Happy Halloween

Here are some Camfire Stories
For fun reading.

Bloody Mary

retold by
S. E. Schlosser

Listen to the story (4.3 mb download)

She lived deep in the forest in a tiny cottage and sold herbal remedies for a living.
Folks living in the town nearby called her Bloody Mary, and said she was a witch.
None dared cross the old crone for fear that their cows would go dry,
their food-stores rot away before winter,
their children take sick of fever,
or any number of terrible things that an angry witch could do to her neighbors.
Then the little girls in the village began to disappear,
one by one.
No one could find out where they had gone.
Grief-stricken families searched the woods,
the local buildings, and all the houses and barns,
but there was no sign of the missing girls.
A few brave souls even went to
Bloody Mary's home in the woods to see if the witch had taken the girls,
but she denied any knowledge of the disappearances.
Still, it was noted that her haggard appearance had changed.
She looked younger, more attractive.
The neighbors were suspicious,
but they could find no proof that the witch had taken their young ones.
Then came the night
when the daughter of the miller rose from her bed and walked outside,
following an enchanted sound no one else could hear.
The miller's wife had a toothache
and was sitting up in the kitchen treating the tooth with an herbal remedy
when her daughter left the house.
She screamed for her husband and followed the girl out of the door.
The miller came running in his nightshirt.
Together, they tried to restrain the girl,
but she kept breaking away from them and heading out of town.
The desperate cries of the miller and his wife woke the neighbors.
They came to assist the frantic couple.
Suddenly,
a sharp-eyed farmer gave a shout
and pointed towards a strange light at the edge of the woods.
A few townsmen followed him out into the field and saw
Bloody Mary standing beside a large oak tree,
holding a magic wand that was pointed towards the miller's house.
She was glowing with an unearthly light as she set her evil spell upon the miller's daughter.
The townsmen grabbed their guns and their pitchforks and ran toward the witch.
When she heard the commotion,
Bloody Mary broke off her spell and fled back into the woods.
The far-sighted farmer had loaded his gun with silver bullets
in case the witch ever came after his daughter.
Now he took aim and shot at her.
The bullet hit Bloody Mary in the hip and she fell to the ground.
The angry townsmen leapt upon her and carried her back into the field,
where they built a huge bonfire and burned her at the stake.
As she burned, Bloody Mary screamed a curse at the villagers.
If anyone mentioned her name aloud before a mirror,
she would send her spirit to revenge herself upon them for her terrible death.
When she was dead,
the villagers went to the house in the wood
and found the unmarked graves of the little girls the evil witch had murdered.
She had used their blood to make her young again.
From that day to this,
anyone foolish enough to chant
Bloody Mary's name
three times before a darkened mirror will summon the vengeful spirit of the witch.
It is said that she will tear their bodies to pieces
and rip their souls from their mutilated bodies.
The souls of these unfortunate ones will burn in torment as Bloody Mary once was burned,
and they will be trapped forever in the mirror.

The Lady in Lace
retold by
S. E. Schlosser

There is a ghost that walks along the Seventeen Mile Drive on foggy nights.
She is called the Lady in Lace. People say she is the ghost of Dona Maria del Carmen Barreto, the woman who used to own much of the land on that stretch of the California coast,
returned to keep watch over her land.
Others disagree.
The claim that the white,
flowing gown of lace in which the ghost appears resembles a wedding gown.
They think that she might be the ghost of a jilted bride who was left standing at the altar.
Travelers encountering the ghost of the
Lady in Lace as they drive down the Seventeen Mile Drive
on foggy nights say that she looks very sad and lonely, as if she were about to cry.
They see her walking slowly along the road,
her shoulders drooping a bit as if she were carrying a heavy burden of grief or pain.
When they draw close to her, she disappears.
One night,
a courting couple went out to sit on the rocks at Pescadero Point overlooking the sea.
It was a bright night, and they were whispering together and watching the moonlight sparkle on the water when the Lady in Lace appeared right before there eyes.
As they watched in astonishment and fear, she walked passed them, her form glowing in the moonlight.
Slowly, her face set and sad, she wandered down to the beach.
Then she vanished into thin air. Needless to say, that was the last time that couple went courting at Pescadero Point!

The Lady in Red
retold by
S. E. Schlosser

We didn't believe in ghosts,
so when the fellow checking us in
warned us that our room on the sixth floor was haunted,
we just laughed.

There were a lot of crazy people out there
who believed in ghosts and wanted to stay in a haunted hotel,
but Marie and I weren't two of them.

I'd chosen the Mizpah
for our weekend getaway
because I'd like the description of the hotel and it amenities,
not because it had a phantom.

Just for kicks,
Marie asked the fellow who was supposed to haunt our room.
He told us that it was a ghost called "The Lady in Red".
She was a prostitute who was strangled by a jealous boyfriend
and her tormented spirit still lingered in the hotel.
She was said to follow guests around,
and to play with the gaming equipment in the casino.

"A gambling ghost?" I asked laughingly.
The boy glared at me,
and I was sorry for making a joke about something he obviously believed in.
We said a hasty good-night and went up to the sixth floor.

