Two weeks of my sallies on current events failing to get posted at COUNTDOWN's Newshole have convinced me that I haven't the gift for political satire, so I'm going back to what I do best: pedantic commentary on highly arcane topics. Today that topic is British literary ghost stories. Please hold your snores until the end.

The Brits lost their world empire in the wake of two world wars; their cuisine will never dethrone the mighty French; they drink hot tea at odd hours; they've never figured out that the best soap operas are the campiest (which is why MOST HAUNTED is their best soap opera); and as for what they call football--uh, nope. At the art of the literary ghost story, though, their dominance remains unchallenged, with a golden age that had its beginnings in the literary magazines edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s and lasting well past World War II. Their ghosts can be romantic, benevolent, malevolent, funny, creepy, mere shadows or in your face, but they are remarkably memorable. I had a hard time choosing only five favorites, but here they are, in reverse order.

"Smee" (1931) by Alfred McLellan Burrage. Hide and seek is an innocent childish game that can nonetheless be enjoyed by adults. You'll never think so again after reading this chiller about a variation on hide and seek that turns up one too many players. Burrage (1889-1956) was a World War I veteran who used the pseudonym Ex-Private X.

"Squire Toby's Will" (1868) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Two brothers are at war over their father's will, with supernatural intrusions and deadly results. The brilliant Irish writer Le Fanu (1814-1873) is best known for his vampire novella "Carmilla" (1872). The great M.R. James (see below) regarded Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank" of ghost story writers. Trust me, James was right.

"A Warning to the Curious" (1925) by Montague Rhodes James. In East Anglia there is a legend of a Saxon king who buried three holy crowns along the coast as talismans against invasion from Europe. One crown was taken by the sea; another was reported to have been dug up, melted down and sold in 1687. The third was guarded by successive generations of a single family; does the death without issue of the last male in the line leave the crown unguarded? Not hardly, as the fool who tries to dig it up learns. M. R. James (1862-1936) wrote in this story a great description of the random nature of ghost sightings: "Sometimes, you know, you see him, and sometimes you don't, just as he pleases, I think: he's there, but he has some power over your eyes."

"A Visitor From Down Under" (1926) by Leslie Poles Hartley. Hartley (1895-1972) was notable for infusing his ghost stories with mordant humor. There is none in this tale of an Australian murder victim who trails his killer to London. Interspersed with a radio broadcast of some rather unsettling children's games, it builds to an appallingly bloody--and terrifying--climax. It's thematically related to M. R. James's "A School Story," with its sinister "if you don't come to me, I'll come to you" motif, but "A Visitor From Down Under" makes "A School Story" look prim as a Sunday school picnic.

"Man-size in Marble" (1893) by Edith Nesbit. Nesbit (1858-1924) wrote her best ghost stories during the Gay Nineties, but this one has no decadent touches. The tomb effigies of a pair of medieval robber barons--"them two bodies, drawed out man-size in marble" as one character describes them--have an unsavory habit; on Halloween they rise "in their marble," walk out of the church, and cross the fields to a tiny cottage, all that remains of their great house--and God help whoever's home when they arrive.

If I want to scare myself silly I read them all, back to back.

Also, I'd like to wish my beloved nephew Bubba a happy belated eighteenth birthday. I would have written a whole blog about him, but I found I couldn't write about that beautiful chunky baby boy with whom I fell in love on sight, who has grown into a tall, handsome, sweet, funny young man before my bewildered eyes, without getting mushy. Happy birthday, love!

And till next time, fair thee well.

My favorite magazine is the bimonthly BLUE RIDGE, which "explor(es) the mountains of the South" with written and photographic coverage of Appalachian history, music, folklore and ecology. In the October issue, writer Karen Plumley tells the story of West Virginia’s Greenbrier Ghost, the only case in American legal history where a ghost provided the information by which her murderer was convicted.

On October 26, 1896, twenty-one-year-old Elva Zona Heaster of Greenbrier County, WV, married Edward Shue, a thirty-five-year old blacksmith who had only recently moved into the community. Zona’s mother, Mary Jane, neither liked nor trusted her new son-in-law. Keep that in mind; it will be very important as the story plays out.

Zona was found dead in the couple’s home on January 23, 1897. By the time the local doctor arrived, Edward Shue had already washed and dressed the body. When the doctor, who noticed odd discolorations on Zona’s face and neck, tried to make an examination, Edward flung himself over her upper body and wailed so loudly that the doctor desisted, ultimately pronouncing the cause of death "an everlasting faint." Others, less impressed by Shue’s displays of grief, noticed that Zona’s head moved with peculiar looseness every time the coffin was moved.

Mary Jane Heaster believed from the beginning that Shue was responsible for her daughter’s death, and began to pray that Zona would return from the dead to "tell on" Shue.

Mary Jane would later testify under oath that over four consecutive February nights, Zona did return. Zona told her that Edward had, in a violent rage, broken her neck with his bare hands, which she demonstrated by turning her head a full one hundred eighty degrees.

