At the risk of getting sectioned at the hospital my misses works at, errm, ghosts!
So far, I've heard three completely random ghost stories of the Dulyn Bothy and wondered if anyone has heard the same?
I'm not one for ghost stories and believing them but Dulyn Bothy is a strange one. I've been there and felt 'uneasy' whilst staying there, so much so I had to leave just after Dusk! I heard voices for several hours in the valley but could not see anyone, even after shouting out. When I left and climbed up the rocks on the way out, the bothy was full of light Odd behaviour but probably not a ghost.
Two years ago, I heard of a story of someone staying there and felt like they were getting strangled in their sleep and his mate felt like someone was standing over him. Now I've just heard of a similar story by someone who has just stayed there....
Thoughts?*
*I don't believe in ghosts but something about Dulyn made me feel quite uneasy
Not a bothy but ......... there's a spot I stay at high in the hills, which at one point was the site of a farm although there's very little left of it now.
Anyway, when I stay there, I always sleep soundly but I always have similar dreams. My dreams are usually very vivid and involve the family who once lived there. I see the farm as it was and on occasion have interacted with the family - it really is like travelling back through time. It all feels very welcoming and not scary in any way. The (slightly) interesting bit is that I obtained an old book earlier this year which lists all the long lost farms in the area and inside there are some pictures of a few of them dating back to the late 1800's ... that's right, there's a photo of the farmer and his wife, both of whom look identical to the people in my dreams.
Never seen anything but sometimes get feelings of real unease in certain places.
At boarding school one particular corner of the woods did my head in, always looking over my shoulder, wouldn't even join in when my mates decided to build a den there. Years later at a school re union I got talking to the old headmaster, I don't know how it came up but it turns out some local hung themselves from a tree there.
Also, working nights in a private nursing home one room in particular had me on edge. Whilst helping the resident to bed I always had the feeling that someone was behind me and I couldn't wait to get out of there. I never saw him but the place was supposed to be haunted by an elderly, well to do gent who frequented the place when it was a brothel many, many years ago. At least half the night staff reckon they'd seen him.
I used to cycle under a bridge in peterborough fairly often, it had a metal gate to navigate before you went under.
Every time I went past in either direction I would see a figure crouched underneath the platform of the bridge.
It wasn't there is I looked straight at it- but always out of the corner of my eye when I had to look where I was going (through the the gate etc)
Makes me go cold just thinking about it. Thanks fully I moved to Sheffield so never have to ride past it now :)
The only place that's given me the creeps biking was a spot on a hill above swindon - mike and I spied the cluster of tall trees and thought it would make a good place for the night when we rode the ridgeway.
We both had the same feeling when we got there - very odd place with little shrines at the Base of each tree and an old ww2 bunker nearby. The place just felt very odd - so we carried on a found somewhere else
Back in the days when we lived in a VW Caravanette and travelled about we visited the Clava Cairns then went up onto Culloden to the Soldiers Stone
and on to the Clootie Well.
As we approached the woods got noticeably quieter no bird song and colder until we arrived at this silent place. The rags tied to the trees were fluttering in the breeze and most of the branches with rags on appeared to be dead.
We walked briskly back to the van.
Do they have Clootie Wells or the equivalent anywhere else other than Scotland?
the afflicted should be bound, then thrown from a boat and towed round the island three times clockwise.
Upon landing, the patient would be taken to the well and given some of its water to drink; then an offering was made by nailing a rag or a ribbon to the tree, or by driving a coin firmly into it edgewise. Coins that fall out of “the money tree” are a sign of wishes that will not be granted. The original oak tree, now much decayed died many years ago because of copper poisoning but that has not stopped pilgrims using any other close by.
A local tradition that is still observed asserts that nothing must ever be taken from the island, be it even a pebble from the shore, lest the insanity formerly ‘cured’ there return to the outside world.
I wouldn't have wanted to camp on Isle Maree as it had a bit of a strange feeling to it, and was absolutely crawling with ticks. The island where we camped didn't have any weirdness, but my wife and I both had a strange feeling that someone was watching us at one point in the dark evening. The more you start to think about that sort of thing the sharper your senses become and the more tiny noises you hear which just convince you that there is something there. Eventually I had to switch the headtorch on to check. There was, of course, nothing there.
Only three stand out incidences for me: Claerddu Bothy, The now defunct Corndavon Lodge Bothy and Hallaig on the Isle of Raasay.
Claerddu Bothy: Novenber ish - just starting to get dark around 4pm, cold and wet so looking forward to getting to Claerddu to get the fire lit and warm up/dry off. Was not expecting anyone as it was a wet and cold Tuesday. Anyway, as you approach from Claerwen direction you get to the top of the small rise above the bothy and you can look down to see if anyone is in. I get to the top, look down and see a middle aged woman in a red cardigan, stood in the doorway looking out minding her own business. "bugger" I thought as she didn't look like a walker, so it must be a member of the 4x4 crowd that often frequent the bothy. Thought nothing more of it, dropped down onto the (flooded) access track, got to bothy and.... nothing. No one and no signs and there having been anyone there. I cant explain it but felt odd at the time.
