Episode 187: Your Urban Legends XXXVI - The Taste of Ghosts
/Have you ever thought about what a ghost tastes like? We sure have now! We rank the five senses of hauntings, bemoan a secret bathroom, and yell about how breath should ALWAYS be hot because of your urban legends!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, excrement/feces, fire, child endangerment/death, blood-sucking/vampirisim, sickness, death of spouse, possession, trances, and seizures.
Housekeeping
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast; a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I’m Amanda…
Julia: ...and I’m Julia…
Amanda: ...and this is Episode 187: Your Urban Legends #36.
Julia: So many of them, Amanda. I can’t believe we’ve done that many.
Amanda: I think and hope that that will be a new peak age for me. I hear in your 30s you stop giving a shit what other people think. That sounds great. You really come into your fashion and your hair choices. I don’t know, maybe I’ll have a garden at that point. That’s kind of what I’m gunning for.
Julia: I appreciate that. Look forward to the future, let’s see what life unfurls for you.
Amanda: Absolutely, and I know that life has nothing but wonderful gardens and beautiful wallpaper for our new Patron, Garrett, who joins the ranks of the 300+ Patrons who make it possible for this to be our jobs, including our distinguished, Supporting Producer level Patrons: Megan Moon, Keegan, Landon, Baz, Mr. Folk, Jen, Hannah, Alicia, Sarah, Mimi, Megan, Debra, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Neal, Jessica, and Phil Fresh.
Julia: They all have gardens in their hearts, but mostly it is summertime so it’s a lot of berry season and fruit and you’re picking strawberries off of the branch and just eating them. Love it.
Amanda: And our Legend level Patrons always know what to do with the pounds and pounds of greens that come in your CSA or farm boxes for the first few weeks of summer. Donald, Eden, Drew, Avonlea, Chelsea, Clara, Frances, Josie, Morgan, Bea Me Up Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Sarah, and Jack Marie, please help me deal with all these mustard greens!
Julia: You gotta make some gazpacho or something, Amanda. It’s gazpacho time!
Amanda: That’s true, that’s true. I have done some fun things with the kale and escarole and it’s going to be great.
Julia: Nice. Also, very good time to make smoothies, I guess. Do you have a good blender?
Amanda: We do! Yeah, the Nutribullet really comes through! This is not SponCon, but I was like, “How could an infomercial product be this good?” It’s quite good.
Julia: It is. There’s a reason it’s around so much. It’s a household name, you know?
Amanda: And, Julia, in our households, there’s no better name than local craft breweries. Can you remind us what we were drinking this episode?
Julia: Yeah! As always, we drink local beers. I want you to stick around after the refill, though, to see which ones we were enjoying because I think the ones we chose were muah chef’s kiss.
Amanda: I agree. And your taste is always chef’s kiss to me, Jules. What have you been reading or watching or listening to this week?
Julia: I have picked up A Song Below Water by Bethany C Morrow, which is a fantasy about black mermaids, but it’s also a story of self-discovery and combating racism and sexism. It’s very, very good.
Amanda: Sounds fantastic, I’m going to add it to my library list.
Julia: You should, it’s great.
Amanda: And after everybody buys that book from a Black-owned bookstore, I recommend that you check out next week’s Myth Movie Night flick so that you can watch along with us!
Julia: Yeah, it is summertime, so obviously you’re thinking about summer camps and then lakes and then obviously the best and more infamous lake of horror movies. That’s right, we’re watching the original 1980 Friday the 13th and we’re going to talk about how horror movies have kind of created a new breed of urban legend and the folk tale boogeyman that has come out of Hollywood.
Amanda: I am going to be away for my first vacation in a long time next week by a lake, so I am looking forward to having that in my brain the whole time.
Julia: Don’t be a mean camp counselor and you’ll be fine.
Amanda: All right, I can do that.
Julia: I have also been having lot of people ask me for cocktail recommendations on Twitter and on Facebook and I love giving those out, but I also wanted to remind y’all that if you sign up at our $4 level on Patreon we have almost 200 cocktail recipes for every episode that we’ve put out that are available to you as soon as you pledge, and there’s just as many mocktail recipes on there, too. So if you’re taking a break from alcohol or if it’s not your thing, we have recipes for you as well. You don’t have to drink in order to have a good time.
Amanda: We have made a full coffee table book at this point of custom recipes and mocktails for you every, every, every, every episode.
Julia: They’re very good, too. I try almost all of them and I’m very happy with the results.
Amanda: Absolutely delicious, and that’s at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And finally, we want to remind you, another great way to support Spirits and all the other shows at multitude is by buying our merch. Whether you get it as a gift or for yourself, it’s a really nice way to get something tangible as a reminder of your podcast support and to help us make a living doing this, and we have a bunch of awesome new merch out. HORSE has a wallpaper bundle, Spirits has a new pin set and digital coloring book and those amazing haunted national park posters, Join The Party has a guide to reskinning in D&D for superhero games which is so exciting, and Potterless has some freshly restocked pins and shirts and I know there are new things coming. So, you can check out all of those items and more at multitude.productions/merch.
Julia: Yeah, if you like any of our shows, rocking our merch is a great way to support us and have people be like, “Hey, what’s that from? Why do you have a fish that says ‘not Ludo Bagman’ on it?”
Amanda: Yeah! “Why does your shirt say ‘Kinda Creepy, Kinda Cool’? ‘Cause that sounds amazing and I want to be your friend!”
Julia: “What’s up nerds, it’s basketball! Welcome to HORSE.”
Amanda: “Wow, your lock screen is so pretty, tell me about it.” It’s so good. Well, thank you for all of the ways you support our show, and I know that each and everyone of you do in your own way. We truly support it, we love making this show for you every week, and without further ado, we hope you enjoy Episode 187: Your Urban Legends #36…
[Theme music]
Eric: Everybody, we are recording live from the new house!
Amanda: Oooh!
Julia: Oooh. It makes it sound like we all moved into a house together.
Eric: Yeah, me and my girlfriend Kelsey have bought a house and we live in it and that’s where I’m recording from now.
