Rattlesnake bluff, home of the legendary rattlesnake Big Jim is a heavily wooded bluff overlooking the Skillet Fork River, in White County, Illinois. I’d figured that much out by poring over Google Earth for some time, trying to match up the satellite images with the historical record. Or what little record I had, and I […]
Lakey’s Ghost: On folklore and folk horror from the prairie, and how the legend of the headless horseman galloped westward across an ocean and a continent
On Lakey’s Ghost from John W. Allen; Legends & Lore of Southern Illinois … Until recent years it was a common custom to go calling on neighbors in the evening and “set until bedtime.” There were no telephones, television sets, or radios for entertainment. There were no automobiles nor were there any roads for them to travel. […]
A return to Bardstown, Kentucky: Spending the night in a cell at the Jailer’s Inn, a haunted jail in a town known around the world for its ghosts
The only troubling sound I heard the night I spent in the Jailer’s Inn in Bardstown, Kentucky was the sound of a cell door closing. There are two reasons I found that disturbing. First, the jail was shut down late in the twentieth century, so there are no inmates, and it’s unlikely the staff was […]
True witch legends from southern Illinois … giving Carmi’s Cato the witch the last laugh on her neighbors, and an insight into folklore and history
There’s a difference between folklore out here in the prairies of the United States, than say, the folklore of Britain. When people starting collecting the unwritten tales of small rural communities across Britain and Europe in the 19th century, our ancestors were just getting here, bringing their folklore with them. There was no folklore to […]
Top 4 elegantly creepy places to spend the night with ghosts in the midwest
Haunted hotels, bed and breakfasts with ghosts … there are countless places to spend a spooky night across the country. Let’s face it, ghosts don’t appear on schedule and usually not at all. So if you’re spending the night someplace spooky, it should be somewhere full of stories, comfort and ideally, a well stocked bar […]
America’s Haunted Inns: Bardstown Kentucky’s chilling Old Talbott Tavern lives up to its reputation
It was late in the evening, the manager of Talbott Tavern and a cook were making their way up the stairs towards the safe, when they saw the figure of a man in a long coat walking across the landing. Hurrying up, they reached the top of the stairs just in time to see the […]
