Friday 13 July 2012

Great feedback from tonight's sold out "Ghosts of Signal Hill" performance


The show this evening generated a few comments on Twitter:

Amelia ‏@nutmeg74
@DaleJarvis: Ghosts of Signal Hill is the best of @SJHauntedHike, especially the ambiance inside the Queen's Battery. Awesome job tonight!

Rhonda McMeekin ‏@rhondamcmeekin
Amazing time at Ghosts of Signal Hill! @DaleJarvis never disappoints!

Thanks! If you haven't seen the show, advance tickets are available from the Signal Hill Visitor Centre on Signal Hill Road. The show runs every Friday and Saturday evening at 8pm till September 15th, which just happens to be the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Signal Hill.



Carved by the Sea - Storytelling and Traditional Music in Bay Roberts, this Sunday



Carved by the Sea - Storytelling and Traditional Music in Bay Roberts
Sunday, July 15, 2012, 2pm 

As part of the Holdin' Ground Festival in Bay Roberts, the Bay Roberts Cultural Foundation presents "Carved by the Sea - Storytelling and Traditional Music" with UK storyteller Red Phoenix, performing along with local musicians, at the Bay Roberts Tourism Pavilion, on the Veteran's Memorial Highway, Sunday July 15th. 2pm.

Terrie Howey, better known as storyteller Red Phoenix, has been performing and facilitating performance workshops since 1992, and has been the Artistic Director of Red Phoenix Storytelling and Productions since its founding in 2007. Terrie founded Red Phoenix Storytelling and Productions to share her love of storytelling and make it more accessible to a wider range of audiences, whilst supporting and developing up and coming tellers.

Terrie is an Arts Award Advisor for Trinity College London, an international initiative for young people 7 - 25yrs to gain qualifications and gain experience in the arts. Terrie’s career has led her to perform and lead workshops all over the world, and she creates her own original tales as well as researching and drawing from historical sources.

Check out her website at http://www.redphoenixstory.co.uk

Tuesday 10 July 2012

The Lady in Blue - A Fairy Story from Spaniard's Bay



Near Seymours Road, in Spaniard’s Bay, off in a field, away from the road, there was once an old stone walkway. Part of the path was lost when new houses were constructed along the road, but the sections further out still exist, known to those who grew up in the area.

One of those locals is Sheena Butler, who has an interest in local stories of the unexplained. According to Butler, that track up behind Seymours Road goes by the name of “The Fairy Path.”

Around 2000, Butler and some friends went out picking berries.

“We were picking partridge berries just in the field across from my house,” says Butler. “It was just a stone path that was called the fairy path. I don’t know why it was called the fairy path, it is just what it has always been called.”

The berry-pickers looked up, and there, a fair distance off, they saw a woman.

“She was dressed all in blue,” remembers Butler. “She was an older woman; she had on a blue dress. She was also picking berries.”

The woman was far away, but they could tell she was an older woman with greying hair. She had on something that resembled an old sundress.

“Are there any good berries up there?” they yelled out to the woman.

“She never answered, she never looked, she just went on doing her own thing,” says Butler.

A moment later, the woman straightened up somewhat, and struggled up over the hill.

“It honestly looked like she had a bad back,” recalls Butler. “She was hunched over, and when she stood up, she didn’t stand up straight, she had that hunch.”

“We said, ‘let’s go see what she was looking at’ and we went up over the hill,” says Butler.

When they got up over the hill, there was not a soul to be seen.

“It was as if we had been talking to nobody,” says Butler. “She went up over the hill, and we never saw her after.”

Locals called her “The Lady in Blue” and the berry-pickers that day were not the first to see her.

“She has always been around the fairy path,” explains Butler. “We don’t know her name, we don’t know where she came from, but she is there.”

Other people have had strange experiences along the fairy path. One dark night, around the time the berry-pickers met the Lady in Blue, another group went out along the path. They took a candle, and were sitting around, telling stories.

The candle started to flicker, and then went out. Thinking it was just a breeze, the friends lit the candle once more, only to have it go out a second time. Then, they heard movement in the bushes behind them, off to one side.

The movement stopped. Then, on the opposite of the storytellers, there was a movement in those bushes. Listening, the group then heard what sounded like creepy, eerie laughter off in the bushes.

The friends took off back to the safety of their houses, leaving the darkened path to its fairy owners.

If you have heard a similar story from Spaniard’s Bay, or know of another Newfoundland and Labrador location that is fairy-haunted, email me at info@hauntedhike.com

(photo courtesy Frank Kovalchek / CC BY)