides
of the doors at which the knocking and scratching had
been heard. Taylor followed the gentleman's advice, and it worked.
Taylor was The Oxford Journal reported, now ready to verify

(22:41):
upon oath, that the ghost has since entirely abandoned the house.
Great pity it is that this gentleman's advice had not
been had in relation to the cock Lane ghost, added
the newspaper. This referred to a then famous haunting which
was being reported in the press at the time. The
inhabitants of a lodging house in cock Lane, near London's
Smithfield Market, were bothered by strained sounds attributed to a

(23:04):
ghost known as Scratching Fanny. Fanny Lynds was the former
partner of Cocklane lodger William Kent and had died from smallpox,
but the ghost claimed that she'd been poisoned with arsenic
by Kent. The affair became a huge public sensation. However,
it was eventually determined that the haunting had been a
hoax perpetrated by another of the lodgers, Elizabeth Parsons, under

(23:28):
duress from her father Richard, who was tried and sentenced
to be pilloried, that is, placed in the stocks for
public humiliation, and served two years in prison. Coincidentally, among
those who took great interest in the Cocklane Ghost was
Charles Dickens. He mentioned it in three of his books,
but not in A Christmas Girl. He mentioned it in

(23:49):
Nicholas Dickleby. Missus Nickleby says that her great grandfather went
to school with the cock Lane ghost. As for the
unnamed gentleman who helped to exercise the Aylesbury Ghost, the
Oxford Journal said that he was willing to help others
and in like cases will give advice gratis when we're

(24:20):
darkness returns. People worldwide have been celebrating Christmas for hundreds
and hundreds of years, but not all of those years
were joyous for everyone. For example, those who happened to
be black living in America while slavery was still legal.
What was Christmas like for them? That story is up next.

(25:03):
How did Americans living under slavery experience the Christmas holidays?
While early accounts from white Southerners after the Civil War
often painted an idealized picture of owner's generosity met by
grateful workers happily feasting, singing, and dancing, the reality was
far more complex. In the eighteen thirties, the large slaveholding

(25:25):
states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas became the first in
the United States to declare Christmas a state holiday. It
was in these Southern states and others during the Antebellum
period eighteen twelve to eighteen sixty one that many Christmas traditions,
giving gifts, singing carols, decorating homes firmly took hold in

(25:46):
American culture. Many enslaved workers got their longest break of
the year, typically a handful of days, and some were
granted the privilege to travel to see family or get married.
Many received gifts from their owners and enjoyed special foods
untasted the rest of the year. But while many enslaved
people partook in some of these holiday pleasures, Christmas time

(26:08):
could be treacherous. According to Robert E. May, a professor
of history at Purdue University, an author of Yule Tide
in Dixie, Slavery Christmas, and Southern Memory, owner's fears of
rebellion during the season sometimes led to preemptive shows of
harsh discipline. Their buying and selling of workers didn't abate
during the holidays, nor did their annual hiring out of

(26:30):
enslaved workers, some of whom would be shipped off away
from their families on New Year's Day, widely referred to
as heartbreak Day. Still, Christmas afforded enslaved people an annual
window of opportunity to challenge the subjugation that shaped their
daily lives. Resistance came in many ways, from their assertion

(26:50):
of power to give gifts, to expressions of religious and
cultural independence, to using the relative looseness of holiday celebrations
and time off to plot escapes for slaveholders, gift giving
connoted power. Christmas gave them the opportunity to express their
paternalism and dominance over the people they owned, who almost

(27:10):
universally lacked the economic power or means to purchase gifts.
Owners often gave their enslaved workers things that they withheld
throughout the year, like shoes, clothing, and money. According to
Texas historian Elizabeth Silverthorne, one slaveholder from that state gave
each of his families twenty five dollars. The children were

(27:31):
given sacks of candy and pennies. Christmas Day, we gave
out our donations to the servants. They were much pleased,
and we were saluted on all sides with grins, smiles,
and low bows, wrote one Southern planter. In his book
The Battle for Christmas, historian Stephen Nissenbaum recounts how a
white overseer considered giving gifts to enslaved workers on Christmas

