Ghost Story For Sublime Sunday
My contribution for #sublimesunday organized by @c0ff33a.
Today is a miserable rainy day. If your Sunday is the same, please pull up a chair around this wood fire and I will recall a ghost story called Phantom Bell Ringers.
Here’s the cosy fire Hubby started to take the dampness out of the air.
Gather around folks and I will tell you the true story of the disappearing ghostly bell ringers.
In my youth, my grandmother entertained me and the rest of her grandchildren with ghost stories.
A most precious memory, this time with Nanny, spent gathered around the large wood stove in her living room.
Sometimes the room would get so hot from the fire, we had to go to another room. She had such great scary stories we would all be terrified, laughing and screaming at the same time.
Someone would knock on the wall and we would be hysterically frightened again thinking the ghost was coming to get one of us.
Her ghost stories were true supernatural events that happened to people in the local area.
I had a short distance to walk home, in the dark, after an evening of hearing one of Nanny’s ‘scare the crap out of you stories.’
Running home, as if chased by the last apparition I heard about, my feet barely touched the ground. I was afraid something ghostly would jump out of the ditch at me.
My dearly loved grandmother has been gone many years but the love for true ghost stories has stayed with me.
And now for the ghost story I promised...
In a previous post I wrote about the Phanton Fiery Ghost Ship. The Ghost Ship was commemorated on a Canada Post stamp.
In 2016 Canada Post issued this final stamp in the series on Haunted Canada.
The following stamp, Phantom Bell Ringers of the Kirk of St. James, is commemorating another famous ghost story of Prince Edward Island.
Phantom Bell Ringers
source
The stamp shows three women. One is holding the rope from the bell of the Kirk of St. James Church in Charlottetown. A glow of white light eerily shines from the church tower.
This ghost story has it’s beginnings in the early morning, Friday, October 7, 1859, when a bell could be heard ringing all over Charlottetown.
A local Sea Captain thought the bell was from a ship at the harbour. He goes there to find the steamer ship , Fairy Queen ready to depart for Pictou, Nova Scotia.
While at the harbour, the Captain realizes the bell sound is coming from the direction of the Kirk Of St. James Church.
By the time the Captain gets to the church, the Church Sexton arrives to check out why the bell was ringing.
As the two stand outside, the bell rings eight times. Suddenly three women appear dressed in white and open the door to the belfry, while another women looks down from the tower. As they enter, the door closes behind the three ghostly apparitions.
In order to enter, the Church Sexton has to open the shut door with his keys. He and the Captain search the tower that contains the bell. Much to their surprise, no sign of the women can be found!
As the story goes...
The steamer Fairy Queen never arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia that day. The ship sank killing eight passengers.
Among the passengers killed were three women who belonged to the Kirk of St. James congregation. The fourth women lost at sea on the same ship did not belong to the church.
My interpretation of the supernatural happenings:
The bell ringing eight times corresponds to the foretelling of the eight passengers killed on the Fairy Queen.
At the time, this church’s congregation would be of Scottish/Gaelic descent and most probably carry the bloodline the Banshee Woman follows. The women dressed in white could have been their family’s Banshee announcing the coming deaths of the women. The women in the tower- another banshee, but not connected to the others.
I’ve written about the Banshee Woman forerunner in precious posts. She appears dressed in light or white clothing. She is known for wailing and weeping to let the families of Irish/ Scottish descent know of an approaching death. The sound of a bell is also know as a forerunner of death.
For an example, I have a friend here on the Island who hears a bell sound in her ear when a family member or close friend is about to die. She even knows the direction they live in by which ear the sound is heard.
I happened to stop at the Kirk of St, James Church in Charlottetown a few years ago and took this photo of part of the church.
This is one of the old trees in front of the Kirk of St. James Church. The bump looks like a wrinkled up face.
I hope this true ghost story doesn’t keep you awake tonight!
Sublime Sunday Info
Location: Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Story and Photos by @redheadpei unless otherwise sourced.
Thanks For The Visit!
