Despite the fact that modern science denies the existence of ghosts and spirits, the legends about them continue to excite the minds of people. We tell the stories of the five most famous ghosts, which to this day, according to eyewitnesses, can be found in different parts of our world.
Bloody Mary, old Kusovnikov, Anku - in childhood, many of us heard frightening stories about souls who, for some reason, did not end up in the afterlife and continue to coexist with living people. Some of them behave peacefully, while others, on the contrary, strive with all their might to take revenge on people for the sins of the past, taking their souls as payment. Let's figure out how the famous legends about ghosts appeared, and whether ghosts really live in our world.
Bloody Mary
One of the most famous ghost legends is the story of Bloody Mary. According to legend, if you say the name of this evil spirit three times in front of the mirror, it will immediately appear before you. In addition, in the United Kingdom, the image of the Bloody Mary is used during holiday fortune-telling on Halloween - according to legend, it is she who will be able to show the face of the future betrothed.
Queen of England Mary I.
A priest, four lay people and two women were burned at the stake in Smithfield, London on January 27, 1556 for refusing to deny their Protestant faith. Reign of Mary I (Bloody Mary).
True, despite the popularity of this ghost, few people know where the legend of Bloody Mary came from. The most common version is the theory that the real Bloody Mary was Queen Mary I of Aglia I. According to the surviving data, Her Majesty was famous for her insane cruelty and bloodlust, and her victims were not only adult men and women, but also babies whom she abducted from new parents.
Promotional video:
It is noteworthy that the day of the death of Bloody Mary, as she is called in another way, was celebrated by the British for a long time as a national holiday, and the memory of the cruel ruler was preserved in the form of a terrible legend.
In addition, there is another version of the origin of the legend, according to which the real Bloody Mary was a resident of a small village in the United States. There was a bad reputation about her - the fact was that over the years not a single wrinkle appeared on Mary's face, and the young girls who came into her house to find out the secret of her eternal beauty and youth never returned. The locals knew about the strange things that happened in the cursed hut, but they were afraid of the witch.
But one day the victim of Mary was the heiress of an influential person who decided at all costs to find his daughter and punish the witch. According to legend, when a man, along with a crowd of angry residents, broke into Mary's house, she performed some mysterious ceremony in front of a mirror with an unfortunate girl. Frightened by reprisals, the sorceress attempted to escape, but was caught and burned alive at the stake, having previously managed to cast a curse on all the villagers and their descendants, and the threefold repetition of her name is a spell that awakens the evil and vengeful spirit of Mary, thirsting for new blood.
Anku
According to Breton mythology, Anku is the image of death itself, but according to other versions, he is a demonic force. Some nations even consider him the first child of Adam and Eve, who turned to evil forces and began to serve Satan. One way or another, meeting Anku in any case means a quick death, which cannot be avoided by any means.
Anku's image.
There is also controversy about the appearance of the mythical creature - according to one version, Anku is a skeleton with long white hair that appears on the roads of the city in a cart drawn by an emaciated horse. According to the other, he looks like an evil old man with long, skinny arms and claws, whose visit portends a terrible creak from that very cart. Some peoples also believe that Anku looks like an ordinary person, while he is distinguished from others only by his tall stature and a wide-brimmed hat, on the edges of which you can cut yourself.
However, appearance is far from the worst thing in this evil spirit. According to legend, if a person meets Anka on his way, he will die within two years, and if a ghost is on the way at midnight, a person will not live even a month. This is why many people in the northwest of France preferred to stay at home at night and avoid the deserted roads leading to the cemeteries where Anchu most often appeared.
Not only ordinary villagers, but also poets and writers who believed in the existence of Anku, spoke about the main henchman of death. In one of his works, entitled “The Legend of Death,” the Breton poet Anatole le Bras described the evil spirit as follows: “Anku is the servant of death itself. He watches over graves and protects cemeteries. Usually the last dead man of the year, whose soul Anka took, remains with an evil spirit for the whole next year and helps him in his dark deeds, and after that his soul remains forever hostage to evil forces."
By the way, Anku is popular not only in Breton mythology, but also in other countries of the world, and in Ireland there is even a sad and terrible proverb about the evil spirit of death:
Margaret Pole
The Countess Margaret of Salisbury, daughter of George Plantagenet, was a prominent figure of her time. Margaret bore the title of peerage in England and became one of the few representatives of the dynasty who managed to survive after the bloody War of the Roses. However, a grim future awaited the British aristocrat.
Margaret Pole.
When Henry VIII ascended the throne in 1501, Margaret Pole's son Reginald began to actively call upon subjects and members of European royal families for a coup, as he was unhappy with the monarch's decision to marry Anne Boleyn. The events of those years led to the fact that in 1538 the Countess Margaret and her sons were taken into custody, and Reginald himself died from an unknown fever that spread in England.
