by Bob Curran
“I thought that there was definitely somebody walking just behind me, matching me step for step,” said Kenneth Kovacs, an American visitor to the site. “I could definitely hear the sounds of breathing and you get a feeling when there is somebody close to you. But when I turned around to see who it was, there was nothing, just a queerly shaped shadow where the sun had caught the cloister wall a bit awkwardly. It was all very eerie—but I felt a presence that was gone in a moment.”
Toward the end of the 19th century, Mortemer passed into the ownership of the Delarue family. They were exceptionally wealthy Parisians and as soon as they acquired the abbey they left their home in the city and moved into it. They had hardly settled in when strange and disturbing things began to happen. At night, their children were terrified by unexplained noises and things moving in their bedrooms of their own accord. Much of this activity occurred in a part of the abbey known as the Pink Room and in the library next door to it. The lady of the house was convinced that a strange presence followed her along the passages, even on the brightest day, whispering in her left ear from time to time in a low and husky voice. She could not be sure, but she thought that the language might be Latin. Singing or chanting was heard far away across the abbey, but there was no explanation as to where the sound was coming from. Ghostly footsteps were everywhere, and doors opened and closed on a regular basis without anyone there. Mirrors and pictures fell from the walls during the night, and in the morning they were found face down on the floor. Incredibly, their glass was never broken. Although they were exploring some of the more remote areas of the Abbey, the family found a dreadful-looking wooden statute of a priest performing an exorcism in one of the rooms, and every one of them felt that this was somehow connected to the supernatural phenomena. The statue seemed to have a “knowing” feel to it, almost as if it was watching them for some malign purpose. Mr. Delarue noted with a shudder that the fingers on one hand of the wooden priest somehow seemed impossibly long.
Most mysteriously, cars belonging to the family that had been parked in a shed or in a backyard were covered in a strange, fine white dust. Mr. Delarue approached a local priest and had the place exorcised in 1921, but it seemed to have had little effect and his family sold up and moved away soon after.
The ghost that is perhaps most associated with Mortemer is the “White Lady,” said by many to be the spirit of the daughter of the Abbey’s founder. Matilda, daughter of Henry I, was born in 1102, and at the age of 12, was already married to the German Emperor Henry V. Later, she was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou with whom she had a son, also called Henry, who would form the basis for the English Plantagenet royal line (King Henry II of England). However, her rebellious nature and certain scandals associated with her had led to a rift between her and her father, which led to Henry I more or less imprisoning her at Mortemer. Her sad, pale spirit is said to drift through the ruins of the abbey at certain times and many people have seen it. When seen, particular attention should be paid to the phantom’s clothing. If the White Lady is wearing white gloves it is a good omen signalling prosperity, love, marriage, or perhaps even a birth within the family, but if she is wearing black, it signals death within the year.
The ruins are the site of some ferocious poltergeist activity. Lights and noises have been seen and heard throughout the abandoned abbey on many nights. Some of the sounds resemble human cries, others loud bangs and rumbles. Fallen stones are moved, and interior doors swing without reason.
“Sometimes people hear voices shouting as if somebody was in great pain,” observed an old man of the district, as he stood on the path around the ruin. “Other times they hear a roaring, like an animal. Sometimes it’s just noise—like things falling or being pushed about. But very loud!” He paused significantly. “All sorts of things move around in those ruins after dark.”
It is not for nothing that these ancient ruins have acquired the title of “the most haunted site in France.” Lying just beneath the calm tranquillity of Mortemer Abbey, lies another dark reality that stretches its tentacles out into our everyday world to touch the living as they pass. Even in the grounds of such a holy house, one can still feel that the touch is that of the dead!
The Old Abbey (County Limerick, Ireland)
“‘Wheesht, wheesht acushla!’ says the old grandmother
from her seat by the low fire, moving her pipe in her toothless
mouth. ‘There’ll be no more talk o’ ghosts an’ witchcraft,
for such things have no place in God’s holy order. They’re set
against all the bishops and angels indeed.’”
