The Paranormal Leadership Award

Recently, the wonderful Courtney Mroch presented me with a paranormal leadership award.  I am deeply honored that she thought of me for this award.  I was also honored to be included in a group with Ghost Theories, Ghost Eyes, and The Weekly Specter.  You should stop by www.hauntjaunt.net/blog/ to see the rest of the wonderful blogs on Courtney's list.  Although there were no rules or expectations connected with this award,  I wanted to pass it on to some of my favorite  paranormal bloggers out there.  I have many favorite blogs but these are my favorite paranormal blogs!

1. Ghost Stories: This wonderful site includes ghost stories, haunted places, and reviews of all books and movies etc that are associated with the paranormal.  It is a wonderful blog!  http://paranormalstories.blogspot.com/

2.  Southern Spirit Guide:  This blog is amazingly well researched and explores haunted locations in the South.  http://southernspiritguide.blogspot.com/

3.Above the Norm:  This beautiful blog features some of the best photographs of haunted locations on the Internet.  If a picture says a thousand words, this blog is an epic.  http://above-the-norm.blogspot.com/

4.  Parnormel:  This blogger tells her own ghost stories and they can be absolutely chilling.  She also does posts on famous haunts  http://paranormel.blogspot.com/

5.  Haunt Jaunts:   It wouldn't be a list of my favorite blogs if I didn't include Courtney of Haunt Jaunts.  Her blog is definitely on of the top paranormal blogs on the Internet.  www.hauntjaunts.net/blog/

6  The Weekly Specter:  This award started with the Weekly Specter and I'm sending it back.  This is definitely  a blog worth reading.  Sadly the blog will be shutting down so this is my farewell to one of my favorite blogs.  I'll miss reading your posts!

The Lost Lovers of the Eiffel Tower

It is appropriate that I end my week of French hauntings with the most famous location in France.   Whenever you think of France,  this is the first structure that comes to mind.   The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of France.   It can be seen in every souvenir shop in Paris in miniature.   If you know nothing else about France, you know the Eiffel Tower.  The Eiffel tower is one of the most recognizable structures in the world .  It was built for built for the 1889 world fair and was a marvel of modern engineering.  It awed visitors of the fair and became the golden mean to be met by all world's fairs to come.  At the time of its completion,  the tower was the tallest man made structure in the world.

It is not surprising that legend speaks of the Eiffel Tower being haunted.  Legends cling to historically ssignificant locations like moss on a rock.   The legend of the ghost of the Eiffel Tower is a sad one.   According to legend,  a young couple once met atop this romantic tower.  They met at the Eiffel Tower set on singular purposes. But, sadly, their purposes were divided.  The young woman was determined to end her relationship with her lover and thought that the beauty of the view from the tower might soften the blow.  The young man was taking his belle to the tower to propose marriage.  So the two ill fated lovers met atop the tower and declared their purposes.   The young man didn't take it well and became enraged.  Perhaps his temper was part of the reason the young woman didn't want to marry him.  He became so enraged that he gave his belle an ultimatum.  He told her that if she didn't marry him, he would kill her.  The young woman was set.  She would never marry him.  He gave her one last chance and offered to spare her life if she would consent to marry him.  The woman stood firm.

The young man pushed his belle from the top of the tower, ending her life.  It is said that the young woman still haunts the Eiffel Tower.   Her laughter can be heard atop of the breath taking structure and sometimes it is accompanied by her scream.

The Chateau De Saumur and the Ghost of the Marquis de Sade

The Chateau De Saumur is a hauntingly beautiful and very haunted castled nestled in the historic Loire Valley of France.  The Chateau De Saumur  was built in the 10th century by Thibault le Tricheur the Comte de Blois.  The castle was completely destroyed in battle in 1076.  Henry II  Of England rebuilt the castle in 12th century.  Phillip II of France retook the castle as part of France in the 13th century.  The castle seems to be tightly tied to France's turbulent history.  It witnessed the wars between England in France and changed hands many times. In 1589 the castle fell into the hands of King Henry de Navarre, a critical figure in the French wars of religion and the first Protestant king of France. 

In 1621 the castle was turned into an army barracks and  later  into a prison.   It would house many notourious figures.   The most notorious figure to live in The Chateau De Saumur was the Marquis de Sade.   The Marquis de Sade is most known for his writings in which he wrote about the link between sexual gratification, torture, and pain.  His name is the origin of the word sadism.  The Marquis spent most of his life in prison.  He was inprisoned for his disturbing writings, but continued to write in prison.  He was inprisoned in many asylums and prisons throughout France during the 32 yrs he was incarcerated but his ghost is thought to linger at Chateau De Saumur.    I have been unable to find any real information on the nature of the haunting at the Chateau, but I was intrigued by any haunting that involves De Sade, a man whose cruelty is legendary.

The Chateau itself is quite lovely.  It is one of many beautiful castles in the Loire Valley and has been turned into a museum dedicated to horses.  I missed this lovely castle in my tour of the Loire Valley, but I will look for it next time.  De Sade's ghost isn't something I would want to miss.

