Scary Stories Complete Set

by Alvin Schwartz

  “No,” said the other cat. “Let’s wait till Martin comes.”

  “I must be dreaming,” thought the old man. He closed his eyes again. Then he took another look. But now there was as a third cat in the room, and this one was as big as a tiger. It looked the old man over, and it asked, “Shall we do it now?”

  “No,” said the others. “Let’s wait till Martin comes.”

  The old man jumped up, jumped out the window and started running. “When Martin comes, you tell him I couldn’t wait,” he called.

  The Ghost with the Bloody Fingers

  A businessman arrived at a hotel late one night and asked for a room. The room clerk told him the hotel was all filled up. “There is only one empty room,” he said. “But we don’t rent that one because it is haunted.”

  “I’ll take it,” said the businessman. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  The man went up to the room. He unpacked his things, and he went to bed. As soon as he did, a ghost came out of the closet. Its fingers were bleeding, and it was moaning, “Bloody fingers! Bloody fingers!” When the man saw the ghost, he grabbed his things and ran.

  The next night a woman arrived very late. Again, all the rooms were taken except the haunted room.

  “I’ll sleep there,” she said. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

  As soon as she got into bed, the ghost came out of the closet. Its fingers still were bleeding. It still was moaning, “Bloody fingers! Bloody fingers!” And the woman took one look and ran.

  A week later another guest arrived very late. He also took the haunted room.

  After he unpacked, he got out his guitar and he began to play. Soon the ghost appeared. As before, its fingers were bleeding, and it was moaning, “Bloody fingers! Bloody fingers!”

  The man paid no attention. He just kept strumming his guitar. But the ghost kept moaning, and its fingers kept bleeding.

  Finally, the guitar player looked up. “Cool it, man!” he said. “Get yourself a Band-Aid.”

  Abbreviations in Notes, Sources, and Bibliography

  CFQ California Folklore Quarterly

  HF Hoosier Folklore

  HFB Hoosier Folklore Bulletin

  IF Indiana Folklore

  JAF Journal of American Folklore

  KFQ Kentucky Folklore Quarterly

  MFA Maryland Folklore Archive, University of Maryland, College Park, Md.

  NEF Northeast Folklore

  NMFR New Mexico Folklore Record

  NYFQ New York Folklore Quarterly

  PTFS Publication of the Texas Folklore Society

  RU Compiler’s collection of folklore, contributed by his students at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 1963–78.

  SFQ Southern Folklore Quarterly

  UMFA University of Massachusetts Folklore Archive, Amherst, Mass.

  WSFA Wayne State University Folklore Archive, Detroit, Mich.

  Notes

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your eBook reader.

  The publications cited are described in the Bibliography.

  Jump stories (pp. 5–20): There are dozens of jump stories, but today only two are widely known. One is “The Big Toe,” which appears in Chapter 1 and circulates in southeastern United States. The other is “The Golden Arm,” from which “The Big Toe” derives.

  In “The Golden Arm,” a man marries a woman who wears a beautifully crafted golden arm. When she dies, he steals it from her grave, only to have her ghost return to claim it. In some variants, it is a golden heart he steals or golden hair or diamond eyes. Or it is a natural organ, usually the liver or the heart, that he eats, despite the cannibalism involved.

  “The Big Toe” is an American tale. “The Golden Arm,” although widely used in the United States, has English and German antecedents. The Grimm brothers reported a version of it early in the nineteenth century, but the tale predates that period.

  Mark Twain used to tell “The Golden Arm” in his public performances. Here is some advice he once gave on delivering the jump lines that he once gave. It also applies to the telling of “The Big Toe.”

  “You must wail [‘Who’s got my golden arm?’] very plaintively and accusingly; then you [pause, and you] stare steadily and impressively into the face of . . . a girl, preferably—and let that awe-inspiring pause build into a deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, ‘You’ve got it!’

  “If you got your pause right, she’ll fetch a dear little yelp and spring right out of her shoes. . . .”

