Hi, everyone. And welcome back to 酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, lulu. Hi, everyone.

Now before we start today's episode, let me ask you a very simple question.

OK.

Which month is it?

That is very simple. It's August

But what about in traditional Chinese calendar?

Oh~ It's Ghost Month.

Yes, 我们说着说着又到了中国的鬼月. Alan you know中元, right?

Yeah.

And you know traditionally because I'm really into that some supernatural stuff. So every year around Zhong Yuan or around Halloween we will do a few spooky episodes. So let's talk about hauntings. 我们来聊一聊这种supernatural的haunting就是闹鬼的这回事儿. I know that the Chinese style horror and haunting stories are very very different from say British ones.

Yeah, we have a very different idea of ghosts. Most of it is because of religion and culture.

Okay. So I thought today let's explore some of the famous or infamous hauntings in the UK.

Sounds good.

I don't really know much about because I mean I think I'm more familiar with Asia. I like hauntings in Asia, but I have heard quite a bit about what is happening in the theaters in the West End.

Yes. Lots of theatres, hotels, buildings in London are supposed to be haunted.

Oh, it is a very old capital. It's very old city.

Well absolutely. But let's talk about the most famous theater, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

对于不太知道伦敦的小伙伴遍布剧院的伦敦西区, 也就是他们的相当于这种娱乐夜生活的区,有一条很有名的街道叫做Drury Lane. Drury Lane is theater land, isn't it? Yes, there are many theaters, and this theater is called the Theater Royal?

This is the oldest still existing theatre in London. And it's often referred to as the most haunted theatre in the world.

So it's not just haunted by one ghost or is it just repeatedly haunted by one ghost?

A little from column A, a little from column B.

I see.

There are a few ghosts in this theater.

I can totally see that happening. I mean theater land, theaters, traditionally it's like the hub of human emotions, activities, stories. I think we also have our fair share of haunted theater.

Yeah. And the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is famous for one particular ghost, the Man in Grey.

Man in Grey?

Yes.

Doesn't even have a proper name, just Man in Grey.

Oh Yeah, it's described as a tall figure wearing a long grey cloak, wearing 18th century clothes and a powdered wig. So the type of wigs that lawyers or judges would wear nowadays

Are you sure it's not one of the actors just taking a break?

No, because this ghost has been seen for hundreds of years. They have reports of him being seen in the 19th century.

Sort of like a very long ongoing urban legend, so to speak.

And he's most commonly seen walking along the upper circle. So pretty much the top the balconies of the theatre itself.

Yeah, I've mentioned this. I think our audience if you are more familiar with our way of theatre layout, 可能大家看到国内的剧院都是很大, 然后平铺开来的那种, 但伦敦的西区的剧院特别小, 所以你可以把它想成一个圆筒状, 一个比较高的柱状体, 然后是一圈儿一圈儿 upper circle, 就是比较靠上的这样一圈儿座位.

Right? That's like specific section you can sit in the theater.

Yes. And he walks along the circle and he disappears into a wall.

And a few years ago, they discovered that there's actually a hidden passageway in that exact spot where he walks through the wall.

Are you sure that's not an actor because I've been to, what was it, Woman in Black? I went to see that show in London and then there was this actress without you noticing she like stood in the... among the audience and she was trying to create kind of a spooky atmosphere. You are sure it’s not that kind of thing.

No. Because this actor doesn't appear during the performances themselves. He appears during the rehearsals. And actually, his appearances are a really good omen.

Rehearsal就是在排练的时候对吧? So not only does this ghost not attack people or being aggressive. His appearance is actually a good omen, a good sign that the show is going to be successful?

Exactly.

I see convenient.

Exactly. So legend has it the Man in Grey is actually a ghost of a young man who was murdered in the theater. And he's just never left and he liked the theatre so much that when he appears, the show that's been rehearsed is definitely going to be really, really good.

I suppose all the other theater folks are really jealous of their residential ghost, Man in Grey, because it's supposed to be a good sign. I mean theater has so many folk beliefs it's like you're not supposed to say Macbeth because that is apparently a bad thing.

YEAH. And also you have ghost lights on the stage.

Oh yeah,They're called ghost lights?

So basically these lights are to ward away ghosts or to ensure that ghosts don't appear.

I've heard Chinese lores saying that when actors appear on stage, sometimes because the audience all the audience obviously focus their attention on the stage. And sometimes the main actor can see like ghost appearing among the audience.

Oh yeah, I honestly think that's true.

So moving away from theater land. What's our next location, next haunting sites.

So The next one is a really really scary site. It is called the Ancient Ram Inn.

Inn is like a酒馆加上旅馆的感觉对吧?

Yeah, and Inn is a pub that also is a hotel.

It's a very traditional setup.

Yeah. So lots of small towns or villages, they would have an inn, so this inn has a very, very spooky history and a long history of paranormal activity.

Let me guess, it's built on a burial ground or it... a witch lived in it or murders happened in it.

Oh yeah , all of those.

Wow.

No one really knows the history of the building. It was built in the 12th century. And there are stories about witchcraft, pagan rituals and also human sacrifice.

