Legends 39: Have Love Will Travel

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Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So if you're ready, let's begin.

The sandstorm came out of nowhere.

Now, while the storm was unexpected, it wasn't necessarily unusual.

The Sonoran Desert is one of the most treacherous environments in North America, with temperatures that can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sandstorms and death are common.

Its primary trail, El Camino del Diablo, or the Devil's Highway, is littered with white crosses to mark the graves of the thousands of travelers who have died along its dusty path.

One day in the past, two ranch hands were traveling traveling along El Camino del Diablo when a sandstorm descended upon them.

Acting fast, they tied up their horses and took shelter behind some rocks.

Then, armed with nothing more than the meager supplies they had packed for their day trip, they hunkered down to wait it out.

The sandstorm lasted two days.

The men were pounded with blistering hot sand and blasted by winds going over 25 miles an hour.

All too soon, they drank through the last of their water.

Then, their horses died, and still they were trapped, unable to see more than a couple of inches in front of their faces.

Eventually, one of the ranch hands vomited and then passed out cold.

Soon after the man lost consciousness, the storm grew unnaturally quiet.

The second man lifted his head to squint through the sand and he was met with a haunting sight.

Riding out of the storm was a man dressed in white.

11 more riders followed him, all on equally white horses and wearing pristine white clothing.

They rode straight for the ranchers, only stopping when they got there.

Then, two of the riders dismounted, grabbed the unconscious man, and placed him onto a riderless white horse.

Ignoring the other man's protests, they rode away with their new recruit.

The remaining rancher passed out soon after his friend was taken, but when he awoke, he saw that his friend wasn't gone.

His body was still lying in the sand next to him.

Dead.

Our culture is full of stories of haunted houses and cemeteries.

In most of these, spirits are stuck in a single location, reliving the trauma of their death.

But according to legends, not all specters are stagnant.

In fact, many throughout history have had places to be.

Sometimes, it seems, these ghostly participants have traveled.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends.

More often than not, people die while they still have things to do, unfinished business, if you will.

And so, some of these people keep moving, even in death.

Stories about spectral travelers can be traced back to ancient roots.

While these old cultures from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome had differing beliefs on the afterlife, they had similar views on ghosts, namely that spirits came into existence if funeral rites weren't observed or their families didn't continue to honor them after death with prayer and sacrifices.

And sometimes, ancient spirits who died in battle far away from their homelands traveled back to their families, haunting them until they recovered the ghost's body.

In the Middle Ages, ghosts weren't seen as demonic ghouls the way they are today.

Instead, they were simply unfortunate souls trapped in purgatory, and they they usually only appeared for religious reasons, usually begging people to pray for their souls so they could escape limbo more quickly.

Now, medieval ghosts became spectral pilgrims for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps their funeral was performed improperly, or maybe they died suddenly, well before their appointed time, and for some reason or another, they had to embark on a journey to achieve their goals, seeking help from the living so they could finally find eternal peace.

One of the most famous examples of a medieval ghost traveler comes from the Byland Abbey in North Yorkshire.

In the 15th century, an anonymous monk wrote one of the era's most famous pieces of folklore.

The story was part of a larger collection of ghost tales, although today we might call these beings in the writings zombies instead of ghosts.

These transparent spirits that we're used to are more of a modern invention.

In the Middle Ages, they just look a lot like decaying corpses.

In this Byland Abbey ghost story, a ghost named Robert actually quite literally rose from his grave every night.

Then he would wander through the town.

Robert would stand outside of people's homes waiting for them to come out and speak to him.

Naturally, this gave locals quite a fright, and it scared their dogs too, who would bark as they followed Robert around during his nightly haunt.

So the townsmen came together to put a stop to the whole thing.

Unfortunately, very few of them were courageous enough to face Robert, and most fled before he could get too close.

But finally, two brave men held him down and a priest came came to hear Robert's confession.

Once he confessed, the priest absolved him of his sins.

Robert was finally able to rest in peace.

It was a simple enough story, right?

Robert got divine forgiveness and his soul moved on.

But ghosts would only get more complicated as the world changed.

By the time we reached the age of industrialization, machinery started making its way into ghost stories.

