creepy stories Archives - Tales of Times Forgotten

The Most Twisted Scene in Any Ancient Greek Novel

It’s no secret that ancient Greek literature is full of all kinds of twisted and disturbing stories. I even previously wrote a post on this blog about some such stories in classical myth back in September 2019. There are, however, some truly messed-up incidents in ancient Greek literature that are not well known. In this post, I want to discuss an obscure episode of this nature that I think more people should hear.

Sometime around the second century CE or thereabouts, the Greek writer Xenophon of Ephesos (who is not to be confused with Xenophon of Athens, the much more famous Athenian writer of the fourth century BCE) wrote a novel known as the Ephesiaka or Ephesian Tale. The novel is, for the most part, not especially interesting. In fact, I think it’s probably the least interesting overall of all the surviving Greek novels; it mostly consists of a monotonous repetition of the same tropes that other ancient novelists do better. In book five, chapter one, however, Xenophon unexpectedly drops what is perhaps the freakiest moment in any surviving ancient Greek novel. It involves a man, a mummy, and some casual necrophilia.

The Ghost of Achilles on Snake Island

By this point, I imagine that most of my readers have probably already heard that, on 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, a pair of heavily armed Russian warships attacked Snake Island, a small Ukrainian island in the western Black Sea that was protected at the time by only thirteen Ukrainian border guards.

One of the Russian warships ordered the Ukrainian border guards to surrender and one of the Ukrainians replied: “Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй,” which means “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” This reply has become famous around the world and has widely become seen as emblematic of Ukrainian defiance. It was initially reported that the border guards were all killed, but the Ukrainian military has now publicly confirmed in a post on Facebook that they are actually “alive and well” in Russian captivity.

One thing that many of my readers may not know is that Snake Island—the exact same island where all the events I have described above took place—was known to the Greeks in ancient times as Λευκή (Leukḗ), which means “White Island.” This island is prominent in Greek literature, mythology, and folklore, chiefly because the Greeks believed that Achilles’s mother, the immortal goddess Thetis, transposed his mortal remains, along with those of Patroklos, and interred them in a hero shrine on this island, making it their final resting place.

Several classicists have already written posts about Snake Island’s classical connections, including Mateusz Stróżyński in the online open-access journal Antigone, Peter Gainsford on his blog Kiwi Hellenist, and Christopher Stedman Parmenter on the Society for Classical Studies blog. All of these posts, though, overlook what are, in my personal opinion, the most fascinating stories about the island, which are told by the Greek sophist Philostratos of Athens (lived c. 170 – c. 250 CE) in his dialogue Heroïkos, chapters 54–57. According to Philostratos, the ghosts of Achilles and Helene of Sparta haunt the island together as lovers. (Yes, you read that right; I said Helene, not Patroklos.) The stories he tells about their hauntings on the island are simultaneously captivating and bizarre.

The Shocking Ancient Pagan Origins of Halloween Monsters

I’ve written an awful lot about how, contrary to popular belief, there is extremely little about the way people celebrate holidays in the United States in the twenty-first century that can actually be historically traced back to ancient “paganism.” (See for, instance, this article I wrote in April 2017 about how there’s very little about modern Easter that is legitimately “pagan,” this article I wrote in December 2019 about how there’s very little about modern Christmas that is legitimately “pagan,” this article I wrote about the history of Santa Claus, this article I wrote in February 2020 about how there’s nothing “pagan” about Groundhog Day whatsoever, and this article I wrote in April 2020 about how Easter has nothing to do with the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.)

Until now, I have not published any articles about whether Halloween has any connections to “paganism.” This is partly because I think Halloween’s connections to ancient pre-Christian belief systems are much more substantial and complex than Christmas or Easter’s (which are extremely minimal). Although Halloween itself is nominally a holiday of Christian origin, there is an awful lot about how we celebrate Halloween today that is demonstrably influenced by genuine, ancient “pagan” ideas.

In particular, the most famous monsters that are most closely associated with Halloween today—including ghosts, werewolves, revenants, and reanimated mummies—have real and well-attested origins in ancient, pre-Christian belief systems. The association of these monsters with Halloween is a relatively recent development, but the monsters themselves have origins that go way back. In this article, I will explore the ancient origins of the monsters I have just named, using ancient historical sources as evidence.

No, Alexander the Great Didn’t See Flying Saucers

If you’ve ever been on the internet or happened to turn on virtually any show that has aired on the History Channel within the past ten years, you’re probably aware that there are tons of people who are, shall we say, highly enthusiastic about so-called “unidentified flying objects” or “UFOs.” These UFO enthusiasts love to repeat a story which claims that the ancient Makedonian king Alexander the Great and his soldiers saw UFOs in the sky that looked like giant silvery shields at some point while he was on his campaigns.

The story that UFO enthusiasts keep repeating, however, is demonstrably entirely fictional. No version of the story ever appears in any ancient or medieval source. In fact, the earliest known mention of the story dates to the year 1959. Other people have debunked this story before, but I am going to debunk it again because UFO enthusiasts keep repeating it.

Debunking the Supposed Lincoln-Kennedy Connection

When I was in AP US History during my sophomore year of high school, my teacher had a poster on her wall at the back of the classroom that listed “astonishing” similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Similar claims about the alleged similarities between the two presidents are widely circulated on the internet, where they are often presented as evidence of some kind of mystical connection.

At the time when I first read that poster, I was astonished and a bit creeped out by the similarities. Now, though, I realize that many of the alleged similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy are entirely fabricated and that even the genuine similarities between them are extremely superficial.

Here is a thorough debunking of the supposed Lincoln-Kennedy connection. Popular claims associated with the urban legend are written in blockquotes and are followed by in-depth replies. Claims are organized loosely in chronological order of the events they pertain to.

Why Are Ghosts Depicted Wearing Bedsheets?

We are all familiar with the traditional “bedsheet ghost,” but have you ever wondered where this image comes from? Why on Earth do we imagine ghosts wearing bedsheets? As strange as it sounds, the history of the Halloween bedsheet ghost is far darker and more mysterious than most people probably realize.

Who Were the Green Children of Woolpit?

The story of the so-called “Green Children of Woolpit” is one of the strangest stories that has come out of medieval England. It is the story of two children, a boy and a girl, with green skin who were, according to two chroniclers writing independently, discovered outside the village of Woolpit in around the middle of the twelfth century. Although all kinds of bizarre explanations have been proposed, I think that the most mundane explanation is probably the most likely.