The Tradition of Christmas Ghost Stories In the United States we generally associate Halloween with the telling of ghost stories, but in Britain there is a long history of telling ghostly tales during Christmas. We have all seen one or more of the many movie versions of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. In this classic Christmas story the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come appear to Ebenezer Scrooge. The ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner, Jacob Marley also pays him a visit to convince him to abandon his miserly ways and show charity towards those less fortunate. What many don’t realize is the important role that “A Christmas Carol” played in reviving the old Victorian Christmas traditions and celebrations that had been banned by Puritanism as not being pious enough. Dickens recalled the ghost stories he had heard as a child on Christmas Eve. Another memory from his childhood was the white Christmas. When Dickens was a child there had been a little ice age (1350- 1850) and he incorporated the snowfall on Christmas morning into his classic “A Christmas Carol.” Charles Dickens was a friend of Washington Irving who wrote a book of short stories entitled “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.” in 1819 while living in England working in his family’s business. In one of his short stories Irving wrote of his own childhood Christmas Eves spent listening to “Ghost Tales” based on local legends of the Hudson Valley region of New York State spun by an old man sitting by a raging fire. Further back in 1589 Christopher Marlowe wrote in his play “Jew of Malta” of the telling of “winter tales” of spirits and ghosts, and William Shakespeare has a similar refrain in his 1623 play “The Winter’s Tales” in which the royal heir character, Mamillius, proclaims “A sad tale’s best for winter, I have one, of sprites and goblins.” In the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s two authors drew inspiration from this old time Christmas tradition. Henry James was an American author who lived in England for an extended period and became a British citizen shortly before his death. He wrote the eerie gothic novella “The Turn of the Screw” in which one scene depicts a ghost story being told on Christmas Eve. Author M.R. James was a medieval scholar and an antiquarian who wrote several volumes of ghost stories including the “Ghost Story of an Antiquarian.” With his extensive knowledge of rare books James was able to draw from various old horror and ghost tales to create a formula for his ghost stories in which the ghost was a nuisance, even nasty to build suspense. He felt without some tension in the story it was boring to the reader. In his preface to “Ghost Story of an Antiquarian” James stated that ghost stories he heard at Christmas as a child were his inspiration for this collection of short stories. The Christmas tradition of spinning ghost tales began long before the Victorian era as we find references to it in writings by Shakespeare and Marlowe. But we have a more contemporary mention of it in a Christmas song written for and sung by Andy Williams in 1963 on the Christmas episode of The Andy Williams Show. The song is “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” in which Andy sang ‘There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.’ ~ VPI
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 07:24:04 +0000
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