Julia: So, let’s get a quick update from Eric Schneider in his new home, what’s the ghost situation there, my dude?
Eric: The ghost situation so far is non-existent. From what we understand, the man who lived here before was very old.
Julia: Oh no!
Eric: He was 96 and that’s all I know about the house. The house is 112 years old so 1908.
Amanda: So you’re marinating. We’ve got a lot of energy there. I think there’s a lot of potential.
Julia: I don’t think you can say that the ghost situation is non-existent when it’s that old and the man who lived there previously might have died there? I don’t know. But definitely have some energy there.
Eric: I don’t know if that’s the case—
Amanda: On the other hand, he lived a long life.
Eric: —but we currently have not experienced anything. I was in the basement the other night with the lights off and—that makes it sound like I was just down there hanging out, but I saw that there was a light that was off because I don’t know how all the lights work. A light was on, I should say. I went down there to turn it off, and then there were no lights on, and I used my phone flashlight to get out—and I experienced nothing creepy there. I haven’t had a weird, creepiness at all. In fact, our air conditioner was not working two days ago and I felt no cold breezes, so if anything, a haunting would have been very helpful at that point and I did not experience any. So as of right now, I feel like we’re on the up and up.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Has any sleepwalking started or stopped?
Eric: No sleepwalking has started or stopped. Henry, our pup, has—now this didn’t start at this apartment, but—recently, over the last few weeks, has decided to start waking up super early and asking to go outside at like 6 in the morning for some reason. Don’t know why. So, that’s just been annoying, but not exactly a spooky pooch by any means.
Julia: All right, all right. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
Amanda: Fair enough.
Eric: I’m going to close a door, because there’s a door that keeps banging, ‘cause I don’t know how the doors work in here yet.
Julia: It’s the ghosts!
Amanda: They just want a good cross breeze!
Julia: That’s how you get your spook—the chair just moved by itself, also. I would like to point that out.
Amanda: That was just the carry-overed momentum.
Julia: Mmm. The chair moved by itself.
Eric: Well, it’s, once again, a 112-year-old house, so maybe not every floor is perfectly level.
Julia: All right. How about we start off, then, I think this is a good segue, into an email that was sent to us by Josh, and they write: “Hide and Seek Gone Wrong/Knock Knock Who’s There Gone Wrong.”
Amanda: Oooh.
Eric: Oh. That’s…I don’t like either of those things going wrong.
Julia: So, Josh writes: “Howdy folks! These stories come from a small area in central Texas. Hope you enjoy. So, growing up in a little community where most of my family all lived close together, many of my cousins and I were told scary stories about the woods that surrounded ‘the ranch’—which is what we called it—stories about La Llorona, Chupacabra, Coyotes, even prisoners escaping from a prison 40 minutes away from there, so playing hide and seek at night was extra scary for the 10-12 of us that played together.
During a match where there was still light outside 2 cousins came screaming out of the woods freaking out, scaring all of us that were playing. We asked where they were and what happened. The older of the two, looking back over his shoulder still trying to catch his breath, said something tried to grab them! They went to hide near the opening of the woods, which was always a creepy spot for me, that was cut down and the tree line curved around it, just large stumps left there which was perfect to hide behind While they were looking for the tagger, a dark figure came from behind them out of the woods. The older cousin saw the dark figure out of the corner of his eye and grabbed the smaller cousin closer to him as they simultaneously jumped to their feet and backed away from it. He said he couldn’t understand why he didn’t hear it coming up behind with all the grass and broken branches out there, but it didn’t make a sound. That was because it was floating! As they backed away and eventually turned and ran for their lives, the thing was still trying to grab my little cousin. We asked what it looked like and basically, it was described like a Dementor—a floating dark figure with no face and long creepy arms, but none of us knew anything about Harry Potter and back then the series was on book one! So needless to say we ended our game and went home, but I didn’t know my little cousin escaped Azkaban and we got caught up in it during a game of hide and seek.”
Amanda: Aww.
Julia: That’s cute. “The next story happened at my uncle's house with most of the family home at the time. No one locked the doors around there, so if someone knocked all they needed to hear was ‘come in’ to open the door. Well, one day as—“
Eric: I always like a “no one locked the doors around there…” Any time it’s like, “Oh, you know, around there we didn’t do things this way.” What was happening “around there” that it feels—not otherworldly, but it’s just different enough, slightly out of time and space.
Amanda: Well, it implies a change, also. It implies, that’s how it used to be, but then The Incident.
Eric: Yeah. Exactly.
Julia: I think it’s very much like a “very small town so you know all your neighbors” so if something’s missing from your house, you probably know who took it, you know?
Eric: True.
Julia: That kind of thing.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s just a very idyllic, sort of pastoral conjuring of childhood in a way that implies the world has changed now.
Julia: Yeah. “Well, one day as they were all inside talking and watching tv someone knocked on the door. ‘Come in,’ they said—but nothing. Another knock. ‘Come in,’ they said, a little louder—still nothing—“
Amanda: Oh no. The rare situation where you’re inviting the spirit into your home and the fact that they don’t come in is the creepy part.
Julia: Yeah, it’s bad. “Curious, my uncle got up to see who was there and looked out the window, but no one was there...but it knocked again! This time, everybody was aware and checked through the window again and still no one, so my uncle locked the door and they began to pray—which I guess insulted this invisible being because the door started shaking violently, like someone was trying to get in. My uncle ran to the door and pushed against it to keep whatever it was from breaking the door down while everyone else was yelling ‘en el nombre de jesús’ over and over again. With all the yelling and the door rattling it was a pretty scary scene. After what seemed like forever, the door just stopped and everyone got quiet and waited for something else to happen, but nothing happened after that day. I was told that story when I was young and it always scared me when I would go to that house and stand at that door and knock, because to this day my uncle believes the Devil was trying to get inside his home. What a creepy way to grow up! LOL. Love the show, especially the urban legends! Keep them coming!
[Laughter]
Amanda: Fantastic.
Eric: I’ve got a story about Working With a Prankster Ghost and A Phantom Flusher.
Julia: Ooh a phantom flusher. I like that.
