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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: We're back George Norri with Varla Ventura Varla. Back in

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, you wrote a book called Pureanormal Parlor ghost

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Speaker 2: Seances and Tales of True Hauntings.

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Speaker 3: Your thoughts on ghosts? What do you think they are?

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Speaker 4: I had to tell you something, George. It was Tower

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Speaker 4: Grove Park, Ah.

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Speaker 3: I mean I know it well, well, yes, right.

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Speaker 4: By the Missouri Botanical Garden.

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Speaker 3: Yep. That's That's another bit.

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Speaker 4: Up while we were on break there because I was

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Speaker 4: kind of driving me crazy that I didn't have the

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Speaker 4: right name there. So I just wanted to tell you that.

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Speaker 4: So my thought on ghosts, I mean, I believe in them,

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Speaker 4: I have seen them. I am not convinced of any

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Speaker 4: one line of thought about what they are. I know

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Speaker 4: that people can kind of classified ghosts, you know, are

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Speaker 4: they residual ghosts? Is it you know, is somebody that's uh,

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Speaker 4: you know, their spirits can't pass on. But I think

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Speaker 4: that because there's such a wide variety of sort of

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Speaker 4: what I would call paranormal encounters or encounters with some

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Speaker 4: kind of ghost or entity, it could be something that

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Speaker 4: you hear. It could be a feeling, it could be

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Speaker 4: you know, physical touch, is something kind of sitting next

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Speaker 4: to you, and yet there's nothing there. And there's so

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Speaker 4: many variations on that shadow people, something very ethereal and visual,

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Speaker 4: something that doesn't even seem like a ghost at first

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Speaker 4: until you realize that it's sort of out of place.

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Speaker 4: So I feel like there's just all these variations on

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Speaker 4: what we think of as a ghost and of being

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Speaker 4: sort of the essence of a person who was once living.

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Speaker 4: But in my I sort of estimation, there's this whole

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Speaker 4: other world, right, it's the other realm. It's the realm

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Speaker 4: where the sort of invisible fairy creatures live and the

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Speaker 4: you know, the creepy creatures dwell, and it's not necessarily

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Speaker 4: always invisible. There's a really old Irish story about man

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Speaker 4: and Maclear, who is the son of the sea God,

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Speaker 4: and it was said that when the fairies were at

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Speaker 4: war with humans, they were going to leave Ireland and he,

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Speaker 4: the son, the son of the Sea God, rose up

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Speaker 4: from the sea and he gave the fairies the gift

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Speaker 4: of the veil, a large invisible cloaks, basically the ability

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Speaker 4: to hide themselves, and they then went underground, they stayed

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Speaker 4: in Ireland, the disability to sort of cloak themselves at

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Speaker 4: any given point, but that you could remove. They moved

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Speaker 4: that on their own accord or sometimes you catch them

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Speaker 4: by surprise. And I'm not saying when you die, you

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Speaker 4: go to that same realm, but I think that there

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Speaker 4: are things that come through from that other realm when that,

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Speaker 4: you know, we talk about that veil being thinner at

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Speaker 4: like you know, this time of year, really Halloween, but

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Speaker 4: also like this really dark season. So I think there's

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Speaker 4: a very fine line between you know, I don't know

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Speaker 4: if we'll ever really know. I know I have, you know,

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Speaker 4: made some vows with friends, like like Houdini and his

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Speaker 4: wife did, right like when I come back, you're going

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Speaker 4: to know if I come back to give you a signs,

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Speaker 4: it's going to be a really obvious thing, like there's

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Speaker 4: going to be this, I'm going to do this. But

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Speaker 4: I think, just like there's so many different types of

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Speaker 4: people and personalities and abilities, I just don't think all

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Speaker 4: ghosts are as good at it as some. And actually,

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Speaker 4: in tying in with that Emily Grant Hutching story, that

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Speaker 4: story has one of my favorite lines. I think I've

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Speaker 4: ever read, because Twain's In Twain's Ghost is saying something

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Speaker 4: to her like, I keep running at that board and

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Speaker 4: I kind of have to, like, you know, I'm elbowing

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Speaker 4: my way to be able to talk to you. And

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Speaker 4: she says something like, oh, are there many of you there?

