In which there are the spectre of sibling rivalry and two weird tales of apparitions
- I walked on Harthill Moor and Stanton Moor in Derbyshire, past the Grey Ladies stone circle, and the natural Cork Stone, and the Nine Ladies stone circle.
- "And he made a fiddle out of her breastbone / The sound would pierce the heart of a stone." Last night I was at a folk gig and the singer was explaining the story of traditional song the Bows of London, which is about an older sister drowning her younger sister partly due to jealousy of her long blonde hair, and a woman in the front row loudly added, "My younger sister has long blonde hair, and I could *drown* her sometimes!" Which caused a big wave of laughter. [/folkies] Then as it died away the younger sister who was SITTING NEXT TO THE WANNABE MURDERESS piped up, "I can swim!"
- Two times spiralsheep was mistaken for a ghost
1. I was wandering along the beach at Boggle Hole, which is a somewhat desolate patch of rocky coastline between the North York Moors and the North Sea, near the eponymous cave in the tall cliffs which is full of star-shaped fossils and named for the Boggle, who is a local type of hobgoblin. I was walking towards a man, a regular beachcomber there, who was staring at me increasingly fixedly as I approached. Hoping to forestall any problems I greeted him, loudly enough to be heard over the wind, with a cheery, "Morning!" To which he replied in a relieved voice, "You're not a ghost!" He then proceeded to explain that he'd thought I, in my jeans and blue plastic mac and red rucksack, was a ghost because, in his words, "You kept disappearing!" Presumably when I crouched down behind rocks to look at fossils as I wandered along the beach, lol.
2. I was walking down off the Buttermere Fells, because winds in which I couldn't physically stand up had been trying to kite me over the edge of the ridge [/fun times], singing She'll Be Coming Down The Mountain When She Comes [/altogether now: WH-WHOO!]. I passed two men huddled on the leeward side of a boulder who were peering in my direction with alarm on their faces. I predictably greeted them with a cheery, "Morning!" And after a tense moment one of them stammered out that they'd heard a woman's voice singing and, because they assumed no woman could possibly be coming down the mountain in weather conditions that had beaten them into submission, they'd assumed I must be some sort of apparition!
I'll never cease to boggle at what some suggestible people manage to persuade themselves might be true. Although I was wearing the same plastic mac and rucksack on both occasions so maybe they're haunted?
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- "And he made a fiddle out of her breastbone / The sound would pierce the heart of a stone." Last night I was at a folk gig and the singer was explaining the story of traditional song the Bows of London, which is about an older sister drowning her younger sister partly due to jealousy of her long blonde hair, and a woman in the front row loudly added, "My younger sister has long blonde hair, and I could *drown* her sometimes!" Which caused a big wave of laughter. [/folkies] Then as it died away the younger sister who was SITTING NEXT TO THE WANNABE MURDERESS piped up, "I can swim!"
- Two times spiralsheep was mistaken for a ghost
1. I was wandering along the beach at Boggle Hole, which is a somewhat desolate patch of rocky coastline between the North York Moors and the North Sea, near the eponymous cave in the tall cliffs which is full of star-shaped fossils and named for the Boggle, who is a local type of hobgoblin. I was walking towards a man, a regular beachcomber there, who was staring at me increasingly fixedly as I approached. Hoping to forestall any problems I greeted him, loudly enough to be heard over the wind, with a cheery, "Morning!" To which he replied in a relieved voice, "You're not a ghost!" He then proceeded to explain that he'd thought I, in my jeans and blue plastic mac and red rucksack, was a ghost because, in his words, "You kept disappearing!" Presumably when I crouched down behind rocks to look at fossils as I wandered along the beach, lol.
2. I was walking down off the Buttermere Fells, because winds in which I couldn't physically stand up had been trying to kite me over the edge of the ridge [/fun times], singing She'll Be Coming Down The Mountain When She Comes [/altogether now: WH-WHOO!]. I passed two men huddled on the leeward side of a boulder who were peering in my direction with alarm on their faces. I predictably greeted them with a cheery, "Morning!" And after a tense moment one of them stammered out that they'd heard a woman's voice singing and, because they assumed no woman could possibly be coming down the mountain in weather conditions that had beaten them into submission, they'd assumed I must be some sort of apparition!
I'll never cease to boggle at what some suggestible people manage to persuade themselves might be true. Although I was wearing the same plastic mac and rucksack on both occasions so maybe they're haunted?
This entry was originally posted at http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/602290.html and has
comments Please comment there using OpenID.