(27:55):
a better source of control than physical violence. I killed
twenty eight head of beef for them the people's Christmas dinner,
he said, I can do more with them in this
way than if all the hides of the cattle were
made into lashes. Enslaved people rarely made reciprocal gifts to
their owners. According to historians SHAWNA. Bigham and Robert E. May, Fleeting,

(28:16):
displays of economic equality would have controverted the enslaved worker's
prescribed role of childlike dependency. Even when they played a
common holiday game with their owners, where the first person
who could surprise the other by saying Christmas gift received
a present, they were not expected to give gifts when
they lost. In some instances, enslaved people did reciprocate with

(28:38):
gifts to the masters when they lost in the game.
On one plantation in the low country, South Carolina, some
enslaved houseworkers gave their owners eggs wrapped in handkerchiefs. Yet
over all, the one sided nature of gift giving between
slave owners and those they enslaved reinforced the dynamic of
white power and paternalism. For enslaved workers, Christmas time represented

(29:01):
a break between the end of harvest season and the
start of preparation for the next year production, a brief
sliver of freedom and lives marked by heavy labor and bondage.
This time we regard as our own by the grace
of our masters, and we therefore used or abused it.
Nearly as we pleased, wrote famed writer, orator and abolitionist
Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery at the age of twenty.

(29:25):
Those of us who had families at a distance were
generally allowed to spend the whole six days between Christmas
and New Year's Day in their society. Some used these
more relaxed holiday times to run for freedom. In eighteen
forty eight, Ellen and William Kraft, an enslaved married couple
from mac And Georgia, used passes from their owners during

(29:45):
Christmas time to concoct an elaborate plan to escape by
train and steamer to Philadelphia on Christmas Eve. In eighteen
fifty four, Underground railroad icon Harriet Tubman sent out from
Philadelphia to Maryland's eastern Shore after she had heard her
three brothers were going to be sold by their owner
the day after Christmas. The owner had given them permission

(30:06):
to visit family on Christmas Day, but instead of the
brothers meeting with their families for dinner, their sister, Harriet
led them to freedom in Philadelphia. For enslaved people, resistance
during Christmas time didn't always take the form of rebellion
or flight. In a geographical or physical sense. Often it
came in the way they adapted the dominant society's traditions

(30:28):
into something of their own, allowing for the purest expression
of their humanity and cultural roots. In Wilmington, North Carolina,
enslaved people celebrated what they called John Kutering. Other names
include John Cono, John Kennias, and John Canoe. They dressed
in wild costumes and went from house to house, singing, dancing,

(30:48):
and beating rhythms with rib bones, cow's horns and triangles.
At every stop. They expected to receive a gift. Every
child rises on Christmas morning to see the John Cannabis,
remembered writer and abolitionist Harriet Jacobs in her autobiography Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl. Without them, Christmas
would be shorn of its greatest attraction. These public displays

(31:11):
of joy were not universally loved by all whites in Wilmington,
but many encouraged the activities. It would really be a
source of regret if it were denied to slaves in
the intervals between their toils to indulge in mirthful pastimes,
said a white Antebellum judge named Thomas Ruffin for historian
Sterling Stucky, author of Slave Culture. The counoring reflected deep

(31:33):
African roots, considering the place of religion in West Africa,
where dance and song are means of relating to ancestral
spirits and to God. The Christmas season was conducive to
Africans in America, Continuing to attach sacred value to John Cunnoring,
enslaved people had a long memory of Christmas time. They
remembered how they used it to mark time around the

(31:55):
planting season. They knew they could count on it for
a measure of freedom and relaxation. Their inability to participate
fully in gift exchange, one of the most basic aspects
of the season, helped to reinforce their place as men
and women who could not benefit from their labor. Some
like Harriet Tubman and the Crafts, saw it as a
time best suited to challenge the whole society. The adults

(32:19):
remembered the gifts long after their childhoods were stolen by
this terrible institution. Didn't have no Christmas tree, recounted a
former enslaved band named Beauregard Tennyson in a WPA interview.
But they set up a long pine table in the house.
That plank table was covered with presents, and none of
the Negroes was ever forgot on that day, he said,

(32:41):
in a way, we might actually be able to credit
Christmas with helping to bring about the end of slavery.
In eighteen thirty four, men and women African, American and
white of William Lloyd Garrison's newly formed Massachusetts Anti Slavery
Society saw Christmas as an opportunity to expose a republic
that proclaimed liberty yet held millions as slaves. Women assumed