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Speaker 4: And he said, everyone here wants a scribe on earth? Wow?

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Speaker 3: What is a banshee? Varla?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well you know you read my mind, George, because

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Speaker 4: I was a ghost and that sort of like fairy realm,

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Speaker 4: that sort of supernatural creature realm. The band she straddles

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Speaker 4: them both. The banshi fits in so many of those

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Speaker 4: categories and also in none of them. But technically the

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Speaker 4: word banshee means of the fairy mounts, an Irish word,

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Speaker 4: and a banshee is a warning spirit that ports hens

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Speaker 4: of death or sometimes just very grave illness. So usually

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Speaker 4: heard we've all heard of, like the banshee scream or

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Speaker 4: the screaming banshee. I think that's what that that.

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Speaker 3: Horrible shriek, right.

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Speaker 4: Yes, a horrible shriek is something very very mournful, very

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Speaker 4: high pitched. Sometimes the banshee is only heard and it's

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Speaker 4: this very eerie sound. Other times you could hear it

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Speaker 4: and also see the banshee. And people who have seen

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Speaker 4: banshees have described them typically as presenting female usually kind

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Speaker 4: of beautiful but also very frightening at the same time,

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Speaker 4: but also occasionally sometimes as sort of a harmless little

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Speaker 4: old wooman's booths hobbling down the road and then turns

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Speaker 4: and starts screaming and you know, kind of kind of

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Speaker 4: tricks you, uh, so that she can give you her warning.

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Speaker 4: And there are counterparts to the banshee cross culturally like

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Speaker 4: around the world, and these are sort of you know,

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Speaker 4: those warning ghosts, you know, everything from a disembodied head

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Speaker 4: to you know, a cry in the night. The Woman

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Speaker 4: in White is a very famous She appears in castles

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Speaker 4: in Germany and Italy and it's this ghost that appears

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Speaker 4: and she always appears before somebody dies in that family.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 4: And it's interesting because traditionally, you know, traditional sort of

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Speaker 4: like the the Irish hierarchy of banshees. Banshees are inherited

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Speaker 4: by families, So if you were from a particular clan

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Speaker 4: and you had a banshee, you would not everyone in

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Speaker 4: the family would be able to see the banshee but

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Speaker 4: you know, someone in each generation was usually aple to

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Speaker 4: see or you know, hear the banshee. And interestingly, there

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Speaker 4: was this fabulous Irish writer named Elliott O'Donnell and he

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Speaker 4: wrote a lot about banshees. But he was really cool

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Speaker 4: because he he unlike a lot of the people, you know,

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Speaker 4: during the early twentieth century who were collecting all this

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Speaker 4: folklore and sort of recording what the quote unquote peasants

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Speaker 4: were saying about the old ways, he had grown up

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Speaker 4: seen ghosts, and so his work is laced with the

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Speaker 4: belief that ghosts are real and so whether you're real.

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Speaker 4: He has some short stories, just like short ghost stories,

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Speaker 4: but a lot of what he's collected are other people's

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Speaker 4: stories in his own experiences. It's like his own paranormal

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Speaker 4: parlor book, you know, and it's really like this this view.

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Speaker 4: He wrote a lot about banshees and talks about somewhat

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Speaker 4: about the counterparts around the world, but also just about

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Speaker 4: there are that are a little bit more vicious and they,

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Speaker 4: you know, will reak havoc and cause chaos. That's usually

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Speaker 4: if they're not being heard. But I've always wondered are

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Speaker 4: as a band, she's inherited by someone or is it

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Speaker 4: the ability to see the Banshee that's inherited? And then

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Speaker 4: of course, you know, once upon a time clans lived

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Speaker 4: in the same place and they lived in their territory

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Speaker 4: for you know, hundreds of years, and that now people

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Speaker 4: don't always live in their family home, right, So that's

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Speaker 4: that's a just a great I feel like that's a

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Speaker 4: good conversation starter at a dinner party where you kind

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Speaker 4: of don't know anyone. Do you think that the ability to, yeah,

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Speaker 4: Jesus is inherited?

