Trim up the tree with clanking chains and floating orbs, it’s Christmas! As in years past, Skullduggery in the Smoke follows the most Victorian of Christmas traditions: Ghost Stories. For the entire month, I’m searching through Peter Underwood’s Gazetteer of British, Scottish, and Irish Ghosts for hauntings fit for a gaming table to pull out adventure ideas, historical connections, and bizarre details. So bring a torch, Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!
As Christmas nears, ghostly
growls disturb the calm winter nights in the village of Fernhurst in West
Sussex. Yearly, villagers witness the ghost of the last bear in England
returning to the scene of its death in Verdly Castle. The castle’s location is
now a thickly wooded hollow in Verdly Wood with brush growing over the few
remaining piles of masonry, but once it was a magnificent hunting tower. On a
Christmas day sometime in the early 1000s AD, a bear foraging for food through
Verdly Wood stumbled into a pack of hunters from the castle. The hunters
attacked. Wounded and worried, the bear turned tail. The bear sought any
shelter it could and ran straight into Verdly Castle. In Verdly’s great hall,
the hunters cornered their quarry and slew the last bear native to England.
Now, the bear returns each year and the hunters’ cries of triumph remind the
nation of its loss.
Adventure Ideas
Because of their hibernation
cycle, bears serve as a symbol of death and rebirth. They spend the winter in
the underworld and emerge brand new each spring. The killing of the last bear
gives that creature enough magical significance to make this symbol the literal
truth. It’s not a ghost, it’s the magically-powerful undead last bear brought
back out of hibernation once a year to feed.
The skeletal remains of the last
bear may lie near the foundations of Verdly castle lost in the ground. The
ancient Celts wore bear-shaped amulets and bear teeth for protection. As a
symbol of death, extinction, and loss, any part of the legendary bear makes a
potent necromantic or enchanted talisman.
Unverifiable rumors claim Verdly
Castle was used as a madhouse served by a handful of nuns before falling to a
crumbling ruin. The growls and howls might not belong to a bear but an unquiet
spirit of unsound mind pretending to be a bear. Anyone trying to put the “ghost
bear” spirit to rest just strengthens its delusion. Or the bear’s specter
adopted such “wild men” as her cubs. Now another charitable home opens near
Verdly Wood. Certain incurable inmates vanish from their cells, although
visitors sometimes hear their voices from beneath the ground. Any wardens
mistreating their poor charges soon suffer a savage death.
One of the possible (if not
portable ) translations of the name Arthur is “bear man”, possibly descended
from the Celtic bear goddess, Artio. King Arthur legendarily lies sleeping
under the ground waiting for his return and certain druidic circles celebrate
King Arthur at the midwinter solstice only a few days from Christmas. When the
last bear died the last link to Camelot died with it, but Merlin sends its
spirit back to earth on the year’s greatest day of charity and hope. Following
the ghostly clues and markers could lead to the Once and Future King.
As terrifically bonkers as the
idea of a ghost bear may be, in the more fantastic world of Victoriana the
monstrous possibilities stagger the mind. When the last owlbear returns, claw
and talon marks mark the trees and screeches fill the air. The pale specter of
a unicorn stalks the moors enchanting innocents and impaling the guilty. Gazing
into the eyes of a ghostly cockatrice petrifies the soul but leaves the numb
empty husk of a body alive.
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