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What would Halloween be without a few ghost stories? Spirits range the earth from ancient castles to lonely mountain tops in search of love, revenge or simply so that they can tell their sad story to anyone who comes close enough to hear. The stories you are about to read are believed true by those closest to them and each of the haunted locations is real. Those brave enough to venture a visit are welcome to see for themselves.

Conwy Castle, in Wales, the very one pictured above, bears a sad tale. Long, long ago in the mists of time, the lord of Conwy Castle was called away to war and left his beloved wife and baby behind. When at last his return was at hand, his wife carried their baby to the top of the lookout tower and waited. The dark night descended and still the lord of Conwy had not arrived. Climbing down the steep and treacherous stairway the mistress of Conwy slipped and fell to the bottom of the tower, still clutching her child. Doctor Dic was summoned, but saw that he could do nothing to save them. Fearing the wrath of the manor lord, the servants locked the doctor in the Lantern Room with the dying woman and child. When the master returned and the door was unlocked they found only the bodies of his wife and child. Doctor Dic was gone! The bereaved lord went mad with grief and anger and died thereafter. His ghost is still seen regularly in the Lantern room angrily seeking the missing doctor and revenge!

If you were to visit Linville or Wiseman’s Gap in North Carolina you would be able to look up at Brown Mountain on an evening and see bright, small lights bobbing up and down for a minute or two. Then they would disappear and you would think you were imagining things. But then they would reappear in another place on the mountain, disappear again and reappear until finally they were gone. These lights were first seen around 1850, long before the heyday of trains, cars or electricity.

Legend has it that a girl lived on Brown Mountain with her father. She had a sweetheart and he would tramp through the woods from the village to see her every evening. He seemed to be fearless, so heedless was he of the snakes and vicious animals that made the night forest their home. At dusk, on the evening when he was to take her away to be married, she lit a pine torch and waited for his return. He never arrived. From then on, every evening at sunset, she darted about the mountain with her flaming torch, hoping to find him. After her death, the light of her torch could still be seen many evenings of the year and still can be to this day!

You may remember Dolley Madison from The Tribune ice cream cone article two weeks ago. It was Dolley in her role of First Lady, who introduced ice cream as a fashionable dessert to Washington society. At the age of 26, she had married James Madison. James Madison became the fourth president of the United States in 1809. Dolley was witty and charming and had a wonderful memory for names and faces. People loved her. It was, however, also known that she never liked to be crossed and the story of her ghost seems to confirm that.

About 1918, almost 125 years later, Woodrow Wilson was serving his second term as president. Mrs. Wilson ordered the gardeners to dig up the well-known Rose Garden. The Rose Garden however, had originally been planned and built by Dolley Madison. Even so many years after her death, she made it quite clear that no one was going to touch it! She appeared in the garden in her full form and scolded the workmen for what they were about to do! The gardeners fled the scene and not one of them could be convinced after that to lift a shovel. In fact, Dolley’s garden continues to bloom today exactly as it has for nearly two hundred years.