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Speaker 2: You'd be a hit of the party. But believe me,

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Speaker 2: in the in the eighteen forties, Charles Dickens wrote a

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Speaker 2: Christmas Carol and it really dealt with not only Scrooge

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Speaker 2: but spirits of Christmas? Are there real spirits at Christmas?

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Speaker 2: Because I think I'd seen you talk about Christmas witches

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Speaker 2: one day.

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Speaker 4: Oh yes, oh yes. So that was not Dickens's only

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Speaker 4: ghost story. It was completely a Victorian tradition to tell

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Speaker 4: ghost stories around Christmas time, gather around the hearth, people

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Speaker 4: had some downtime and you would tell scary stories. He

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Speaker 4: would tell ghostly tales and Dickens was very interested in

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Speaker 4: these that was kind of his big hit, right, The

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Speaker 4: Christmas Carol was his big hit.

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Speaker 3: Huge.

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Speaker 2: He sold sixteen five hundred copies in like two weeks.

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Speaker 4: And like by two days, I mean he would be, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, you know, a best selling author.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, sixty five weeks running on the or I guess

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Speaker 4: probably a lot longer than that running on the New

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Speaker 4: York Times bestseller list. But he every year would put

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Speaker 4: out a Christmas pamphlet. He had this journal that he

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Speaker 4: would publish, and he would get guest authors and things,

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Speaker 4: and so he actually wrote several and there would always

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Speaker 4: be a ghost story in there. So he would you know,

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Speaker 4: gather his friends around and they would write about ghosts.

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Speaker 4: Or at one time he did this whole collection of

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Speaker 4: stories in which he set everything in a haunted house

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Speaker 4: and he gave everybody a different room and they had

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Speaker 4: to write from the point of view of the ghost

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Speaker 4: of that room. And these were fictional stories, of course,

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Speaker 4: But he also he and a couple of authors that

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Speaker 4: influenced him and wrote for him in his journals talk

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Speaker 4: a lot about the sort of the high magic and

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Speaker 4: the dangers of the twelve Days of Christmas, like very

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Speaker 4: some of this was very startling to me when I

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Speaker 4: learned about it, such as, if you go to draw

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Speaker 4: water from a well at midnight on Christmas Eve, it

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Speaker 4: is entirely possible that you will pull blood from your well.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, her and that is the only water

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Speaker 2: source they had in those days, from your well.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Other stories tell of somebody hurrying home a little

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Speaker 4: too late from the party on Christmas Eve and passing

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Speaker 4: by the stables and hearing animals talk, but like stable

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Speaker 4: animals who don't really like their masters, so you know,

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Speaker 4: animal farm rebellion stories. It was also believed that there

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Speaker 4: were not unlike some of the stories about the traditional

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Speaker 4: Salway or original Halloween, it was a time when you know,

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Speaker 4: witches would covort with trolls and they would dance on

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Speaker 4: the the heath and you know, all all mayhem and

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Speaker 4: revelry would take place because it was thought to be

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Speaker 4: a time of high magic. And Phil is right, that's

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Speaker 4: that's a bit of the magical Christmas. And there are

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Speaker 4: several Christmas witches. Actually, one of my favorite Christmas witches

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Speaker 4: is the Icelandic Christmas Witch. The fauna is the Italian

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Speaker 4: Christmas Witch. A fabulous she is like wonderful. Actually, I

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Speaker 4: was once in Italy after Christmas time, and was walking

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Speaker 4: down the street and I thought, why are all these

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Speaker 4: cakes with witches in the window of this bakery? Why

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Speaker 4: are there witch shaped cookies? I didn't understand it, and

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Speaker 4: so I started asking around this but all the lavea fauna,

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Speaker 4: loavea Fanna and the lava fun. She comes in January

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Speaker 4: sixth and she rides through the town and she sweeps

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Speaker 4: on her brooms, and she leaves cookies and sweeps for

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Speaker 4: the children, and she sweeps away all of the bad

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Speaker 4: luck from the previous year and welcomes in the good.

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Speaker 4: And that's a very common the sweet think of the

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Speaker 4: hearts actually as on on either Christmas Eve on New

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Speaker 4: Year's you know that sort of like ritualistic cleaning and

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Speaker 4: and getting rid of the old and and bringing in

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Speaker 4: the new. Is is a very common practice.