Impressed by the insistent Mary Jane and the local rumor mill, and over the protests of Shue, the county prosecutor ordered Zona’s body exhumed and autopsied. She had indeed died of a broken neck, and her husband was charged with first degree murder.

Pretrial investigation revealed that Mary Jane’s suspicions of Shue were warranted. His name was not Edward Shue; it was Erasmus Shue, and he was a convicted felon. Moreover, he had been married twice before; one marriage had ended in divorce in 1889, while the second ended in 1894 with the death under strange circumstances of his bride of eight months.

His trial for Zona’s murder lasted nine days. Mary Jane’s story about Zona’s ghost was initially excluded as hearsay, until Shue’s attorney questioned her about it in an attempt to make Mary Jane look deranged. It backfired; the jury listened avidly, and on July 1, 1897 convicted Shue of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he would die in 1900.

Sources other than Plumley suggest that Mary Jane never spoke with Zona’s ghost at all. They point to an item that appeared near Zona’s obituary in the January 28, 1897 issue of the local newspaper. The item reported a murder case in Australia which was allegedly solved after appearances of the victim’s ghost. These skeptics believe Mary Jane read the item, then concocted an elaborate scam to rouse others’ suspicions of her hated son-in-law, although Zona’s death could have been accidental; she was found at the foot of a staircase and might have fallen to her death. It’s a moot point; Mary Jane died in 1916 without ever changing her story.

Zona has a historical marker on a Greenbrier County highway (like another supernatural creature, Tennessee’s own Bell Witch), and a modern tombstone on her grave identifies her as the Greenbrier Ghost.

Legal history isn’t always dull, campy or melodramatic; sometimes it’s downright spooky. Until next time, fair thee well.

Madame Sadie, our local psychic, is a sociable creature in spite of her rather odd profession and her solitary drinking habits. She was thrilled to pieces when she was asked to appear at a Halloween fair at our local high school.

Madame did have one request: that she be allowed to have Willard and me along as assistants, saying quite seriously, "Sometimes what I see in the crystal ball overwhelms me, and it's good to have people around who know how to care for me."

Willard and I had an idea what she meant by "care for me," but we didn't have the heart to tell her that if things went south we couldn't serve her a Bud Lite; alcohol is strictly prohibited on school property. We also nobly refrained from pointing out that Willard is far more psychic than Madame, and doesn't need a crystal ball either.

The fair was set up for a Thursday night; Wednesday's church night and our beloved but spectacularly unsuccessful football team always plays on Friday nights. When we picked Madame up at her house, she pranced out wearing a green dress with a hoopskirt, a red wig that threatened to slide askew, and a crushed picture hat. She looked like a motheaten Scarlett O'Hara. "How do I look?" she crowed.

"Gorgeous," Willard and I responded dutifully. "Where's the crystal ball?" I added.

She hoisted a bowling bag. "Here. Let's get this buggy in gear."

When we got to the high school a young man dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow led us to an elaborately but tritely decorated classroom. There were black cheesecloth draperies floating about, a few plastic tarantulas dangling from the ceiling, and several jack o'lantern trick or treat buckets full of ersatz chocolates scattered around. On an artist's easel just inside the door, a poster made by somebody with more imagination than artistic ability declared, somewhat misleadingly, MADAME SADIE: READ YOUR FUTURE AND WEEP. In the middle of the room sat a table covered with purple cheesecloth studded with glow in the dart crescent moons, flanked by two shabby chairs that looked like castoffs from the funeral home.

Madame Sadie dove under the table. When she resurfaced she said blandly, "Making sure there are no hostile influences here." She put the crystal ball on the table, and Willard dusted talcum powder off it, creating a nice hazy effect. When we stopped sneezing Madame sat down, made a few passes over the crystal, and intoned grandly, "We begin" as her first sucker--I mean, client--appeared at the door.

Madame, I'm sorry to say, dispensed pretty generic stuff that night; she promised everybody interesting lives in colorful surroundings. Every so often she'd go under the table again, apparently bothered by those pesky hostile influences. Once or twice she startled Willard and me. She told an intense young man with a mohawk that he would soon be traveling to the Soviet Union to convert the Reds, proving she knows less about modern history than Fred Thompson.

She told a giggling young thing in a gypsy getup--the main feature of which was an acre of cleavage--that she was gonna be in show business and would be as successful as Jenna Jameson. The boobalicious babe had never heard of the recently retired porn legend and was inclined to argue, but Willard and I hustled her out with a handful of chocolates and an assurance that the crystal ball--not to mention Madame Sadie--was a bit woozy.

Then Miss A came in, wearing a crimson jumpsuit and carrying a crossbow. She plopped down and said challengingly, "Tell MY fortune, you old bat," sounding just like her daddy.

Madame let out a screech and collapsed in a dead faint. Willard, Miss A and I promptly clustered around the crystal ball and were treated to a shocking vision.

