Some are well-worn warnings as familiar as the changing of seasons. Others are slow burns that end with a bang. Still others are just plain eerie.
Stories of spiritual entities, paranormal activity and creepy cryptids are passed through generations the world over, becoming local legends that only sometimes reach across borders and cultures.
So if the sordid tales you grew up with no longer make you shiver, it’s time to reanimate your roster with global tales of ghosts, hauntings, and petrifying processions.
With Halloween nigh, and the season in many parts of the world ripe for campfires and spooky stories, people gravitate toward fear even in a complex and sometimes scary world. Here are some favorites — lore and fiction, with maybe some truth sprinkled throughout — that The Associated Press gathered from its journalists around the planet:
China: The corpse walkers
If you were out on the road in China in the old days — if you believe the stories, that is — you might have encountered a strange procession.
First, a man carrying a white paper lantern and scattering fake paper money ahead of them, chanting, “Yo ho, yo ho.” Then, a towering, hooded black figure wearing a ghastly mask and marching in an awkward, wooden gait. Bringing up the rear, another man guiding the giant by touch, perhaps with a black cat.
They were corpse walkers — and the giant was the corpse.
Bad things happen when someone gets buried far from home: Without descendants to feed their spirit and keep their grave clean, they’ll have a hard time settling in. They could even come back as a hungry ghost. So when a traveler died, the family would hire people who knew the strange art of walking a stiff body home.
When interviewer Liao Yiwu asked about memories of corpse walkers in the 2000s, some said they’d use a black cat to imbue the body with static electricity to make it walk. Others said there was a third man hiding under the cloak and giving the corpse a piggyback ride.
People kept their distance, he wrote, but the corpse walkers were always welcome at inns because they paid three times the normal rate and were said to bring good luck.
— By David Cohen in Bangkok
France: The legend of St. Denis
One of France’s oldest spooky legends is also one of its most gruesome, because it involves a walking headless corpse.
Said to have been Paris’ first bishop, Denis — later St. Denis — went on to lend his name to what is now the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, famous for its magnificent basilica, its soccer stadium and the Olympic village that housed athletes during the Paris Games.
The third-century Roman rulers of what was then Gaul were apparently less than thrilled that Denis and companions Rustique and Éleuthère were making converts. Even after tossing them in prison, Denis continued to celebrate Mass. In some accounts, Denis suffered all manner of unspeakable tortures to make him renounce his faith — not just run-of-the-mill flagellation, but also mauling by famished wild beasts and being locked in a scorching oven.
Eventually, the three were sentenced to death and beheaded.
Legend has it that Denis’ corpse, lifted by two angels, picked up his severed head and walked from the Mount of Martyrs — the supposed execution site now called Montmartre — for about 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) before collapsing in the village of Catulliacum, now the town of Saint-Denis.
In Montmartre today, Suzanne Buisson Square has a statue of St. Denis holding his head, which he is said to have washed in the waters of a fountain there before staggering away with it.
— By John Leicester in Paris
Mongolia: The death worm
Slithering beneath the vast dunes of the Gobi Desert, legend has it, is the monstrous Mongolian Death Worm. It kills prey by squirting lethal venom and can even electrocute from a distance. So goes the folklore that has since inspired depictions of deadly giant worms in movies and fiction. In Mongolia, the creature is known as olgoi khorkhoi, which roughly translates as “intestine worm.”
The critter became known abroad after American paleontologist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews wrote about it in his 1926 book, “On the Trail of Ancient Man: A Narrative of the Field Work of the Central Asiatic Expeditions.” During a meeting with the Mongolian premier, Andrews was asked to capture a specimen of the giant worm.
“None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely,” he wrote. “It is shaped like a sausage about two feet long, has no head nor legs and is so poisonous that merely to touch it means instant death.”
Some believe the lore began with a more common animal — a snake called the Tartar sand boa. Others, undeterred, believe the giant worms exists. Subsequent expeditions have yet to yield any proof.
— By Emily Wang Fujiyama in Beijing
Brazil: Bárbara of the Pleasures
It’s the turn of the 19th century, and colonial Rio de Janeiro is bustling. There are merchants, vendors, enslaved people, sailors — and a Portuguese immigrant, about 20 years old, named Bárbara. Legend says she stabbed her sleeping husband to run off with a lover, who then began exploiting her. Bárbara killed him, too, and was on her own.