All prisoners were accused of high treason and attempted coup - Countess Henry's son was executed before the trial began, and Geoffrey's other heir received a pardon from the king for his assistance in the investigation. Margaret herself was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where she spent more than two and a half years. True, the conditions of her detention were very comfortable - because of her position in society, the prisoner was allowed to correspond, and she had several servants at her disposal.
To prove the countess's guilt, one of the monarch's close associates showed Margaret's tunic depicting the five wounds of Christ, which confirmed her commitment to the Roman Catholic Church. True, most modern historians call this evidence a fake.
One way or another, in 1541 the countess was executed. Margaret Pole resisted until her last breath, outraged that she had not even been sentenced. Her desperate attempts to escape led to terrible consequences - the inexperienced executioner who carried out the execution could not correctly calculate the blow due to the countess's throwing, and for the first time he severely wounded her in the shoulder. According to the surviving evidence, after that he struck at least ten more blows, disfiguring her face, arms and neck.
According to legend, the unseated soul of the Countess of Salisbury still roams the Tower, terrifying guards and visitors (see also: Haunted House: 6 of the most mystical castles in Great Britain).
Old Man Kusovnikov
The ghost of old Kusovnikov lives in the capital of Russia. Its spirit can be found in the center of Moscow - according to legend, on Myasnitskaya Street, where the famous Chai. Coffee”, Kusovnikov's house was located earlier, and therefore these places are dear to him.
Spouses Kusovnikovs.
This ghost is not as dangerous as Anku or Bloody Mary, but hardly anyone wants to meet him in the middle of the night - meeting an old man promises financial troubles and portends a whole bunch of small, but extremely unpleasant problems. According to legend, when the spirit appears on the streets of the city, he begins to repeat the same phrase, which introduces a person into a real stupor - each time Kusovnikov asks passers-by: "Where is my money?"
The fact is that the old man really lost his savings several centuries ago and continues to search for them to this day. In the 19th century, the Kusovnikov couple lived on Myasnitskaya - the spouses were fabulously rich, but their fortune literally drove them crazy. The elderly couple practically did not leave their house, hiding wealth in the secluded corners of the rooms, and when they nevertheless got out of the estate (usually this happened at night), they took money with them.
Once the couple caught a cold and became very weak. When they realized that none of them would be able to properly keep track of the accumulated funds, they decided to put the wealth in the fireplace for a while, believing that the idea of getting into it would not occur to thieves. However, the weather that night turned out to be very bad, and the servants, worried about the health of the masters, decided to light a fire in the living room, which destroyed all the fortune hidden by the Kusovnikovs.
This event plunged the couple into the deepest shock - Madame Kusovnikova, upon learning of the loss of money, died immediately, and her husband became obsessed with the idea of a refund. According to legend, the old man did not believe that his wealth was burned down and began to demand that the representatives of the law return the accumulated wealth. For a long time he wrote complaints, went to courts and fought in every possible way for his lost state, and this struggle cost him his life - Kusovnikov was so obsessed with his idea that he finally lost his mind. He forgot to eat, drink and wash, did not recognize his relatives and servants, pounced on bystanders with fists and demanded to give him the coveted money.
His condition was getting worse, and soon he died without finding answers to his questions - his restless soul remained in the house on Myasnitskaya, and today he still continues to look for his money.
White woman
The ghost of the White Woman is found in Anglo-Saxon, German, Estonian and Slavic mythology and in each case has different guises and intentions. According to the Anglo-Saxon version, a White woman appears in desert areas and is looking for young men who, after meeting her, suddenly die - a vengeful spirit, betrayed by a loved one during life, punishes the living for their pain and humiliation.
According to another version, the White Woman is the guardian of the family and always appears in the homes of noble members of society in the guise of a noble lady to warn those of imminent trouble. According to legend, the emperors Nicholas I, Alexander II and Nicholas II met with this ghost - the first White woman did not say anything, because he was mortally frightened, the second was informed that several serious trials awaited him in the future, including an attempt on his life, and Nicholas II's ghostly lady warned that he would become the last emperor of Russia.
There is another legend about a White woman who lives in the town of Haapsalu in Estonia - according to this version, several centuries ago, a monk, who had taken an oath to lead a righteous life and renounce worldly joys, fell in love with a beautiful girl. He could not leave the monastery, but he could not even leave his beloved, and then he decided to settle her in his cell under the guise of a young man.
For a long time, the lovers managed to keep their secret and be together, but soon they were exposed - once the girl decided to swim on a hot August day and went to the lake near the monastery. When she took off her men's clothes, she was noticed by other monks, who immediately reported the deception.
Despite pleas for mercy, the lovers were sentenced to death. The guilty monk was thrown into a deep pit with wild animals, which were instantly torn to pieces unhappily, and the girl was faced with a much more terrible punishment - the angry residents of the city decided to immure her alive in the wall, leaving a piece of bread and some water as a mockery. According to legend, the heartbreaking screams of the White Lady, as the locals called her, were heard for several weeks, after which it was all over. However, her soul never found peace, and today it continues to wander the corridors of the former monastery, in which she was once happy with her beloved.