Eric: Now, I assume that, in this case, the phantom flusher is a phantom that is flushing. Oftentimes I feel like, especially in colleges—this might be different for those of you who went to more of an urban downtown school, but when we were in college, we had a phantom shitter.
Julia: Oh no!
Eric: Who was just a person who would, in the middle of the night, go and shit somewhere.
Julia: Not in a toilet?
Amanda: Somewhere they weren’t supposed to be?
Eric: Right. Yes. Yes, of course. Obviously. It would not be newsworthy if someone in the middle of the night just took a dump somewhere on campus.
Amanda: I was like, “That sounds great to have off-peak hours, bathroom to yourself, no time pressure…”
Eric: Oh, yeah. We’ve all woken up and had to take a number two. No. This is more about someone has been leaving their dorm at 3 AM to poop in the middle of the quad or something.
Amanda: Oh man.
Eric: But I assume that’s not what’s happening here.
Julia: I thought you meant that they would take a shit in a toilet but then just not flush it or something, like the rude thing to do.
Eric: No, no.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: Also disturbing.
Eric: Well, this is much ruder. This comes to us from Nate and he writes: “Howdy y’all, my name is Nate and I live in northwestern lower peninsula of Michigan.” Which is the most Midwest way of saying where you live. “I work at a Victorian-style inn that was built in 1886–“
Amanda: Haunted.
Eric: “—by a man named John Wesley Howard.”
Amanda: Haunted!
Julia: Super haunted.
Eric: Oh, for sure. It’s got all the things that you need to be haunted. Victorian, the word Inn, and a year before 1900.
Julia: Is the Inn spelled with an e? That’s an important question.
Eric: The Inn is not currently, but also, he just used the word inn, he hasn’t named the inn itself.
Julia: Ah,okay.
Eric: So I don’t know the name.
Julia: It’s extra haunted if they have the e.
Amanda: Oh yeah.
Eric: Also it’s owned by someone with three names, John Wesley Howard.
Julia: Ope. Yup. That’s super haunted.
Amanda: Oh. Got it. Super.
Eric: All the checkmarks. “I’ve been working at the inn for about 6 years and have a few stories to share about our resident spirit who likes to mess around with our guests and workers in playful ways. We’re unsure who this spirit could be, so all of the employees have taken to calling the ghost Howie after Mr. Howard.
I’ve only had one experience with Howie, but plenty of guests and other coworkers have fallen victim to his antics. He is known for never outright scaring people, just causing strange things to happen and causing minor inconveniences, which is why we like to think of him as a fairly harmless prankster.”
Amanda: That’s pretty chill, Howie. Thanks.
Eric: “My experience with him happened after I was leaving for the night after working at the bar. It was around midnight when I was leaving the building and our only other employee was our front desk person. I went to leave through the basement of the inn because that’s the exit closest to where I was parked, so I know no one else was in the basement with me because no guests could go down there and our front desk person was busy taking care of the night’s paperwork. Before I got to the exit in the basement the lights suddenly turned off and I was surrounded by darkness.” Been there. Literally last night. “Understandably, I was freaked out and quickly made my way out of the building. The next day I asked the front desk worker if they had turned the lights off downstairs right after I had left and they confirmed my suspicion that they had nothing to do with it, so I was a bit excited that I had finally had my first Howie experience.
Julia: That’s very much our listeners, who would be like, “I finally got a ghost experience. Hell yeah!”
Amanda: Yeah!
Eric: Yeah. This is Nate’s second story about Howie. “Mostly guests have experiences with Howie. Usually we know he’s around when we can smell the scent of a very distinct cologne which smells like aftershave with a hint of mint.”
Julia: I don’t like ghost scents. I’m not a fan of a ghost scent.
Amanda: Ghost scents really—they take it to the next level, man.
Eric: Let’s rank, real quick—we’ll do this afterwards. We’ll do this afterwards.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: “Many guests report smelling this in the halls all around the inn as well. One of the most notable guest experiences with Howie was when a guest was woken up in the middle of the night by a toilet flush. It wasn’t his toilet because the water in his toilet wasn’t running, and he swore the flush came from his room because it didn’t sound muffled by walls at all. We eventually convinced the guest it was probably just another guest’s toilet, but none of us actually believed that because we knew a secret about the room he was staying in.”
Julia: Uh oh. Uh oh!
Eric: “None of the rooms at our inn are alike and they are all remodeled every once in a while. It just so happened that this guest was staying in a room that had been combined with another room so it had one too many bathrooms.”
Amanda: Ghost toilet!
Eric: “When we did this remodel, instead of removing a bathroom, we just walled one fo them up—“
Julia: Oh my god!
Amanda: No!
Eric: “— and left all of the appliances, including the toilet, inside of the room.”
Amanda: No!
Julia: That seems like a bad idea, just structurally, but also bad for ghosts.
Amanda: You’re just inviting a ghost. As a ghost, wouldn’t you want to live somewhere with a private bathroom?
Eric: “As soon as we heard that the guest was freaked out by a toilet flush we knew it was Howie having some fun with the walled-off toilet in that guests room.”
Julia: God damnit.
Amanda: Good call not telling the guest that, because if a hotel told me that I would have to leave.
Julia: Yup. I would have to leave right now. Right away.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: I think this is like a business decision by Howie the ghost, too. Where he mostly only bothers guests, because chances are they’re not going to come back and stay there again, but you don’t bother the people working there because they’ve gotta work there and you need to, you know, have employees.
Amanda: Oh yeah, and it’s good staff bonding, you know? You’re keeping the staff all together, you are causing a little bit of harmless mischief for everybody’s enjoyment, I appreciate you, Howie.
Eric: So, let’s talk about the worst sense to sense a ghost with. Obviously, the sixth sense. Amanda, you’re raising your hand.
Amanda: Smoke.
Eric: Smoke isn’t a sense!
Amanda: No, no, as a—
Eric: That’s sight.
Amanda: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were saying ranking creepiest smells. I got so excited by smells.
Eric: Oh, you’re thinking smells. I was like, “What—“ Okay, let’s do that one. Let’s do both. What’s the worst ghostly smell to experience, first off?