—Mrs. Mallory, The Rambling House
By any standards, the ruins of St. Katherine’s Augustinian Convent, Manisterngalliaghduff—locally known as “the Old Abbey”—are an eerie place. Situated in a low valley about 2 miles from the village of Shanagolden, County Limerick, the ruins are overgrown with brambles and low trees, and access to them can be rather restricted. Yet, the very stones seem to ooze a kind of evil that is almost palpable even on the brightest day. The depression in which the ruin stands is surrounded by fields in where cattle often graze, and yet it is noticeable that no cattle venture close to the grey stone outer walls of the former convent. Nor do many birds nest in the nearby trees. Perhaps this is understandable seeing that such a place was allegedly closed on the orders of a pope because of its wickedness.
The convent was founded around 1298. The exact meaning of the name of the site on which it is situated has been open to argument—some have suggested that it means “the monastery of the black fair” signalling that there may have been some sort of dubious gathering on the location before the monastery was built. It may even have been a place of ritualistic pagan worship. At some time, it was thought that a Christian hermitage may have been erected on the site—perhaps to take away its pagan influences—from which the later monastery developed, described in records as St. Katherine’s Ui Conaill, a place for the worship of Augustinian nuns. It is first mentioned in the early 1300s during an Inquisition (investigation by a Council) into the property of Thomas de Clare, a local landowner. It believed that it was entitled to a share of the rents, which de Clare was levying on a church in the region; the Abbey also claimed an interest in this as well. However, for at least part of its life, the Old Abbey seems to have been a tranquil and relatively holy place.
It is toward the end of its existence that the story becomes confusing and various strands of folklore connected to it start to appear. For instance, it’s not exactly clear when the monastery was dissolved—some say that it was 1541, others that it was a hundred years later around 1642 during the Irish Rebellion. It is quite probable that it may have been closed around the time of the General Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541) under the English King Henry VIII. However, a number of Irish religious houses stayed open long after the Dissolution (Bonnamargy Friary in North Antrim, for instance, was still conducting services, albeit in a limited capacity, as late as around 1650), so it’s possible that St. Katherine’s may have been in existence in the mid-1600s. What is known is that by 1700, it was abandoned.
No one is exactly sure how it closed, but a popular theory is that it was dissolved on the express orders of a pope—one of the very few in the world to be so dissolved. It is unclear who the pope was at the time, but given the suggested dates, two rather distinctive pontiffs could be identified. If the convent was closed in 1541, then the pope concerned would have been Paul III (1534–1549) a rather powerful pontiff and the first real leader of the Counter-Reformation. As such, he was a man determined to strengthen the authority of the Catholic Church across Europe in the face of Protestant advances. If St. Katherine’s was closed in 1641, as some have suggested, then the pope in question would have been Urban VIII (1623–1644), a domineering pontiff with an avowed fear and detestation of witchcraft, which is significant as far as the affairs of St. Katherine’s are concerned, as we shall see. First, however, we will examin
e another ghost, which is alleged to haunt the site, for the Old Abbey was reputedly already troubled at the time of its closure.
Here again the story is rather confusing. During the 1500s, large parts of Ireland were troubled by inter-clan wars in which the English were often involved. One of the great Gaelic houses—the Fitzgeralds, who were the Earls of Desmond and who held lands around Shanagolden establishing a castle there (Shanid Castle)—was almost perpetually engaged in warfare against other English-backed clans. Sometime during the mid-1500s, the wife of one of the Earls of Desmond was wounded in an attack on the castle and was taken to St. Katherine’s to see if anything could be done for her by the nuns there. It was there she supposedly died and her grieving husband placed her in a stone tomb beneath the High Altar. Shortly afterward, the convent was attacked, the attackers believing that the Earl had taken refuge there, and the Earl and the nuns were forced to flee. When they were gone, the lady—who had only been in a stupor—came to and found herself entombed. She couldn’t move the heavy stone slab above her and her screams rang through the now-abandoned Abbey until she was suffocated. Her ghost is now supposed to haunt the ruin, a shadowy shape that drifts between the stones, and sometimes her screams can still be heard, drifting over the nearby fields. It is said in some quarters that those who hear it will be dead within the space of a year.
