Yellow Ribbon

A Spooky Wisconsin Story 

retold by S.E. Schlosser  
Jane wore a yellow ribbon around her neck everyday. And I mean
everyday, rain or shine, whether it matched her outfit or not. It annoyed
her best friend Johnny after awhile. He was her next door neighbor and
had known Jane since she was three. When he was young, he had barely
noticed the yellow ribbon, but now they were in high school together, it
bothered him. 
“Why do you wear that yellow ribbon around your neck, Jane?” he’d ask
her every day. But she wouldn’t tell him. 
Still, in spite of this aggravation, Johnny thought she was cute. He asked
her to the soda shoppe for an ice cream sundae. Then he asked her to
watch him play in the football game. Then he started seeing her home. And come the spring, he
asked her to the dance. Jane always said yes when he asked her out. And she always wore a yellow
dress to match the ribbon around her neck. 
It finally occurred to Johnny that he and Jane were going steady, and he still didn’t know why she
wore the yellow ribbon around her neck. So he asked her about it yet again, and yet again she did
not tell him. “Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it,” she’d reply. Someday! That answer annoyed
Johnny, but he shrugged it off, because Jane was so cute and fun to be with. 
Well, time flew past, as it has a habit of doing, and one day Johnny proposed to Jane and was
accepted. They planned a big wedding, and Jane hinted that she might tell him about the yellow
ribbon around her neck on their wedding day. But somehow, what with the preparations and his
beautiful bride, and the lovely reception, Johnny never got around to asking Jane about it. And when
he did remember, she got a bit teary-eyed, and said: “We are so happy together, what difference
does it make?” And Johnny decided she was right. 
Johnny and Jane raised a family of four, with the usual ups and downs, laughter and tears. When
their golden anniversary rolled around, Johnny once again asked Jane about the yellow ribbon
around her neck. It was the first time he’d brought it up since the week after their wedding.
Whenever their children asked him about it, he’d always hushed them, and somehow none of the
kids had dared ask their mother. Jane gave Johnny as sad look and said: “Johnny, you’ve waited this
long. You can wait awhile longer.” 
And Johnny agreed. It was not until Jane was on her death bed a year later that Johnny, seeing his
last chance slip away, asked Jane one final time about the yellow ribbon she wore around her neck.
She shook her head a bit at his persistence, and then said with a sad smile: “Okay Johnny, you can go
ahead and untie it.” 
With shaking hands, Johnny fumbled for the knot and untied the yellow ribbon around his wife’s
neck. 
And Jane’s head fell off. 
Hairy Toe

excerpted from Spooky Maryland 

retold by S.E. Schlosser
Once there was an old woman who went out in the woods to dig up some roots to cook for dinner.
She spotted something funny sticking out of the leaves and dug around until she uncovered a great
big hairy toe. There was some good meat on that toe which would make a real tasty dinner, so the
old woman put it in her basket and took it home. 
When she got back to her cottage, the old woman boiled up a kettle-full of hairy toe soup, which she
ate for dinner that night. It was the best meal she'd had in weeks! The old woman went to bed that
night with a full stomach and a big smile. 
Along about midnight, a cold wind started blowing in the tops of the trees around the old woman's
house. A large black cloud crept over the moon and from the woods a hollow voice rumbled: "Hairy
toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!" Inside the house, the old woman stirred uneasily in her bed and
nervously pulled the covers up over her ears. 
From the woods there came a stomp-stomp-stomping noise as the wind whistled and jerked at the
treetops. In the clearing at the edge of the forest, a hollow voice said: "Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want
my hairy toe!" Inside the house, the old woman shuddered and turned over in her sleep. 
A stomp, stomp, stomping sound came from the garden path outside the cottage. The night
creatures shivered in their burrows as a hollow voice howled: "Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy
toe!" Inside the house, the old woman snapped awake. Her whole body shook with fright as she
listened to the angry howling in her garden. Jumping out of bed, she ran to the door and barred it.
Once the cottage was secure, she lay back down to sleep. 
Suddenly, the front door of the cottage burst open with a bang, snapping the bar in two and sending
it flying into the corners of the room. There came the stomp, stomp, stomping noise of giant feet
walking up the stairs. Peeping out from under the covers, the old woman saw a massive figure filling
her doorway. It said: "Hairy toe! Hairy toe! I want my hairy toe!" 
The old woman sat bolt upright in terror and shouted: "I ATE your hairy toe!" 
"Yes, you did," the giant figure said very gently as it advanced into the room. 
No one living in the region ever saw the old woman again. The only clue to her disappearance was a
giant footprint a neighbor found pressed deep into the loose soil of the meadow beside the house.
The footprint was missing the left big toe.
Fifty-Cent Piece

