Though they can be great fun on a sunny day, fairs and theme parks can be quite otherworldly when the light dims, the crowds are thin and some of the attractions are downright weird. Let's take a look at...
- The Headless Monk of Thorpe Park
- The Twisted Tale of Elmer McCurdy's Mummy
- The Phantoms of Melbourne's Luna Park
- The Hoppings and Its Lingering Rain Curse
- Cloggy, the Ghost of Blackpool's Ghost Train
- The Nottingham Goose Fair Ghost
- The Ballad of Scarborough Fair
- Mermaids, Monsters and Giants
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| Thorpe Park by day...(Suntooth) |
The grounds of Thorpe Park actually have a fair amount of history - for example, the ride was set to be built on an area known as Monk's Walk, a footpath to ruins of Chertsey Abbey dating back to 666CE. The foundations of the ride would have been around 15m deep... in an area already known to hold stone coffins. Really, it sounds as though the owners were throwing a gauntlet at the supernatural!
In the end, the ride was relocated to another section of the park while both paranormal investigators and forensic geophysicists were called in to investigate the Storm Surge site - they respectively reported strong signs of paranormal activity and the possible presence of an ancient graveyard!
The Twisted Tale of Elmer McCurdy's Mummy
It may sound like a classic urban legend, but did you know that the body of a Wild-West outlaw ended up being mistaken for a prop and used in a haunted house?
McCurdy's criminal career was brought to an end by a sheriff's posse in 1911 on the Oklahoma-Kansas border. The crime they were pursuing him for? A train robbery where the total haul was $46 and a couple of whiskey jugs. The crooks probably believed the train to be carrying a great deal of gold to the Osage tribe - and it seems that this lack of luck (or lack of planning) was a feature of McCurdy's previous exploits, including blowing up most of a bank but leaving the safe uncracked!McCurdy's brother eventually showed up and claimed the preserved body for burial... or so he said. McCurdy was next seen at a carnival in Texas, which rather implies that the "brother" was just another crook.
The mummified outlaw would serve as an attraction at varying shows across America (and in one instance as an improvised weapon - a man is said to have ripped off an arm and attempted to club his secretary with it.) He passed through film studios, a waxworks museum and eventually ended up as an forgotten attraction in an amusement-park haunted house called "Laff in the Dark."
Towards the end of 1976, a TV crew were setting up to film an episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and needed a functional funhouse for the titular bionic hero to battle the villain-du-jour in. One of the props in the funhouse was a weirdly realistic dummy of a hanged corpse, tastefully picked out in glow-in-the-dark orange and set up to jiggle when a cart of fair-goers rolled past. A bit of clumsiness later and the arm disconnected from the old dummy, revealing human bone. The coroner's office were able to identify the body based on physical features, a bullet still lodged in the chest, ticket stubs and a penny from 1924 in his mouth.
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| Gosh, I wonder how this place could have acquired ghost stories... (Annie Spratt) |
The Phantoms of Melbourne's Luna Park
It's not just spiders and snakes you need to look out for in Australia - Melbourne's Luna Park adds the paranormal to the watchlist.
There's supernatural stories about the park, with one of the most popular being the "Joker Ghost." More of a mischief-maker than a menace, this phantom's favorite trick is appearing in front of the carriages on the Great Scenic Railway rollercoaster and panicking the riders. Meanwhile a "Laughing Ghost" is said to wander the arcades at night, leaving disembodied laughter echoing between the slumbering machines. There's also reports of a ghostly face haunting the Tunnel of Love attraction, briefly joining passengers in their boats. Perhaps the most dramatic phantom of the park is a full-blown old-fashioned steam train, said to appear for around two minutes on nights when the park is completely deserted.
There's another mystery to do with Luna Park, and I'm afraid it is as grim as it is intriguing. In 1979 the Ghost Train ride caught fire and was largely destroyed, with the blaze also claiming seven lives. A later documentary made a strong case that the fire was deliberate but obscured by investigators, pointing out potential links between police, politicians and organized crime.
The Hoppings and Its Lingering Rain Curse
Each year, the people of Newcastle in England are visited by a massive traveling fair known as "The Hoppings." Nearly a century and a half old and attracting around half a million visitors, it's said to be the largest of its kind in Europe... and to be the subject of a persistent (if rather damp) curse.
Almost invariably, tourists find themselves drenched in heavy rain during the fair. The story goes that in years past, a "gypsy" was thrown out of event and cast a curse on the fair in revenge - and ever since, the event has been blighted by heavy rains. Given that the fair is held in the middle of summer, the dire weather accompanying it does seem suspiciously consistent.... but as a counterpoint, Newcastle is in Northern England and poor weather isn't exactly unheard of throughout the British year!