A somewhat older Miss A, pen and notebook in hand, was waving wildly; she was trying to get in a question at what appeared to be a presidential press conference but was being outshouted by a tall man who looked suspiciously like Tucker Carlson. Miss A expertly elbowed him in the crotch. He dropped to the floor, clutching his credentials, while Miss A shouted her question at--

"Oh my God!" we chorused. "KINKY FRIEDMAN?"

Madame was moaning, and Willard solicitously broke an ammonia ampule under her nose. Madame opened one eye and hissed, "Under the table!" We found the pesky hostile influence: a huge insulated mug of Bud Lite.

Sadly, the crystal went dark about then, and Madame insisted she was too exhausted to continue. We took her home. She murmured incoherently all the way about onion domes, Victoria's Secret and lawsuits.

All in all, it had been a disastrous performance.

And until next time, fair thee well.

I’ve always known I live in a haunted house (of sorts) since I was old enough to know anything at all. Let me tell you a little about my house—it was built less than five years before WWII out of lumber that had once been far older houses. The builders were my grandmothers cousin and her husband.
Now Grandma’s cousin was unusual even for my family—she made moonshine in the cellar. She had a hole in the floor of the living room where she had a piece of copper tubing come up from under her rocker and a rug, to fill the containers her customers brought. (I know shades of the Baldwin sisters on The WALTONS TV show or the ladies on ANDY GRIFFITH). The cousin would play the innocent when the cops came. I’ve always wondered if the police came just to put a good face on and wink at her when they left "without finding" anything.
Anyway, years later, my parents bought the place and re-floored the living room. Growing up my cousins and I would joke about ghosts in the house. I didn’t really believe they were there until the back door took to unlocking itself every night. With just me and grandma in the house at the time (and me always awake at every little sound because grandma could sleep through most anything) I knew there wasn’t a person unlocking it. Finally, after too many times of this, I shouted in that little back room where the door was. "You’re dead. It’s time for you to go on to where you are supposed to be." The ghost apparently saw the light and left. Can I say good riddance?
I didn’t have any more unexplained events until the months before my mother passed on. Suddenly I had dishes piling themselves into my sink to be washed four times a day. I made a joke to my mother one day about those dishes multiplying like rabbits. "It’s Mommy and Poppy, they don’t think you have enough to do." Okay, this came from a woman who was dying and didn’t always know what was going on in the house, but she may have had something there.
Every now and then I’d hear a racket in that kitchen and assumed Grandpa was either trying to stop Grandma or just making sure I knew he was there too. I think part of those dishes were his doing!
I thought my ghost problems would leave when Momma died, after all it could have been coming from her brain and it was her side of the family. No such luck. Grandma has only gotten worse. She doesn’t just pile dishes in the sink anymore. She has been known to throw them in the floor. Or sail them like a frisbee against the wall. I’m just waiting for her to take a notion and throw them at my head in displeasure. Who knows now that I’m telling people she just might. If I show up with a black eye you’ll know Grandma got me in my sleep.
I’ve thought about bringing in Ghostbusters or TAPS. But I’m afraid they wouldn’t stand a chance against her. After all a woman who would jump in the well to stop her daughter from getting married won’t allow anyone to make her stop tormenting her youngest living grandchild. Is it any wonder I haven’t found a man to have fun with yet? She’d just chase him away.
I guess that means Grandma’s in the house. And she means to stay.
Anyone know if she’ll follow me if I move away?

I’m not the most psychic member of my family, unfortunately. Vibrations have to be exceptionally strong for me to be affected by them. My most memorable experience happened in a mountain graveyard nearly twenty years ago.

My friend Tooey had taken me to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was late in the year, a dull heavy cloudy November day. I had the experience in the cemetery of the Primitive Baptist Church, the oldest church in the Cove; many of the earliest and most prominent settlers in the area rest there. Now there are paved paths through the cemetery and the graves are roped off; twenty years ago the paths were dirt and you could walk among the graves.

We passed the grave of Russell Gregory, arguably the Cove’s most famous resident; he was murdered by North Carolina rebels during the Civil War. I felt no vibrations near Russell’s grave. A few feet beyond it, though, was one of those sad little tombstones that mark the graves of small children.

By that tiny grave, I stepped into the blackest grief I have ever felt in my life. It was so powerful I burst into tears and all but fell to my knees.

Today that little tombstone is so badly broken as to be unreadable. Then it was cracked, but on the side facing the path were carved the words "Suffer the children to come unto Me." To this day I can’t tell you why I didn’t step off the path and around to the front of the stone to see if I could read the name and dates. I can only say that I cried there for some minutes, feeling what can only have been the despair of that child’s mother.

Within another couple of feet, I walked out of that grief.

Across the cemetery, almost directly opposite that wee grave, there’s a line of nine graves from one family. Seven are children’s graves, and most of them never reached their second birthday. I’ve never felt grief near those graves; only at that one beyond Russell Gregory’s.

I’ve never learned that baby’s name or when it lived. I’ve often wondered if it was a firstborn, or worse yet, the only one its mother ever bore. I have been back to Cades Cove many times, in every season, and I have felt that mother’s grief every time, but never as powerfully as in that leaden November.

Till next time, fair thee well.