A New York Ghost Story 

retold by
S. E. Schlosser
Listen to the story 
There is a story told in Troy and Albany about a couple returning home from a trip to New England.
They were driving home in a carriage, and were somewhere near Spiegletown when the light failed
and they knew they would have to seek shelter for the night. 
The husband spied a light through the trees and turned their horse into a small lane leading up a hill.
A pleasant little house stood at the crest, and an old man and his wife met the couple at the door.
They were in nightclothes and were obviously about to turn in, but they welcomed the travelers and
offered them a room. The old woman bustled about making tea and offering freshly-baked cakes.
Then the travelers were shown to their room. The husband wanted to pay the old couple for their
lodgings, but the old lady shook her head and the old man refused any payment for such a small
service to their fellow New Yorkers. 
The travelers awoke early and tiptoed out of the house, leaving a shiny fifty-cent coin in the center
of the kitchen table where the old couple could not miss it. The husband hitched up the horse and
they went a few miles before they broke their fast at a little restaurant in Spiegletown. 
The husband mention the nice old couple to the owner of the restaurant and the man turned pale. 
"Where did you say that house was?" he asked. The husband described the location in detail. 
"You must be mistaken," said the restaurant owner. "That house was destroyed three years ago by a
fire that killed the Brown family." 
"I don't believe it," the husband said flatly. "Mr. and Mrs. Brown were alive and well last night." 
After debating for a few more minutes, the couple and the restaurant owner drove the carriage back
out of town towards the old Brown place. They turned into the lane, which was overgrown with
weeds, and climbed the hill to the crest. There they found a burned out shell of a house that had
obviously not sheltered anyone for a long time. 
"I must have missed the track," said the husband. And then his wife gave a terrified scream and
fainted into his arms. As he caught her, the husband looked into the ruin and saw a burnt table with
a shiny fifty-cent piece lying in the center. 
 The Lady with the Emerald Ring

I heard this one while visting a place in England the previous summer, and it scared the living day
lights out of me, only to prevail that I had a good laugh when they were done with the tale. 

A man's wife became deathly ill the night before Christmas in 1798, he called for the doctor but by
the time the doctor had arrived his wife had died, or so it seemed. Her husband was so grief stricken
that he shut himself up on his own and didn't attend the funeral the following day. The servants of
the house carried the rich woman's body to the Vicar who in a drunken stupor held the ceremony
quickly. The veil was drawn across her face, the stone lid lowered and the iron grille locked. 

When later that night the Clergy man fell to sleep he remembered the beautiful emerald ring the
woman had been laid with on her finger. Wanting riches for himself and fiquring no one would find
out he went downstairs unlocked the lid open it and tried to pry off the ring, it wouldn't budge. He
ran to his lab and brought back a file to cut off her finger with. He severed her finger and pulled the
ring off, as he left he turned arond to pick up the iron lid, and screamed at the top of his lungs,
dropped the ring and ran, the woman had awakened and was moaning and holding her severed
finger towards him with a smile displayed evenly across her face. 

He ran with all his might upstairs where he hung himself from the rafters of his home. If only he
knew that the woman had only to thank him for she had not died after all but had gone into a coma
and the cutting of her finger restored her circulation waking her from it. 

Wearing nothing but her fine silk dress she walked back to the home and knocked on the door and
rang the bell to no avail. The servants had all gone to sleep for it was late christmas eve. She felt an
urge and lifted a heavy stone, threw it at her husband's window, and waited. He came to the
window with a sorrowful look on his face, and suddenly to her surprise he yelled, "Go away. Why
must you torture me so. Don't you know my wife has just died. Let me mourn and do not bother me
agian." 

With this he shut the window. He must not have realized it was his wife who had thrown the rock at
him. She repeated this and he opened the window again, and she yelled to him, "I am no one but
your so called dead wife. Now come down here and open this door, Henry Page, unless you'd like me
to die a second time on our doorstep." 

"You are a ghost then," he said to her.

She said, "No, for ghost's don't bleed. Now come down here before I catch my own death of cold." 