Suddenly, there were all these new inventions that could be haunted, namely modes of transportation, like trains and automobiles.

One example of this shift can be seen in the legend of the headless railroad conductor.

The story goes that one night in 1867, a conductor named Joe Baldwin was doing a routine inspection on a parked train.

Holding his lantern aloft, he walked between two train cars when the train suddenly shifted, crushing and decapitating poor Joe.

Ever since, people have reported seeing a lantern floating on the tracks.

They believe that it belongs to Joe, and that despite no longer having eyes, he was still trying to light his route home.

Today, there are more modern versions of traveling specter folklore.

In fact, one of the most popular urban legends in America is that of the vanishing hitchhiker.

There are hundreds of variations of the same theme, but the trope always stays the same.

Almost all stories about ghostly hitchhikers involve a mysterious figure catching a ride and then disappearing from the back seat partway through the drive.

One of the more common versions of this tale casts the hitchhiker as a young woman in a party dress who borrows the driver's sweater or jacket before vanishing.

Others make the hitchhiker an old woman or someone who died in a car accident many years before.

And what's surprising about these legends is how equally ancient and modern they are.

Most of us have heard the rumor that taxicab companies in New Orleans have a problem with late-night passengers disappearing mid-trip without paying the driver.

And after the 2011 Japanese tsunami, some taxi drivers also reported ghosts catching a ride and then vanishing.

And if the stories are true, even planes can be haunted.

In 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 departed JFK for Miami, but the plane never reached its destination.

Its autopilot disconnected and the plane slowly lost altitude until it dropped out of the sky, crashing into the Florida Everglades.

101 people died in the accident.

Following the devastating crash, equipment was salvaged from the plane and put into other aircrafts.

Ever since, the pilots of these other planes have reported seeing spirits.

Their ghostly visitors warned them whenever they were in danger of crashing, too.

Sometimes they even told pilots about mechanical issues that they never would have found on their own.

It seems that these old legends and new modern stories have something to teach us.

Specters can be just as connected to a journey as they can to a house or a cemetery.

And when these wandering spirits hit the road, anything is possible.

I don't know about you, but I think the very best stories always involve a dark and stormy night.

In fact, it worked so well for this next legend that it's been falsely accepted as an enduring piece of New England folklore that dates back to the American Revolution, even though it was a fictional story published in 1824.

The story took place around the time of the Boston Massacre in 1770.

Its main character, Peter Rugg, was a wealthy cattle and horse trader who lived in a comfortable home in the north end of Boston.

He was a respectable figure in his community, but he was short-tempered and loyal to the British crown, not the most desirable traits to have as America was hurtling toward revolution.

But don't worry.

Like any other good cautionary tale, he'd certainly be punished for his faults.

One day, Peter Rugg had to take a short business trip to Concord, Massachusetts.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so he brought his 10-year-old daughter, Jenny, with him.

The two made their way out of town in a carriage pulled by the family's large black horse.

And all went well in Concord.

The problems only arose when they were traveling back home.

Once they were back on the road, the clear skies suddenly grew dark.

The clouds opened up and let down a torrential rainfall, soaking Peter and Jenny to the bones.

The storm soon became so intense that they were forced to stop at a friend's house to take refuge.

Peter's friend, Mr.

Cutter, insisted that he and Jenny stay for the night to wait out the storm, but Peter was having none of that.

Cold, wet, and ready for his own bed, he made up his mind.

He was going home that night.

Mr.

Cutter protested, but that only rankled Peter's pride.

His fast temper reared its ugly head and Peter declared, let the rains increase.

I will see home tonight despite this storm or may I never see it again.

Peter swept his daughter back into their carriage and he was ready to face the storm come what may.

Peter, Jenny and their horse disappeared into the night.

And that was the last time any of their loved ones ever saw them alive again.

Now, some say that what happened was a direct response to Peter's arrogant declaration and that it served as a reminder not to challenge God, sort of a divine punishment for his anger towards the natural world.

But whether or not it was retribution or just dumb bad luck, Peter and Jenny were cursed.

They didn't make it home that night, or the next night, or any night.

Instead, they were forced to wander for all eternity, and wander they did.