As we neared our room,
Marie gasped and grabbed my arm. I stopped and looked at her.
She pointed, wide-eyed, toward the far end of the hallway.
Before our eyes, the glowing figure of a woman came hurrying toward us.
I shivered superstitiously,
my skin prickling in the sudden cold as she rushed passed us
and walked right through the wall next to our room.
"Good lord, there really is a ghost in our room!"
I gasped.

"I am not going in there," Marie said firmly.
Her face was pale and her black eyes were wide with fear.
"No way."

I didn't much feel like going in there either,
but we had gotten a special deal for two nights,
paid in advance and non-refundable.
I didn't want to waste our money.
In the end, I wrenched open the door,
turned on the light, and investigated every corner,
looking for the Lady in Red.
She was gone.

Marie absolutely refused to set foot in the haunted room.
In the end, I had to go down to the desk and request a room on another floor.
The boy didn't say much when I told him we had seen the Lady in Red,
but he gave me a know-it-all smirk that made me want to smack him,
and assigned us to a room on another floor.

Marie barely got a wink of sleep that night.
She kept waking up,
afraid that the Lady in Red would come walking through the wall
and do terrible things to us.
We were up at dawn
and had checked out of the Mizpah by breakfast time the next day.

From that day on,
Marie always booked our hotels,
and she always made sure
that there were no ghosts anywhere on the premises
before she made a reservation.

The White Lady
retold by
S. E. Schlosser

In the early 1800s,
The White Lady and her daughter
were supposed to have lived on the land where the Durand Eastman Park
-- part of Irondequoit and Rochester --
now stands.

One day, the daughter disappeared.
Convinced that the girl had been raped and murdered by a local farmer,
the mother searched the marshy lands day after day,
trying to discover where her child's body was buried.
She took with her two German shepherd dogs to aid in her search,
but she never found a trace of her daughter.

Finally, in her grief,
the mother threw herself off a cliff into lake Ontario and died.
Her dogs pined for their mistress and shortly joined her in the grave.

After death,
the mother's spirit returned to continue the search for her child.
People say that on foggy nights,
the White Lady rises from the small Durand Lake which faces Lake Ontario.
She is accompanied by her dogs
and together they roam through the Durand Eastman park,
still searching for her missing daughter.

The White Lady is not a friendly spirit.
She dislikes men and often seeks
vengeance against the males
visiting the park on her daughter's behalf .
There have been reports of the White Lady chasing men into the lake,
shaking their cars,
and making their lives miserable until they leave the park.
She has never touched any females accompanying these unfortunate fellows.

The Maid of the Mist
(Ongiaras)
retold by
S. E. Schlosser

She lost her husband and her hope at a young age,
and the beautiful girl could not find her way through the sorrow upon sorrow
that was her lot in life.
So she stepped one day into her canoe,
singing a death song softly to herself, and paddle out into the current.
Soon the canoe was caught by the rough waves and hurtled toward the falls.
But as it pitched over and she fell,

Heno, the god of thunder who lived in the falls,
caught the maiden gently in his arms
and carried her to his home beneath the thundering veil of water.
Heno and his sons ministered to the grieving girl,
and she stayed with them until her heart healed within her.
Then the younger son spoke words of love to the maiden and they married,
to the delight of the god of thunder.
A young son was born to the couple,
and he followed his grandfather everywhere,
learning what it meant to be a god of thunder.

The only shadow
on the happiness of the maiden in the mist
was a continual longing to see her people one more time.
Her chance came in an unexpected and unwelcome way.

A great snake came down the mighty river
and poisoned the waters of her people.
They grew sick and were dying.
Soon the snake would return to devour the dead
until my people were all gone.

It was Heno himself who gave her the news,
and she begged that she might return for one hour to warn her people of the danger.
The god himself lifted her through the falls
and set her down among her people
to give warning about the evil snake
that was causing such pestilence among them.

She advised them to move to a higher country
until the danger was past,
and they agreed.
Then Heno came and took the maiden back to her husband and her home.

In a few days,
the giant serpent returned to the village,
seeking the bodies of those who had died from the poison it had spread.
When the snake realized that the people had deserted the village,
it hissed in rage and turned upstream to search for them.

But Heno heard the voice of the serpent and rose up through the mist of the falls.
He threw a great thunderbolt at the creature and killed it in one mighty blast.
The giant body of the creature floated downstream
and lodged just above the cataract,
creating a large semi-circle
that deflected huge amounts of water into the falls
at the place just above the god's home.

Horrified by this disastrous turn of events,
Heno swept in through the falls and did his best to stop the massive influx of water,
but it was too late.

Seeing that his home would soon be destroyed,
Heno called for the maiden and his sons to come away with him.
The younger son caught up his wife and child
and followed Heno through the water of the falls and up into the sky,
where the Thunderer made them a new home.

From this place,
they watch over the people of the earth,
while Heno thunders in the clouds
as he once thundered in the vapors of the great falls.

To this day,
an echo of the Heno's voice can be heard in the thunder
of the mighty waters of Niagara Falls.