BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… SCARY GHOST STORIES. I climbed into my truck at nightfall, trusty Basset joining on the console. Key in ignition, watchful reverse into the alley. Bright crescent moon in the Southwest peeked through poplar branches. Truck tires on gravel, then edge-of-town asphalt. Yellow street lamps light the way, one block, two blocks… At the edge of light, a figure darts across the road. I blink. Human form, running motion. Except — the figure was gray, ragged portions of the body missing. And it was sprinting at preternatural speed. In a fraction of a moment, the outline was gone, but not so quickly that my dog’s head didn’t track the movement. Skye Boy saw whatever I saw as well.
The rest of my short drive to the gym, my thoughts were occupied. What did I just see? A later drive down my street yielded no strange shadows. The truck windshield was not smudged, at least in that space. And my Basset had indeed seen the same fleeting, sprinting gray human shadow I had. Perhaps ironically, after a number of years as a folklore researcher and paranormal investigator, it seems I had seen my first ghost. It would happen, of course, during the Yuletide season.
Christmas season — modern Christmas — is far removed from ghosts; the holiday a brightly lit anti-Halloween, if you will. Family, lights, a sacred star with holy babe, lowly and lowing nativity kine, a time of school programs and candlelit church services, new sweaters and alcohol-free eggnog. Only two pop culture references remain to hint at something more.
Back in 1963, Branson’s lovingly remembered Andy Williams sang of “scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago,” in that holiday classic, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And many of us still curl up on our couches to re-watch one or more versions of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” a story replete with more ghosts than any one story knows what to do with. Yes, an Old English Christmas was less Holy Family and cozy matching pajamas and more raucous wassailing and dark tales of the old gods than we care to admit.
Dickens’ work, even with all its ghosts, did a lot to center English — and consequently American — Christmas around charity and goodwill. Nonetheless, hints of the old Christmas’ spirit remain, a season full of tragic ghostly brides, crossroads gallows, phantom hounds, and a wild procession through the sky, originally led by Odin (or Wotan) upon his eight-legged horse Sleipnir (one leg for each tiny reindeer). It is likely not coincidence that Santa’s magical reindeer Donner is named for the Germanic version of Thor, Viking god of thunder.
Such elemental energies cause distress for some but for me, there is no contradiction from my Christian faith and the past. Our Bible is filled with supernatural realities, metaphysical happenings that defy our modern, secular minds. From astrological Wise Men following a prophetic star to awe-inspiring angels singing to shepherds, from a grand cosmic tapestry of origin to the sky itself darkening over the hill of three crucifixes, our faith is not one of secular and commercial plodding but instead enchantment and profound and holy meaning. Scripture challenges us to open our minds beyond the commercial traditions of the last 50 years and embrace an eternal story of good and evil, played out over vast stakes.
In such a vein, the old tales fill me with hope, no matter how chilling. Here, we find, just beyond the candlelight, shadows of our own ancestors, faces, voices, some loving, some questioning, some provoking. Americans are often lost in our most recent past, unable to see beyond the history we were never taught. And so, as we close in on Christmas, I will raise a glass of wassail to my ancestors, remembered and forgotten, and I will hope, in some unknown way, they can hear my toast. I will long remember the strange and ragged visage that dashed before my truck as I was simply heading to the gym to lift weights, and wonder of its meaning. And hope, perhaps beyond hope, that memories of those long-dead give us conviction to strive toward our brighter natures, guiding our paths to more Scrooge and less Marley, more charity and hope and family, and less haunted and in chains on Christmas Eve, once, long ago.
— Joshua Heston, editor-in-chief, StateoftheOzarks