At first, Peter's wife and his neighbors just assumed that maybe he had abandoned his family or died out on the road.

But soon enough, people all over New England started claiming that they had seen Peter and his daughter riding their carriage through the night.

In every city and every state, it was the same description.

Peter and Jenny would be seen riding ahead of an oncoming storm, their carriage being pulled by a frantic black horse.

Their faces were always fearful, their eyes weary after wandering for so long.

He would only stop the carriage long enough to ask people, which way to Boston?

And then, no matter which way they pointed, he would go in the opposite direction, thunder and lightning following in his wake.

They weren't necessarily dead.

They'd just been condemned to ghost-like existence.

Peter, Peter, Jenny, and their horse.

It all become traveling specters.

As you'd imagine, Peter Rugg took on a sort of mythical quality.

Since he always rose ahead of fierce thunderstorms, some stories gave him the title of the storm breeder.

But that doesn't mean that his new reputation engendered respect.

At best, it would seem that most folks pitied Peter and his daughter.

At worst, people felt contempt for the foolish man who could never do anything right.

One story even recounts that when a witness saw Peter steering his carriage in the opposite direction of Boston, he exclaimed, well, not that way, idiot.

You're going straight into the Atlantic Ocean.

But Peter couldn't make himself go the right way.

The curse wouldn't let him.

The story claims that finally, after 60 years of wandering New England, Peter and Jenny were finally able to return home.

But they had been gone for so long that Peter's wife had long since passed away and their house stood empty.

The auctioneer who was selling his home told him, there is nothing strange here but yourself, Mr.

Rugg.

Time, which destroys and renews all things, has dilapidated your house and placed us here.

Your home is gone, and you can never have another home in this world.

And so, Peter and Jenny weren't able to stay.

They were forced back out on the road, forever cursed to flee from the storm.

Now, even though this is only a folktale, some people have accepted it as a real ghost story based on actual events.

In fact, to this day, long-distance truckers have reported encountering the horse and carriage on deserted roads after the sun has set, with a panicked man at the wheel and a little girl holding on for dear life.

And some witnesses even said that they had seen Peter and his daughter be struck by lightning, glowing, and I quote, like brimstone for a bit afterwards.

And I've got to confess, traveling for the rest of your existence sounds like a terrible fate.

Moving at a breakneck speed, forever drenched in rain and pursued by lightning, it sounds even worse.

Still, there isn't much we can do to help poor Peter.

The best we could hope to do is point the way home and pray that he finally listens.

They call it the Killer Road.

You never would have guessed it by looking at it.

The Stocksbridge bypass doesn't appear to be any more dangerous than any other road in South Yorkshire, but since its opening day on Friday the 13th of 1988, there have been hundreds of collisions and at least one person has died on the road every year.

You could just chalk it up to distracted drivers, of course, but some people have another theory.

You see, many believe that the bypass's construction disturbs something that should have been left alone.

According to a local psychic, the road was built directly over the 500-year-old grave of a monk.

The story goes that he was ejected from his monastery for some unnamed sin, and he was buried on unhallowed ground away from the churchyard.

And then, when the Stocksbridge bypass was being constructed, the construction crew unwittingly unearthed his final resting place, and perhaps even the resting place of other souls.

Now, there's a good chance that all of this is just nonsense.

You see, there are no records of a monastery ever being in the area at all.

But that's the power of a good urban legend, isn't it?

It builds and builds until everyone just sort of accepts it as truth.

And the locals have really bought into the idea of the Stocksbridge Bypass monk.

But to be fair to them, his introduction was hard to ignore.

The first alleged encounter with the monk happened on September 8th of 1987.

Two security guards, David Goldthorpe and Stephen Brooks, had been hired to guard the bypass construction zone at night.

The two men were driving near the Stocksbridge bypass at midnight when they heard a particular sound, singing.

Looking around for the source of the music, they saw a group of children playing and chanting, Ring Around the Rosie.

David and Stephen didn't know where the kids had come from or why they were in such odd, old-looking clothing.

They just knew that a dark construction site was no place for children.

The two security guards approached the group, but as soon as they got close, the children vanished.

There was nothing left to indicate that they'd been there at all.

No toys, no footprints, nothing.