Corndavon Lodge Bothy: Mid winter, sleet outside, another mid week trip. Nothing odd of out of the ordinary, fair chuffed fire up and went to sleep on the old sofa in front of the fire, then at around 01:00 hrs I wake up to lights shining outside - again just thought its folk coming in late. Then the lights just got brighter and brighter, still with the same movement like someone shining a very bright (this was way before LED bike lights) until the whole room was lit so brightly (from outside) that I hurt my eyes. Then gone.... off like a light...as it were. We are talking police helicopter "nightsun" spotlight bright here,massively white and intense light. The oddest thing I remember about the whole thing was there was not a sound (so not vehicle lights). I spent the rest of the night petrified in my sleeping bag with a massive feeling of fear. Come daylight, no evidence of vehicles outside just my tyre tracks from the day before. Freaky and something that has lived with me for ages. Get the fear coming back just typing this now...
Hallaig, Isle of Raasay: Its an old cleared village on the island of Raasay and i spent 6 weeks doing field work mapping that part of the island. Anyway, odd occurrences all the time on "the east side" of the island. The voices are just the wind (normally) and so easy to mistake for works, its a human thing like seeing a face on a tree/stone/toast etc. Anyway, the felling of "odd" or "unease" prevailed but i kept hearing the same thing over and over. Usuually very faint and on the edge of what is normally audible. Anyway this one time, i distinctly heard "coigreach" being spoken quite loudly into my ear as if someone were right next to me, behind and over my left shoulder. I Welsh and have no idea what this word is, but it was very distinct. so in the island hotel bar the following weekend, i mentioned this feeling of unease and the whispering of words at me. None of this came as a surprise to the locals who don't like "the east side" either and said it was haunted... yes, yes, anyway. So I asked if anyone knew what coigreach could possibly be or if it was slang for anything. They told me coigreach translates as stranger or outsider. Anyway all this odd stuff continued until a few weeks later i deliberately left a wee dram and a cheese sandwich on the "east side" on the locals advice, and it all stopped. Why, possibly because we humans are wired in an odd way.
Fascinating tales, I read them at midnight by candlelight (proper tall one not one of those 9h fattie jobbies), as if I was Private Fraser whispering into my 'candlestick' telephone, as shadows gathered behind me. As nocturnal opportunists I reckon these things are more likely to happen to BPers than Normals. Worst places for me are old military bunkers with their faded signs and rusting pipes and brackets. Sadly the only ghosts I can contribute are those from my own past of which there are many .
"My God, Ponsonby, I'm two-thirds of the way to the grave and what have I done?" - RIP
The sign outside the asylum is the wrong way round.....
adjustablewench wrote:I used to cycle under a bridge in peterborough fairly often, it had a metal gate to navigate before you went under.
Every time I went past in either direction I would see a figure crouched underneath the platform of the bridge.
It wasn't there is I looked straight at it- but always out of the corner of my eye when I had to look where I was going (through the the gate etc)
Makes me go cold just thinking about it. Thanks fully I moved to Sheffield so never have to ride past it now :)
The only place that's given me the creeps biking was a spot on a hill above swindon - mike and I spied the cluster of tall trees and thought it would make a good place for the night when we rode the ridgeway.
We both had the same feeling when we got there - very odd place with little shrines at the Base of each tree and an old ww2 bunker nearby. The place just felt very odd - so we carried on a found somewhere else
What is even weirder is that I have asked countless people round here about it and nobody seems to know why the shrines are there and who maintains them? My wife's family used to own a farmhouse just down the hill and they have no idea. It really is an odd place.
voodoo_simon wrote:
So far, I've heard three completely random ghost stories of the Dulyn Bothy and wondered if anyone has heard the same?
I've been to Dulyn many many times in the last 28 years or so. There was on time in the late 80's when I was stood in the doorway gazing up at the clear night sky with my Castlemain XXXX in hand. My mates who were on the DofE trip with me were listening to KLF on their Sony Walkman. Suddenly out the the darkness i heard a cry for help! After getting my senses together i quickly got my mates outside and we tried listening after our giggles stopped. No ghost but 4 students screaming for medical assistance on the steep drop down to the Bothy. However when I got to them it turned out to be a twisted ankle! After feeding them and getting off to sleep the bothy lit up like a Christmas tree as my 2 mates who we sent running off for help at the same time as me going up the hill came back with international rescue. Flares lit up the place up as the mountain rescue team done their bit.
There's a fair few plane wrecks in the area so don't be surprised if you see a WW2 German pilot
Peering through ghe window
Not had any ghostly experiences there though.... yet!
I was on a trip through Knoydart at Easter, many years back with a mate. We'd stayed in bothies, A'Chuil, Sourlies, and on our way out to the station at Glenfinnan we stayed at Oban Bothy, next to Loch Morar. It was just the two of us, and was one of those times when you get an uneasy feeling about a place, for no explicable reason. We'd struggled getting a fire lit with damp wood and had agreed just one more go before turning in for the night. The fire burst into flames with such a rush that we both jumped and admitted we were quite spooked by it. The bothy had two downstairs rooms and two up, we slept downstairs by the fire. Just before dawn I was woken by my mate nudging me. He told me there was someone walking round in the next room, he'd been laid awake for a while, too scared to move. He said it sounded like it was dragging something around. We lay there for a bit and there was no more sound. When it got light we left fairly quickly.
Odd behaviour but probably not a ghost.
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