Let's Talk Spooky

Deep in the forests of Slavic folklore stands a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence of human bones. Inside waits Baba Yaga, the iron-toothed witch of Eastern European legend who might eat you or might help you, depending on how you behave when you step through her door.Content warning: This episode includes traditional folk tales involving harm to children, death, and human remains. Connect with Let’s Talk Spooky Website: letstalkspooky.com Email: ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast TikTok: @letstalkspookypod New episodes every Friday at 8 p.m. EST. Stay Curious, Stay Spooky. Source Afanasyev / Magnus: the source of Vasilisa and Finist. Essential. Blumenthal: the source of your orphans tale. Essential. Johns: the main scholarly book on Baba Yaga. Most of the research on her origins, appearance, and villain/helper roles traces back to him. Essential. UF Center for European Studies: a summary built on Johns. It supplied a lot of detail, but if you’re cutting for space,…

For as long as people have feared witches, they’ve feared that death might not be enough to stop them. This week on Let’s Talk Spooky, we follow the strange burials of three women who were held down by stone, by tide, and by story. CONTENT WARNING This episode includes discussion of a confession obtained under likely torture, a death in custody that may have been suicide, a local legend involving suicide, and the desecration of a grave. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling, please reach out to a local crisis line; in Canada, you can call or text 9-8-8. CONNECT WITH THE SHOW Website: letstalkspooky.com Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast TikTok: @letstalkspookypod Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com New episodes every Friday at 8 p.m. EST. Source Material: Moldovan, Octavian. “Strigoiul din Vâlcea. Femeie, dezgropată și înjunghiată în inimă de fratele ei: ‘O visează că vine la el’. Ce a pățit preotul.” Știrile ProTV, 15 Feb. 2024,…

Look closely at any Halloween witch, and you’ll find a little creature perched beside her: a black cat, a toad, an owl watching over the cauldron. But long before they were decorations, familiars were evidence. This week, we kick off our October Month of Witches with the strange and unsettling history of the witch’s familiar. Website:letstalkspooky.com Instagram:@letstalkspookypodcast TikTok:@letstalkspookypod Email:letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com New episodes every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. Got a name for the new studio cat? Send it our way. Stay Curious. Stay Spooky SOURCES: Damnable Practises of Three Lincolne-shire Witches. 1619. English Broadside Ballad Archive, EBBA 20058, ebba.english.ucsb.edu. The Examination and Confession of Certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex. 1566. Edited by Frank Luttmer, Hanover College, history.hanover.edu/dept-archive/ischelm.html. Goodier, Christine. “The Pendle Witches.” Lancaster Castle,lancastercastle.com/the-pendle-witches. Hopkins,Matthew. The Discovery…

Everybody knows the rhyme. Almost nobody knows the truth. On a mild summer morning in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death inside a locked house on Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts — and before the police had finished searching for a stranger, the town had already decided who did it. This week we walk through the whole story: the morning of the murders, the cold and comfortless house of a very wealthy man, the shifting testimony, the trial that quietly fell apart, and the acquittal that never really ended. Then we sit with the strangest part of all — how a children's skipping rhyme convicted a woman the court set free, and why we still believe it a hundred and thirty years later. A story about a hatchet, an inheritance, a house you can still book a room in — and the way a legend can outrun the truth and never look back. Content note: This episode discusses a real double homicide and describes the injuries involved. SOURCES & FURTHER READING Primary records: Lizzie's inquest testimony &…

On a cool November night, a boy taking the shortcut home along the river hears something underneath the current that isn't the current. She has a hundred names and haunts the water from the canals of Mexico City to the concrete washes of Los Angeles — La Llorona, the Weeping Woman, searching forever for the children she lost. Tonight we follow her: where she came from, how she crossed a border, the mothers her story was really built out of, and the real people — including a police officer on the Texas–New Mexico line — who swear they've met her. Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky. ⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses child loss, domestic violence, and suicide. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Support resources are listed below. If you or someone you know needs support In an emergency, call 911. 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline (Canada & US) — call or text 988, 24/7 Kids Help Phone (Canada, up to 29) — 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868 Hope for Wellness Help Line (Indigenous…

A twelve-year-old boy refuses to leave the house on the night of a full moon — because he's convinced he's becoming a wolf. It sounds like something out of a dusty book of legends. It was written up by doctors and published five years ago. This week, we follow that one impossible sentence — I am becoming a wolf — back through the centuries. From the oldest werewolf ever written down to the movie rulebook Hollywood invented barely eighty years ago, then out into the real history: the beast that brought a kingdom to its knees in the mountains of France, a thirteen-year-old boy who confessed to being a wolf and the court that showed him mercy, and the cursed loup-garou who came knocking on the doors of French Canada. Light a candle, get cozy, and come find out why, four hundred years on, our fear still wears the same face. ⚠️ Content warning: This episode includes descriptions of violent death and harm to children, a child confessing to violent acts, and a child experiencing mental-health distress. Please…