The most prevalent story about St. Katherine’s, however, is that it was once “a nest of witches.” At some time in either the 16th or 17th century, a certain abbess took over. In their pamphlet The History and Antiquities of St. Catherine’s Old Abbey, County Limerick (1903–4) the archaeologists J. Wardell and T. Westropp simply describe her as “a woman of the Fitzgeralds.” Locally she is known as the Black Abbess or the Black Hag because she “infected” St. Katherine’s with the scourge of witchcraft, corrupting many of the nuns there. The nature of the witchcraft is unknown, but it is whispered that it included raising the Devil and infant sacrifice, although it’s more probable that the nuns simply dealt in potions and philtres. However, there were rumors that the pagan practices of former times were also carried on at the convent.
There have been rumors of Dark Magic in certain other Irish religious foundations. In the mid-1600s, the Dominican friary at Lough Urlaur (about three miles from Kilkelly, County Mayo) was “possessed” by demons and several of the monks summoned up the Devil in the form of a huge black pig. This was eventually charmed out of the friary by an old piper (the Abbot had a dream in which an angel informed him that one good pipe tune, expertly played, was worth the prayers of a hundred bishops) and the holy house was restored. Nothing like that happened at Shanagolden. Indeed, the situation under the Black Abbess grew steadily worse and word of what was going on in Robertstown Parish (in which St. Katherine’s stood) got back to the Primate of Ireland who referred the matter directly to Rome. The pope became involved and after reviewing the alarming tales of what appeared to be going on, simply ordered St. Katherine’s to be closed, and the nuns there dispersed to other convents. This was done in either 1541 or 1641, depending on which source is believed.
The nuns were scattered across Ireland and disappeared—except for one. The Black Abbess continued to remain as a kind of recluse within the abandoned convent. How long she lived there is unknown, but it is thought that she continued to do so as the building decayed and fell around her. Today, the chancel of the old abbey is still known as The Black Hag’s Cell. And, according to legend, she still continued to function as a black magician, preparing potions and love spells for those in the surrounding countryside. According to Westropp and Wardell, who received their account from the oral tradition, she was often seen late in the evening gathering herbs and growths along the laneways and in the woodlands. She was regarded with a great deal of fear by locals who made their way to the ruined abbey in order to buy her potions. She was also widely known throughout the district as a “cup tosser.” This was a kind of prophetess and a forerunner of the person who could read tea leaves. It was probably predicting the future from the dregs of wine in a cup. The Abbess was believed to be so accurate in her prophesies that it was said that no noble in the area would make war on his neighbor without consulting with her first. But such prophesizing reeked of witchcraft and the evil of the Abbess’s ways actually seeped into the very stones of the building, or so it’s said.
The Abbess was found dead one morning amid the ruins of St. Katherine’s convent by a passing pedlar. According to some accounts there had been a heavy frost and perhaps she had perished from hypothermia. Others say, however, that the Devil had come for her. Although she was dead, however, her evil spirit was not done with the ruin in which she had lived. Her likeness, dressed in black and with a black veil across her face, still drifts among the tumbled stones and through the twisted thicket around them. From to time, the specter will venture to the edge of the fields around the Old Abbey and look out across the countryside. It is said that all cattle which it “overlooks” will suffer some sort of illness—one good reason for keeping livestock from straying too close to the ancient walls.
And there’s one other mystery connected with the old place. Hidden away somewhere within the ruin is a book so blasphemous that if a person were to read it without some form of holy protection, they would go mad. This is the Black Abbess’s spell book and a record of the pagan rituals that were supposedly carried out on the site where the abbey now stands. Its covers are said to be of iron—perhaps to restrict the force of the spells within it, and this is sometimes given as another reason why animals (who are sensitive to such things) will not venture too close. It’s said that there have been several attempts to find the book—if someone were to find it and be able to read it, they might acquire great power—but so far it hasn’t been found. But even though its lies are hidden somewhere, its influence still may be felt in the cold chills of the ruin.