(33:02):
the lead, boldly defying a society that denied them a
public voice or political opinions. To finance the abolition cause,
these women organized Christmas bazaars that sold, donated gifts, and
trumpeted anti slavery messages in the name of the Prince
of Peace and Emancipation. Because women were prominent, the press
labeled abolitionist gatherings promiscuous assemblies and denounced male supporters as

(33:27):
aunt nancy. Men. Then came violence, mob attacks sanctioned by
the rich and their media. After some meetings, women linked
arms black and white and surrounded their men to protect
them from angry mobs. But anti slavery men and women
persisted during this Victorian era. Women abolitionists also took the

(33:48):
lead in confronting a Northern public that felt the degradation
of enslaved women and children was too sensitive for public discussion.
With clear language and images, they used their friars to
to show the brutality inflicted on their enslaved sisters. The
women also floated experimental symbols in language to penetrate the
northern white conscience. They compared the common practice of whipping

(34:11):
children beginning to gain widespread disapproval to the brutal whipping
of enslaved men, women, and children. They used the evergreen
shrub as their Christmas symbol. Women also turned the holiday
into a generous gift getting Christmas that rewarded children. Their
emphasis on children asked Americans to grant that enslaved people

(34:32):
who had even fewer rights than children, deserved Christmas care
and generosity. This strategy was also designed to challenge slaveholder
propaganda portraying enslaved adults as children. At least one early
Massachusetts anti slavery fair featured an interracial children's chorus known
as the Boston Garrison Juvenile Choir, which sang popular holiday

(34:54):
songs as the sugar Plums. By the end of the
eighteen thirties, Christmas fairs had become in the primary source
of abolitionist funds. Bizarre sponsors now replaced the small green
shrub with a tall, full grown evergreen tree. The tree
idea was inspired by Charles Folan, a German immigrant children's

(35:14):
rights advocate and professor of literature at Harvard University who'd
been fired in eighteen thirty five because of his anti
slavery activities. That Christmas, popular British author Harriet Martineau visited
Folan's home and became entranced by his towering evergreen. Martineau
enthusiastically described Folan's Christmas tree in whatever books, and the

(35:36):
public became enthralled. The Christmas tree stood as a kind
of tall green freedom flag. Their early anti slavery weapons
handed Christians today such endearing symbols as the emphasis on children,
gift giving and the tall evergreen to expose the country's
greatest crime, challenge its largest vested interest, and persuade fellow

(35:58):
citizens their cause was righteous. A daring interracial band of
women transformed an anti social and rowdy festival into a
holiday that promoted freedom for all, shining light on their
sins of human bondage and demanding emancipation. Pioneer Christian women
agitators beat on closed doors. Eventually, their once lonely crusade

(36:21):
helped liberate their southern brothers and sisters of color, and
later gave birth to a movement that freed all women.
These brave black and white women gave democracy and all
of us a Christmas gift that never stops giving. Coming

(36:51):
up in that song It's the most Wonderful time of
the year, there is a line there will be scary
ghost stories. Why on earth would a Christmas have a
line like that? We'll look at that song and other
Christmas songs that are a lot darker than you might
know up next on Weird Darkness. The Christmas season is

(37:37):
upon us, and more than likely, while you've been out
shopping or listening to the radio, you've heard some rendition
of the nineteen sixty three Andy Williams song It's the
most Wonderful time of the year. And if you're like me,
you've probably always been perplexed by the songs mentioned of
ghost stories in it, Williams sings They'll be scary ghost
stories and tales of the glories of Christmas's long long ago.

