Did you know a ghost is said to exist in Japan that drags you to hell through a toilet?
Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia! My name is Kelly and today's video, in honour of
Halloween and the spooky season, we're going to have a look at some of the stories and legends
about ghosts from around the world. Don't forget, the easiest way to support us is by giving this
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The belief in an afterlife was a common feature in all historical civilisations
and this encouraged the belief in ghosts as the spirits of the departed who had returned to the
realm of the living for one reason or another. Although the details of the afterlife differed
from culture to culture, they all believed that the souls of the dead should stay in their realm
unless given specific permission by the gods to return. The reasons a soul might be allowed to
leave their realm included resolution of some unfinished business, revealing some important
information like the name of their killer or location of a will or their unburied body,
improper or disrespectful burial rights, not being buried at all due to neglect by the family,
or an inability to rest in peace because they were no longer properly honoured; their tomb had become
neglected, or in some cases, because of some crime they had committed and they were forced to atone
for or self-condemned to repeat. It was generally considered a bad sign if a ghost turned up and the
person who encountered the ghost would be expected to take care of the problem so the spirit could
return to its own realm. Now that you know the basic beliefs of ghosts in the ancient world,
let's have a look at some of the ghost stories that have come down to us.
Let's start off with what is known as an Egyptian ghost story or "Khonsemhab
and the Ghost." The story dates to the late New Kingdom between circa 1570 and 1069 BCE,
and it was found on fragments of ostraca, which are shards of pottery with writing on them.
After a fragmentary introduction, the story begins with Khonsemhab, the High Priest of Amun returning
to his house and calling upon a spirit he has met to identify himself. The ghost reveals himself as
Nebusemekh who was a lieutenant in the army and the overseer of the treasury of King Mentuhotep.
Nebusemekh tells Khonsemhab that his tomb has fallen, no one remembers where he is buried and
the proper offerings are no longer brought to him. Nebusemekh says he is exposed in the wintry wind,
hungry without food and he is worried he will cease to exist because he is no longer remembered.
Khonsemhab says that he will do everything he can to build Nebusemekh a new sepulcher, but the ghost
is sceptical because four other people have made the same promise to no avail and it seems that
Khonsemhab does not have the resources available to provide him with the tomb he once had.
Nebusemekh disappears but Khonsemhab does not forget his promise and sends men out to find
the ruined tomb. When they returned to Khonsemhab with the news that they found it, they celebrated
and Khonsemhab summoned an official to tell him news of the project. The story ends with the line
"he returned in the evening to sleep in the Ne and he..." but the rest of the tale is lost.
Ne is the necropolis at Thebes and it's thought that Khonsemhab returns to where he was at the
beginning of the tale which is fragmentary, to tell Nebusemekh the news of his new home.
Our next story comes from a Chinese book of stories dating to 1680 CE: the story of Ning
Caicheng and Nie Xiaoqian, although the story is thought to be much older. In the story,
Ning visits a temple where he is met by the ghost of the maiden Nie. She tries to seduce
him but she fails as he resists her through his practice of virtuous conduct. The next morning,
two other travellers who visited the temple are found dead with holes in the soles of their feet
drained of blood. Nie respected Ning's virtue in resisting her so she tells him how she died in the
temple at only 18 years old, but because she was buried in an area where a monster demon reigned,
she was under his control. She was made to seduce travellers and drain their blood in
order to feed the monster demon. Ning digs up the bones of Nie and reburies her near his house
performing libations as a sign of honour and respect.
Because of Ning's virtue and his efforts in giving her the proper funerary rights,
Nie is brought back to life and they marry, have kids and live happily ever after.
La Llorona is a spirit deeply embedded in the folklore and culture of Mexico,
with her name translating to 'the weeping woman.' She is described as a beautiful woman with long
dark hair and a tattered white dress who haunts bodies of water, wailing and dragging children
to their watery deaths. There are a number of regional origin stories for La Llorona,
but the most popular is that a peasant woman named Maria fell in love with a noble and had
two children with him, however, her husband didn't appreciate all Maria did for him.
He returned to his old ways of drinking and flirting and one night she spotted him kissing
another woman. In a fit of rage, she grabbed her children and drowned them in the river and then
let herself be drowned too. Her restless spirit stayed on earth, wailing for her children and
luring other living children to be drowned. La Llorona is an example of the water spirit,
or water demon, who appears in many different cultures and snatches children for their own
reasons. In the case of La Llorona, she seems to be a self-condemned spirit, forever searching for
the children she murdered while killing others she mistakes for her own, over and over again.