The men looked about, startled, and it was then that they noticed that they had a much bigger problem than a few unsettling children.

There, standing on top of a bridge stretching over the bypass, was a dark figure wearing a hooded cloak.

David and Stephen later reported that when they shone their flashlights up at him, the light seemed to go right through him.

And then, just like the children before him, the hooded figure disappeared.

The security guards immediately reported the incident, prompting a manager from their firm to go out to the construction site site at 4.30 in the morning, where he found the two men seemingly in a state of shock.

A few hours later, they tried reporting the incident to the police, but the police told them that this wasn't a matter for the law, but for the local vicar.

And unfortunately, the vicar they went to had no interest in helping two men who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be raving lunatics.

And so in an ironic twist, he called the police to have the two security guards removed from his church.

By this point, the entire incident had become far too big of an issue to just ignore.

The police officially launched an investigation into what had actually caused the disturbance.

On September 11th of 1987, Police Constable Dick Ellis and Special Constable John Beet drove out to the construction site.

After a brief 20-minute investigation, Ellis concluded that the security guards had been spooked by a tarp fluttering in the wind.

The men got back into their cars and prepared to leave.

But then, suddenly, Ellis saw him.

A dark torso appeared out of nowhere, pressing up against Ellis's passenger-side window.

Then, just as quickly, the figure was gone, and a hooded monk could be seen reflected in Beats' side mirror.

The men got out of their cars, but there was no one there, they were completely alone.

Both men were so shaken up by what they saw that they left the police force just a few weeks later, and that monk has continued to haunt that bypass ever since.

Legends have a way of getting around even in the worst of circumstances, so it's amazing to see how mobile they become when you add in a dash of transportation.

All of a sudden, a ghost becomes a commuter, keeping us on our toes.

You never know when or where you might see them next.

Much like that legendary monk, reports of those sightings continued for decades after the 1980s.

People claim to see him in front of moving cars before suddenly vanishing or running through the grass next to the road.

One witness even claimed that the monk was accompanied by a terrible stench, like rotting garbage.

Even today, people still report seeing the monk wandering up and down that bridge over the Stocksbridge bypass.

Some have said that he sometimes appears right in the middle of the road, and at other times, he's even materialized in people's back seats.

And on top of all that, there's a very specific section of the bypass where all of those car accidents have been happening.

And unsurprisingly, it is the exact same area where the monk reportedly hangs out.

It's been theorized that this hitchhiking ghost may scare people so badly that they lose control of the wheel.

It's hard to imagine how there could be so many sightings of a fictional monk or how fake sightings could result in very real consequences like broken bones and destroyed vehicles.

Could it be possible that the spirit of the monk had somehow made his way to Stocksbridge?

Well, maybe.

But maybe not.

Despite the real-world consequences, this monk may merely be a superstition that gained too much traction, a convenient scapegoat for human error.

You see, more often than not, history is not relayed faithfully.

It's twisted and mangled until we can use it to fit our perception of reality.

There are no records of a monastery anywhere near the modern-day Stocksbridge bypass, but that that hasn't stopped people from claiming that this apparition is a monk or that he exists at all.

And to be fair, all that it would take to convince them is a dark shape in their peripheral vision while they're driving.

After all, we humans like to have our biases confirmed, and we'll go to great lengths to convince ourselves that we really truly saw a ghostly monk before our car went off the road.

Because, you see, The truth is much harder to swallow than fiction.

If this monk really isn't out there popping in and out of vehicles, then that would mean that when it comes to these tragic car accidents, we have no one else to blame but ourselves.

Spectral travelers seem to defy those typical ghost legends that we're all used to.

And they feel less safe too, right?

After all, if you want to avoid the typical ghost, you simply avoid the house or building it haunts.

Spectral travelers though, well, they don't play by those rules.

But don't wander off just yet.

We have one more journey to take you on.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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According to some legends, some ghosts actually want to travel.

They want to go to, well, wherever it is that they were going.

But sometimes the afterlife keeps them stuck in one place.

In the early morning hours of October 13th of 1928, a British mail train carrying 60 passengers was traveling from Leeds to Bristol.

It was a standard route and should have been a standard trip, but nothing about that morning ended up being business as usual.