(38:01):
The concept that seems more fit for Halloween than Christmas.
So I did a little research on Christmas traditions and
it turns out ghost stories were as much a part
of Christmas as they were Halloween up until about the
turn of the twentieth century. To understand the concept of
telling ghost stories at Christmas time, you first have to
understand the origins of Christmas. While Christmas is widely recognized

(38:24):
as being a Christian based holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus,
it was born of the pagan winter Solstice celebrations and
Yule festivals that predated both Jesus and Christianity. It's widely
believed that while the Christian Church tried hard to distinguish
itself from pagan beliefs and practices, creating a day of
religious importance around the same time as traditional winter Solstice

(38:47):
festivals would increase the chances that Christmas, and ultimately Christianity
would be embraced. One of the traditions that carried over
from these pagan beliefs was telling ghost stories. In the
winter are longer, darker and lend themselves to spooky tales.
Many pagan beliefs suggested that during the winter solstice, the

(39:09):
dead can more easily cross into the living world, while
others used tales of ethereal beings, gods, and monsters to
explain the darkening of the days. This practice spanned centuries.
The telling of ghost stories, or winter's tales, as many
referred to them, was referenced as early as fifteen eighty
nine in Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of Malta, which

(39:32):
muses now, I remember those old women's words, who in
my wealth would tell me winter's tales and speak of
spirits and ghosts by night. Even Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale
tells of the tradition when Mamilius proclaims a sad tales
best for winter, I have one of sprites and goblins.

(39:52):
But the Christmas ghost story didn't really hit the mainstream
until the Victorian era, when an author named Charles Dickens
tend to story you might have heard of, titled a
Christmas Carol, first published in eighteen forty three, the Dickens
holiday classic kicked off an annual tradition of releasing ghost
stories at Christmas. As the editor of household Worlds, and
later all the year round. Dickens would go on to

(40:15):
release several other Christmas ghost stories, making him the godfather
of the tradition, a tradition that would have a stronghold
on the Christmas holiday through the nineteenth century. Whatever five
or six English speaking people meet round a fire and
Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Humorist
Jerome K. Jerome wrote in his eighteen ninety one collection

(40:35):
told after Supper, nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but
to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters. It
is a genial festive season, and we love to muse
upon graves and dead bodies, and murders and blood. But
the tradition of Christmas ghost stories in America would fade
after the turn of the nineteenth century. While ghost stories

(40:57):
could still be found in magazine Christmas annuals as latest
nineteen fifteen and were sung about by Andy Williams in
nineteen sixty three, the tradition failed to keep its stronghold.
Eventually it was forgotten, leaving all the spooky fun to Halloween.
While Americans turned their back on their tradition, Christmas ghost
stories do continue to be embraced in Europe. In fact,

(41:19):
the tradition evolved with technology and many of the popular
Christmas ghost stories were adapted for radio and then ultimately television.
In nineteen twenty three, BBC Radio aired its first dramatic
reading of Dickens's Christmas Carol by Cyril Estcourt that featured
Carol interludes sung by a church choir. In the nineteen seventies,
the BBC aired a series of annual television plays under

(41:42):
the title A Ghost Story for Christmas, which adapted Christmas
ghost stories from both Charles Dickens as well as m
R James, a British author who wrote a series of
short Christmas ghost stories to entertain family and friends and
later published them in a four volume series in the
early nineteen hundreds. Today, the tradition continue on British television,
with new adaptations still being released and ghost stories finding

(42:05):
their way into Christmas specials of shows like Downton Abbey. So,
for those of us who like to inject a little
spooky into our Christmas, were apparently not all that weird.
We're just tapping into the traditions of our ancestors and
the Christmases of old and in our current times that
often feel a bit more chaotic and a bit more hateful,
there might be some benefit in revisiting these old ghost stories.

(42:28):
As William Dean Howell lamented in a Harper's editorial in
eighteen eighty six about the decline of the Dickens ghost
story and the morals they carried, quote, it was well
once a year, if not oftener, to remind men by
parable of the old simple truths, to teach them that
forgiveness and charity, and the endeavor for life better and
purer than each has lived, are the principles upon which

(42:51):
alone the world holds together and gets forward. It was
well for the comfortable and refined to be put in
mind to the savagery and suffering all around them, and
to be hot, as Dickens was always teaching, that certain
feelings which grace human nature, as tenderness for the sick
and helpless, self sacrifice and generosity, self respect in manliness
and womanliness, are the common heritage of the race, the

(43:14):
direct gift of Heaven, shared equally are the rich and poor.
The never ending broadcasting of carols during November and December

(43:36):
might be a depressing idea, but Christmas music with dark
meanings can make the holidays downright bleak. Ugly sweaters and
too many cookies are horrible enough, and despite the twinkly
lights and shiny things of the holiday season, there are
plenty of classic Crispus songs that are darker than you thought,
way darker. Grandmothers getting flattened by flying deer and Mommy

