Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady by Heddy Johannesen

Halloween Haunts: Helen Creighton: The Ghost Lady

by Heddy Johannesen

Helen Creighton was a celebrated folklorist, author, and pioneer researcher. She is best known for her book Bluenose Ghosts about firsthand accounts of spine-chilling tales. Creighton excelled at collecting local folk ballads, folk tales and ghost stories. She is also known for her skill at collecting local dances, games, cures and proverbs.
She was born with a caul. A person born with a caul will have a warning before danger. This proved true when Creighton explored the province in search of folk tales. One night she stayed at an inn the night before the Miramichi Folk Festival and had a dream of a child coming towards her. The next day a deer jumped in front of her car on the highway. She would have several of these portentous experiences including her own doppelganger warning her of danger. It made her the perfect person to lend an empathetic ear to those sharing their own experiences.

Because Creighton encountered their stories with a sense of empathy, people trusted her and felt comfortable opening up to her about their tales, customs and ghost stories. An elderly man once told her, “You’ve got a way with you; you’d bewitch the devil.”

The blurb for Bluenose Ghosts reads: “Haunted houses, headless ghosts, phantom ships, supernatural warnings of death – these are just some of the unexplainable and mysterious phenomena that appear in Bluenose Ghosts. Written in a personable and accessible style by celebrated folklorist Helen Creighton, Bluenose Ghosts is based on the experiences of ordinary people as told to the author over a period of thirty years. These chilling stories come from across the Maritimes – the Highlands of Cape Breton, the woods of New Brunswick, and the harbours around Halifax. First published in 1957, Bluenose Ghosts is a classic of Nova Scotia folklore presented here in a new format and with a foreword from Clary Croft.”

Her career as a folk tales and songs collector spanned forty years. Her celebrated book Bluenose Ghosts focuses on true ghost stories, superstition, witchcraft and buried treasure. She recorded first-hand accounts from the people she interviewed and did her utmost best to maintain their authenticity. She was a collector of tales, not an analyzer, and she received an unfair amount of criticism for that. Creighton collected the folk tales with no intention of analyzing them. That made her stand out from her colleagues and is what was so unique about her.

She took painstaking care to record the folk songs that she collected. She had limited means to work with as she transcribed her work. Over time, Creighton met people who would assist her in accurately transcribing and preserving her work.

It happened by chance that Creighton began collecting local ghost stories. She originally set out to gather folk tales and songs. Bluenose Ghosts is chilling because the scary accounts are from real, everyday people. That is what gives her book so much appeal. The scary experiences are shared by people who have no reason to lie and know how to tell a tale. I dare you to read it at night with the lights on.

Creighton was often found carrying a meter long melodeon in a wheelbarrow when she visited people. She used a tape recorder when it was invented ten years later.  Creighton worked tirelessly to collect four thousand folk songs and tales of eerie spectral encounters. It demonstrates her immense respect for what ordinary men and women had to say. She was determined to preserve their tales to keep them from disappearing in the mists of history.

Creighton may have recorded thousands of folk tales, ghost stories and songs. Yet it was the voices of those she interviewed that shone in the books and tapes. She never got in their way or tampered with their words. She was given the nickname the Ghost Lady by those she interviewed.

Here is an unsettling excerpt from the book: “An East Chester woman said, “My uncle was a contractor, and when I was fifteen, he and I were going home to Mahone Bay from Western Shore. When we were in the woods I heard a horse and it seemed to be so close that I could almost feel its breath. I looked around and what I saw was a horse all right, but there was a man sitting on it with no head. My uncle didn’t see it, and I was too scared to speak until we got home and then all he said was, ‘That’s nothing. Lots of people have seen that horse and rider.’ Since then I have asked many people but nobody seems to know who the rider is supposed to be.”

A headless ghost and his horse, top that. That is one of many chilling tales from regular people simply sharing their stories. This is why I love the book and why it spooks me.

Here’s a second excerpt about a sea captain, the devil and a set of playing cards:

“They were his own cards anyway, so he put them in his sea chest and locked them up. “That night he was awakened from his sleep and was surprised to see a man sitting on his sea chest. He was dealing cards, and he dealt four hands. Then the stranger saw that the captain was awake and asked him to sit in and have a game with him. Before he could make up his mind he looked at the man’s feet and saw the cloven hoof. He screamed and the stranger disappeared, and that was why he would have nothing more to do with playing cards.”

The excerpts above demonstrate how spine tingling the book is. No other book compares to Bluenose Ghosts. I highly recommend the book to anyone who craves a salty maritime ghost story.

Creighton left Canadians with a trove of rich folklore. She ‘still hasn’t been matched”. Her style and approach were considered unconventional. “Horace Beck wrote (that), “Perhaps your most important achievement is that you have done something no one else has been able to do in North America. You have brought folklore to national and public attention and given it a status in Canada it has never achieved in the United States. This you have done most singlehandedly and for this all folklorists must be forever grateful.””

Helen Creighton left a legacy to those who are passionate about ghost stories and the paranormal. She was a true pioneer. When Helen Creighton began her career, she was untrained and inexperienced but that didn’t stop her.

“Over the course of her career, Creighton collected over 60,000 materials including 4,000 songs and ballads. She authored thirteen books of traditional songs, ballads and stories, of which her Bluenose Ghosts is the most widely known. She also wrote an autobiography, and a number of articles. She received many awards, including Distinguished Folklorist of 1981 (Canada); six honorary doctorates; Fellow of the American Folklore Society, Honorary Life President of the Canadian Authors’ Association; and The Order of Canada. Helen was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 by Folk Alliance International. In 2018, Parks Canada designated Helen Creighton a nationally significant person who helped define Canada’s history.” The collection of her life’s work now resides at the Nova Scotia Public Archives.

I want the world to know about her.

Heddy Johannesen is a conjuror of Gothic Fiction. She’s a writer with a fascination for the paranormal and has written for many horror magazines such as The Horror Zine, Polar Borealis, Handbook of the Dead, The Feminine Macabre, Paranormal Chronicles, Untimely Frost, Samhain Secrets, One Night in Salem, Wax & Wane: A Gathering of Witchy Tales and Horror Novel Reviews: One Hellacious Halloween. Heddy Johannesen has 14 years of experience as a freelance writer and successfully graduated from an online Copyediting Certification course through Writer’s Digest University. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association and attended the virtual Horror Writers Association StokerCon writing convention in 2021, 2022 and 2023.