Sir George Mackenzie sent hundreds of Covenanters to suffering and death in the 1600s — then was laid to rest in a fine domed tomb only steps from the very ground where they starved. For three centuries, the two sides of that quarrel kept an uneasy quiet, a few feet of earth apart. Then, one December night in 1998, a man seeking shelter fell through the floor of Mackenzie's mausoleum into the bones below — and the attacks began. This week we walk into Greyfriars: the real history of the Killing Time and the Covenanters' Prison, the four months a thousand prisoners spent in the open air, and the wreck of the Crown of London. We sit with the man history remembers as "Bloody Mackenzie" — and the question of whether he earned the name or the legend built it for him. And we walk the ground where hundreds of visitors have reported scratches, bruises, fainting's and collapses since 1999, up to the exorcism that may have cost a medium his life. Documented history, recorded legend, and honest doubt, laid side by side…

Welcome to Spooky Stays, where I don't just research haunted places — I spend the night in them. First up: the Beck House in Penetanguishene, Ontario, a red-brick Victorian mansion known online as Canada's most haunted house and now a haunted Airbnb. A grieving mother, a wronged daughter, and a legend that doesn't match the record. Sources: Town of Penetanguishene Heritage Registry — Carl Beck House (build date, architecture, mayoralty, civic legacy) Town of Penetanguishene — First Presbyterian Cemetery & Beck mausoleum records (family birth/death dates) Ontario Heritage Trust — C. Beck Manufacturing Company plaque paper (mills, business timeline) Find A Grave — Charles Maximilian Beck, 1838–1915 (death/drowning) Midland Free Press, "Carl Beck of Penetanguishene: A Success Story" (1977) A.C. Osborne, Penetanguishene: The Historic Town (1907) Chantal Larochelle, "Haunted Cemetery Road Trip: The Beck House"; Moon Mausoleum; TheTravel Guest overnight accounts and community haunt listings, framed as oral…

Four haunted roads, two countries, and one long drive through the dark. From a phantom black dog that's blocked a Maryland mountain pass for two centuries, to a young man forever finishing his last ride on an Ontario back road, to a crowded, cursed stretch of Colorado asphalt, to a woman hanged in an iron cage at a Québec crossroads — these are the roads that refuse to forget. Some of it's pure legend. Some of it's better documented than you'd like. Buckle up. New episodes every Thursday, 8 p.m. EST. Content note: references to domestic abuse and a historical execution, the death of a child, and recurring themes of fatal accidents. Documented history Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren, South Mountain Magic (1882) — earliest Snarly Yow accounts Jo-Anne Christensen, Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan (1995) — St. Louis ghost light Dictionary of Canadian Biography & Plains of Abraham Museum — Marie-Josephte Corriveau (court records) Adams County Historical Society & Museum — Wolpert Mansion / 1975 Riverdale fire Port Perry…

Three campfires. Three true stories from the places we go to feel free — and the dark that waits just past the firelight. A painter who knew his lake better than anyone alive, and drowned in it under questions we're still arguing over a century later. Four teenagers who pitched a tent by a quiet Finnish lake one summer night in 1960 — and the morning only one of them came back. And a forest in Transylvania that people walk into, and don't always walk back out of the same. This is the last one before we take a short break. So keep your fire built up, and your back to the flame. Follow/get in touch: Have a camping story of your own — a snapped twig in the dark, a light you couldn't explain, a site you packed up and left at 3 a.m.? Send it to us on Instagram and TikTok @letstalkspookypod. The best ones might end up in a future episode. And if the show keeps you company in the dark, please follow and leave a rating — it's free, and it helps other spooky souls find the fire. www.letstalkspooky.com Sources &…

Four abandoned amusement parks. One question: what lingers when the laughter stops? From the haunted rides of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in West Virginia, to Joyland and Louie the Clown in Wichita, to the drowned Six Flags New Orleans, to the Chornobyl Ferris wheel that never turned in Pripyat — a journey through the world's eeriest abandoned theme parks and the real deaths, ghost stories, and dark history buried beneath them. Light a candle, get cozy, and Let's Talk Spooky. SOURCES • Wichita Eagle, coverage of the death of Michael King at Joyland (Aug. 23–28, 1982). • Wichita Eagle, coverage of the death of groundskeeper Kevin Briley at Joyland (Aug. 28, 1998). • Lawrence Journal-World, Joyland Ferris wheel accident & U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Investigation(Apr.–May 2004). • Mercer County, WV — official history of Lake Shawnee & the Clay family / 'Agony in Stone' memorial. . History.com — the history of Jazzland / Six Flags New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. • Jody Arneson, MidAtlantic…

Ten kilometres off the shore of North Bay, Ontario, five islands float on Lake Nipissing — sometimes literally. The locals call them the Manitous. Older names tell you more: Ghost Island. Devil's Island. Paddle too close, they say, and the biggest island will speak to you — and it is not inviting you in. Tonight: a curse that begins with a fish, a haunting born of war and winter, two lovers who chose the same fire, and a voice that's still talking. No one has ever been able to live on the Manitou Islands. This episode is about everyone who tried. Acknowledgment The Manitou Islands and Lake Nipissing lie in the traditional territory of the Nipissing First Nation (Nbisiing Anishinaabeg). The oldest stories in this episode belong to their oral tradition, and we tell them with respect and with the distinction — noted throughout the episode — between documented history, recorded legend, and local retelling. Sources & Further Reading • Islands in the Sky (W. Bliss/P. McLeod, 1991), hosted by Nipissing First Nation…