(44:00):
having an affair with old Saint Nick can make for
some dark Christmas songs, but listeners generally know that they
were written in good humor. Some of your favorite Christmas songs,
on the other hand, may actually be about a massacre
of children, inspired by the death of a loved one,
or originally suppressed due to bigotry. You've probably been hearing
these songs ever since your very first holiday, but after

(44:23):
learning the truth about secretly creepy Christmas music, you might
not feel as Jolly. White Christmas holds the surprising record
of being the world's best selling single, first released by
Bing Crosby only a few weeks after the attack on
Pearl Harbor. The song was written by Irving Berlin for
a Broadway musical that was never made, but it did

(44:44):
manage to find its way into the Fred Astaire in
Bing Crosby movie Holiday Inn and its spiritual successor White Christmas.
Since Berlin was Jewish, he didn't really celebrate Christmas, but
he developed a yearly tradition of visiting his son's grave.
The child passed away on Christmas Day when he was
three weeks old. The melancholy Berlin associated with Christmas certainly

(45:07):
came through in the song, and it became a hit
after resonating with sentimental listeners during World War II. Continuing
the dark history of the song, the playing of White
Christmas over the radio also served as code for American
soldiers to evacuate Sigon during the Vietnam War. Do You
Hear What I Hear has been covered by many artists,

(45:29):
including Carrie Underwood and Whitney Houston. The lyrics describe a
lamb pointing out a star to a shepherd boy, who
then tells the king to bring silver and gold to
a special child. It sounds like a sweet, not overly
religious tune, and thanks to the repeating verses, it is
a classic holiday selection for choirs. What many people don't know, however,

(45:50):
is that the star with the tale as big as
a kite actually refers not to the Star of Bethlehem,
but to a missile. The song was written in nineteen
sixty two by Gloria Shane Baker and Noel Regnie, both
terrified of being blown up as the Cuban missile crisis
went down. The lines at the end urged listeners to
pray for peace people everywhere, and were the songwriter's response

(46:14):
to a tense situation. Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
It's been covered by everybody for maybe grant to Bury Manilow,
but it was originally written for the nineteen forty four
movie Meet Me in Saint Louis and sung by Judy Garland.
Hugh Martin was given the task of creating a song
that could show the family's sadness over celebrating the last

(46:36):
Christmas in a home that they were moving from, with
lyrics like have yourself a merry little Christmas, it may
be your last. Martin did such a good job of
writing in melancholy tune that Garland complained it was too depressing,
so the lyrics were changed. But one of the song's
last lines, as heard in the film from now On,
We'll have to muddle through somehow, was later altered to

(46:59):
hang a shy Star upon the highest Bow. That was
at the request of Frank Sinatra, who thought the song
was still too dark. Despite the fact his more jolly
version was the one that turned the song into a
holiday classic, most people agree that it's the song's melancholy
undertone that they really relate to. In nineteen thirty four,

(47:20):
songwriter Haven Gillespie was asked by his publisher to write
a Christmas song for children. Having gone to the meeting
directly from his brother Irwin's funeral, Gillespie had no interests
in the project. Somehow, he was talked into it and
began writing a song on his train ride home. Thinking
of all the pleasant memories he created with his brother
during the holidays, Gillespie wrote Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

(47:45):
The song was later recorded by Eddie Cantor and became
a huge hit, inspiring many covers and a classic stop
motion animated film. Gillespie, however, never liked hearing the song
since it reminded him of his brother. Technically, Coventry Carol
isn't even a Christmas song. It was written for the
Feast of the Holy Innocence that celebrated on December twenty eighth. Regardless,

(48:07):
it's more associated with Christmas, even though it refers to
the feast of the Holy Innocence and what it marks,
which is the massacre of innocent children. The story centers
around the biblical king Herod, who murdered hundreds of children,
hoping to kill the one who was supposed to become
the Messiah. It's believed to have been taken from a
play written sometime during the sixteenth century, but the actual

(48:29):
origins of the song are unknown. The haunting songs intended
to sound like both a lullaby for the dead children
and the cries of their mothers during the massacre. Placidae
Capau dot Ruckamauer and I'm sure I am butchering that
name regardless. He was commissioned to write a poem for
Christmas Mass in eighteen forty seven, and he wrote the

