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    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales
    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales
    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales
    Ebook121 pages1 hour

    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales

    By Maria Leach and Kurt Werth

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    About this ebook

    A mysterious hitchhiker, a lovelorn pig, and a backseat gangster are among the colorful characters that populate these spooky stories. Noted folklorist Maria Leach spins a tapestry of yarns that originated in the British Isles, New England, and the American South. Moody black-and-white drawings complement the stories, which range from humorous and playful to downright eerie.
    There's the one about the fellow who saw two eyes staring at him from the foot of the bed, and the one about the family that ran away from their malevolent household spirit only to find that it had come with them. The tale of the golden arm, a favorite of Mark Twain's, is a standard of campfire gatherings. Other chilling stories recount scenes from haunted houses, ghostly visitations, and midnight trips to the graveyard. An amusing selection of "Do's and Don't's About Ghosts" offers advice to those who go looking for scares as well as those who find them accidentally, and the stories' sources and backgrounds are explained in helpful notes and a bibliography. "An enjoyably creepy collection of tales." — Through Raspberry Colored Glasses.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMay 10, 2016
    ISBN9780486812106
    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales

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    Reviews for The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales

    4/5

    11 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A wonderfully scary story book full of scary stories that children will adore!The illustrations that accompany the tales are delightful also.Highly recommended.I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Dover Publications via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
    • 5/5
      I had this book as a kid and loved it. when I saw that Dover had republished it I just *had* to read it again. It is a collection of ghost stories from around the world, though mostly English, Canadian Maritime and African-American in origin. And not just stories (which are usually only a few paragraphs long) but there is poetry, games, songs and even a Newfoundland sea shanty. The tales are written in a story-tellers voice and meant to be told aloud, some even have instructions for the storyteller. A lot of the stories are humorous and this is reflected in Kurt Werth's wonderful comic illustrations. Maria Leach was born in the USA of Nova Scotian parents but then retired to Nova Scotia herself in the fifties when she began to write.
    • 5/5
      When I was a child I owned this book & was excited to see it on this app.
    • 4/5
      ***This book was reviewed for Netgalley***Leach’s The Thing at the Foot of the Bed is an amusing collection of ghost stories and urban legends perfect for telling around campfires and at sleepovers. Who doesn't love a good scary story? This is a reprint of a 1959 book, and the language is colloquial, and oft culture specific. The nuances of different dialects, folk speech, and subculture slang were particular interests of the author. This book was written with children in mind as the audience, and the writing reflects that. I love to read to my cubs, and the tone change can be quite a relief, fun and enjoyable.There are several sections. The first has funny stories, like 'The Thing at the Foot of the Bed’, where a man is terrified of his own feet. Next up are scary stories, such as 'No Head', where a farmer meets a headless spirit. Part Three are real ghost stories and here you’ll find a variation of the urban legend of the ghostly hitchhiker. After that is a series of odd 'ghostly games’, followed by a few witchy stories. The last section contains some amusing and interesting do's and don’t’s about interacting with ghostsThis is a precursor to Schwartz’s popular Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, which recounts many of the same tales collected here. I loved the cover! I even recognised the story before I opened the book. It’s a scene from 'Wait Til Martin Comes’, one of my favourite stories as a child.I read this to my cubs, who love scary stuff. Who doesn't, right? They enjoyed them all, especially the ones Jonas read with the surprise startle element like the story 'The Thing at the Foot of the Bed', which dissolved them into giggles afterwards.???? Recommended for younger kids who love scary stories, and for parents, scout leaders, and camp counselors who enjoy storytelling, especially around a blazing campfire.

    Book preview

    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales - Maria Leach

    Copyright

    Copyright © 1959 by Maria Leach

    All rights reserved.

    Bibliographical Note

    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed and Other Scary Tales, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2016, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by The World Publishing Company, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, in 1959.

    International Standard Book Number

    ISBN-13: 978-0-486-80786-7

    ISBN-10: 0-486-80786-X

    Manufactured in the United States by RR Donnelley

    80786X01 2016

    www.doverpublications.com

    Contents

    Some People Say

    FUNNY ONES

    The Thing at the Foot of the Bed

    Here We Go!