Julia: Ladies’ perfume.
Amanda: I think smoke.
Eric: And Amanda thinks smoke.
Julia: Like a regular, wood smoke, Amanda, or like brimstone, sulfur smoke?
Amanda: Like burning hair or plastic. Like the smell of a house fire is more what I’m thinking. A pleasant wood smoke, bring it to me all day long, but a smell that makes me think there is physical danger imminent would be the scariest to me.
Eric: I mean, that would definitely be the worst one just because one, you’re going to think something’s on fire, but two, if it is a ghostly smell then that’s also very bad. So I don’t like either of those. I also feel like an old-timey—both of you really hit it on the head—like an old-timey perfume or cologne also is quite bad.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: Or like the grandma baby powder style smell. That one I feel like is bad because either there’s someone—I don’t know, my brain would immediately leap to “Oh god, someone’s infant died and they’re about to kill the kid in the house as a result” or something. I don’t know.
Julia: That’s a jump.
Amanda: Listen, we’ve done 36 of these, there is a lot of stories.
Eric: Speaking of smells, what the worst ghostly sense is to experience, since we’ve moved into the house, it just smells very clean and new and I just have to keep reminding myself that I’m not staying at an Airbnb.
[Laughter]
Eric: Like, “Oh, yes, I live here! I’m here every day now.” ‘Cause it doesn’t have any of our “lived-in” smell, it’s all the standard gray painted walls, so it just feels like one Live, Laugh, Love poster away from having to lead in 72 hours.
Amanda: Does your kitchen instruct you to Eat!?
[Laughter]
Eric: When we were in Tennessee, there’s just a sign that says “Eat” in the kitchen, it was very—
Amanda: It was like 15 feet high.
Julia: Scary.
Amanda: It was extreme.
Eric: So let’s talk about worst ghostly senses to experience. Amanda is on record at one point saying that she would not mind being touched by a ghost on the foot.
Julia: I’m sorry, you’re incorrect my friend.
Eric: I feel like touch is the worst one.
Amanda: 100%.
Eric: Amanda’s on record saying it’s not the worst one, I don’t know if she’s changed her opinion on this.
Amanda: Okay, if I had to choose between smelling a ghostly smell or feeling the brush of a ghostly hand on an appendage far away from me, like my foot, I think I would still go with the touch! Because the scent would really—I would not rest until I figured out where it came from and that, to me, is more like mischief almost. That is truly a way to make me very confused and fixated, is like, “Where the fuck is this coming from?” Versus a ghostly brush-by, I’m like, “Okay, that was a ghost. Okay, fair enough,”
Julia: Okay. No.
Eric: Now let’s say, the worst is sight because then you’ve seen the ghost. Or is that not the worst?
Julia: I would say—okay, here is my ranking.
Eric: Yeah. Rank the five.
Julia: Touch, worst.
Eric: Worst.
Julia: I think sight after that, hearing, smell, taste.
Eric: Now see, I’m really torn on taste. Is tasting a ghost the worst or the best?
Julia: Listeners, if you have a story where you taste a ghost, I would love to hear it because—
Amanda: Yeah, we really have to know.
Julia: —I don’t know what that would be like!
Amanda: I mean, I feel like that is the close—like sometimes we get stories where it’s like “person experiences seeing hallucinations” and there’s an underlying medical or psychological cause, and I feel like taste would be the creepiest to me in that I would wonder “Is there something going on neurochemically or brain-wise that is causing this?”
Julia: Sometimes my mouth just tastes bad and I just play that off. So I feel like if I just tasted something weird, I would just be like, “Hm. Okay.”
Eric: Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You play that off? Like you’re like at a party and you’re like, “Ooh, my mouth tastes bad. I gotta play this off for the rest of the night. I can’t let anybody know that my mouth don’t taste good!”
Julia: No, I think it’s more like, “Hm, my mouth tastes weird it’s probably just like...I’m feeling weird adrenaline right now because of anxiety,” or something like that. I’m not going to worry about that as much as something like I feel something touch my skin, you know?
Amanda: In other words, tastes that you can’t really place are part of your everyday experience already.
Julia: Yes. So that doesn’t throw me off, that’s why I ranked it last.
Eric: I would go touch as the worst, still, and then I would go, I would say taste, because it would really throw me off. Also just the idea of tasting a ghost freaks me out. Then I would probably go sight, hearing, and then smelling. I wouldn’t be worried about smelling a ghost. I feel like I have the same experience with smelling as you do with taste where I just will conjure up a very old smell and be like, “Yes I remember this odd thing from the 90s that makes me remember playing Vector Man on a Sega Genesis.”
Julia: Hoo, all right. Deep cut.
Amanda: I had that feeling yesterday, because we moved into our apartment just about a year ago and I hadn’t smelled the smell of a warm room before the air conditioner got turned on, where I’d get home and it was warm from the sun, and I was like, “Oh, this places me back exactly to first moving in.”
Julia: Love that.
Amanda: And for me, I think, again, I’m on record, I don’t think touch is so bad, so I would probably go worst to me is smell because I will be haunted until I can find the source, second one, probably sight because I feel like I’m very susceptible to looking in an empty space or catching something in the corner of my eye, like every single morning when I make tea it reflects against my stove in a weird way and I turn my head so severely because I think it’s a roach or something—that’s just New York City apartment living—then probably taste ‘cause I’m scared, and then touch...and hearing. I’ll do hearing last. I hear weird shit all the time.
Julia: Okay.
Eric: I’ve been scared by my chair three times since moving in. I don’t know why, I just feel like it’s because it’s cast against a window, so it just kind of looks like a person more than it usually does, and I’m also looking at it from a different angle, but I’ve literally been like, “Ooh! Oh, no, that’s literally the chair I’ve been sitting in for two years.”