(48:50):
lyrics to Oh Holy Night based on the Nativity Bible stories.
Capau thought the impact of his words would be more
powerful set to music, and he asked eight Charles Adams
to create the score for it. The French Catholic Church
liked the song until Capo decided to become a socialist,
and then they also found out that the music writer,

(49:10):
Adams was Jewish, so the church banned and denounced the
song since a man of a different religion had written it.
But the French people still sang it, and soon it
became popular overseas as well. Hark the Herald Angels sing
It is a classic carol, but it's also the twisted
hybrid of several men putting their own touches on it

(49:32):
without asking for approval from the guy before. The original
lyrics were created as a poem in seventeen thirty nine
by Charles Wesley, but since they were written in old
timey English and contained odd phrases like welkin rings, an
evangelist named George Whitfield decided to change the lyrics without permission.
Wesley was upset, but the poem became more popular after

(49:54):
Whitfield's adjustment, so the new lines stuck. In eighteen fifty five,
after both men had already passed on, an organist named
William Cummings set the Wesley Whitfield poem to music composed
by Felix Mendelssohn. And Mendelssohn had always insisted that his
work never be used for religious purposes, but he was
dead too, so he didn't really get a say in

(50:15):
the matter. The classic song was born, and all three
men are probably turning over in their graves. People have
been debating the true meaning behind the lyrics I Saw
three Ships since they were first published in sixteen sixty six.
Some people believe that the ships are symbolic of the
three Wise Men. Others think the numbers refer to the
Holy Trinity. Also up for debate is whether the ships

(50:38):
were carrying the remains of the wise men to their
final resting place. Lyrics from one version read they said
they'd got three krons krowns being skulls makes a good
case for the idea of them being dead. Considering the
cathedral these relics are now stored in took six hundred
and thirty two years to build. Maybe the ships had
to sail around for a while. There are different versions

(51:00):
of the song with different lyrics, so the debate might
never truly be solved. Regardless, the song has become a
Christmas classic, whether it's about delivering skeletons or not. Rudolph
the Red Nose Reindeer. It was created in nineteen thirty
eight by Montgomery Ward ad writer Bob May after the
retail giant requested that he work on a book that

(51:21):
they could use as a promotional gimmick. May completed the
story after testing it out on his four year old daughter,
and by nineteen forty six, Montgomery Ward had distributed more
than six million copies. May received zero royalties for his work,
but he did manage to obtain the copyright, becoming very
rich in the process. His brother in law turned the

(51:41):
book into a song, which was recorded by Gene Autry
in nineteen forty nine and became the second best selling
Christmas song of all time, right behind White Christmas. Allegedly,
May claimed that he wrote the story for his daughter
to cheer her up because her mother was dying of cancer,
but that's not really true, not quite. Although May's wife

(52:02):
was sick with cancer and did eventually pass away, the
song was written purely from money. Beginning in the mid
fifteen hundreds, Roman Catholics in England struggled to practice their religion.
When Elizabeth first came to power, the open practice of
Catholicism was basically banned for the next several hundred years,
and the celebration of Christmas was completely canceled from sixteen

(52:25):
forty nine to sixteen sixty. Now, some people believe that
the Twelve Days of Christmas came out of this time
and served as a way for Catholics to secretly practice
and teach their children about their faith. Supposedly, each object
in the song is code for something else to turtle
doves fill in for the Old and New Testaments. The

(52:47):
ten Lords of Leaping take the place of the Ten Commandments.
Though there is really no factual evidence for this idea,
the song is still remained classic. I'll be Home for Christmas.
It's one of the most mental holiday classics, beloved since
many people can relate to the feeling of loneliness and
separation during the holidays, but being away from home is

(53:09):
taken to an entirely different level when one is physically
unable to go home because they're currently fighting a war overseas.
The song was written in nineteen forty three by Walter
Kent and James Gannon to comfort families and friends separated
by World War II. Bing Crosby Saying its first recording
and made it into a hit that's been covered by

(53:30):
many artists since. When We're Darkness Returns in eighteen ninety seven,
Doctor philippo hanlon was asked by his young daughter whether
Santa Claus was real. His suggestion for her to find