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| From personal experience it's pretty overwhelming at night! (Mark mc neill) |
Cloggy, the Ghost of Blackpool's Ghost Train
Blackpool has served as a holiday destination in the North of England for for centuries, so the fact that it has a ghost story shouldn't be a surprise.
The phantom in question is said to reside in the Ghost Train attraction (actually the first one of its kind in the UK) where he once served as a ride operator. Rather than being a malevolent entity, "Cloggy" is occasionally reported shuffling around behind the scenes - though how you'd pick him out from the mundane ghosts, ghouls and goblins that decorate the ride is something of a mystery.
The story goes that Cloggy worked the Ghost Train for many years and was determined to give customers a great (if unnerving experience.) After succumbing to illness in the late 70s or early 80s, customers would occasionally remark on feeling and hearing someone touch or grab them during the ride, though they never saw the source of their fright. Workmen have also reported strange noises and other unexplained occurrences amongst the props (such as an illuminated skull that simply wouldn't turn off) but all-in-all it seems that Cloggy is pretty harmless and just wants to keep doing what he loved in life.
The Nottingham Goose Fair Ghost
Travelers to and from the Nottingham Goose Fair would be well advised to avoid taking George's Lane in the darkness
Locals say the road is haunted and point to a series of ghostly encounters through the ages. One such example is that of a young man named Bardhill returning from the fair one night in the 1930s. The story goes that he witnessed a strange dark mass emerge from a hedgerow and begin following him. Despite quickening his pace, the lad realized that the mass was matching him for speed and had resolved itself into a tall, cloaked man with a broad-brimmed hat. The mysterious entity only vanished when Bardhill reached the safety of the village.
There's another ghost story associated with the Nottingham Goose Fair, but it turns out the tale of Edgar and his doomed attempts to retrieve a stolen goose are the work of an AI. Personally I feel that the show has some strange enough things in its history to remove the need to generate more - for example, the cheese riot of 1766. Rather than just being a poultry market, the fair had a reputation for fine cheese - but a sharp price hike from the previous year spawned a riot amongst visitors, one that resulted in the mayor being bowled over by a rolling wheel of dairy product.
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| Thyme rhymes... (Compagnons) |
Pivoting a little, have you ever heard the ballad "Scarborough Fair" and wondered what the lyrics were talking about? The ballad (I'm using the Celtic Woman version, but plenty of variants exist) initially sounds quite romantic:
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
He once was a true love of mine.
But this Northern English folk song is being sung from the perspective of a person setting increasingly difficult tasks to dissuade a would-be lover:
Tell him to make me a cambric shirt
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Without no seam nor needlework
Then he'll be a true love of mine.
The ballad has been around for some time, appearing in the 1891 Traditional Tunes by Frank Kidson, in which he claims to have heard it in the streets of Whitby. He also notes that an earlier take on the song is "The Elfin Knight" in which a Scottish maid wishes to marry the titular character having seen him playing a horn on the hilltop... only for the elf to appear over her bed and present her with a series of challenges if she wants to win his heart. The following is taken from "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads" by Francis Child, who relates this version from a 1670s pamphlet:
Married with me if thou wouldst be, |
| A "devilfish" or octopus was displayed at Crystal Palace in 1871... (Nick Brice) |
Mermaids, Monsters and Giants
Back in the day, fairs and fairgrounds often exhibited the anomalous and the unusual. Sometimes these were genuine oddities, such as the "devilfish" (octopus) exhibited at the Crystal Palace in London, 1871. Others may have been a little bit less real, such as the "mermaid" reported by Colonel Peter Hawker that was allegedly caught in the Southampton river and brought alive to the 1811 Weyhill Fair.
It's hard to know what Col. Hawker saw from his brief statement, but fake mermaids have a rich tradition in showmanship - for example, the Fiji mermaid presented by P. T. Barnum in 1842 was a taxidermic creation combining monkey and fish. There's also the possibility that the showmen had simply obtained a particularly strange fish (or other animal) and presented it as a creature of myth - something that Col. Hawker's tone seems to suggest.
As if mermaids weren't far-fetched enough, petrified giants have been exhibited at fairs as well. The giant found in 1869 Cardiff, New York was (unsurprisingly) a fake, but George Hull put a lot of effort into preparing, burying and then arranging the "discovery" of his project. Though eventually outed as a fake, P.T. Barnham made an offer to buy the giant and, after being rebuffed, created a forgery of the forgery!
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