![]() It was after John Polidori and Mary and Percy Shelley had been sitting around the blazing fire reading German ghost stories at Lord Byron’s Villa Diodati in the Swiss Alps in 1816 that Lord Byron laid down the famous challenge of who could tell the best ghost story. ![]() In contrast to my own mother, there nonetheless exists across cultures the tradition of mothers frightening children into obedience with vague threats of the boogeyman, to more specific cultural horrors. Telling ghost stories is a cultural tradition that permeates every tribe, nation and language under the sun, suggesting that delight in macabre is somehow intrinsic to humanity. She well knew in whose bed I would be spending my restless nocturnal hours if I were granted my wish. ![]() As a child, I remember begging my father to tell me the scariest ghost story he knew, and I also remember my mother promptly vetoing the request for the sake of everyone’s sleep that night. ![]()
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