就拿活人献祭的这种. Pagan rituals, perhaps our audience don't really understand. If you check pagan, you would see 异教. So basically pagan was anything that's not Christian.

Yeah, anything that was before Christianity.

More like the folk beliefs.

Yeah, and you have to think that before Christianity, for example, Celtic religion which is older than the Romans, they did actually do things like human sacrifice.

Yeah, if you're interested check out Celtic folklore, they can get pretty dark.

Yes.

Now one of the most famous or infamous spirits is of a young girl named Rosie who was reportedly murdered in one of the rooms murdered little girl.

Yeah.

You got all the elements, you've got the pagan belief, you got the witchcraft, you got the human sacrifices and murdered young girl. You got yourself a haunted inn.

So guests had reported seeing her ghostly figure, feeling very cold all of a sudden and hearing the sound of a child crying.

Maybe it's just your next door guest, but yeah, this feeling sudden cold spots突然觉得全身发冷, 好像呼出来的气就能看得到是整个空气的变冷. We've seen that in, I think many sort of western horror.

Yes, but the scariest one is a demon that is believed to attack guests in the middle of the night.

Wow. So it has vengeful spirits or wandering spirits and also a demon.

Yeah. And the demon drags people out of bed

Really ?

Apparently yes.

But let me guess nowadays, if it's still open, it's either gonna be a museum or it's gonna be some sort of escape room or room escape thing.

You can still stay there. They do ghost hunts and it's quite popular. I was looking on Trip Advisor just before this episode and actually the reviews weren't very good because they were saying I didn't see anything.

It's not scary enough. Yes.

But next time when we're in England, we’ll definitely go?

Rather you than me.

But send me the website.

I will do.

So far we have theater, we have haunted inn. When do we get to like graveyard or cemetery?

Well, the next one actually is a cemetery, Highgate cemetery.

Highgate? Highgate is in London.

It's in north London, and it's a huge cemetery. It's actually quite a beautiful cemetery because it was laid out in the 19th century. So it has lots of very big tombs. It's very green. And some of the architecture in there is beautiful. It's also famous for Karl Marx.

马克思是葬在那里的是吗?

Yeah.

I see. The thing is fundamentally the western idea or the European idea of a cemetery and our idea of a cemetery is very different. Our cemetery, because we fundamentally see that as a taboo subject. So we generally put our cemeteries really way out of town, but it is relatively common for European cities to have cemeteries within, I'm not saying center center, but still within pretty central locations.

They were normally on the outskirts of the city. It's just that city grew around the cemetery. Most of our cemeteries were laid out in the 19th century, because graveyards in churches became really really really full.

That's another thing because a lot of the traditional graveyards cemeteries around churches, each church.

Yes. I wanna tell you a bit of an urban myth about Highgate cemetery. The tale of the Highgate vampire.

Ok. When you think of cemetery hauntings, you generally tend to think of ghosts and spirits. Not really... I wasn't expecting vampires, 吸血鬼

In the 1970s, there were reports of a tall, dark figure with red eyes that could hypnotize people wandered around Highgate cemetery.

You sure it’s not just another drunk person .

Well, it could be, but this actually caused huge fear and hysteria. You had people who called themselves vampire hunters go into Highgate cemetery. Some of them were arrested by the police because they were doing things like digging up bodies and trying to kill “vampires”.

I think especially in the olden days, this was why people quite dubious about all these folkloric tails because like you said, they really can cause huge wave, huge waves of fear and hysteria.

Oh yeah,This is the1970s. And it pretty much went viral

Yeah, if... you can't really say viral in the 1970s, but it was reported in all of the newspapers. People used to spend nights sleeping in Highgate cemetery, trying to find the vampire, trying to kill and destroy the vampire. And it got completely out of hand.

In our history there are also even in recent history, I think during the republic, I think there were similar stories like that, which also led to waves of fear and hysteria.

Yes. But Highgate cemetery is also known for its ghosts. There's the mad old woman who goes around the cemetery in search for children very conventional story.

And another spirit, known as the Shrouded Figure.

Shrouded figure, shroud is the cloth that they used to wrap dead body, right? 是裹尸布,在裹尸布里面的这样的一个figure. It's just like a, I don't know, like a person like a body.

And this figure is often seen looking through the bars of the cemetery gates, looking rather sad, mournfully, looking out.

Maybe he or she is waiting for someone.

Could be.

The thing is I think because of the English weather all of these ghost stories are really atmospheric. If you think about the drizzling, you think about the cold dark nights and you think about the fog and everything.

Well yeah, the thing is that ghost stories are really really really common in the UK and some people say that the United Kingdom is probably one of the most haunted places in the world for the sheer number of ghost stories. It's quite common for English people to say if they've seen a ghost or not.

I think in this you're probably a little bit similar to Japan, both island countries, both got lots of nature.

I think so, yeah, I've read some of the Japanese ghost stories and I've seen some of the places associated with those stories and it's very, very similar to the UK.

Despite the huge cultural differences, the sort of concept can be compared really .

Well, yes.