The talking board didn’t begin in Baltimore. It began centuries earlier — in Chinese spirit-writing traditions, in medieval European divination, in the letter-grids of Elizabethan occultists. This week we trace that ancient impulse through the grief of post-Civil War America, across the Pacific to Japan’s Kokkuri-san, and into the hands of the men who bottled it, patented it, and sold it as a parlour game. We’ll get into the real stories behind the legends, the accounts that won’t stay buried, and a haunted house in Oregon where five people got an answer nobody in the room agreed to give. And somewhere in all of it — a man on a roof, and what the board told him to build. SOURCES • Smithsonian Magazine, “Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond” • The Strong National Museum of Play — Ouija board collection and archival research • Skeptical Inquirer, “Demoniac: Who Is Roland Doe?” • Yokai.com Encyclopedia, “Kokkuri-san” (citing Inoue Enry■’s Meiji-era research) • Zeitlin, Judith T. “Zhang Dai’s Planchette…

For Canada Day, we’re taking a six-province ghost story road trip — from an abandoned BC sanatorium to a 275-year-old Halifax church still bearing a scar from 1917. Content Warning: This episode discusses tuberculosis and institutional death, the historical mistreatment of Indigenous patients within Canada’s healthcare system (including forced hospitalization and non-consensual medical procedures), suicide, the death of a child, and a mass-casualty disaster (the 1917 Halifax Explosion, approximately 2,000 deaths). Nothing is depicted graphically, but listener discretion is advised. Stay curious, stay spooky. Sources Tier 1 — Primary & Institutional Kamloops Museum & Archives, Tranquille Sanatorium collection · Parks Canada, Fort George National Historic Site · St. Paul’s Anglican Church official history page · CBC News, “Canada’s oldest Anglicanchurch marks 275 years” · APTN News, “Former Edmonton hospital still haunts families” · Ghosts of Camsell research project & “Camsell” documentary (Edmonton Heritage…

On the brightest night of the year, a woman walks into a hill that everyone else avoids — and finds a feast, a fairy King and Queen, and a workbench where small hands shape weaponsmeant for the unsuspecting. It's a story she really told, in 1662, in the Scottish parish of Auldearn — one of the most detailed witch trial confessions ever recorded, given, as far as we know, without torture. This episode follows Isobel Gowdie's testimony from the Fairy Hill to her unexplained disappearance from the historical record, travels north into the bonfires, flower crowns, and pole-dances of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish Midsummer tradition,makes a brief stop in Gaelic Cape Breton, and closes with the real rituals — protective herbs, threshold blessings, and a few you can still try tonight — tied to the longest day of the year. Content note: this episode discusses historical witch trial testimony and execution. Light touch on detail — see the standalone content warning card for full wording and placement.…

On a dark Venezuelan highway, a truck driver hears something that shouldn't be there — a whistle, seven notes, rising and falling. What he doesn't know is that the closer it sounds, the further away the danger really is. In this bonus deep-dive, we go back to a legend first touched on in Episode 4 and give El Silbón — the cursed soul of the Venezuelan plains — the full story he deserves: the murder that created him, the real man who may have inspired him, the bones he carries and counts outside your door, and theThe whistle paradox has kept two countries listening for two hundred years.Primary / Academic: Bonilla, Valentina S. — “The History Behind El Silbón: Exploring Historical and Psychological Elements to the Urban Legend” — University of North Florida,PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas, Vol. 5. Peer-reviewed academic paper. Pérez Montero, Carmen — “Mitos y leyendas predominantes en el Estado Portuguesa” — Regional oral history collection; source of multiple llanero eyewitness testimonies…

Listener Favourites We’re taking a week off to let the team rest, recharge, and get ready for more spooky stories — but we didn’t want to leave you without something eerie to listen to. This week, we’re revisiting a few listener-favourite episodes: the ones that stayed with you long after they ended. These episodes explore the places where folklore, history, fear, and belief begin to blur. From the true stories behind terrifying urban legends, to changelings, doppelgängers, thin places, and lost time, each episode asks the same unsettling question: what if the old stories were not just stories after all? Episode 45: When the Legend Was Real — True Stories Behind History’s Scariest Urban Legends Urban legends are often dismissed as campfire stories, but sometimes the truth behind them is even darker. This episode looks at the real events, fears, and historical moments that helped shape some of the scariest legends we still tell today. Episode 48: Changelings For centuries, families believed that something…

CONTENT WARNING This episode contains discussion of the murder of three children (Camp Scott, Oklahoma, 1977), documented sexual abuse at summer camps, predatory behaviour toward minors, and the legend of Elias White, which involves the hanging of an enslaved man. Please take care if any of these topics are difficult for you. Every sleepaway camp has a monster. Not the same monster — each one builds its own, passed down from counselor to camper, summer after summer, until no one quite remembers where the story started. Only that it’s true. Only that it happened here. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we’re going to camp — all of them at once. We’re meeting the monsters that haunt the American sleepaway camp tradition: Hatchet Annie, the wronged camper who came back with an axe. The Banana Man, the predatory counselor who never quite left. The Man from the Farm, the ordinary man from next door who walked into the woods one night and decided to stay. Elias White, the enslaved man whose hanging made an…