Of the most famous sites in India that is believed to be haunted is Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan,
whose legend begins when the city was built in the 1500s Mughal Empire. It was a prosperous city
until a nearby hermit cursed it; in one version, the hermit was a wise man who gave his blessing to
the building of the city, as long as they didn't build houses so high that they cast a shadow onto
his hillside home. The original builders accepted his condition but later it was forgotten and
the palace was built so high it loomed over the hermit's house, casting it in shadow. The hermit
cursed the city for their lack of consideration and the upper floors of the buildings were
destroyed in a single night. Anyone who survived left Bhangarh Fort and built a new city nearby.
The other version of the story involves the evil wizard Baba Balak Nath who was in love with the
beautiful princess Ratnavati, but he knew she would never love him back. To fix his problem,
the wizard concocted a love potion that would attract the princess to him and disguised it
as a perfume which he presented to her in the market one day. The princess had a suspicion
that it wasn't just perfume so she tipped it on a boulder which was then magically drawn to
the wizard and crushed him. As he was dying, the wizard cursed the princess and the city
and he swore that no one would live inside its walls afterwards. So in one night,
the city was deserted and never inhabited by the living again. It is still believed that
the dead reside in Bhangarh Fort and there are claims of voices, disembodied laughter
and footsteps in its ruins. The Indian government has declared the site off-limits between dusk and
dawn because of reports of people disappearing there and allegedly being taken by ghosts.
A classic story comes from Pliny the Younger, who lived between 61 and 115 CE, and tells the
story of Athenodorus who comes to Athens and hears that there's a house being rented out for
cheap because everyone is so afraid of the ghost who haunts it. Athenodorus rents the house and on
the first night in the haunted house, he hears the rattling of chains and wakes to find a man
in his room who motions for Athenodorus to rise and follow him, so then Athenodorus gets up and
follows the ghost to a spot in the house's courtyard where the spirit just vanishes.
The next day, Athenodorus has the city's magistrate dig where the ghost led him,
and the body of a man wrapped in chains is found. After the body is reburied with
proper funerary rights, the house is haunted no longer. Pliny's story epitomises the ghost with
a mission theme where a spirit returns to demand proper burial of its corpse.
Moving now to Rome, we have the tale of Tlepolemus' ghost which is the same sort of tale,
except here the ghost with a mission returns to identify its murderer. The story begins when a
man named Thrasyllus murders his best friend Tlepolemus while they were out hunting because
he's fallen in love with Tlepolemus' wife. The spirit of Tlepolemus appears in his wife's dreams
and tells her how he was murdered and by whom and asks that she avenge him. Thrasyllus had asked to
let Tlepolemus' widow if he could court her but she declined saying that she was still in mourning
over her husband. He asks again and now after her dream, she says that he can come and visit her
that night. When he arrives, she offers him wine which she has drugged and he falls unconscious.
She uses her hairpin to blind him, saying that death is too easy a punishment and now he has to
wander through life without eyes, as blind now physically as he was before spiritually when
he killed her husband. She then runs to her husband's tomb, tells everyone of Thrasyllus'
crime and kills herself with a sword. Thrasyllus then seals himself up into Tlepolemus tomb
and dies of starvation. This story epitomises the concept of justice from beyond the grave, which
some ghosts were thought to administer, especially the ghost of a loved one who appeared in a dream.
Modern-day ghost stories follow the same model as those of the past in which a spirit returns to
right a wrong, avenge its death or harm the living because of how the person died, which has made it
impossible to rest in peace. A well-known ghost story in modern-day Japan is that of Hanako-san or
Toire no Hanako-san, which translates to "Hanako of the Toilet," who is believed to haunt the
third toilet stall on the third floor of school bathrooms. Hanako-san is described as a young
girl with a black bob and wearing a school uniform with a red skirt. One origin story for Hanako-san
is during World War II; a bomb was dropped while she was in the bathroom and she was killed, and
now she haunts school bathrooms, caught between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Other origin stories for Hanako-san are that she was killed by an abusive parent or stranger in
a toilet, or that she committed suicide in a bathroom. Much like the legend of Bloody Mary,
popular in the west, where you summon Mary's spirit in a bathroom, Hanako-san is said to
appear if you knock on the door of her stall three times while saying her name and then asking if she
is there. If she is, she will reply and depending on the story, sometimes a ghostly or bloody hand
will appear or Hanako-san herself will appear and drag you into the toilet, which may lead to hell.
This figure like Bloody Mary is especially interesting in that the living must summon
the spirit which then injures or kills them. The threat of physical or spiritual harm or even death
is a major aspect of these figures and others, such as Midnight Man, and is regarded as an
expression of people's fear of ghosts and the unknown, coupled with their desire to interact
with the afterlife; to have proof of life after death which is the primary purpose the figure
of the ghost has offered the living throughout recorded history. Do you have a favourite ghost
story? Let us know in the comments below! If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs
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