Of course, there are those who say that these things never happened—that the stories of witchcraft, pagan worship, and evil nuns lie merely in the imaginations of Protestant Reformers seeking to discredit the Catholic faith in the area. The tale is no more than ancient propaganda, they claim. But even they have to admit that the Old Abbey is an eerie place, a patchwork of crumbling walls and doorways that appear to lead nowhere. And when the sunlight starts to fade, a faint wind blows up and cattle start to move away across the nearby fields, shadows begin to move of their own accord between the trees. Is the tale of the Black Abbess truth or fiction? In the eerie twilight, one can’t help but wonder.
Old Emmanuel Hill Church (Stull, Kansas)
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
—Dante Aligheri, The Divine Comedy
What would make a pope divert his flight plan? To avoid some place where Hell spills out onto earth? Or something incredibly evil smack in the middle of America? Could it be that one of the Seven Gateways to Hell in the world (see Houska Castle) lies somewhere in Kansas? Some people (including maybe even the late Pope John Paul II) seem to think so.
Between the towns of Lawrence and Topeka just off of Route 40, lies the tiny hamlet of Stull. As places go, there’s not much to see in the village—a few houses, a store, and a couple of churches—and yet Stull has achieved something of a reputation for itself and continues to draw what the locals describe as “unwelcome visitors” throughout the year. It has appeared on a number of Websites and videos, and in 1992, a heavy metal band—Urge Overkill—released a CD entitled Stull with a picture of the settlement’s old and abandoned Emmanuel Hill Church on the cover.
It is the cemetery of the church that has gained the place its sinister reputation, and which has been named as one of the “most evil spots in America.” Indeed, it has been given as the location of one of the Gateways to Hell, which exist in the modern world, a suggestion which has carried the fame of this tiny hamlet far beyond the borders of rural Kansas. Each year, at times such as Halloween, droves of sightseers descend on Stull, much to the anger of local residents who clai
m that those who visit the cemetery at Emmanuel Hill are desecrating the graves of their loved ones. There are often rumors that Black Magic ceremonies are being carried on there by Satanists intending to raise the Devil. In fact, the situation has become so bad that the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office now patrols the immediate area and its officers have the power to issue $100 fines for trespassing to those interlopers that they find within the cemetery boundaries. They also have the power to escort such people out of the hamlet. There is also the idea that the name of the hamlet derives from the word skull, referring to the skull of a demon (or a witch), which was found close to the Emmanuel Hill site. And, despite the measures of the local authorities, interest and discussion concerning the place (particularly on the Internet) still remains high. Stull, it seems, has formidable associations and a sinister past. Or does it?
Although the stories concerning the hamlet are legend—many of them involving diabolical revels and actual appearances by Satan himself—there seems to be no real history to them, for the notion of Hell’s gateway is a surprisingly modern one. The hamlet originally started out as a settlement known as Deer Creek around the mid-1800s. It was a large farming community made up of solid, hard-working German, Dutch, and east European immigrants who were deeply religious and kept pretty much to themselves. Although relatively small, Deer Creek was large enough to have its own post office, as it lay on a postal route to Topeka. The postmaster there was Silvester (Sylvester) Stull, whose nationality is variously given as either German or Polish, and whose date of birth is given as March 19, 1862. He was the son of one of the settlement’s founders, Isaac Stull, who had been regarded as something of a village patriarch and wise man. Given such an influential background, it was only natural that Silvester should rise to the position of postmaster for the relatively important Topeka route. He married in Deer Creek, his wife being Bertha Koehler, who bore him 11 children, all of whom were raised on the very edge of Emmanuel Hill cemetery. At the time, the old church was a thriving place, and all of Silvester and Bertha’s children were baptised there. On retirement, however, Silvester and his wife didn’t stay in Deer Creek, or even in Kansas, but moved to Orange County in California where he died on July 4th, 1931. However, the tiny community back at Deer Creek wished to record his contribution to the area and in 1899; they renamed their village after him. The Stull post office was closed in 1903 and so the hamlet name actually reflects the work of a local postmaster rather than the discovery of a diabolic skull, as has been claimed.