Content note: This episode contains discussion of racial violence, lynching, and the racially motivated expulsion of an entire Black community in 1912 Georgia. It also includes detailed accounts of multiple drowning deaths and body recovery. Additionally, this episode covers the colonial erasure of Indigenous spiritual tradition. Listener discretion is advised. In July 2023, three men died at Lake Lanier in Georgia in a single weekend. Lake Lanier is one of the most visited recreational lakes in the United States. It is also one of the deadliest — and once you understand what is sitting beneath its surface, the death toll stops feeling like a coincidence. This week, we visit two dangerous lakes and hear their haunting tales. LAKE LANIER Georgia Department of Natural Resources — annual drowning reports (primary source for all death statistics) Forsyth County Sheriff's Office — official press release, Thomas Milner death, July 2023 Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (W.W.…

What's the oldest fear in the human record? Not vampires. Not werewolves. Not anything that hunts in the dark. It's the person sitting across from you at dinner—the one who poured your drink. In this episode, we're diving into one of history's most chilling archetypes — the woman poisoner. From the prison cells of ancient Rome to a TikTok trend that exploded in 2024, the legend of the woman who knows what grows in the dark has never really gone away. Four women. Four centuries. One very uncomfortable truth about trust, proximity, and the people who feed us. Content Warnings: This episode contains discussion of: poison and poisoning, domestic violence, child death (including infant death), execution, and serial homicide. Please take care of yourself. Sources & Further Reading Locusta Tacitus, Annals (Books 12 & 13) — the original ancient source Suetonius, Life of Nero — describes Locusta's estate and students Cassius Dio, Roman History — corroborating accounts "Locusta of Gaul: Rome's Imperial Poisoner" —…

Send us Fan Mail Episode Description A campfire walk through some of the most feared women in world folklore, from a four-hundred-year-old spider waiting in a Japanese mountain house, to a wailing figure outside an Irish window at midnight. We travel through Slavic rivers and summer wheat fields, down dark roads in South Asia, into Colombian mangroves and the deep Brazilian Amazon, and onto the forest trails of Indigenous North America. What you start to notice, when you put these women side by side, is that almost every one of them was wronged first. Mothers who lost children. Brides who were murdered. Women buried wrong. They came back anyway. They came back hungry. And every culture on earth seems to have remembered them, independently, in its own language, in its own forest, on its own river, at its own time of day. Light a candle. Lock the door. Don’t answer if someone calls your name from past the streetlights. Sources meterial • Lady Anne Fanshawe, Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe (composed 1676, first…

Send us Fan Mail A grieving widow develops a roll of film and finds her dead mother in the back seat. A WWI airman steps into a squadron portrait two days after his funeral. A Boston photographer swears he can capture the dead — and P. T. Barnum takes the stand to prove him wrong. Tonight, the photographs that came back heavier than they went in. Before the smartphone, before the camera roll — before there was a way to carry your dead in your pocket — people wanted to keep the faces of the ones they loved. Some of them tried very hard. Some of them, it seems, succeeded a little too well. In this remastered episode, we’re climbing back into the strange, tender, deeply uncanny history of postmortem and spirit photography — from Victorian iron posing stands and painted-on eyes, to William Mumler’s scandalous Boston studio, to the back seat of a quiet Ipswich car on a Tuesday afternoon in 1959. Featuring the Mabel Chinnery photograph, the ghost of Freddy Jackson, the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, the haunted faces…

Send us Fan Mail On Christmas Eve in 1689, a Swedish farmer and his wife carried their ten-year-old son to the manure heap at the edge of their farm and left him there overnight to freeze. They believed, sincerely and devoutly, that he was a changeling — and that the elves would come in the night and return their real son by morning. He was not the first child this happened to. He would not be the last. This week, host Shauna takes you deep into the changeling tradition — into where the lore came from, what our ancestors believed a changeling was, and the documented historical record of what they did to the children they were certain were not their own. From a courtroom in Tralee in 1826 to a Lutheran pulpit in Wittenberg in 1532 to present-day West Africa, this episode walks through five hundred years of folk diagnosis, folk cure, and the children who paid the price. Sources & Further Reading • The Gotland Trial Records, 1690 — bound in the Swedish dombok (court book), held in the Swedish National Archives,…

Send us Fan Mail Episode Summary On the night of March fifteenth, eighteen ninety-five, eight people in a small Irish kitchen watched a man named Michael Cleary set his wife on fire. Not one of them tried to stop him. They all believed the same thing he did: the woman on the bed wasn't his wife anymore. The fairies had taken her. In this episode, we use the death of Bridget Cleary as a doorway into something much larger. We trace fairy belief across five cultures and two centuries —through documented court cases, ethnographic records, modern road bends, and a billionaire's fall — to ask the splinter-under-the-skin question: why does almost every culture on Earth, independently, agree that there are beings just adjacent to us, and That there are rules? This is fairy folklore as our great-great-grandparents understood it. Not the wings and wishing dust of the Disney version. Something older. Something stranger.Something a man would burn his wife alive over, with eight witnesses who agreed he was doing the…

