Whitby Monastery, located on the east coast of Britain along the Esq Delta, was founded in 657 by Saint Hilda. According to legend, she destroyed all the snakes that annoyed the locals and turned them into stones. That is why petrified spiral shells found in the north of England are sometimes called "Hilda's stone snakes".
The quiet life of the abbey lasted a couple of centuries. In 867 the monastery was plundered and destroyed by the Vikings, after which it lay in ruins for almost two hundred years. In the XI century, it was restored by Reinfried, a warrior of William the Conqueror.
In the 16th century, Whitby Abbey shared the fate of hundreds of other monasteries throughout the country - Henry VIII, after the Pope invalidated his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, closed monasteries, appropriated their lands and confiscated property.
Since then, only a cold wind has visited the empty abbey, but some people said that they saw a silhouette of a woman in the window of the monastery. And after the bells began to ring by themselves, there was the first talk about the spirit of Hilda, awakened from eternal sleep due to the desecration of the holy place.
There were also skeptics who considered the rumors a lie and decided to prove it, at the same time stealing the last value that remained from the abbey - the bell. They removed them from the monastery and carried them to a ship that soon sank near the coast under mysterious circumstances and marked the beginning of a new legend. They say since then, during the surf, you can sometimes hear the "underwater chime" - an unusual sound that is difficult to confuse with anything. However, it is considered a good omen for newlyweds - a sign of a happy and long family life.
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In the 20th century, sailors said that Saint Hilda sometimes appeared in the windows of the monastery with a lantern in severe bad weather, warning passing ships of the dangerous proximity to the shore. Some believe that the spirit of Hilda to this day protects the ruins of the monastery and its ancient cemetery from people with evil thoughts.