Deep within the folklore and mythology of the indigenous peoples of North America lies a chilling and haunting creature known as the Wendigo. With its origins rooted in Algonquian legends, the Wendigo has captivated the imaginations of people for centuries. In this blog, we will delve into the spine-tingling lore surrounding the Wendigo, exploring its origins, characteristics, and enduring significance.
The legend of the Wendigo originates from the beliefs and stories of various Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Ojibwe, Cree, and Innu peoples. According to the lore, the Wendigo is a malevolent spirit or creature associated with winter, famine, and cannibalism. It is said to be born from the darkest recesses of human desperation and the consuming hunger for survival.
Characteristics and Appearance:
Described as a gaunt and emaciated creature, the Wendigo is often depicted as towering in height with elongated limbs and a skeletal frame. Its skin is pale and stretched tautly over its bones, while its eyes glow with a fierce and ravenous hunger. The Wendigo is often associated with the frigid winter wilderness, lurking in the forests and preying upon unsuspecting individuals who venture too close.
The most prominent characteristic of the Wendigo is its insatiable appetite for human flesh. In legend, it is believed that those who resort to cannibalism in desperate times invite the transformation into a Wendigo, forever cursed with an unquenchable hunger. The creature is said to possess an endless craving for human flesh, driving it to hunt and devour its victims relentlessly.
Symbolism and Cultural Significance:
Beyond its terrifying nature, the Wendigo holds deep symbolic meaning within indigenous cultures. It represents the consequences of greed, excess, and the imbalance between humanity and nature. The Wendigo serves as a cautionary tale, reminding individuals of the dangers of succumbing to their darkest desires and losing touch with their own humanity.
Tucked away in the northern reaches of Lake Michigan, approximately 16 miles west of leland, Michigan, South Manitou Island stands as a serene oasis of natural beauty. With its lush forests, towering sand dunes, and pristine beaches, it has long been a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers. The Island is uninhabited and can be accesses by ferry dervice from Leland. The Island was originally settled in 1830s by William Burton. The Island became popular in 19th century as a harbor and fuelling station. A lighthouse was also constructed in 1839 as it became one of the most important route.
The island is now a park of National park service and guided tours are provided for people interested in visiting the island.
The castle was built in an area of forests, swamps and mountains with no external fortifications, no source of water except for a cistern to collect rainwater.
Houska Castle is located 47 km away from Prague. It is a gothic castle built during the later half of the 13th century by Ottokar II of Bohemia. It used to serve as an administration center from which the extensive royal estates could be managed. After his death the castle had many owners frequently passing on from one owner to another. In the middle 1600s the castle’s tower, moat and other defenses were dismantled as part of a decree issued by Emperor Ferdinand III to make private castles more accessible and less defensable. It underwent renaissance style modifications during that period.
During the 18th century, the castle fell into disrepair and was renovated again after which it was sold to Princess Hohenlohe in 1897 and later in 1924 to the President of Škoda, Josef Šimonek. As of 2020, it was owned by his descendants.
The castle has a very unclear history and although it has stood empty for the majority of its existence many disputed personalities have taken up residence inside the castle albeit for a time being. The castle was built in an area which is still not easy to reach and historically the forests were even denser. There were swamps, mountains and no source of water except for a cistern that used to collect rainwater. There was no kitchen for food, the windows on the outside of the castle were all fake and perhaps the most curious thing of the castle was that most of the defences of the castle were not facing outward rather they were facing inward towards the courtyard of the castle as if it was built to protect the outside world from the enemy that was inside. So what was the purpose of the castle?
The evidence has revealed that the site used to be a Celtic inhabitation during the 6th century. It is also said that on top of the limestone cliff where the castle now stands, there used to be a hole on the ground. It was so deep that nobody knew about the end of it. The local residents were scared of the hole as they had witnessed strange hybrid creatures crawling out of the hole. These creatures used to kill their livestock and anyone they believed that anyone that would go near the hole would either be killed or they would also be converted into the same animal-human hybrid.
The locals tried to fill the hole with stones but no matter how many stones they threw in there they would make no progress at all. It is believed that the castle was built to cover the hole and to keep everything that comes out of the hole within the castle. During the construction of the castle the prisoners that were sentenced to death were told that they would be fully pardoned if they agreed to be lowered down into the hole and report back about the inside. The first prisoner was lowered inside the hole. At the beginning there was no sound as the prisoner had been lowered down pretty deep, but soon he started screaming and was pulled back up where everyone was shocked to see an older person instead of the young man. The man had reportedly aged 30 years in just a few seconds. The prisoner went mad and reportedly died several days later. Over the years many such experiments were conducted but with the same results. For years the castle stood empty and locals would still see winged creatures flying inside the castle. People believed that the hole was a gateway to hell and the creatures have come from the dark pit itself.