Send us Fan Mail This is a remastered episode — new research, new stories, new folklore. Worth a re-listen. We pull on a blue silk dress in 1884 Boston and follow the thread back through the strange, unsettling history of secondhand things. From the rag pickers of Victorian London to the smallpox-laced wardrobes of the dead, from The Hands Resist Him to the Crying Boy paintings that wouldn’t burn, from a haunted wine cabinet in Oregon to a green velvet chair no one should have brought home — tonight we’re asking the question every thrifter eventually whispers to themselves: what lived in this thing before I did? Sources Thrifting & Victorian secondhand: Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life (2005); Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851); Le Zotte, “The Surprisingly Sanitized History of the Thrift Store,” Time (2017). Mourning culture: Lutz, Relics of Death in Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge, 2015). Folklore traditions: Foster, The Book of Yokai (UC Press, 2015); Nigal, Dybbuk Tales in…

Send us Fan Mail Inside one of the most haunted buildings in Canada — the Ottawa Jail Hostel, formerly the Carleton County Jail at 75 Nicholas Street, Ottawa, Ontario. From 1862 to 1972, this limestone prison housed up to 150 inmates in cells barely three feet wide, with no heat, no plumbing, and no light. Three men were hanged on its still-standing gallows: Patrick James Whelan in 1869 for the assassination of the Father of Confederation, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, William "Billy" Seabrooke in 1933, and Eugène Larment in 1946 — the last public hanging and the last execution in Ottawa's history. Roughly 140 unmarked graves were uncovered beneath the site's parking lot. Today, paying guests sleep in converted death-row cells. Visitors and staff report a dark figure at the foot of the bed, the Lord's Prayer whispered in empty corridors, sudden nosebleeds near Whelan's unmarked grave, sleep paralysis in the old Warden's office, and the unmistakable sense of being watched on the eighth floor. We walk the building room…

Send us Fan Mail What if the scariest urban legends were real? Not metaphors. Not campfire exaggerations. Actually, verifiably, documentable real — and the communities telling them knew something terrible was happening long before anyone with authority chose to listen? In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky — a solo-narrated folklore and haunted history podcast — we follow four true horror stories hidden within four legends you thought you already knew. Visit letstalkspooky.com to connect with our socials and see what's new!! Connect with us: If this episode got under your skin — share it. The best way to help Let’s Talk Spooky grow is to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and to send it to one person you know who loves a good dark story. Word of mouth is still the most powerful algorithm there is. Sources & Further Reading The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Lüneburg Manuscript (c. 1440–50); Hamelin Town Chronicle (1384); Stained glass window, Marktkirche Hameln (c. 1300); Rattenfängerhaus…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the chilling lore, cultural warnings, and unsettling history behind the Wendigo and the Skinwalker. These are two of the most searched and most misunderstood figures in Indigenous folklore, Canadian legend, and North American supernatural storytelling. We begin with the Wendigo, a terrifying figure found in the traditions of Ojibwe, Anishinaabe, Cree, Algonquin, Innu, and other Algonquian-speaking Nations. Often connected to winter, starvation, greed, isolation, and transformation, the Wendigo has become one of the most haunting presences in Canadian folklore, forest legends, and Indigenous oral tradition. We also explore real historical cases from Canada, including Swift Runner in Alberta and Jack Fiddler in Ontario, and examine how Wendigo stories were shaped, misunderstood, and reinterpreted through colonial history. From there, we move into the deeply feared and widely misunderstood figure of the Skinwalker, known in Diné (Navajo Nation)…

Send us Fan Mail Step into the firelight and into one of the most fascinating festivals of the ancient Celtic calendar. In this remastered episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore Beltane, the ancient Celtic fire festival that marked the beginning of summer and the thinning of the line between the human world and the spirit world. From ancient pagan rituals and sacred bonfires to fertility traditions, protection rites, fairy folklore, and the darker side of May Day legends, this episode digs into the history, mystery, and magic behind one of the most powerful seasonal celebrations in folklore. We’ll talk about the origins of Beltane in Celtic tradition, why fire played such a central role in cleansing and protection, how people believed the fae were especially active, and how old customs surrounding witches, spirits, and supernatural forces shaped the night. Whether you’re interested in pagan holidays, European folklore, the history of witchcraft, seasonal traditions, or the eerie folklore tied to May Eve,…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore two of Canada’s most unsettling locations—places where history didn’t just happen… it stayed behind. We begin in Halifax at The Five Fishermen, a historic building that once operated as a funeral home. This site played a role in the aftermath of the RMS Titanic disaster and the devastating Halifax Explosion, where victims were brought, identified, and prepared. Today, staff and visitors report eerie encounters—reflections that don’t match reality, unexplained movement, and a lingering presence that refuses to fade. From there, we travel west to Vancouver and step inside the Vancouver Police Museum—once the city’s morgue, autopsy room, and coroner’s court. A place where death was not only witnessed but examined repeatedly over decades. Connected to real cases, including the “Babes in the Woods” and early violent crimes in Vancouver, the building now houses reports of unexplained sounds, shifting objects, and an unsettling sense of being…