At 4.30 a.m., the train was heading to Charfield Village in Gloucester, England.

It was still dark out and visibility was limited, and not just because the sun hadn't risen yet.

No, the entire region was actually blanketed in fog.

Witnesses later described the morning as misty, but the fog must not have been thick enough for the railroads to take extra precautions.

They chose not to send out extra signalmen to communicate with the trains as they rushed through the morning haze, and that would prove to be a deadly mistake.

Further up the tracks, a freight train was being moved onto a different track.

The signalman had set the signal to red so that the mail train would stop while they got their other train out of the way.

But the fog was too heavy and the conductor didn't see the signal until it was too late.

And so the mail train barreled into the freight train in a full-on collision.

The force of the impact sent the mail train off the tracks, landing on its side.

Its first three carriages crashed into a bridge.

One man was so violently ejected from his seat that he flew through the train's roof and landed on top of that bridge.

He was later taken to the hospital, where he died of his injuries.

And the other passengers didn't fare much better.

You see, back in the 1920s, trains used gas to power the lights inside their compartments, so each carriage had a gas cylinder installed on the underside.

And when the mail train hit the bridge, the gas exploded, setting both trains ablaze.

One newspaper reported saying, the scene was one of horror.

Mingling with the cries and moans of the injured was the hissing of steam and the crackling of the flames.

Frantically, with perspiration dripping from them, firemen, police, ambulance workers, and doctors worked in the wreckage trying to release the trapped passengers with the greatest possible speed.

But some of those trapped passengers were never freed.

We know the story of one thanks to the survival of a man named Lewis Huntley, who had been traveling with his wife and his sister, Clara Annie Johnson.

Louis's wife managed to jump from the wreckage, but Clara was stuck, pinned down underneath the mangled steel.

Louis tried and tried, but he couldn't pull her out from under the metal.

Eventually, she lost consciousness, and to save his own life, he was forced to abandon her.

Clara, burned alive.

Tragically, she wasn't the only one.

One woman's body was found with her hands still covering her face as if trying to block the flames.

Another couple was found clinging to one another.

They had died in each other's arms.

In the end, 30 people had been injured and 16 people died.

And they didn't die cleanly.

The fire consumed most of their remains, making them almost impossible to identify.

Authorities were forced to rely on personal effects like rings and watches to put a name to each of the charred faces.

Two victims, though, remained unidentified.

Two children.

Their bodies, a boy and a girl, were found lying near each other beside the bridge.

One of them was missing a shoe which was found nearby, with part of a foot still inside it.

Neither of the children had any identifying markers or possessions, and no one ever stepped forward to claim them.

To this day, we don't know who they were or why they were on the train.

But of course, there have been theories.

Some people suggest that they weren't children at all, but were actually small jockeys.

Others suggest that they were stowaways, and still others claim that they must have been the illegitimate children of the royal family whose existence could never be publicly acknowledged.

And if that weren't confusing enough, the most baffling theory was that they weren't even human, but were in fact ventriloquist dummies.

We can be sure though that these were real bodies and not puppets, because the two children were buried in a mass grave at a local cemetery.

A memorial stone for the victims of the train wreck has been erected at the grave, and the children are listed as, and I quote, too unknown.

For about 30 years after the disaster, Charlfield locals reported that a woman in black mourning clothes sometimes visited the memorial.

She was heavily veiled, so no one ever saw her face.

She was simply known as the woman in black.

Locals had long assumed that she was in some way connected to the children, although there's no proof to tie her to them.

Some people have also speculated that the woman herself is a ghost, perhaps a victim of the accident or a woman who died from grief after losing her loved ones.

Even if she is a specter, she would not be the most famous ghost from the train wreck.

No, that honor goes to the children.

To this day, the train tracks of Charfield are haunted by unidentified children.

People have reported seeing them holding hands, standing on the tracks, and looking mournfully at the passengers of oncoming trains.

Perhaps they want to get to wherever it was that they were going before they died, or maybe they are just waiting to be claimed so that their souls can finally be at peace.

But the truth is, no one knows.

The one thing we do know, though, is that whoever they are, they will never be able to complete their journey.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Jamie Vargas.

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salam

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