Amanda: Aww, bud. Well guys, I have a story here from Jamal about somewhat tasting so I think it’s a pretty good segue. This is titled The Old Haig and Other Similar Legends from Guyana. “After hearing all the stories from your listeners I realized that I was never told any by parents and grandparents. I guess, unlike most, they didn't want to scare me. So I asked my Grandma to tell me some stories from Guyana, and she told me about the Old Haig. The Old Haig dons the form of an elderly village member. The way my grandma tells it is that they are alone with no family and particularly love playing with little fat babies. The Old Haig will keep an eye on the family, to know which house they’re from. At night, they’ll walk to the person's house, remove their skin at their front door revealing a spirit—called a Jumbee in Guyana and the Caribbean. The spirit will then enter the house through openings around the doors or windows as these are wooden Guyanese houses, they’re not airtight bunkers, there might be openings. Inside the house, they will float around trying to find the child. The spirit might make noise like a poltergeist does, but they can also just be quiet and avoid hitting things along their way. They’ll enter the child's room and suck their blood like a ghost-vampire. In the morning, the child will be noticibly thinner and paler and have little bruises on their skin from where the Old Haig drew blood.”
Julia: Noo. No, baby.
Amanda: “Every night they must drink human blood, no matter the age or size of the human, it’s just that they really like little, fat babies.”
Julia: Well, you know, fresh, sweet blood.
Amanda: I guess.
Julia: Isn’t that a typical vampire trope?
Amanda: So even you could be a victim of the Old Haig, but there are ways to combat it. As a preventative measure, you can place chalk around your house, which prevents the Old Haig from getting further. If you find the Old Haig's shedded skin, you can rub peppers on it, which burns the Old Haig when it eventually puts it back on.”
Julia: Okay. Hold on.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: I have a question.
Amanda: Yup.
Julia: What skin are people finding?
Amanda: So, The Old Haig dons the form of an elderly village member.
Julia: No, no, I know, but realistically, what do we think, someone’s like, “I found a Haig skin.” What is a possible real-world situation? What is that?
Amanda: Could be snakes. Certainly.
Eric: Alligator.
Julia: Very big snake. Probably. Alligator.
Amanda: Do alligators shed?
Julia: That’s a great question.
Eric: I don’t think they shed, but you can skin them.
Julia: That’s true.
Eric: ‘Cause, the boots.
Julia: But who left an alligator skin just lying around?
Amanda: That sounds valuable.
Julia: All right.
Eric: I played Red Dead Redemption 2. Lots of animals are skinnable.
Amanda: Oh no.
Julia: Fair enough.
Amanda: I suppose. That makes a lot of sense though, if you end up catching them in the act or you’re walking by somebody else’s house and you happen to see the crumpled form of an elderly village member with no mass inside of it, that would be a really helpful thing to do. “If you find the spirit itself in your house, usually if it makes a noise or hits into something, you can beat it with a broom. This will either kill it, or remove from your house indefinitely. Now, I did some research on the Old Haig, to see if it appears in other parts of the Caribbean, and it does. The Soucouyant is virtually the same thing. Wikipedia even mentions the Old Haig as another name of the Soucouyant. Some variations I read online have the Haig not as a spirit, but a fireball that gets into your house through keyholes. You can read more if you look up either of those topics on Wikipedia.”
Julia: Ooh. Interesting.
Amanda: “And a second, tiny myth my grandma gave was this one: a property of babies born with cauls is that they can see spirits when they grow older. However, if the midwife or doctor removes this before nine days after the birth, the baby will no longer possess this ability for their lifetime. My grandpa claims that his friend never had his vaul removed until after the nine days had passed and could see spirits. If they were walking at night, he would sometimes push my grandpa out of the way of what he claims were bad spirits coming toward him.
Julia: That’s a long time.
Amanda: To me this sounds like Jamal’s grandpa’s friend really enjoyed pranking Jamal’s grandpa, which I just think it’s wonderful.
Julia: So, okay, I did a quick thing just because I wanted to check and I’ve heard of cauls before, but basically it’s the piece of the membrane when a baby is born that sometimes covers their head and face and it’s extremely rare. Like 1 in 80,000 births a child is born with a caul, but that’s a long time to leave that on a baby. Nine days is a long time.
Amanda: It is a long time. Maybe someone is waiting for a specialist. I don’t know, maybe they don’t think it’s a big deal or they want to give their child that ability, but I think as long as it’s not interfering with the child’s breathing, it’s pretty harmless. It’s just like, might as well take it off when the kid is born. But, I’ve heard this, this is present in many cultures, that cauls have a special kind of meaning or significance to the child’s fate. So, thank you, Jamal, that was really fascinating and I hope that you do ask your grandparents more and send us in more legends.
Julia: Yes, we’d love to hear them.
Amanda: Now, guys, I’m very excited to share my next myth with you and hear what you’ve selected, but first let’s grab a refill.
Julia: Let’s do it!
[Theme music]
Julia: Amanda, I have been taking a new class lately. You know me, I always want to learn new things, and I have taken a class that is just letting me kind of go free reign with my art. Which is not something I feel like I’ve done since high school, and that class is “Drawing on Everything: Discovering Your Creative Voice” by Shantel Martin. And I started that class through Skillshare. So Skillshare is here to get you inspired, to help you express yourself, to connect with a community of creatives, which I totally did when I took Shantel’s class. It is a great way to explore new skills, to deepen existing passions, and to get lost in creativity. So you can learn about stuff like illustration like I am right now, you can learn stuff about design or photography or video or freelancing and just a bunch more stuff. If you are a storyteller there are some great classes on Skillshare for you. This class is so different from any other art class that I’ve ever taken in my entire life. I’m drawing on stuff that is not paper or canvas and stuff like that, and I just really think that it is something that I wouldn’t have come across if I hadn’t signed up for Skillshare.
So, right now you can explore your own creativity by going to skillshare.com/spirits2 where our listeners get two free months of premium membership. Again, that’s two free months at skillshare.com/spirits2.