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Speaker 3: What is what is? What is Crampis?

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Speaker 4: Crampis is sort of a monstery, devil like guy, and

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Speaker 4: he's kind of the counterparts Saint Nicholas. He is German

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Speaker 4: and also very popular in Austria is the Sana. He's

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Speaker 4: not exactly the evil Sanna, but a little bit right like,

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Speaker 4: not not exactly the opposite but there's there's a whole

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Speaker 4: host of these sort of beastly monsters who have crazy

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Speaker 4: fur growing all over them, and they're they're wrapped in

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Speaker 4: chains and they clamor through the town at night with

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Speaker 4: with switches and sacks to throw terrible, ill behaved children

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Speaker 4: and adults into their into their sacks. And it's kind

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Speaker 4: of the idea that today we have, you know, the

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Speaker 4: the lump, the threat of the lump of coal and

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Speaker 4: the stocking. It's kind of like what you know, you

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Speaker 4: and I grew up with that, like you have to

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Speaker 4: be good on Christmas, like, but but really this was

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Speaker 4: a much more uh visual and physical threat that really

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Speaker 4: kept the children in mind. Right, these sort of like

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Speaker 4: mischievous creatures. And there's a couple of witches who have

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Speaker 4: the sort of goatey demon like creatures as their minions

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Speaker 4: that wreak their havoc on on Christmas night, and so

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Speaker 4: like the fauna is like a really gentle, nice witch,

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Speaker 4: but you have Grillia, who is the Icelandic witch, and

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Speaker 4: she is basically like this big witch ogress that lives

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Speaker 4: in the mountains and she's got thirteen mule lads and

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Speaker 4: each one of these mule Lads comes out on the

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Speaker 4: twelve Nights of Christmas, and they all have a different purpose,

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Speaker 4: and they all have hilarious and delightful names which you

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Speaker 4: can kind of connect with things that children weren't supposed

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Speaker 4: to be doing on that on that night, because of

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Speaker 4: course you're talking about leading up to like a big,

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Speaker 4: beautiful feast, and so you had things like one of

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Speaker 4: them was a candlebagger. His name was kurtisnerk.

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Speaker 2: Did people create these because they didn't have any television

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Speaker 2: or radio or social networking and they were bored?

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Speaker 3: Were these real because they didn't?

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think they're real. But of course, again

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Speaker 4: I'm a supernaturalist, right, so I believe in all of

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Speaker 4: these things. But I firmly believe George that any it's

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Speaker 4: too easy to simply dismiss stories that come from original people,

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Speaker 4: that come from indigenous people, that come from the native culture,

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Speaker 4: to turn it in and say, oh, well they were

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Speaker 4: you know, they were just trying to keep the kids

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Speaker 4: from falling into the fire. They were just I mean

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Speaker 4: some of it. Of course, there's cautionary tales that serve

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Speaker 4: a really strong purpose. But when you have these traditions

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Speaker 4: that are throughout the world and have all these sort

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Speaker 4: of connections, and especially like you know, in areas with

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Speaker 4: really really extreme winters, you can see that there actually

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Speaker 4: are demons and monsters out there, and you can call

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Speaker 4: them whatever you want, you can call them by a

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Speaker 4: different name, but you really don't want to be caught

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Speaker 4: facing them in the night. So it's kind of the

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Speaker 4: same argument for me of like, you know, when people

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Speaker 4: see the accounts of mermaids, are they sleep deprived, nutrient deprived,

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Speaker 4: oxygen deprived because they're drowning, or are they seeing mermaids?

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Speaker 4: You know, are you going into hypothermia and you're seeing

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Speaker 4: this gnarlyshing plod beast coming through the forest? Is it

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Speaker 4: because you're in hypothermia? I mean, you're still seeing it, right.

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Speaker 4: So to me, I always think there's more than a

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Speaker 4: kernel of truth in any of these stories, and I

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Speaker 4: don't really see a big benefit in trying to prove

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Speaker 4: if they're true or not. I like to enjoy the

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Speaker 4: stories for what they are and accept that they absolutely

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Speaker 4: can be real. And you know, it takes that cautionary

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Speaker 4: tip to not be stumbling down the lane on a

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Speaker 4: too drunk from a Christmas party.

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