    Ghost Race

    1. The Guitar Player

    2. Never Mind Them Watermelons

    Wait Till Martin Comes

    Big Fraid and Little Fraid

    The Lucky Man

    SCARY ONES

    The Golden Arm

    The Dare

    I'm in the Room!

    No Head

    As Long As This?

    The Legs

    Talk

    Dark, Dark, Dark

    REAL ONES

    Sweet William's Ghost

    Milk Bottles

    The Head

    The Lovelorn Pig

    The Ghostly Crew

    The Ghostly Hitchhiker

    Aunt Tilly

    The Cradle That Rocked by Itself

    The Gangster in the Back Seat

    GHOST GAMES

    The Devil in the Dishes

    Old Roger

    Ghost

    WITCH STORIES

    Witch Cat

    Sop, Doll!

    Singing Bone

    DO'S AND DON'T'S ABOUT GHOSTS

    Signs of Ghosts

    Charms Against Ghosts

    How To See Ghosts

    Don't —

    Don't Ever Kick a Ghost

    Author's Notes and Bibliography

    What did one little ghost say to the other little ghost?

    Do you believe in people?

    Some People Say

    SOME people say there are no such things as ghosts because they have never seen one. Seeing is believing, they say. And some people say there are so such things as ghosts because they have seen them. And seeing is believing, they say.

    But even the ones who do not believe in ghosts are afraid of them! They like being afraid of them, for there is something in the human mind that loves to scare itself to death! But did you ever notice that the scariest stories are usually the funniest? The terrible thing turns out to be a flapping nightshirt or a pet monkey promenading in a tablecloth. Or else it is the storyteller himself who scares you, makes you scream or jump—not a ghost at all.

    What is a ghost? It is not always an invisible spirit, because often you may meet up with someone who looks and talks and acts just like any real person, and you never find out it was a ghost until it vanishes or reveals its identity in some way.

    Sweet William was one of these. He had a hard time convincing sweet Margret that he was no earthly man and could not go to the church and be married. The ghostly hitchhiker is another. The motorist who picks up the pretty girl in the road late at night is always stunned to learn that she is dead.

    Other ghosts in this book who resemble the living and fool those whom they encounter are the guitar player in one of the ghost-race stories, the men whose teeth were as long as this, the young dead mother who bought milk for her living baby, the phantom sailors who climbed aboard the ship which had run them down, and Aunt Tilly, who momentarily came to the family party which her illness and death had prevented her attending.

    A ghost is usually believed to be the soul of someone who is dead, and people call them ghosts, phantoms, specters, spooks, or haunts. Another word is revenant, which means returner.

    They return for all kinds of reasons. They return to aid, comfort, advise, reward, or warn the living or to save them from some terrible danger.

    There is a legend that whenever England is in danger, the drum of Sir Francis Drake will be heard through the land to give warning. But this is more than a legend in England, for Drake's drum was heard in the night in many a small coastal town before World War I and again before World War II.

    It is told that during World War I when the Germans were approaching Paris they were halted by the sudden appearance of a luminous figure in the road with a flaming sword and a dark army behind her. It was Joan of Arc who saved Paris in World War I, they say.

    There is another story that during World War II in Occupied France the Germans noticed a quiet nun who would go through the hospitals giving special aid to the French wounded. She was an unauthorized worker, but whenever they tried to stop or question her she somehow always evaded them. Finally they went to the convent to make a search; but they did not find the one they were after. Suddenly one of the men recognized her picture on the wall. It was Joan of Arc.

    Sometimes ghosts return to stop the grieving of those who weep for them, to re-enact some tragedy in their own lives over and over, to pay a debt or to reward the one who does so for them, to ask or give forgiveness.

    Sometimes a ghost stands guard over buried treasure for hundreds of years until it finds the right one to give it to. Or sometimes ghosts wander around just because they are uneasy in their graves, like Anne Boleyn, who is seen every year on the date of her execution walking through the Tower of London carrying her head in the crook of her arm.

    And sometimes ghosts return to punish

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