  There are three approaches to telling these jump stories. Two are found in Chapter 1. In the third approach, the ghost returns to search for what has been stolen. Feigning innocence, the grave robber asks what has become of various parts of the ghost’s body. To each question, the ghost replies, “All withered and wasted away.” When the robber mentions the part of the body that was stolen, the ghost shrieks, “You’ve got it!” See Botkin, American, pp. 502–503; Burrison; Roberts, Old Greasybeard, pp. 33–36; Stimson, JAF 58:126.

  Ghosts (pp. 21–36): In almost every civilization, there has been a belief that the dead return. They are said to come back for various reasons. Their lives were ended before their “allotted time.” They did not receive a proper burial. They had important business to finish or a responsibility to meet. They wished to punish somebody or to take revenge. Or they wanted to comfort or advise someone, or obtain forgiveness.

  It is said that some return as human beings. In fact, they may look just as they did when they were alive, and people they meet may not realize they are ghosts.

  One of the best known of these “living ghosts” is the ghostly or vanishing hitchhiker. It usually is late at night that a motorist encounters her. She is standing on a street corner or at the side of a road, and she asks to be taken home.

  She sits in the back seat of the car. But when the driver finds the address he has been given, he discovers that she has vanished. When he informs her family of this, he learns that she died on that night several years before at the spot where he picked her up.

  There are two stories about living ghosts in Chapter 2: “The Guests” and “Cold as Clay.”

  Some persons who die are said to return as animals, particularly as dogs. Other ghosts may have a spectral quality. Or they may appear as a ball of fire or as a moving light. Or they may make their presence known through sounds they make or actions they take, such as slamming a door, rattling a key in a lock, or moving furniture.

  The ghosts of animals also have been reported, as have the ghosts of objects such as guns, boots, and rifles, and trains and cars associated with death.

  Ghosts of human beings do many things a human does. They eat, drink, ride on trains and buses, play the piano, and go fishing. They also laugh, cry, shout, whisper, and make all sorts of noises.

  When it has completed what it set out to do, a ghost is likely to return to its grave. But at times this may require the help of a person, such as a minister, who may be experienced in “laying” ghosts, or putting them to rest.

  If you wish to see or hear a ghost, these are some recommended approaches: Look back over your left shoulder. Look through either one of a mule’s ears. Look in a mirror with another person. Arrange six pure white dinner plates around a table, then go to a cemetery at noon and call the name of someone you once knew who is buried there.

  If you encounter a ghost, it is advised that you speak to it. If you do so, you may be able to help it finish whatever it is doing and return to its grave. Some say it is most effective if you address a ghost this way: “In the name of God [or in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost], what do you want?” They also say that holding a Bible will protect you against a revengeful ghost and demonstrate your sincerity.

  However, most ghosts are not regarded as dangerous. As the folklorist Maria Leach pointed out, “Usuall
y a ghost is some poor harmless soul . . . looking for someone with enough understanding and kindness to speak to it and do it some little favor.” See Beardsley and Hankie, CFQ 1:303–36; CFQ 2:3–25; Creighton, pp. i–xi; Hole, pp. 1–12; Gardner, p. 85; Leach, Dictionary, “Revenant,” pp. 933–34; Leach, Thing, pp. 9–11.

  “The Thing” (pp. 22–23): This tale describes a forerunner, or a forewarning of death. The warning is a skele-tonlike figure that appears, then chases the principal characters. The skeleton actually is a “wraith,” an apparition that depicts a living person as he or she will look at death. But the most commonly reported forerunners are heard, not seen. They are sounds like a knock on the door or the striking of a clock. See Creighton, pp. 1–7, 69–70.

  “The Haunted House” (pp. 31–34): The tale of a person who is brave enough to spend a night in a haunted house, and who often is rewarded for his bravery, is told again and again around the world. There are many versions of this story, but the theme never changes. In this book there are four disparate variants of this tale: “Me Tie Dough-ty Walker!” “The Haunted House,” “Wait till Martin Comes,” and “The Ghost with the Bloody Fingers.” The tale is classified as Type 326 (the youth who wanted to know what fear was). See Ives, NEF 4:61–67; Roberts, Old Greasybeard, pp. 72–74, 187; Roberts, South, pp. 35–38, 217–18.