Amanda: Fabulous. I have been spending time really trying to connect with myself and in stressful times I find it really helpful to be able to talk through what exactly is on my mind. Even if it feels silly or frivolous or extreme, like I know this won’t happen but it’s still taking up so much of my thoughts and I’m waking up and just ruminating over stuff. It is so helpful to be able to talk to my therapist about it, and I connect with her via BetterHelp. That is an online, secure counseling service where you can start communicating with a counselor in under 48 hours. It is neither a crisis line nor self-help, but instead it’s professional counseling, just done online. It’s also more affordable and more flexible than traditional offline counseling. For example, if you need to switch counselors for whatever reason, BetterHelp makes that really easy and free. And, in fact, there are now over a million people taking charge of their mental health with BetterHelp. They’re even recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states, which I think is a pretty fantastic sign as to how helpful, not just me, but a million other people find it.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely.
Amanda: You can log into your account, log in whenever and send a message to your counselor, and you’ll get timely and thoughtful responses. We’ve started doing voice memos, my counselor and I, so it’s a good way to kind of stay connected and get out a lot of thoughts without feeling that terror of that blinking message cursor, in addition to phone and video calls. So, having that mix is just a super useful and flexible way to make sure that whatever you need, whether that’s texting when you’re on the go, or sending a quick voice memo when you have a moment alone, or doing that standing appointment, you will get the support that you need. So you can go to betterhelp.com/spirits to get 10% off your first month of counseling. That’s betterH-E-L-P.com/spirits.
Julia: Amanda, I miss being in the office, but it’s been really, really easy and simple for us to do our work from telecommuting with our team kind of separated in different places, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we started using Miro
Amanda: Yeah, one of the best parts of being together in the office is being able to just have a brainstorm session and white board stuff out. For someone to come in with an idea and then to let everybody’s thoughts and feedback turn that into something that’s bigger and better than you could have imagined going in—with our literal white board. Without that, it is really, really helpful to know that we can use Miro. Whether you are telecommuting or remote working or have a team that’s always been distributed or even want to get together with you D&D group or your fellow podcast co-hosts and just go over stuff, have ideas, do brainstorms, and have a tool to do whatever you have to do with everybody looking at it and able to contribute at the same time.
Julia: Yeah. So Miro is an online whiteboard that brings teams together, anytime, anywhere. Their infinite canvas is perfect for brainstorming, for making mock-ups, organizing files, managing complex projects, and they have templates that make it really easy for you to get started. So, you can add your docs, you can add your spreadsheets, sticky notes, and other important information directly into Miro so that you have a single real-time collaboration hub.
Amanda: It is so helpful, and integrates with programs you probably already use, like Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, and more. You can even video chat with co-workers over Miro so you don’t have to have 14 tabs open as you try to juggle a video chat in one with your whiteboard in the other.
Julia: Yeah, and they have over five million users worldwide who trust them to help their teams work more efficiently, and it’s everything you need to start working better together.
Amanda: So you can sign up for a free account at miro.com/spirits. That’s M-I-R-O.com/spirits for a free account with unlimited team members.
Julia: miro.com/spirits.
Amanda: And now, lets get back to the show.
Eric: Welcome back, everybody. It’s nice and warm here and I don’t remember if I mentioned this in the first half, but for a few days our air conditioner wasn’t working at the new house so it was very important to have a nice, crisp beer to kind of cool down at the end of the night. So we had some local Market Garden Brewery Shandy. It is unbelievably good, it is the best shandy that I’ve ever had. I’m not a huge shandy person, but this is so lemony and tasty that if you can find it in your area , I highly recommend it. It comes in a nice, bright yellow can, it says shandy on it. Hard to miss if you can find it.
Julia: Nice.
Amanda: Delish. We’ve been improving, in my house, our habitual beermosa using SeaQuench from Dogfish Head, which is incredible, with—instead of doing half beer, half orange juice, we’re doing half beer, quarter orange juice, quarter grapefruit juice and it’s just a little zesty addition. It’s great.
Julia: Amanda, did you know that Dogfish Head is now making a beermosa beer?
Amanda: No, what?
Julia: I saw it. I meant to take a picture, but we were running out of the store when I spotted it, but it looks great and I’m going to have to try it next time. But when I was at the beer store last time, we picked up a Margarita Gose from Cigar City Brewing and oof. It’s just like—I’m trying to cut back on my straight alcohol intake, so having a beer that can replace my lovely margaritas is extremely nice, and it’s a weird German-style of a margarita is how I describe it, but they make it with orange, lime, and salt, and it’s mmm. Chef’s kiss. Beautiful.
Amanda: And I’ve been enjoying a very gay can of beer called Gender Neutral from Threes Brewing, which is on the same block as the Multitudio. They are giving 10% of proceeds to the anti-violence project, which is a great New York City organization that works with HIV-affected communities and the queer community.
Julia: Hell yeah. I’ve got The Time Goatman Tried to Kill my Dad and I have Badass Bosses, Ghost Husbands, and a McDonald’s Play Place.
Amanda: Wow. Conspirators, you’ve really been coming through on these subject lines. These are so good.
Eric: Unbelieveable.
Julia: Who would you prefer?
Amanda: I have to know about the Play Place, I’m sorry.
Julia: So we’ll save the Goatman trying to murder someone’s dad for our Patreon episode.
Amanda: Hey, at our $4 tier you can get a whole ‘ other Urban Legend episode every dang month!
Julia: It’s damn good, I do say so myself. We do save some bangers for the Patreon-only episodes.
Amanda: We’re a little looser, we’re onto our second beer, it’s a good time every month. That’s at patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
Julia: So this was sent in by Joanna. Again, this is Badass Bosses, Ghost Husbands, and a McDonald’s Play Place. And she writes: “Hello Spiriters! Long time listener, first time writer. Before we begin, I should properly disclaim that I believe in the supernatural the same way I believe in organized religion. Which is to say, I don’t, but you know your girl says a prayer to St. Anthony every time something important goes missing. Like many people, I’ve had a couple of personal experiences that I can’t fully explain. However, these aren’t especially creepy, and I have a tendency to favor rational, scientific explanations for my own stuff because it makes me feel better. It is much easier for me to relate other people’s ghost stories. That’s why today—with permission—I want to share an experience that happened to a family close to me, whose judgment and honesty I respect immensely.
