Modern Living: The Great Ghost Haunts

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Though the Monster of Glamis looked like a flabby egg—no neck and vestigial arms and legs—he was immensely strong. Of necessity he was confined in a special room in Scotland's Glamis Castle. Born about 1800, he died in 1921, and his spirit still haunts the castle.

This spooky legend is only one of many detailed in a newly published English book called A Gazetteer of British Ghosts, which seems to document Author Peter Underwood's contention that "there are more ghosts seen, reported and accepted in the British Isles than anywhere else on earth."

Little Gray Lady. That boast could be made about Glamis Castle alone if the Gazetteer's listings are to be taken on faith. Within those walls, for instance, are the ghosts of a little gray lady who appears now and then in the chapel, a pair of 15th century noblemen damned to play dice forever in the castle tower, someone who used to whip bedclothes off sleepers, and a woman without a tongue who runs across the park every night pointing in dumb anguish to her wounded mouth.

But Glamis is far from unique. Author Underwood's high-spirited book provides equally fascinating lore about Britain's other haunts. It tells which ghost is working which castle, describes the author's own investigations of the ectoplasmic phenomena, and, at the end of each of the 236 reports on haunted sites, lists the name of a comfortable nearby hotel.

A ghost hunter of long standing, Underwood has presumably stayed overnight at most of the hotels and for ten years has been president of the Ghost Club. The exclusive organization was founded more than 100 years ago to report and investigate reports of hauntings. Does he really believe in ghosts? "I am quite certain," Underwood says, "that I have spoken to many people who are genuinely convinced that they have seen apparitions, phantoms, specters, spirits, ghosts—call them what you will."

Britain's ghosts, reports Underwood's book, are nowhere busier than in London. The Bank of England, for example, has a resident ghost: the Black Nun. Several London theaters have ghosts, most notably the Theater Royal on Drury Lane, where the good-omened "man in gray" floats into view—but only during the opening nights of successful productions. Westminster Cathedral, which was long ghost-free, reported its first spook in 1966, but Kensington and St. James's palaces and Windsor Castle have much longer ghostly histories, and the bloody Tower of London has been plagued for centuries.