In the Victorian era, sensational ghost stories were headline news. Spine-chilling reports of two-headed phantoms, murdered knights and spectral locomotives filled the pages of the press. Spirits communicated with the living at dark séances, forced terrified families to flee their homes and caused superstitious workers to down their tools at the haunted mines. This book contains more than fifty hair-raising – and in some cases, comical – real life accounts from Wales, dating from 1837 to 1901. Unearthed from newspaper archives, they include chilling prophecies from beyond the grave, poltergeists terrorising the industrial communities, and more than a few ingenious hoaxes along the way.

A collection of spine-chilling tales of hauntings, paranormal activity and supernatural phenomena from right across Wales.

Haunted Wales

Excerpt from The Maid of Sker With this, and with that, and most of all with hinting about a Frenchman, they put me on my mettle, so that I sit upon the side-stones of the old-well gallery (which are something like the companion-rail of a fore-and-after), and gather them around me, with the householders put foremost, according to their income, and the children listening between their legs; and thus I begin, but never end, the tale I now begin to you, and perhaps shall never end it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Did you know? Richard Burton claimed that he would rather have played rugby for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park than Hamlet at the Old Vic. Local rivalries between choirs in the 'land of song' used to be so fierce that fights would break out following singing competitions. Roald Dahl was an RAF fighter pilot during the Second World War, and a near-death crash landing inspired his first published work. The Little Book of Welsh Culture is a fast-paced, fact-filled journey through the cultural heritage of Wales, crammed full of myths, traditions and personalities. Experience the country's immense artistic legacy as never before, from the medieval legends surrounding King Arthur and The Mabinogion to its modern-day transformation into a thriving filming location for big-screen blockbusters. Discover the truth behind the ancient druidic rituals of the National Eisteddfod, separate the facts from the fiction that surround Dylan Thomas' infamous lifestyle, and learn how Wales successfully regenerated the Doctor Who franchise – and unearth some fascinating secrets and hidden gems along the way.

Illustrated with atmospheric photographs and supported by extracts from original documents, this guide will appeal to anyone with an interest in things that go bump in the night. The sites covered are open to the public.

Edmund Jones (1702-93) was a Welsh Independent minister, Calvinist, visionary, prophet, topographer, and religious historian. Like many Protestant Reformers and Puritan divines before him, Jones was fascinated by the occult. Throughout his life he amassed what he believed to be convincing evidence for the existence of good and evil apparitions (including ghosts, demons, fairies, witches, angels, and giants) and of the 'invisible world'. The Appearance of Evil: Apparitions of Spirits in Wales contains the testimonies of many witnesses to supernatural encounters in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Wales, from abductions by fairies, and appearances of ghosts, devils and witches, to poltergeist activity. The stories here evoke a spiritually dark landscape in which the malevolent dead and damned wander, and present a fascinating insight into how the eighteenth-century visualized the spirit world. This new edition presents Jones's narratives in an up-dated and accessible form. John Harvey has collated Jones's second book of apparitions, published in 1780, along with the text of an earlier but now lost volume on the same subject, and material from Jones's 1779 study of the parish of Aberystwyth. Together they represent the most comprehensive compilation of Jones's relations of apparitions ever before published.