[Movie Review] Hokum ~ The real horror movie, writes Meg Elison, is the one you grew up in.

https://wildhunt.org/2026/05/review-hokum.html

#pagan #witchcraft #moviereview #hokum #folkhorror #hauntedhouse #horror #ireland #adamscott

My childhood brushes with ghost lore

Despite writing about supernatural folklore, I rarely think about my childhood brushes with ghostly stories. I thought I might rectify that here—by reflecting on two examples of ghost lore I was exposed to in my youth.

Before I begin, I should point out that children’s folklore is just as vital and dynamic a phenomenon as its adult equivalent. Children’s Folklore: A Source Book (1999) is one example of a text that documents the folkloric creativity of children (as opposed to their passive receptivity). The book shows that wherever children come together, they form what folklorists call “folk groups.” The only criteria for the existence of such a group is that “two or more people. . . share something in common—language, occupation, religion, residence”; that they “share ‘traditions'”; and that they have the opportunity to meet face to face.

The Grey Lady

I’ll start with my childhood experience of belonging to a large “folk group” at my prep school, Tockington Manor, in South Gloucestershire. Every child in the school belonged to this folk group, because everyone, at some point, learned about the Grey Lady who haunted the manor’s halls. The boarders at the school were terrified of this lady: they said she wandered the manor at night—the spirit of a nurse who’d fallen from a skylight when the building served as a hospital during the First World War. I don’t remember much about this nighttime revenant, but she’s clearly a variant of a folkloric figure found at boarding schools everywhere: the Grey, White, Black, or Brown Lady.

In my school, older students, already initiated into the ghostly mystery, passed on stories about the drab-colored lady to the younger children, who did the same for the incoming class. I can only assume that telling stories about the Grey Lady allowed us to share anxieties in a fixed, personified form, which helped us adapt to unfamiliar surroundings. It also mythologized the building’s space, especially for boarders—those who couldn’t leave. Separated from their family homes, they created bonds and associations through the emotions that ghost stories evoke.

The story of the Grey Lady may have been one of the most memorable aspects of our folk group. But one story doesn’t create a culture. We also played games like marbles and conkers and had a shared language (words like cave—Latin for “beware”—were used to signal that a teacher was coming). Sometimes we sneaked out of school to gather in an old stone quarry, a place now dense with ivy-covered trees. The aura of this place—which we called simply “Quarry”—will forever remind me of the childhood capacity to create mythological worlds in spaces dominated by adults.

The Yellow Lady

Another example of supernatural storytelling from my childhood occurred during a trip to a Catholic boys’ camp in the summer of 1991. There too the sharing of ghostly legends created belonging among the boys. Despite sharing a tent with my brother, a cousin, and members of my cousin’s family, I felt unsettled in my new surroundings, and I remember how powerfully the nighttime telling of ghost stories allowed us to bond through fear. 

The only story I remember clearly (because it terrified me) was inspired by a local landmark. Visible from the camp was a house that glowed an eerie yellow at night. The sight of this building alone would be enough to inspire a haunted house tale. But in our case, the color became detached from the building, and we gave it to a supernatural figure who roamed the grounds at night. Apparently, a mysterious revenant called the Yellow Lady haunted that house, and she visited the meadow where we slept. Pricking up her disturbingly large ears to listen for wakeful boys, the Yellow Lady prowled the rows of tents, determined to steal a child. 

Although I remember thinking at the time that the Yellow Lady must have been a ghost, she differs in one important way from the Grey Lady mentioned earlier. While the latter was merely a scary presence that never interacted with students, the Yellow Lady was relational, embodying the discipline of the adult world (“no talking after lights out”). Her eerie color and super-sensory abilities—a result of her inhumanly large ears—suggest that she was a kind of supernatural bogeywoman, perhaps even close to a fairy.

The extreme effectiveness of this Yellow Lady legend meant that all of us had trouble sleeping that night. The next day we rushed to mass, hoping to find protection in proximity to a sacred ritual. The impulse was in keeping with much ghost lore, where holy symbols ward off supernatural threats.

Interestingly, while researching “Yellow Lady” stories (to see how commonplace they are), I came across a blog post in which the writer talks about a Yellow Lady story he learned at a camp run by monks. He then turns the tale into a literary short story—an embellishment, perhaps, of a fragmentary tale like mine. It seems to me that the writer’s camp may even have been the one I attended. Either that or the Yellow Lady haunts a number of such camps.

Haunted houses and witch houses

Besides my encounters with the Grey and Yellow Ladies, the only other ghost lore I can remember from my childhood are stories about haunted houses. These were always abandoned homes in the neighborhood, their shattered windows revealing darkness inside, the absence of family life. Repeating things we’d heard or inventing stories on the spot, we called these houses “haunted” or the former resort of “witches”—words that described the rupture in our sense of what a family home should look like. One of these houses sat at the corner of Charborough Road and Dunkeld Avenue in Filton, Bristol (I can still picture its dilapidated state). Another was on a road branching off from Charborough Road: they said that if you looked into its broken, upstairs window, you might see a witch looking back. (The latter is a vague memory that may even have been my own thought.)