As the story goes, she turned to sex work inside the Teles Arch. The dank, dark passage led off the plaza where the Portuguese emperor sat, and members of the royal court became faithful clients of the beautiful courtesan known as Bárbara of the Pleasures.
But age and disease caught up to her. One chronicler, Hermeto Lima, wrote in 1921 of a hole in Bárbara’s nose, her bulging eyes, scratched eyelids and skeletal hands.
To rejuvenate, Bárbara started washing with animal blood. When that failed, it’s said, she used blood from infants abandoned in the Wheel of the Exposed — the revolving compartment for foundlings outside a Catholic institution. Between 1738 and 1848, 20,966 babies were left in the wheel, according to text of an imperial ministry report provided by Esther Arantes, a retired professor in the infancy department of the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
Arantes’ archival research yielded no evidence of Bárbara, but Rio’s rumor mill claimed otherwise:
Whenever someone brought a baby to the wheel, “the miserable woman, like a toad, came out from her hiding place, and ran to steal the child,” Lima wrote, adding Bárbara would make sure to drip its blood upon her leprous ulcers.
Bárbara disappeared, but her story lingers. Word is that she still prowls Teles Arch by night, surviving on the blood of babes.
— By David Biller in Rio de Janeiro
Nigeria: Madam Koi Koi
In Nigeria, the “Madam Koi Koi” ghost story from was a nightmare for students in boarding secondary schools.
The “madam” in question often walked around hostels with her red heels, especially at night, the sound of “koi koi” trailing behind her. You dare not come out if anyone raised an alarm that they heard the sound. Sometimes horrified students ran out and hostels were shut until morning, or even for days.
The backstory? No one knows for sure, but one popular theory was that she was fired as a teacher and died days later — vengeful, jobless and sad.
— By Dyepkazah Shibayan in Abuja, Nigeria
Britain: The Talbot Hotel
A sobbing woman. Ghostly, dressed in white — or, sometimes, black. And a storied oak staircase with royal connections.
The spooky stories revolve around a staircase that still stands at The Talbot Hotel in Oundle — a United Kingdom market town about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of London that’s been around since the 1500s.
Mary, Queen of Scots — rival to England’s Queen Elizabeth I — is said to have descended the very same flight of steps on the way to her execution in 1587. But at the time, the multilevel structure was part of nearby Fotheringhay Castle, the site of Mary’s beheading.
Nearly four decades later, the Talbot was rebuilt using stones and other material salvaged from the abandoned Fotheringhay — including the castle’s storied staircase.
Guests and staff have reported seeing a ghostly woman on the stairs, and some have said they heard sobbing in the wee hours — all thought to be the doomed queen. The Associated Press has visited several times and can confirm quality coffee and cakes, but not the presence of ghosts.
— By Laurie Kellman in London
Indonesia: Ghosts of the Bintaro train tragedy
The Bintaro train tragedy of October 1987 is well known in Indonesia. The head-on collision between two commuter trains in the southern area of Jakarta is considered one the deadliest train accidents in the country’s history.
The collision killed 139 passengers, giving rise to many mystical stories around the railway.
In the 37 years since the crash, many local residents and railway workers have reported seeing apparitions of people dressed in old, bloodstained clothing, wandering near the tracks where the tragedy took place. As the local urban legend goes, these ghostly figures are believed to be the spirits of those who perished in the accident and remain unable to move on to the afterlife. Some people also say there was a figure wandering around and looking for his body parts.
In 2013, another train accident happened at the same track, only 200 meters (yards) from the 1987 accident. The commuter train hit a petrol truck in the crossing gate, killing seven people, including the train engineer.
— By Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia
Japan: Yotsuya Kaidan
One of Japan’s most famous kaidan, or ghost stories, is named after the area in Tokyo where the tragic story takes place. Called Yotsuya Kaidan, it’s an unforgettable tale of that archetypal powerless woman whose only recourse for revenge against the man who betrays her love is to become a ghost.
Oiwa, a beautiful woman and wife of the handsome but heartless samurai Iemon, is weak after giving birth to their baby. Iemon is having an affair, and the other woman, seeking to make sure Iemon dumps Oiwa, tricks her into taking poison, thinking it’s medicine, so her face becomes disfigured.