The Ghosts of Notre Dame

Notre Dame is probably one of the most famous cathedrals in the world.  It took over 200 years to built and was one of the first Gothic cathedrals to feature flying buttresses.  It has witnessed the ebb and flow of history for almost a millenia.   During the French Revolution it was desecrated.  It witnessed both world wars and many other wars.   It is said to house the ghosts of kings and many great men.   As soon as you walk in front of the doors of the great old Cathedral you can almost feel the eyes of the cathedral itself staring at you.  Stone faces carved into the door look down at you with haunting eyes.

The Cathedral was restored in the 19th century and today is one of the most striking structures in Paris.  From the gargoyles that sit on top of the building looking out with their cold stone glare to the famous rose window within the church walking through the cathedral is like walking through living breathing art.   It is also like walking though history. Coils of history are twisted within the walls of Notre Dame and pictures taken here are often thick with the ghosts of those that have walked through her sacred walls.  Notre Dame is called one of the ten most haunted places in France and it is certainly the most haunting.  Out of the many buildings I saw in France, this is probably the most extraordinarily beautiful buildings I walked through.

A little back-and-forth with a Phisherman

From: My email address
Subject: Re: Why havent you contacted me ?
Date: November 9, 2010 10:13:48 AM PST
To: Robert Watts



On Nov 8, 2010, at 4:59 AM, Watts, Robert wrote:

Why havent you responded to my previous email? This is my last notice to you,so when you get this...i expect you to call me immediately or send an email directly to my private email address .



Edward Fitzgerald QC (Esq)
1 Crown Office Row, Temple, London EC4Y 7HH
Tel: +44-79-88-80-212.
Private Email : edwardfitzgerald.3@gmail.com

My Response

Gee whiz, Edward, you sure sound wound up. Weather on the islands getting you down? Did you not get the fruit cake basket that I sent last Christmas? I didn't even get a card from you! Now, I expect you to email me immediately at my private address you indignant, bloody barmy, codger.

A Week at the Haunting Chateau Larcher

I am revisiting this old post again as part of my week of France. I love to travel and I love to rent houses when I travel. I avoid hotels when possible and look for rare and interesting places to stay. When I went to France, I found an old medieval castle that had been broken up into 4 town houses. I was able to rent one portion of this castle. The castle, Chateau Larcher, was a bit of a mystery and still is. I travelled during the off season and the small village's tourist information center had been closed, so I was never able to learn much about the history of the castle. I read the plaque by the Cathedral which dated the Cathedral built into the church at around 980 and the castle itself wasn't finished until 1070. Outside of this, I found nothing to denote the castle's origins. It was located in the Poiters region of France just South of the Loire valley and would have been in Aquitaine during it's highest uses. The location of the castle must have been a sacred place at one time because the area is also known for it's dolmen. These are the types of rock arrangements that have been made most famous by Stonehenge. They are usually places in a sacred or important location.

Staying in the castle was wonderful. I loved it and I snuck away every evening to walk in the dark. One time I enlisted help to break into a roped off section of the castle and sneak around. The castle was mostly ruins and in the night as I wandered alone, I found myself chilled. There is nothing tangible I can use to prove that this castle was haunted. There was only a profound feeling that I was not alone. As I have little else to offer, I have posted pictures of the castle.  If you saw my first post on this castle,  the pictures are different from the first posting.  I have hundreds of these pictures.  T

The Poltergeist of Calvados Castle

Calvados Castle is located in Normandy in the north of France.  The castle is relatively new as far as castles go.  Especially as far as French castles go.  In France, if a castle is less than three hundred years old it seems new compared to the medieval ruins that pepper the landscape.   Calvados Castle was build in 1835.  It was built on top of some ruins that have never been described.  Perhaps this was the source of the problem because between 1875- 1876 the castle endured one of the longest sustained poltergeist occurrences ever recorded.

The family involved in this poltergeist activity requested to be left out of the stories and so I have been able to find their names and they are often referred to X.  They inherited the castle in 1865.  The haunting started without subtlety.  On the first night, objects flew around the rooms,  there were bangings on the doors and a monstrous boom filled the quite halls of the castle.  The banging on the walls continued nightly for three months.   One of the worst events occurred during a terrible rainstorm.   The entire family was awoken by a screaming woman.  The servants helped Monsieur X find the woman who seemed to be in peril, but no one was found.  The screams seemed to be coming from a room that is known as the green room and is said to be the most haunted room in the castle.  Every night the screams became worse and worse.  In fact, the poltergeist activity in general seemed to get worse as time progressed.  It heaped books in the study.  Madam X reported hearing noises like a bull bellowing while her husband was away.   It was particularly active in the children's room where beds were turned over  and toys were thrown across the room. At the peak of the haunting, as it was recorded, the ghost played the locked organ, knocked over furniture and sent water down the chimney, scattering the lit coals in the face of the children's tutor.

Finally,  in January the family couldn't take it any longer.   They called upon the parish priest to perform an exorcism.  It was a long night and those that witnessed the exorcism described a male voice taunting the castle's occupants during the exorcism.  The exorcism peaked around 11:45 pm.  Those who were there  describe screaming and banging and when the last rites of the ritual were performed they say that a demon cried out in what sounded like agony.   The haunting was over and there have been no reports of incidents since that time.