The man with a joyous look on his face came down to meet his wife and took her inside where he
called the doctor once more and told him the news. They both lived long lives and there first son
was born the next year.
 The Dragon Houses of Karystos:  Evia (Euboea)

Dragon house -Karystos, Evia – Photo by Klaus-Norbert

 In the south of the island of Evia (Euboea), in the town of Karystos, are twenty eight, unique
structures; huge blocks of stone, with no use of mortar, are
piled one on top of the other and are  topped off by an even
larger stone slab to create a roof.

These unusual structures were named ‘Dragon Houses’ by

the ancient Greeks, as way back then, the word dragon, not
only meant fire-breathing reptiles but also other beings
with superhuman powers.

Many archaeologists, who have visited these mysterious

structures, have failed to come up with a valid date of when
they were built, or who built them.

Spinalonga and Lovokomeio – Deserted Leper Colonies: Crete and Chios

Spinalonga Leper Colony – Crete – Greece

Spinalonga, today a popular tourist attraction, is a deserted leper colony, located on a small island in
the Gulf of Mirabello, Crete, officially known as Kalydon, Spinalonga became famous worldwide with
the publication of Victoria Hislop’s book ‘The Island’. This barren, rocky island was used as a leper
colony from 1903 until 1957.

Any Greek diagnosed with Leprosy, known as Hansen’s

disease, was relieved of his property, financial assets, his
citizen’s rights and had is identity erased before being
exiled to the ‘leper island’, as it came to be known as. At its
peak, Spinalonga housed around four hundred patients,
who, on arriving on the island, passed through the tunnel
entrance, known as Dante’s Gate, the entrance to hell.

Even though a cure for Hansen’s disease was found in

1940, only after a British ex-pat visited the colony and
filed a report about the inhuman conditions, poor
medical treatment, and the incompetence of the one and
only doctor there, did the Greek state close the colony in
1957. The last inhabitant to leave the island in 1962 was
the priest. Not surprisingly, the Greek government tried to keep quiet about the country’s shameful
treatment towards the inhabitants of Spinalonga, Victoria Hislop’s book put paid to that!
 Distomo Massacre: June 10 1944

The Distomo Massacre was a Nazi war crime carried out

by members of the Waffen-SS in the village of Distomo,
near Delphi, in Greece, in 1944, during the German
occupation of Greece during World War II.

On 10 June 1944, the Waffen-SS troops of the 2nd

company, under the command of the 26-year-old Fritz
Lautenbach, went door to door and massacred Greek
civilians in reprisal for a partisan attack upon the unit’s
convoy. 228 men, women and children were executed;
according to survivors, SS forces “bayoneted babies in their cribs, stabbed pregnant women, and
beheaded the village priest.”

The Gestapo Interrogation Memorial: Athens

Gestapo Interagation Memorial Athens Photo for Atlas Obscura
 Surely a place straight out of Dante’s Inferno, this building, at 6 Merlin Street, Athens, was taken
over by the German Nazis, during the occupation of Greece in 1941 and used as a prison for many
members of The Greek Resistance of WWII.

Here, in this truly living hell, Greek prisoners

were tortured to death and their bodies left
hanging from trees, guarded by local Nazi
sympathisers, as a warning to all Greeks. In
the 1980s the building became a Hondos
Centre, one of a chain of beauty retailers in
Greece.

On the right of the main entrance to the

Hondos centre, is a carving of a bound
prisoner, and one of the original torture
chamber doors is on display. There are several plaques, one of which reads ‘Free people were led
through these doors’

The Kalavryta Massacre Peloponnese: December 13 1943 The Massacre of Kalavryta memoria Photo by
Greeker than the Greeks
 In early December 1943, the Germans began a mission named “Operation Kalavryta”, intending to
encircle Greek Resistance guerilla fighters in the
mountainous area surrounding Kalavryta.

During the operation, 78 German soldiers, who had been

taken prisoner by the guerrillas in October, were
executed by their captors, in retaliation; the Germans
ordered the “severest measures”; the killing of the male
population of Kalavryta.

On the morning of December 13, the Germans rounded

up all the villagers and forced them into the school building where they separated the older boys
and men from the women and children. The men were taken field, where, after looting the village
and setting it on fire, the Germans machine-gunned the men. 438 men and boys were killed; only 13
males, who were hidden under the bodies of the dead, survived.