Considering all this lore, it seems to me that ghosts fill the gaps where social meaning decays, whether through separation from home, abandonment of a home, or maladjustment in a place that’s not yet fully home. When I consider these crucial functions, I understand why empirical approaches to ghostly “phenomena” bore me: they arguably fail to understand ghosts at all.

Read about more ghost lore here.

Out today on Youtube!

Ghosts, a mysterious Stranger, and hidden treasure - thrills & spills in our latest adventure - check out our channel : www.youtube.com/@thepennybloodspodcast/videos

The Ghost of Vauxhall Walk Pt 1:
https://youtu.be/_etx9SRaqp8?

#audiodrama #podcast #victorian #fun #spooky #pennybloods #adaptation #ghoststories #hauntedhouse

How to Live with a Ghost by Melinda Wichmann

Two weeks was plenty of time for the ghost to introduce itself. It hadn’t, which confirmed my suspicion the tale attached to my new-old house was nothing more than a local legend.

That is the first paragraph in this ghost story set in Iowa. I thought it had a pretty good hook. Made me want to read more.

Jess McCallister, a divorced newspaper reporter whose dating history was also fizzling, decided it was time for a change. She moves to a small town in Iowa to a home in the country called Fox Hollow. The house has a history of being haunted. Jess doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Jess’s life is also built around training her dog for shows. Most of her social life is built around that hobby and those friends.

Jess knows a few people in the community, so she isn’t a total stranger. She soon meets her neighbor, a bestselling, sexy, action/adventure author who is her closest neighbor. He is interested in the ghost stories and becomes concerned about Jess living there alone.

As the story moves along, we learn about who is haunting the house and that there is a pioneer cemetery on her property as well as another historical site that might be connected to a lost treasure.

There is plenty of stuff going on in the community and I enjoyed the interaction between the characters. This one is difficult to label with a genre. The publisher shelved it in women’s fiction. I do think that is a good fit, but it almost feels like what I would think of as a cozy horror story.

It doesn’t really matter what it is labeled if the reader can find it on the bookstore shelves.

I loved the spooky scenes with the ghost and how Jess and her author friend handled them. Melinda is great at describing those atmospheric scenes.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a story with all these elements.

I met this author at a local author event a few months ago and as she told us about the book, I knew I needed to read it. This is Melinda’s debut novel.

Published December 15, 2025.

I include links to purchase. As an associate, I earn from qualified purchases.

How to Live with a Ghost

Here are a few ghost stories I reviewed in the past you might check out if you’re new to my blog:

https://virginia-gruver.com/2026/01/02/murder-most-haunted-by-emma-mason/

https://virginia-gruver.com/2025/10/31/death-at-the-door-by-olivia-blacke/

https://virginia-gruver.com/2025/10/27/craven-manor-by-darcy-coates/

What I am currently reading:

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt – I had heard so much about this book I planned to read it. When I saw an adaptation was coming out on Netflix, I picked it up this week to read before the show airs on May 8th.

Dark is when the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce – I will be starting this book later tonight. This was a NetGalley book given to me for a review.

I have had a couple Bookish Adventures this past week. May 2nd, I attended a local Book Fair put on by Beaverdale Books and the Des Moines Public Library. It was a day packed full of meeting authors and publishers, and lots of writing related organizations. I spent an hour that afternoon greeting visitors at my chapter of Sisters in Crime booth. That’s a great way to meet new readers and writers and promote our author’s books and acquire new members for our organization. The event is held at an event center that used to be a grade school in Des Moines. By the time I got home, I was worn out, but in a good way.

Today, May 7th, I attended an author event at Beaverdale Books at noon. Jess Lourey, Erica Ruth Neubauer, and Shannon Baker were there with their newest releases. Des Moines was their second stop on their book tour. I will be reviewing their books soon.

If you enjoy my content, I would appreciate if you could subscribe. It doesn’t cost you anything and it will make sure you never miss a review. If you are curious about a particular book review, you can type in the title or author name in the search on the side of this blog to see if I have read and reviewed it.

I hope you get to have some Bookish Adventures.

Happy Reading!

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"Yes! Two stories in one - hauntings and pranks aplenty in our latest adventure with #ghosthunters Hargreaves & Co!

Now on our Youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/tSPMVwdRUgU?

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"Yes! Two stories in one - hauntings and pranks aplenty in our latest adventure with #ghosthunters Hargreaves & Co!

Now on our Youtube channel:
https://youtu.be/tSPMVwdRUgU?

Share & subscribe!

#audiodrama #podcast #victorian #fun #spooky #pennybloods #adaptation #ghoststories #hauntedhouse