Fitz
speaker
397 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Fitz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
Once, twice, they make their ghoulish dance, growing faster and more frantic with each pass, until, on the third circuit, the soul of the deceased sailor rises up from his grave and steps on to the phantom carriage. Their task complete, the horses thunder off, the carriage clattering down the 199 steps and all along the haggleith.
then plunging straight into the waves of the North Sea, the ocean depths reclaiming the soul who had spent his life's work sailing upon it. In some versions of this story, the carriage contains a skeletal crew. In others, there's no driver at all. In still others, the horses are headless, lending an even spookier twist to the tale.
But many think that there may be a more practical reason behind this particular legend, and that is smugglers. It wouldn't be a seaside town, after all, without a history of smuggling, and Whitby was certainly no exception.
Many people think that the legend of the Bargeist coach was invented by smugglers who thought the tale was a fantastic way to keep people away from their illicit activities, because the coffin of a sailor fresh off a boat would make a very handy place to stash illegal wares that could be dug up later away from the beady eyes of the authorities.
In fact, some even say that certain bands of smugglers went as far as to enact the Bargeist coach haunting, donning fearsome and grisly costumes and even painting their horses to sell the legend and maintain their cover. But did they invent the story entirely? Or did they employ an existing legend to suit their nefarious purposes?
We may never know, but I certainly wouldn't want to be in St Mary's graveyard in the dark of night and hear the jangle of harnesses and the clatter of hooves heading towards me.
Mina describes in her journal that the seat they so often frequented was set upon a gravestone laid flat like a slab, which bore the words, The fact that they were sitting on a grave didn't seem to perturb them in the slightest, however.
I think Victorian ladies must have been made of sterner stuff than they're typically given credit for because they weren't put off their favourite spot, even after Mina witnessed something looming malevolently over Lucy on the seat during her sleepwalking adventure.
I could understand this, perhaps, but when their friend Old Mr. Swales was found sprawled across the very same seat with a broken neck, I think that might have been the point where I gave up on the favoured spot, no matter how spectacular the view was. But did that dissuade Mina and Lucy? No.
The very same day that Mr. Swales was found dead upon it, as Mina writes, with a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder, they were back at the seat, standing on it to get a better view of the funeral proceedings of the Dead Sea Captain of the Demeter. If Bram Stoker is to be believed, those Victorians certainly seem to take death in their stride.
No wonder the era is so inextricably linked with Gothic horror. These days it seems impossible to tell which seat might have been Mina and Lucy's favourite spot. The clifftop is set with several benches just on the edge of the graveyard overlooking the harbour and town.
And on the day we visit, we sadly can't visit them all to take a proper look, or see if any of them are set on flattened gravestones, because most of them are roped off. A safety precaution due to recent bad weather making the edge of the cliff a risky place to be.
And for this same reason, I'm not sure we can know if the seat Bram Stoker had in mind when he wrote Dracula even still exists, or whether it's fallen victim to the crumbling cliff edge over the years. And what of all the ghosts and legends we've encountered today throughout Whitby's maze of ancient streets? Do they still exist, or have they too fallen victim to the ravages of time?
stoker's character the old salt mr swales thinks they belong to an earlier time stating when mina quizzes him about the ghost of whitby abbey them things be all wore out mind i don't say that there never was but i do say there wasn't in my time
Well, I think Mr. Swales would have a hard time convincing ghost tour guide James J. Brown that Whitby's ghosts are all wore out, as he would one visitor to St. Mary's Churchyard who had a very odd experience in 1995.
And that brings us to the end of this episode of Knock Once VS. Thank you to everybody that shared their stories. And don't forget, if you have a story, please do get in touch through our website, knockoncevs.com. As always, thank you so much to our patrons and coffee supporters. Your support is the only thing that allows us to keep producing this show.
And if you have a podcast and would like your editing done, don't forget that I do run an audio post-production company. So please do get in touch at narrativeaudio.com. We hope that you've enjoyed this episode and that you'll join us again next time for some more spooky stories and haunted history on another Knock Once for Yes.
Showing 381–397 of 397 · page 20 of 20
← Previous