Send us Fan Mail On March 17th, 1995, six teenage boys from Pickering, Ontario, disappeared in the early hours of the morning after leaving a house party near the shoreline of Lake Ontario. What followed was a large-scale search, an investigation built on fragments, and a timeline that—decades later—still feels incomplete. While the official explanation points to a tragic boating accident, the available evidence does not fully establish how—or when—the events of that night unfolded. SOURCES Durham Region News – coverage on anniversaries of the case Toronto.com – reporting on private investigator involvement Mysteries of Canada – case overview and timeline MissingPeople.ca – case summary and updates Vocal Media – compiled case narrative Kendall’s Place – video discussion and breakdown Community archive – Lost Boys of Pickering (Facebook memorial page)

Send us Fan Mail Follow & Support If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow Let’s Talk Spooky, leave a review, and share it with your fellow spooky souls 👻 Got a story of your own? We’d love to hear it. Description: What if someone saw you… Somewhere you’ve never been? In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the unsettling idea of the doppelgänger—an identical double said to exist alongside you, ahead of you, or even completely separate from you. From ancient beliefs to modern encounters, the idea of a second self has appeared across cultures for centuries. In ancient Egypt, the Ka was believed to be a spiritual double tied to one's existence. In Norse folklore, the Vardøger was said to arrive before you—your presence echoing forward in time. And in Celtic traditions, seeing your double was often considered a warning… something not meant to be witnessed. But these stories didn’t stay in the past. We move into real documented accounts, including the chilling case of Émilie Sagée—a teacher…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of history’s most unsettling disappearances—cases where people didn’t just go missing… they seemed to vanish. From children who disappeared in broad daylight, to pilots lost mid-sentence, to historical figures who stepped out of reality itself—these stories challenge what we think we understand about time, space, and human experience. Some of these cases may have explanations. Others… feel like they slipped through something we can’t quite see. 📚 Sources & Further Reading Case-Specific Sources Disappearance of the Beaumont children https://www.police.sa.gov.au/about-us/cold-case-investigation/beaumont-children Frederick Valentich disappearance https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-citizenship/valentich Benjamin Bathurst disappearance https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Benjamin-Bathurst/ Owen Parfitt disappearance https://www.historicmysteries.com/owen-parfitt/ Archival & Research Resources National…

Send us Fan Mail Leprechauns are often seen as cheerful little shoemakers guarding pots of gold—but their origins are far more complex, and much darker. In this episode, we explore the folklore roots of leprechauns in Irish mythology, tracing their connection to older fairy traditions, solitary spirits, and trickster entities. We look at how these figures evolved through oral storytelling during times of hardship—particularly during the mass emigration of Irish people in the 19th century—and how their image was reshaped into the playful mascot we recognize today. But beneath the green coats and gold coins lies something older… something not always friendly. Sources & Further Reading (Condensed & Credible) Briggs, K. M. (1976). A Dictionary of Fairies. Penguin Books. Evans-Wentz, W. Y. (1911). The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Oxford University Press. Yeats, W. B. (1888). Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. Duffy, S. (Ed.). (2005). Atlas of Irish History. Gill & Macmillan. National Museum of…

Send us Fan Mail Japan is home to some of the most chilling urban legends in the world. Stories whispered in school hallways, shared on quiet train rides, and passed between friends late at night. Some of these legends have existed for decades… while others were born on the internet and spread like wildfire across message boards. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore four of Japan’s most haunting urban legends. A vengeful spirit that drags herself across the pavement searching for victims. A masked woman who asks a terrifying question before revealing her true face. A ghost said to haunt the bathrooms of Japanese schools. And a train station that doesn’t appear on any map. Join us as we dive into the eerie folklore and modern legends behind: Teke Teke Kuchisake-onna Hanako-san Kisaragi Station These stories blend folklore, fear, and modern storytelling — proving that urban legends continue to evolve with the world around us. But one thing never changes. If you hear footsteps behind you at night……

Send us Fan Mail The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, stretching more than 2,000 miles across the eastern United States. For generations, the people who lived in these mountains have shared stories about strange encounters in the woods, mysterious creatures, and folklore that seems to blur the line between history and legend. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the lesser-known legends said to originate in the Appalachian region. From ancient Cherokee folklore to stories shared by hunters and hikers in the mountains today, these tales reveal how deeply storytelling is woven into Appalachian culture. We’ll dive into stories about: • Appalachian Mimic Legends – Stories of voices in the woods that sound almost human.• The Wampus Cat – A mysterious creature said to roam the mountains and forests.• The Moon-Eyed People – A strange group described in Cherokee traditions who were said to move through the mountains only at night.• Appalachian Witch Traditions…

