Folklore And Legends Of The Isle Of Wight

These beautifully told folk tales, brought vividly to life by Marcel O’Leary’s graphic illustrations, have been collected by the author over his years of working as a greenkeeper, gardener, teacher and storyteller in Hampshire. Many are published here for the first time, and others have evolved through countless retellings in Hampshire schools, festivals, fêtes and events. Featuring dark tales of murderous kings and commoners, wild women, screaming skulls, galloping plague coaches, dragons dancing themselves to death, giants, and wandering corpses, combined with humorous stories and evocative tales of love, lust and passion, this book takes the reader beyond the written page and reveals the wonders that lie within the Hampshire landscape.

The stories in this haunting collection are as ancient and modern, powerful and fantastical, ambiguous and ambivalent as the ghosts they feature. Here you will find tales of headless horses riding moonbeams, an entrance to another world on Marrowbones Hill, drowned sailors and ghost ships, and a girl riding pillion on a motorbike driven by her dead boyfriend – all told in the distinct voice of noted storyteller Michael O’Leary who, for years, has wandered the highways and byways of Hampshire, immersed in the layers of ghost stories that have accumulated in this ancient county. Richly illustrated with original drawings, these tales are perfect for reading under the covers on dark, stormy nights.

Watch out for a ghostly ship and its spectral crew off the coast of Cornwall Listen for the unearthly tread and rustling silk dress of Darlington's Lady Jarratt Shiver at the malevolent apparition of 50 Berkeley Square that no-one survives seeing Beware the black dog of Shap Fell: a sighting warns of fatal accidents England's past echoes with stories of unquiet spirits and hauntings, of headless highwaymen and grey ladies, indelible bloodstains and ghastly premonitions. Here, county by county, are the nation's most fascinating supernatural tales and bone-chilling legends: from a ghostly army marching across Cumbria to the vanishing hitchhiker of Bluebell Hill, from the gruesome Man-Monkey of Shropshire to the phantom congregation who gather for a 'Sermon of the Dead' ...