  “The Hearse Song” (p. 39): Although many adults are familiar with this song, it is best known in the elementary schools. But during World War I, it was a war song that was sung by servicemen from America and England. One version went this way:

  Did you ever think as the hearse rolls by

  That some of these days you must surely die?

  They’ll take you away in a big black hack;

  They’ll take you away but they won’t bring you back.

  And your eyes drop out and your teeth fall in

  And the worms crawl over your mouth and chin;

  And the worms crawl out and the worms crawl in

  And your limbs drop off limb by limb.

  The words have changed quite a bit since then. Worms now play pinochle on your snout. There is jelly between your toes. And pus, like whipping cream, pours out of your stomach.

  With children as the audience, it is a more gruesome song, but it is not as grim. One scholar associates the change of words with a change of function. During World War I, the song helped servicemen deal with the fear they felt. These days it helps children confirm the reality of death, yet through satire and humor deny its reality for them.

  The song is part of an old poetic tradition. During the Middle Ages many of the poems written in European countries dealt with death and decay. Here is a verse of this type from a twelfth-century poem, which has been translated from the Middle English:

  A vicious worm lives in my backbone;

  My eyes are dazed and very dim;

  My guts rot, my hair is green,

  My teeth grin very grimly.

  At that time such poems may have served still another purpose: turning one’s thoughts from the flesh to the hereafter. See Doyle, PTFS 40:175–90; for two World War I versions of “The Hearse Song,” see Sandburg, p. 444.

  “The Wendigo” (pp. 50–53): The Wendigo, or Windigo, is a female spirit that personifies the awful cold of the northern forests. She figures in the folklore of forest Indians in Canada and in sections of northernmost United States.

  According to this legend, the Wendigo attracts victims by calling to them in an irresistible way, then bears them away at great speed, finally sweeps them into the sky, then drops them, leaving them with frozen stumps where their feet once were. As they are carried off, they characteristically scream, “. . . My fiery feet, my burning feet of fire!”

  The only defense against the Wendigo is to restrain the person who is being called. But the spirit then tries to entice whoever is holding him. See Crowe, NMFR 11:22–23.

  In the lore of some northern tribes, the Wendigo functions not as the spirit of the cold, but as a cannibal giant that kills for human flesh. Some nineteenth-century Indians also suffered a compulsion to eat human flesh, an illness anthropologists later described as a “Windigo psychosis.” See Speck, JAF 48:81–82; Brown, American Anthropologist 73:20–21.

  Belief legends (pp. 59–70): The stories in Chapter 4 are not hard to believe. They deal with ordinary people. They describe incidents that do not seem beyond the realm of possibility.

  But the same incidents are reported again and again at locations in different parts of the country. And it is never possible to trace these stories to the actual participants. The closest one usually comes is a report from someone who knew someone who knew those involved.

  (The one known exception involves the legend of a “death car,” a late model automobile that was sold for virtually nothing because of the smell of a corpse that cannot be removed. The folklorist Richard M. Dorson traced the origins of the story to Mecosta, Michigan, where the incident occurred in 1938.)

  Most of these stories are expressions of the anxiety people have about certain aspects of their lives. They evolve from incidents and rumors that reinforce these fears, and around which stories are constructed.

  These modern legends are described by folklorists as “migratory belief legends.” They are “migratory” in the sense that they do not attach themselves to single locations, as traditional legends often do. They are among the most vigorous of modern folklorist forms.

  All the stories in Chapter 4 are belief legends about some of the dangers that might confront a young person. The story “Room for One More,” in Chapter 3, is another belief legend. It is concerned with the supernatural, but it has been reported in several locations in the United States and the British Isles.

  These legends also are concerned with violence, horror, threats posed by technology, impurity of food, relationships with friends and relatives, personal embarrassment, and other sources of anxiety.

