Haunted Items

There seems to quite a few haunted tales concerning spirits or ghosts attached to certain items. There is the famous Spedlins Bible which became forever interlinked with the ghost when used to exorcise it. Other tales concern bodily parts such as skulls. Do you know any such accounts and whether there is any factual basis for them? Below is the tale of Calgarth Hall which is one the tales we will be updating the Cumbrian section with soon.

According to legend, the owners, a Mr and Mrs Kraster Cook were framed one Christmas by Myles Phillipson, a magistrate. He planted a silver cup upon their persons when they came around to visit him. The crime was punishable by death and Phillipson gained control of Calgarth hall, but not before being cursed by Mrs Dorothy Cook. After the death of Mr and Mrs Cook, two skulls appeared at Calgarth Hall and they were first noticed at Christmas on the first anniversary of the alleged silver cup theft. Phillipson's prosperity dwindled and each time they tried to remove or destroy the skulls they reappeared again. Eventually Calgarth Hall was occupied by Dr Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff. he performed an exorcism which apparently calmed the spirits. The skulls were bricked up behind a wall in the Hall.

Head collecting was important to the celts and I can see why it would be believed that spirits are connected to their lost heads.

Very true, the Celts believed that the spirit was housed within the head.

Very interesting I don't know if I've ever come across any information on haunted items, but I have read about things like the Crystal Skulls, which may be a little different. The story of Spedlins Bible was particularly interesting.

On another note (but linked), I went to school with a guy whose last name was Fraser. Now, supposedly the Frasers (the very same) traditionally had a ghostly drum (I suppose like a snare) that would beat when a member of the family were to die. I haven't seen the guy in years though, so I'm not completely sure about the details anymore. I suppose this could be seen as a haunted item, or even a ghostly manifest. But then this sort of tradition seems to be popular amongst the old Scottish families.

If I remember correctly not a single "screaming skull" has stood up investigation. Some have been deliberately removed to observe the disturbances they are supposed to cause but nothing out of ordinary happened. Others have been examined by forensic experts and they turned to be much older than the legend they are associated with: some of them have been dated to the Iron Age and are probably of Celtic origin. Others date from Roman times and are probably the remnants of some rite to ensure luck or fertility (remember that a good part of Rome's best troops were recruited among allied and subdued Celtic tribes).

There are scores of haunted items, often quite curious: I remember Brad Steiger's delightful account of a haunted quilt. Apparently all attempts to use this quilt (found inside a box in old farmhouse) on a bed generated many phenomena, including disembodied voices ("Give back my quilt!") and an invisible presence which seemed to try to pull the quilt from whoever was trying to sleep underneath it.
Also let's not forget the many haunted dolls around: personally I've always found those old ceramic dolls to be less than pleasant. Browsing the Internet will find many stories but my favorite is from Japan. Here many a temple is said to have among the many "treasures" old dolls with growing hair. In the '50s one of these dolls' hair is supposed to have been analyzed (though I have been unable to find any convincing datas) and to be found to be... human hair. Of course this could have been a fraud but it's also possible that a particulary expensive doll had true human fitted from the beginning.
Japanese have many stories about "mononoke", objects or animals acquiring great supernatural powers thorugh various means (for example cats could become incredibly intelligent and able to shapeshift by breathing a dead man's ki) but this is probably a story for another day.

I can't think of any 'Screaming Skull' cases that have been proved genuine either. We have an article on Mysteriousbritain I had actually forgotten about that covers a few examples.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/screaming_skulls.html

As for china dolls, they really freak me out

Would the strange exepriences happen around these items regardless as to where they were? If items can be haunted as well as loactions, what does say about some of the current theories about hauntings?

Mauro wrote:

Japanese have many stories about "mononoke", objects or animals acquiring great supernatural powers thorugh various means (for example cats could become incredibly intelligent and able to shapeshift by breathing a dead man's ki) but this is probably a story for another day.

Ah. Do the Tsukogami come under the same description? I believe it's when a spirit inhabits an old item. Am I right in understnading that it is after the object becomes 100 years old?

Urisk wrote:

Mauro wrote:

Japanese have many stories about "mononoke", objects or animals acquiring great supernatural powers thorugh various means (for example cats could become incredibly intelligent and able to shapeshift by breathing a dead man's ki) but this is probably a story for another day.

Ah. Do the Tsukogami come under the same description? I believe it's when a spirit inhabits an old item. Am I right in understnading that it is after the object becomes 100 years old?

Well, according to Shigeru Mizuki ("Nihonyokaitaizen" 1994) they are quite separate. The Mononoke is an animal or object that acquires semidivine powers through various means, age being one of them. The Tsukumogami (litterally "the deity that attacks the dead ones") is a ghost taking possession of an inanimate oject.
It can be a human ghost or one of those many spirits that inhabit Japanese folktales.

I have not really heard of the tsukumogami before and had a quick check on wiki. It says they are repelled by electricity therefore modern items cannot become tsukumogami.

This is slightly off topic, but not too far off.

There are also items and locations that have had whats been termed thought forms attached to them, as in, a person or people have performed a protection ritual leaving behind a guardian "spirit" for a better word to make the item or area not nice to be around and/or cause things to happen. This type of thing really came to mind remembering reading Andrew Collins books about psychic questing years ago. I myself have felt not welcome at some places, and also felt like this is the right place to be at others if you know what i mean.

Thinking about in now though, this sort of points towards the screaming skulls thing. If you believe something bad will happen if you move said object, then it probably will. If you dont, it wont.