(53:53):
an answer has resulted in something so famous it has
practically become a meme. That story is up next. In

(54:21):
eighteen ninety seven, doctor Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on
Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight
year old daughter, Virginia O'Hanlon, whether Santa Claus really existed.
O'Hanlon suggested that she write to The Sun, a prominent
New York City newspaper at the time, assuring her that
if you see it in the Sun, it's so. He

(54:41):
unwittingly gave one of the paper's editors, Francis Farcilus's Church,
an opportunity to rise above the simple question and to
address the philosophical issues behind it. Church was a war
correspondent during the American Civil War, a time that saw
great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith
in much as a society. Although the paper ran the

(55:02):
editorial in the seventh place on the page below even
one on the newly invented chainless bicycle, its message was
very moving to many people who read it well over
a century later. It remains the most reprinted editorial ever
to run in any newspaper in the English language, an
indelible part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States.

(55:25):
Virginia's letter read, Dear Editor, I am eight years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, if you see it in the sun, it's so.
Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus.
Prince's Church replied, in what would become one of the
greatest newspaper editorials ever written, Virginia, your little friends are wrong.

(55:50):
They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.
They do not believe except they see. They think that
nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little.
In this great universe of ours. Man is a mere insect,
an ant in his intellect as compared with the boundless

(56:12):
world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of
grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there
is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love
and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they
abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas how dreary would be the world if there were

(56:34):
no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if
there were no Virginias. There'd be no childlike faith, then
no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We
should have no enjoyment except in sense and sight, the
eternal light with which childhood fills, the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus, you might as well not

(56:57):
believe in fairies. You might get your papata men to
watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch
Santa Claus. But even if they do not see Santa
Claus coming down, what would that prove. Nobody sees Santa Claus.
But that's no sign that there is no Santa Claus.
The most real things in the world are those that
neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see

(57:20):
fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, But that's
no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive
or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable
in the world. You may tear apart the baby's rattle
and see what makes the noise inside, But there is
a veil covering the unseen world, which not the strongest man,

(57:40):
nor even the united strength of all the strongest men
that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry,
love romance can push aside that curtain and view and
picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real, Virginia,
In all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding.

(58:03):
No Santa Claus. Thank God, he lives, and he lives
forever a thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times
ten thousand years from now. He will continue to make
glad the heart of childhood. Church's letter to Virginia was
a gift to a little girl and had a gift
to all of us as well, and one we can

(58:24):
continue to enjoy because the skeptical times of Francis Church's
age are the same times that we endure today. No
Santa Claus, Huh, Yes, Virginia, there is Santa Claus. Thanks

(58:52):
for listening. If you like the show, please share it
with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories.
True crime monsters or un solved mysteries like you do.
All stories in Weird Darkness aren't purported to be true
unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or
links to the authors in the show notes. The Defecating
Christmas Goblins of Greece was written by A. Sutherland for

(59:15):
Ancient Pages. The nineteen sixty five Gemini six UFO Christmas
Prank is by Rob Schwartz for Stranger Dimensions. The Tower
of London's Christmas Eve Ghosts is from the Victorian Book
of the Dead. A Christmas Poisoning is by Robert Wilhelm
for Murder by Gaslight. Christmas as a Slave in America
is by Ferrell Evans for hisstory dot Com and by

(59:37):
William lawn Katz for the Zen Education Project. A Ghost
Story of Christmas is by Paul Brown for Singular Discoveries.
There will be Scary Ghost Stories was written by Mike
Wilton for All Hallow's Geek. The Darker Side of Christmas
Carols is by Aaron McCann for a Ranker and Yes, Virginia,
there is a Santa Claus was written by Troy Taylor. Again.

(59:59):
You can find thanks to all of these stories in
the show notes Weird Darkness is a production and trademark
of Marler House Productions, Copyright Weird Darkness. And now that
we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with
a little light. Isaiah forty nine, verse thirteen. Shout for joy,
you heavens, Rejoice you earth, burst into song, you mountains,

(01:00:20):
for the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion
on his afflicted ones. And a final thought from Ajunschah.
If you let go a little, you will have a
little happiness. If you let go completely, you will be free.
I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird Darkness.

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