Send us Fan Mail In Part One of this two-part series, we explore real missing person cases connected to the Appalachian region and the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail. Appalachia stretches from Georgia to Maine, cutting through national forests, deep mountain hollows, and some of the most rugged terrain in the eastern United States. In this episode, we examine documented disappearances, including: • Dennis Martin (1969) – 6-year-old boy who vanished in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park• Trenny Lynn Gibson (1976) – A teenager who disappeared during a school trip near Clingmans Dome• Louise Chaput (2001) – Quebec woman murdered while hiking in the White Mountains These cases remain either unsolved or deeply debated. SOURCES • FBI – Highway Serial Killings Initiative⁠https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2009/april/highwayserial_040609⁠ • National Park Service – Great Smoky Mountains⁠https://www.nps.gov/grsm⁠ • Disappearance of Dennis Martin⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Dennis_Martin⁠ • Trenny…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the most haunted universities in North America and the UK — from abandoned asylum buildings and Gothic towers to medieval cathedral ruins and anatomy theatres linked to real historical crimes. These aren’t urban legends pulled out of thin air. Many of these campuses are built on documented history involving: Former psychiatric institutions Grave robbing The Burke and Hare murders Public dissections Religious executions Phantom monks and ghostly figures 📚 Sources Ohio University & The Ridges Ohio University. The Ridges History.⁠https://www.ohio.edu/ridges/history⁠ Ohio History Connection. Athens Lunatic Asylum Overview. University of Toronto Richardson, D., Careless, J.M.S., & Craig, G.M. (1990). A Not Unsightly Building: University College and Its History. Mosaic Press. Queen’s University Queen’s University Archives. Grant Hall History.⁠https://www.queensu.ca/archives/⁠ University of St Andrews University of St Andrews. History of the…

Send us Fan Mail Valentine’s Day is often framed as a celebration of romance — roses, chocolate, candlelight. But beneath the surface, February 14th carries a far older and darker history. In this bonus episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the lesser-known folklore and urban legends connected to Valentine’s Day — from early martyrdom and ritual superstition to backroad ghost stories and industrial-era mining lore. Sources & Further Reading Brunvand, J. H. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. Dégh, L. Legend and Belief: Dialectics of a Folklore Genre. Kelly, H. A. Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine. Springhill Miners’ Museum Archives (Nova Scotia mining history). Simpson, J., & Roud, S. A Dictionary of English Folklore. If you enjoyed this bonus episode: 💌 Follow Let’s Talk Spooky ⭐ Leave a rating or review 🖤 Share with someone who loves a little history with their hauntings Until next time… Stay curious. Stay spooky.

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore modern accounts of time slips, missing time, and parallel reality experiences shared by users on Reddit. From waking up in impossible locations with no memory of how they got there… to stepping into what felt like another universe… these first-hand accounts blur the line between psychological phenomenon and paranormal mystery. Are these glitches in perception? Dissociation? Dimensional shifts? Or something far stranger? Stay curious. Stay spooky. 📚 Sources Stories sourced from public Reddit threads on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix and r/ParanormalEncounters. Additional references include folklore accounts of time slips and psychological research on dissociation and missing time. ⚠️ Disclaimer The stories discussed in this episode are shared from public Reddit forums and reflect personal experiences and interpretations of the original posters. These accounts are not independently verified.

Send us Fan Mail Time slips don’t arrive with spectacle. They happen quietly—on familiar roads, well-marked trails, and in places people believe they know. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the folklore, historical accounts, and modern experiences of time slips: moments when people report briefly stepping outside linear time. Across cultures and centuries, these encounters share the same unsettling details—sudden silence, altered landscapes, missing hours, and the instinctive certainty that staying would be a mistake. We move from early folklore warnings about “thin places” and forbidden roads into documented case studies and contemporary accounts, including travelers who pass through villages that no longer exist and hikers who narrowly avoid stopping in places that feel profoundly wrong. Fear appears to end the experience. Movement restores the world. And those who return are left with the same quiet certainty: something real happened, even if it cannot be explained. This episode isn’t about…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore four ships whose stories continue to drift through maritime history and folklore. These ships reveal how maritime disasters don’t always sink into history—they linger, resurface, and sometimes drift back into view. SS Valencia (1906) Parks Canada — The Sinking of the SS Valencia Government overview of the disaster and its impact on marine safety https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2017/06/the_sinking_of_thessvalencia.html Maritime Museum of British Columbia — SS Valencia: A Theatre of Horror Artifact records and historical interpretation https://mmbc.bc.ca/exhibits/ss-valencia-a-theatre-of-horror/ SS Atlantic (1873) Library and Archives Canada — The Wreck of the Atlantic Archival documentation and historical context https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/Pages/ss-atlantic.aspx Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 — SS Atlantic Disaster Immigration history and survivor context…

Send us Fan Mail In 1863, the quiet fishing village of Sandy Cove was forever changed by a single, unsettling discovery. Along the rocky shoreline, locals found a young man sitting alone on the beach—both of his legs freshly amputated, his clothes still fine, his expression calm but distant. When asked who he was or how he came to be there, he spoke only one word: “Jerome.” Over the next fifty years, Jerome would become one of Atlantic Canada’s most enduring mysteries. He lived out his life moving between homes and institutions across Nova Scotia, refusing to explain his past, lashing out violently when pressed, and guarding his silence with almost supernatural determination. Was Jerome a sailor punished for mutiny? A political exile from Europe? A victim of organized crime—or a man deliberately erased? Sources & Further Reading- Primary & Historical Sources Mooney Jr., Fraser. Jerome: Solving the Mystery of Nova Scotia’s Silent Castaway. Nimbus Publishing. Digby County historical records and oral histories…