My boss got married young,—just after graduating college. She and her husband moved down south, started a business, and built a life together. Things were great for a couple of years until tragedy struck. While out on a run one day, her husband suffered a cardiac event and died suddenly. My boss was understandably devastated, but, being a badass biddy, she buckled down and continued the business they’d started on her own. Fast forward several years: my boss remarried, and together she and her new husband had a daughter. The spookiness started when her daughter was around four years old.
While at work one day, my boss got a call from their babysitter. She told my boss not to worry, but went on to explain that there had been an “incident” at the local McDonald’s play place. Evidently the babysitter had taken my boss’s daughter to McDonald’s for lunch, and thought nothing of it when the little girl wanted to go climb around in the play area. She was keeping an eye on her when a dad walked in with his two little boys. All of the sudden, my boss’s daughter went rigid; she started sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, pointing at this poor, bewildered dad and saying ‘the man, the man’ over and over. The babysitter tried to calm her down but she was inconsolable, so eventually they left the McDonald’s after apologizing to the dad and went home.”
Amanda: Can I guess what’s going to happen? Okay, is this man the twin brother or brother of the boss’ deceased first husband?
Julia: We’ll have to see. “My boss was confused and a little worried about this event, but when she got home her daughter seemed perfectly fine, so she chalked it up to ‘kids are weird’ and moved on. Then, a couple of weeks later, my boss brought her daughter back to the McDonald’s play place. Her daughter was having a great time until, once again, a dad with two little boys walked in. Instantly, she wailed ‘the man!’ and started shaking and crying. That’s when my boss noticed that the dad looked remarkably similar to her deceased husband.
Scared, she took her daughter home, and sure enough, the little girl calmed down as soon as they left. The creepiest part of the story happened a few months later, as my boss was cleaning out—“
Eric: Oh good.
Julia: “—an especially cluttered closet. She pulled out an old photo of her dead husband, and her daughter, who was in the room at the time, immediately pointed at it.
‘Do you know who this is?’ My boss asked.
‘The man,’ her daughter responded.
At this point, my boss was on the verge of freaking out, but she forced herself to stay calm and ask more questions.
‘Do you see the man a lot?’
Yes,’ her daughter said.
‘Where do you see him?’
Her daughter shrugged. ‘In the house sometimes.’”
Amanda: Oh no.
Eric: Noo.
Julia: “My boss asked if he was mean, and her daughter said no, just scary. My boss told her not to be scared, that he was friendly, but to come and get her the next time she saw him. After that, though, it seemed like her husband’s ghost stopped visiting her daughter. she never talked about seeing the man again. These days my boss’s daughter is a well-adjusted, if slightly spooky, ten-year-old. Hope you enjoyed this tale, and keep up the great work.
Amanda: Listen, there are lot’s more sinister ways that that reaction to somebody could have been explained, and to me a ghost is the most fine of all of them.
Julia: Yup. Really solid.
Eric: Question. This is where you rank seeing a ghost as the best option.
Amanda: That’s true.
Julia: It’s like seeing grandma after she dies, you know? It’s fine.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s fine. It’s okay. Thanks, grandma! Miss you, too!
Julia: I wanna go play, it’s all good!
Amanda: Guys, I have an email here titled Indian Festivals and Women Possessed by Goddesses from Vedantai.
Julia: Ooh!
Amanda: “So Mumbai is in the state of Maharashtra and about a 6 hour drive into the mountains is my little village called Kolkewadi. Every year, throughout Maharashtra we celebrate a festival called Gondhal, which involves fire rituals, prayers and dances to appease the Goddess Bhavani—an avatar of Goddess Durga or Kali. The music is very rhythmic and almost induces trances in the people participating. This happens in every village, and the hosts are always the family with newlyweds. Hosting it is supposed to be a matter of great honor and a feast for the entire village follows the prayers. This was the background info, and now I'll tell you what happened when my family hosted this festival and feast when I was 12.”
Julia: Oooh, I’m ready for it.
Amanda: “My extended family travelled from Mumbai a week prior to prepare for the Gondhal. It included my grandfather's sons and their families, and my grandfather's brother's son, who was newlywed—let's call him Bob. On the day of the Gondhal, all the women were dressed in new saris and men had new turbans. All the men danced to the beats with old school torches in their hands and women with prayers dishes in their hands in a lot of synchronised steps and fire patterns. My parents were the second oldest couple so they were dancing as well. Suddenly, Bob's mother seemed to have a shift in posture. Almost as if somebody flipped a switch inside her and were suddenly controlling her as a puppet. She threw her prayer plate down and manicly started swinging her head in circles. Her eyes turned upward, her long hair that was up in a bun got undone because of all the swinging and her long hair was now swinging along with her head. I remember her mouth being open but no noise coming out, and the people around her moved backwards to give her space. There was some red holy powder which she applied to her forehead messily and all of this was done in complete sync to the drum beats while she was in the trance. Only the village elders seemed to know what to do, and a few of them followed her. I didn't understand why, until another switch in her seemed to be flipped and she fell down, again like a puppet. The men were there to catch her as she fell and it was almost like she was having a seizure—where it was scary, but they knew what to do They lay her down, and when she woke up, everyone prayed to her. I was 12 and scared shitless, needless to say. I asked my mom what was happening—they wouldn't let me watch but I kind of sneaked a look—and it turns out, this is what happens when the Goddess Bhavani comes to possess the mother of the newlyweds. It took me a few years to find out that this is a very common phenomenon and happens to many women in villages around Maharashtra. The funny thing is, even though Bob's mom was raised in the village, she settled in Mumbai, and hadn’t lived there for most of her life. She wasn’t even necessarily superstitious. There are theories which say that the deep-rooted belief in the superstition, and the fervour of the festival, the trance induced by the drums all leads to this. Women grow up watching other women "be possessed" by the Goddess so when it's their turn in their adulthood and their child gets married, they know exactly what to do. However, this could be men's theories trying to rationalize and maybe even strip women of the power that being possessed by a goddess brings them. So, I’m not really sure what to think. Imagine knowing in your heart of hearts that a Goddess chose your body to visit and use so she could take part in dancing and celebrating, only to be told that you are fake or acting or even looking for attention. Fuck those theories, I say. The Goddess can come down to dance whenever the fuck she wants, even if she just wants to do weird circular hair flips in a sari.