Leave the light on tonight if you’re scared !👻
Leave the light on tonight if you’re scared !👻
Oh oh oh send this to @carrieallen! She is AWESOMESAUCE in the castle. Could be good for her horror bit.
I send her the link. 👻
Congratulations! This post has been chosen as one of the daily Whistle Stops for The STEEM Engine!
You can see your post's place along the track here: The Daily Whistle Stops, Issue #122 (5/2/18)
The STEEM Engine is an initiative dedicated to promoting meaningful engagement across Steemit. Find out more about us and join us today.
Thank you so much @thesteemengine! Appreciated. ❤️
I do love a good ghost story!! Thank you @redheadpei, that was a good one and that fire looks so good and I've got a chill! Unsure if the ghost story got me or that it's just so cold still..probably both! ;)
Thanks Dee. I hope you got a bit of chill out of the ghost story. 😃 👻 ❤️
You're very welcome and I enjoyed it very much!! ❤
My family never tell ghostly stories, because we lived in the pretty isolated places, so it wouldn't be appropriate and it was scary enough without it lol.
Church does look a bit scary and not so comfortable to be near, I bet.
Also, a great story with a little bit of history.
Thanks so much for stopping by @aschatria. Yes the church did have a different vibe. 👻 😃
I had a rough idea what Banshees were, your posts shed some new light on their origins, creepy stuffs!
I have heard about the Banshee woman and her relationship with my family all my life. Happy to shed a little light on the mysterious lady. She is not someone to be afraid of @dxn but a messenger.
I’m going to do another post on the Banshee soon.
Thanks @ninjajon for your support and resteem.
This story has got everything in it, the right location and setting, the right ambience I will have to look this up for sure thank you so much for this very much enjoyed it.
Thanks so much @crazybgadventure for your kind comments. I’m happy you enjoyed the ghost story. 👻 😊
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=redheadpei
Post link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=ghost-story-for-sublime-sunday
Want to have your post on the map too?
This is a fantastic spooky story, I do like them although I always sleep with the light on because I'm a big wuss!
Perfect for a #SublimeSunday , creative and different just right! Thanks for joining in again.
#thealliance
Thanks Rob @c0ff33a for your lovely comment and the resteem. I’m glad you found the story spooky. 👻
I started having my own spooky premonitions of death several years ago. I would be going along with my normal life when all of a sudden, out of nowhere a slight breeze of absolutely frigid air would surround me. It was unmistakable, like a door to a very cold room opening very briefly and then closing again.
Then within hours someone I knew would die -- sometimes very unexpectedly. It took me a few times to make the connection between the cold breeze and the news of sudden death. I was not in a good place psychologically at the time, so when that cold air would hit me, it became very upsetting.
Reflecting on it, I realized I may have even brought it on myself. I had been through a series of terrible, life-changing surprises (which is why I was in such bad shape) and I jokingly asked The Universe for a "little notice" before something broadsided me again. It's possible that was the answer to my own request.
So, I then asked whatever part of me was making this possible to please stop. It was just too much to deal with ... the anticipation of what the news would be just made it worse. So it did. (At least it was cooperative.)
I hate to think I seemed ungrateful to a response I had asked to receive -- but it was really too much, and perhaps the part of me I was talking to understood that. I honestly don't know if I ever want that ability back again. Call me a wuss, but sometimes it really is better not to know in advance.
Thanks for sharing this @enchantedspirit. I guess it’s true, we have to be careful what we wish for. I had some experience with the cold air- also hot air in connection with my mother.
When my mother was ill and before she passed I was in another province and all at once I would get the feeling of heat to my ankle. With a day or so, I would get a phone call telling me to come home. I would fly home and Mum would recover-then it would happen all over again.
I spoke of it with my brother and he said he thought he was standing beside a heating duct at times as heat would hit his body all of a sudden.
When I told Mum about the unusual heat she said she could feel heat leaving her hands at times but wasn’t aware of why it was happening.
My mother did pass within the month- on my birthday Nov 1 to make things worse.
The heat rays must have been an unconscious release from my mother telling us she needed us.
I don’t know why it was just my brother and me who got the heat messages. My two much younger siblings said they never got any.