Send us Fan Mail New Orleans has always belonged to the night. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we step into the gas-lit streets of the French Quarter to uncover the vampire legends that took root in the city’s earliest days—where European superstition, colonial fear, and scandal blurred the line between myth and history. We trace how Old World vampire folklore crossed the Atlantic and embedded itself in New Orleans, shaping burial customs, whispered convent legends, and tales of blood-drinking figures who walked openly among society. From the unsettling story of the Carter Brothers to the infamous legend of Jacques St. Germain, these vampires were not creatures of castles—but of parties, parlors, and disappearing acts. This episode explores how fear of the undead reflected real historical anxieties about death, disease, and identity in one of America’s most haunted cities—and why New Orleans remains inseparable from vampire lore to this day. Pour yourself a drink, lock the doors, and walk with us into…

Send us Fan Mail Long before Dracula, Ireland was already telling stories of the dead who refused to stay buried. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore ancient Irish vampire lore—legends of revenants, blood-drinking dead, and cursed burials rooted in fear, famine, and unresolved death. From the tragic tale of the Dearg-Due to the violent legend of Abhartach, these stories reveal a darker understanding of the undead, where vampires were not romantic outsiders, but neighbors, rulers, and lovers. These early Irish legends would go on to shape many of the vampire-slaying traditions found across Europe, leaving behind a legacy of fear, ritual, and ancient hunger. Sources & Further Reading Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends. National Folklore Collection (Dúchas.ie), University College Dublin Geoffrey Keating. Foras…

Send us Fan Mail Long before Christmas became a season of comfort and light, midwinter was a time of hunger, fear, and moral reckoning. Across Europe, stories emerged of creatures who roamed during the longest nights—watching households, judging behavior, and punishing those who failed to prepare for the harshness of winter. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the folklore of three of the most unsettling Christmas figures: Grýla, her monstrous companion Yule Cat, and the Alpine enforcer Krampus. We also examine the darker legends surrounding Saint Nicholas, including the infamous tale of the pickled children—revealing how fear, morality, and survival shaped early holiday storytelling. These were not stories meant to entertain. They were warnings. And in the depths of winter, they mattered. 📚 Sources & Further Reading Árni Björnsson, Icelandic Folklore and Legends National Museum of Iceland – Grýla and Yule Cat folklore resources Encyclopedia Britannica – Entries on Grýla, Yule Cat, and Alpine…

Send us Fan Mail Long before the Twelve Days of Christmas became a cheerful song, they were feared. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the ancient folklore surrounding the Twelve Days — a liminal stretch of time between Christmas and Epiphany when the boundaries between the living and the dead were believed to weaken. Across Europe, people feared that spirits roamed freely, animals spoke, omens appeared, and the Wild Hunt rode through winter storms. Drawing from Germanic, Norse, Alpine, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh traditions, this episode examines why silence, restraint, and ritual protection were believed to be essential for survival during midwinter. From ancestral spirits returning home, to dangerous thresholds and supernatural processions, the Twelve Days were not meant to be celebrated — they were meant to be endured. Because when the year was dying, and the new one had not yet begun, people believed the world was listening. 📚 Sources & Further Reading Primary & Scholarly Sources Ronald…

Send us Fan Mail They came singing. They came smiling. And sometimes… they came to kill. In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we step into the dark side of a tradition meant to spread cheer. From ancient winter rituals and threatening songs to Victorian-era fear tactics and modern urban legends, we explore the unsettling history of Christmas caroling—and the moments when those voices at the door were anything but welcome. Caroling wasn’t always harmless. In some places, it was loud, aggressive, and dangerous. In others, it became a mask for violence, home invasion, and terror hidden behind song. So if you hear singing outside your door tonight… You may want to think twice before answering. Source Material & Further Reading This episode draws on historical folklore research, social history, and cultural analysis, including: Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain Jacqueline Simpson & Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore BBC Culture, “The Dark Origins of…

Send us Fan Mail Victorian England may be remembered for its carols, holly, and festive cheer—but beneath the flickering glow of candlelight, Christmas was once the season for ghosts. In this chilling holiday episode, we delve into the forgotten tradition of telling supernatural tales on Christmas Eve, long before Halloween claimed the spotlight. We delve into the Dickens-era fascination with spirits and the supernatural, unraveling why Victorians believed the veil thinned during midwinter. We also travel through some of the era’s eeriest Christmas hauntings, including the classic tale of The Phantom Coach and a final, haunting encounter with The Lady in Black. Blending historical commentary, folklore, and immersive narrative storytelling, this episode reveals the darker side of Christmas that Victorian families once gathered around the fire to hear. So grab your mulled wine, settle into the lamplight, and journey with us into a winter world where the shadows are long, and the spirits still wander. Stay…

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we wander into the shadows of early modern Europe and North America to uncover the unsettling history of witch marks—the mysterious symbols carved into thresholds, hearths, barns, attics, and even hidden inside old furniture. These markings, long misunderstood and often misattributed, were believed to protect homes from malevolent forces. Today, they tell a quieter but no less eerie story about fear, folklore, and the lengths people went to in order to keep themselves safe. Whether you love folklore, hidden history, or the mysterious little details we leave behind, this episode is for you. Turn down the lights, take a closer look at the walls around you… and let’s talk spooky. Below are the historical, academic, and credible sources used to shape the episode’s folklore, dates, examples, and terminology. Merrifield, Ralph. The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic. B. T. Batsford, 1987.Foundational work on magical protection practices, concealed objects, and apotropaic marks.…