  They circulate by word of mouth, but at times the media carry reports that further disseminate them. See Brunvand, American, pp. 110–12; Brunvand, Urban American Legends; Dégh, “‘Belief Legend,’” pp. 56–68.

  “The White Satin Evening Gown” (p. 63–64): Two versions of this story were known in ancient Greece. Hercules dies when he wears a robe his wife poisoned with the blood of his rival, the centaur Nessus. Medea sends a gift of a poisoned robe to Creusa, the woman her former husband, Jason, intends to marry. When Creusa tries on the robe, she dies. See Himelick, HF 5:83–84.

  Sources

  The source of each item is given, along with variants and related information. Where available, the names of collectors (C) and informants (I) are given. Publications cited are described in the Bibliography.

  Strange and Scary Things

  p. 2“There was a man dwelt . . .”: Prince Mamillius begins to tell his tale in Act II, Scene 1, of The Winter’s Tale. The lines quoted have been rearranged slightly for clarity. See Shakespeare, p. 1107.

  1. “Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

  p. 7“The Big Toe:” These are variants of “The Big Toe,” a traditional story which is widespread in southern United States. I learned them while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. My informant was a sailor from either Virginia or West Virginia. The tales are retold from memory. For parallels, see Boggs, JAF 47:296; Chase, American, pp. 57–59; Chase, Grandfather, pp. 22–26; Kennedy, PTFS 6:41–42; Roberts, South, pp. 52–54.

  p. 10“The Walk”: (I) Edward Knowlton, Stonington, Maine, 1976. For a parallel, see “Ma Uncle Sandy,” a Scottish tale that ends with the jump word “WOW!” in Briggs, Dictionary, Part A, vol. 2, p. 542.

  p. 13“‘What Do You Come For?’”: This is a retelling of a tale told in America and in the British Isles. See Bacon, JAF 35:290; Boggs, JAF 47:296–97. For a nineteenth-century Scottish version, “The Strange Visitor,” see Chambers, pp. 64–65.

  p. 14“Me Tie Dough-ty Walker!”: This is a retelling of a Kentucky tale collected by Herbert Halpert in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1940.
The informant was Mrs. Otis Milby Melcher. For Dr. Halpert’s transcription of the tale and an interview with the informant, see HFB 1:9–11. The story appears under the title “The Rash Dog and the Bloody Head.” It has been expanded slightly, in line with the informant’s published suggestions for telling. The ending also has been modified slightly. In the original ending, the storyteller pauses after the dog dies, then shouts “BOO!” Several children who heard the story didn’t think the ending was scary enough. Bill Tucker, twelve, and Billy Green, twelve, of Bangor, Maine, suggested the change. Motif: H. 1411.1 (fear test: staying in a haunted house where a corpse drops piecemeal down the chimney). For related haunted house tales, see Boggs, JAF 47:296–97; Ives, NEF 4:61–67; Randolph, Turtle, pp. 22–23; Roberts, South, pp. 35–38. In this book, see “The Haunted House,” pp. 31–34.

  p. 17“A Man Who Lived in Leeds”: (I) Tom O’Brien, San Francisco, 1975. The informant learned this from his English father around the turn of the century. For an English parallel, see Blakesborough, p. 258.

  p. 19“Old Woman All Skin and Bone”: A traditional song and tale in America and the British Isles. For variants, see Belden, pp. 502–503; Chase, American, p. 186; Cox, FolkSongs, pp. 482–83; Flanders, 180–81; Stimson, JAF 58:126.

  2. He Heard Footsteps Coming Up the Cellar Stairs . . .

  p. 22“The Thing”: This tale of a forerunner of death is based on an account in Helen Creighton’s book, Bluenose Ghosts, pp. 4–6.

  p. 25“Cold as Clay”: This is a tale told both in America and England. It is based on the English ballad “The Suffolk Miracle.” See Child, vol. 5, no. 272, p. 66. For a text of the tale as it was told in Virginia, see Gainer, pp. 62–63. Motif: E.210 (dead lover’s malevolent return).