Byland Abbey Ghost Stories

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In 1922 M.R. James published a collection of a dozen 'true' medieval ghost stories collected by Cistercian monks at a Yorkshire Abbey. You can read them online in translation here.


'What I write is a great marvel. It is said that a certain woman laid hold of a ghost and carried him on her back into a certain house in presence of some men, one of whom reported that he saw the hands of the woman sink deeply into the flesh of the ghost as though the flesh were rotten and not solid but phantom flesh.'




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