In honor of the season of Halloween I thought I would start the ball rolling on some ghost stories. Hopefully we’ll have one or two a week. If you have any favorite spooky stories do tell them!
Owd Nance is one of my favorites ghost stories from my childhood. However it is a bit dark and gory as you might imagine from the title. It’s greatly paraphrased from what I remember reading in a book at least ten years ago. Still you have been warned!
The story takes place in Yorkshire, England. Ann, called Nance, was one of three sisters who built Burton Agnes Hall. Anne had taken great pride in the building of their home, consulting with many architects and builders and loving every moment of the construction.
One day when she was walking home from visiting some friends in Harpham, she found tramps sitting by a well on the side of the road. She was nervous to approach them but she had her dog with her so felt it would be okay. The asked her for some money and she took out her purse to give them a few coins. As she did so they saw a ring she was wearing and demanded that as well. The ring, while cheap, was a keepsake from her mother so she refused which prompted them to take it by force.
The dog tried to help but the tramps drove it away by hitting it with a stick. When Anne screamed for help they beat her with the stick as well; but her screams had attracted the attention of villagers who came to her aid driving the tramps away. Anne was unconscious and bleeding from the large wound in her head. The villagers carefully carried her to her home, which she loved greatly, where she was put to bed.
Unfortunately Anne’s condition deteriorated despite the care of her sisters and them bringing in many brilliant doctors. Anne spoke often to her family about their beautiful house and the pride she had in it. Realizing she was dying she called her sisters to her bedside once more and told them, “I will not sleep peacefully in my grave unless I, or part of me, remains in our beautiful home. Promise me that when I am dead my head shall be taken from my body and kept within these walls. It must remain here. Make known to those who own the house in the future that if they disobey this request my spirit shall make such a disturbance that the house will be uninhabitable as long as my head is kept from its home.” Her sisters were terrified by her request but she was most insistent. To calm her they agreed to do as she asked but decided that she was feverish and sick and didn’t know what she was asking. When she died they buried her at a nearby church and mourned her. She had been the most cheerful of them and they missed her desperately.
A week to the day after her death they were going to bed when they heard a loud crash from an upstairs room. They rushed to the stairs and were joined shortly by the servants who had also heard the noise. The sisters ordered the servants to go upstairs and find out what had caused the noise. They found nothing out of place. The disgruntled group went back to bed.
A week later in the dead of night they were again woken by strange noises. Sounds of doors being slammed shut in every part of the building. Keeping together sisters and servants searched the entire house but every door was shut fast. Crashes and banging echoed around them from whatever part of the house they were not in. Just as suddenly the noise stopped but they huddled together exhausted and afraid until finally one of the servants said:
“It seems finished.”
“Do you think?” asked one of the sisters, “That it’s really done?”
“Last time it stopped it didn’t start again.”
Still they listened a while longer. The house stood silent and they slowly returned to their beds to lie sleepless until morning.
Next week like clockwork the household had their sleep shattered. Noises of people running up and down the corridors and stairs. The house shaking and thundering with the noises until they suddenly stopped and a spine-chilling groan echoed down the halls. More running and stomping. Silence. Another groan. Again and again this went on. This time however everyone stayed terrified in their rooms as the noises went on and on past midnight. The next day the servants packed up their things and left. The sisters tried to persuade them to stay but they refused to stay in a house tormented by such ghosts.
“There has to be a simpler explanation.” The sisters insisted.
“What else could it be but a tortured soul?” The servants replied and walked out.
The sisters, at wits end, called the vicar to visit them. They told him everything that had happened. During the course of the visit one of them remembered the promise they had made to Anne as she lay dying and made another horrifying connection. That the disturbances were occurring on the weekly anniversary of her death. The sisters and the vicar tried for many hours to wrap their head around the idea that Anne’s spirit was indeed making the house uninhabitable and to come up with some way to satisfy her wish if that was the case. In the end the vicar suggested that they do the unthinkable and open her grave. Reluctantly the sisters agreed.
The next day they met with the vicar and a gravedigger to open the coffin. When they reached the lid and opened it they were met with a ghastly sight. While the majority of Anne’s body lay there putrefying her head was severed from its body and the flesh and skin had all rotted away leaving just her skull. This was enough for them and as horrific as Anne’s wish seemed she got her way and her skull was brought home. All the while it was there the house had peace free from ghostly interference and so it stayed.
Every once in a while someone would try to get rid of the skull but always the knockings, door slamming, clatter of footsteps and blood curdling groans would return and it was hastily brought back.
There was one story of a maid throwing the skull from the window it a passing manure cart. The horses stopped stock still and refused to move despite their driver whipping them and shouting. The maid confessed what she had done and had to climb into the cart to retrieve the skull and bring it back inside. Then the horses continued on their way.
The skull remained at the house until the sisters passed, and it is said any time one of the new residents tries to remove “the hideous thing” from the house the commotion starts up all over again.
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