Written in the 19th century and staged as various Kabuki plays and made into dozens of movies, a particularly scary scene is that moment when Oiwa discovers her horrible transformation, a telling moment that speaks volumes about human vanity and frailty. When she combs her hair before a mirror, it falls out in clumps. She sees her twisted, discolored face and cries out: “Is this my face? Is this my face?”
After Oiwa dies, she haunts Iemon, appearing everywhere — perhaps merely his delusion. Lemon is eventually driven to madness.
— By Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo
Kenya: The legend of Ngong Hills
In Kenya, a Maasai folktale about an ogre who used to raid villages for food is told to children. It goes like this:
The ogre lived deep in the forest and would raid neighboring villages to kill cattle — the Maasai community’s symbol of wealth — despite many warriors keeping guard.
The ogre fell in love with a beautiful Maasai woman named Sanayian and he transformed into a Maasai warrior to win her heart. He then revealed his real identity to Sanayian — who then told the warriors. The warriors, using Sanayian as a bait, speared the ogre while he was meeting with his love.
Even after he transformed back into an ogre, he could not survive. He fell and died. His five fingers, it is said, formed the five peaks that are the present-day Ngong Hills, in the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, and a popular hiking destination.
— By Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya
The Philippines: The ghost on Balete Drive
Ask anyone in Manila about Balete Drive and many will associate it with the mysterious “white lady” who appears at night.
The street, named after trees that used to line its sidewalks in suburban Quezon city, has been the subject of scary stories that have been told and retold since the 1950s. There are claims that a beautiful woman with long hair dressed in white would sometimes suddenly appear at night — then just disappear without a trace.
It is said that the sightings were reported by taxi drivers working on late-night shifts. Some claim she would appear asking for a ride and then suddenly disappear from the passenger seat as the vehicle moves. Others say her image would appear at the rearview mirror of drivers driving alone and vanish just as quickly.
“I haven’t seen her,” says 53-year-old Roberto Perez, who works part-time near Balete Drive, “but when I pass there between midnight to about 1:30, I get goosebumps, so I just quickly turn to another street.”
The tale’s origins are unknown. There are varying accounts why the ghost appears along Balete Drive, but the most common story is that decades ago, a girl died due to a car accident along the street. Horror movies in the Philippines have been produced based on this urban legend.
— By Celine Rosario in Bangkok and Aaron Favila in Manila, Philippines
Hungary: The marble bride
Through the branches of stately trees on a leafy avenue in Hungary’s capital, passersby can spot an unusual figure keeping solemn watch from above: the statue of a woman with a mournful expression peering from a stone balcony.
The sculpture, known as the “marble bride,” is unlike any of the other frescoes on surrounding buildings in Budapest, and the mystery of its presence has produced legends going back nearly a century.
In one, a young couple shared an apartment in the building when the husband was called to fight in World War I. The wife waited patiently on the balcony each day for his return, and when a letter arrived with news of his death on the front, the woman died of a broken heart.
But the letter had been mistaken. When the husband returned home and found his wife had died, he had a sculpture carved in her honor and placed where she had spent so many days faithfully waiting.
Another legend says that the husband never returned from the war and, unable to accept his death, the woman stayed waiting on the balcony and eventually turned to stone, and still waits today for a reunion that will never come.
— By Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary
Thailand: Lady Nak of Phra Khanong
Bangkok is home to one of Thailand’s most famous pieces of folklore: the tragic love of Mae Nak, or the Lady Nak of Phra Khanong.
The young and pregnant Nak was waiting for her husband, Mak, to come back from war to their home on the banks of Phra Khanong canal. Nak and her baby died during childbirth, but Mak still came home to see them waiting. With his unwavering love, Mak rejected warnings that Nak was a ghost until he saw her stretching her arm from the upper-floor porch to the ground to pick up a lime. He fled, and Nak started terrorizing the town in grief and fury.
In one variation of the story’s ending, Nak was stopped either by a shaman who captured her in a clay jar, or a powerful Buddhist monk who performed a rite to rest her spirit in peace.
The story has been reinterpreted into dozens of movies, with the critically acclaimed 1999 version becoming the first Thai movie to gross over 100 million baht — about $2.7 million at the time. The shrine dedicated to Nak at Wat Mahabut, the temple where her body is believed to be buried, is famous for worshippers seeing their prayers about love and children being answered.
— By Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok
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