Julia: That’s, I mean, one, love those dance moves. Very cool, and I love the tradition here. It sounds really beautiful and really meaningful, and beautiful things can be a little scary sometimes for people who aren’t familiar with them, but that sounds like a really cool experience.
Amanda: Yeah. I really enjoyed that, thank you so much for sending it in.
Eric: Well, I’ve got a story that is titled 120 Pound Pupper Saves the Day.
Julia: Okay. Okay, okay. As long as the dog doesn’t die, Eric, this sounds like a good story.
Eric: Yeah. It’s a great story. I don’t even think—if I remember correctly, there’s not even a twist where like last time I got you guys good about the dog going over the bridge and getting taken by the Devil.
Julia: You did.
Eric: But the dog didn’t get taken by the Devil because the Devil didn’t want the dog.
Amanda: It was fine!
Julia: ‘Cause the Devil’s an asshole, so he doesn’t like dogs.
Eric: This comes to us from Cisco, and he writes: “Hi guys! I found your awesome podcast a while ago and have been catching up on the back catalog as a sweet treat to listen to each week—until current events happened and now I’m blasting through episodes because of your infectious laughter and fun makes things a little brighter. I wanted to share the creepiest experience I’ve had in my home.”
Amanda: Listen, we’ve been doing this for four years without fail just so that you have a chunky back catalog for times like this.
Julia: That chunky back catalog.
Eric: Very chunky. “Some quick background on me. I developed a powerful imagination at a young age. I’d wander into the local woods for the day and have amazing adventures. However, my imagination also led to scary things sticking with me a while. Thanks, best friend’s cool mom for laughing her head off at my nightmares from watching, The Fog.” The Fog is scary. That is a scary movie.
Julia: John Carpenter, loves to do a scare.
Eric: “But then I discovered the awesome upside—I could now control my bad dreams through lucid dreaming. This first thing manifested in a dream about a horde of vampires attacking my family at home. Suddenly, Buffy, Wonder Woman, and others were kicking some vampire ass. When they were done, we sat around and ate some ice cream.” Now that’s a dream, right there.
Amanda: I love that the dream continued after the threat was neutralized, because I feel like, in my dreams, either I wake up mid-conflict or I just manage not to die and then I wake up. But hanging out and eating ice cream with Wonder Woman sounds fantastic.
Julia: Sounds like the dream.
Eric: “Fast forward to being a responsible home owner with a loving husband and four amazing doggos. The youngest, Kendra, is a 120 pound pupper who is a big ball of love but who also is scared of her own shadow.”
Julia: I. Love. Dogs. With. Human. Names. Kendra is a great dog name!
Amanda: Me too.
Eric: The best way to go.
Amanda: I’m also, Cisco, going to need some pictures when you have a minute.
Eric: For sure. ”One night we were all in bed asleep when I felt an ominous presence. My dreams evaporated and I felt my consciousness slam back into my body. I was still asleep, but I could both see myself in bed and could also see the open bedroom door through my eyes. A tall, dark shadow slowly entered my—“ I’m being distracted. Julia’s shaking her head vigorously and I cannot focus on the sentence.
Julia: I hate it.
Amanda: I don’t think y’all realized we failed to rank the sixth sense of just being fucking wrong and I think all of us, right, would just put that as number one?
Julia: Oh yeah, 100%.
Eric: For sure. “A tall, dark shadow slowly entered my room. Dread blossomed into my chest and I felt my face go pale.” Blossomed into my chest is such a—wow. Dang.
Julia: Our listeners are such great writers. I love it.
Eric: ”I tried to banish the dream but it wouldn’t go away. I told myself to get up and do something, but as the shadow came closer I realized I couldn’t move. I rired to summon my dream protectors but not only did they not come, but I couldn’t even feel the presence of my dogs or my husband anymore. Frustrated and going out of my mind, I felt the shadow lean over me and its cold breath touch my face.”
Julia: Oh, cold breath is bad. Oh no. Breath should always be hot.
Eric: “Then—“
Amanda: It should.
Eric: “Then things got worse. Its hand touched my chest and I stopped breathing. Being asthmatic, not breathing triggered—“ Julia’s having more physical reactions to this story than I’ve ever seen her have.
Julia: This is what I’m saying! Touch is the worst!
[Laughter]
Eric: “Being asthmatic, not breathing triggered a primal fear deep in my soul and, had I been awake ,I would have been frantically scrambling for my inhaler. Still, I was stuck in my head and silently screaming for the shadow to go the fuck away even though my mouth and my body were still frozen.
But then, my scared of the wind baby, Kendra, came surging into my dream barking her fool head off at the shadow. Its momentary distraction allowed me to breathe and in both my dream and the waking world I screamed out in terror. The shadow disappeared. My husband shook me awake and asked me what happened. I told him and then hugged Kendra whose head was now resting on my feet. I’ve never had that dream again or felt such an evil presence in my house since. I’ve never had sleep paralysis before or since either. We live in New Mexico so my husband attributes the experience to aliens who were scared off by our dogs.”
Julia: Oh, New Mexico.
Eric: “Whatever the case may be, I make sure one of my doggos is tucked into my side whenever I sleep now. Thanks for being the creepiest and coolest.
Julia: I think that goes back to what we talked about in the Mothman episode. That the theory that a bunch of the people in the 60s had was that all supernatural occurrences are actually aliens, and I love that. Love that. Big New Mexico energy there.
Amanda: Well, guys, thank you so much for writing in! We love doing these. We love hearing about your vanquishing of creepy experiences, and we especially love your grandparents stories. So absolutely keep sending those in.
Julia: Yes, please do. I also, if you have a ghost taste story, I need to hear it. I need to hear all about it.
Amanda: Yes. Yeah, please put ‘taste’ in the subject line of your email and we will do a “Tasting Ghosts Roundup.”
Julia: Oh god. That sounds so gross.
Amanda: Oh, I love my job!
Eric: Much more into it than the sexy urban legends episode idea.
Amanda: Fantastic, and everybody, remember…
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.