Occult inspired German SS during the Nazi occupation took over the castle. It is not known why they would choose a place with no strategic importance to reside in. The locals believed that they conducted experiments related to the occult at the castle. However no such evidence was found in the castle as all the documents were destroyed.
The castle is open to the public for tours. You would think after all these years the supernatural would have subsided but that’s not the case. People still feel a sense of dread while entering the castle. According to many after visiting the castle people had extremely bad personal luck. People have seen multiple shadow figures as well as a headless ghost roaming around the courtyard. According to the Prague Tourism web site, the castle is reputed to have various types of ghosts, “a bullfrog/human creature, a headless horse, and an old woman” as well as the remains of “demonic beasts who escaped the pit”. Many people have also heard scratching sounds coming from the hole. People have witnessed different types of paranormal phenomena in the castle. There are so many theories but nobody can tell how many of these theories are true.
This one is a bit more personal to me, but growing up my mom and I always made an effort to go to the beach every Friday afternoon.
When it got too dark to be in the water, we would make our way to the park that was right next to the beach.
On some Fridays, we would just chill on one of the slides and look at the stars. One day I saw this light spinning around and remember asking my mom what it was.
She told me that it was a lighthouse, and that it’s used at night to stop ships from crashing into the shore.
I remember this vividly because it was kind of like my gateway into hyperfixating on sunken and shipwrecked ships.
Years later, over a decade (so this was probably in the mid to late 2000s), got back into lighthouses. I go online to see if this lighthouse that saw was still in commission, and I can’t find any traces of it.
So I ask my mom, and apparently this conversation we had never took place according to her. I insist, and finally she’s like “idk babes, probably forgot”
So I go looking deeper, and apparently there was never a lighthouse where thought it was.
To this day it fucks me up, because I KNOW what I saw, I KNOW what we talked about.
I don’t know if it counts, but I had a favorite orange t-shirt and I haven’t seen it in years. Asked my mom if she knows anything about it and described the drawings on it. She went “You mean the turquoise one? It’s in x drawer” I fought her a while about it and finally went to check the said drawer and there it was, my favorite “orange” shirt in all its turquoise glory
r/SteveJones313
Honestly not even the famous ones, more like shit in my town changing. Small stuff, but infuriating.
For example, near one of the shops where me and my brother would go for walks were these weird pillars, the small kind you’d put up to prevent cars from driving through. Well there’d be days where they’re not there and no one I ask remembers them being there. Then there are days when they’re there and when I ask about them I get the whole “they’ve always been there.”
It’s one of the few MEs I’ve experienced in this town.
I’m an amateur astronomer, and the book in our astronomy club library that causes the most controversy is one about bright comets of the last few decades
A comet bright enough to see from the city happens about once a decade on average. And a lot of people saw one in the sky when they were kids or in their teens, and then years later they ask about it. And so the book comes out and they look through it and check the year and go ‘that’s not right’. Because they remember seeing the comet when they were in middle school, when in reality it was when they were in high school, or vice versa.
r/nfms_ginger21
The fact that shaggy doesn’t have a protruding Adam’s apple
Edit: holy shit I did not expect this to blow up as much as it did.
The one that always gets me is particular to my friends and I from when we were kids. There was a creek that ran under the street in the neighborhood and we would sometimes hang out in the banks on either side of the road. There was this big rock that we would sit on all the time. Except one day we were walking by and it wasn’t a rock. It was a small tree. Fully rooted in and established and the rock was no where to be seen. Mind you, it was an extremely heavy boulder. We passed that spot all the time and all of us remember that rock. We call it the shapeshifting rock.
r/rest explorer
Ok ok hear me out.
First of all: in Brazil you tipically don’t go to school (middle school or high school, doesn’t matter) for the whole day. You are in school either in the morning (usually 7.30 am to noon) or in the afternoon (usually 1pm to 5.30pm).
Every single person who was a kid in Brazil (and was not ir school in the mornings) when 9/11 happened remembers watching Dragon Ball Z and having it be interrupted for the breaking news of the attacks. And I mean EVERYONE. It comes up every time someone asks “what were you doing when 9/11 happened”.
Except DBZ wasn’t on at that time. Someone checked the airing times and compared to the time when the attacks happened. Definitely not on.
Still, a whole generation of kids is 100% sure they were watching DBZ when the news broke out.
edit: wow this blew up etc etc. also holy fuck everyone saying that this isn’t real and they edited the timetables after the fact. You sound like conspiracy theorists. Look up Occam’s Razor. This has been thoroughly discussed by Brazilians on the internet. It’s not something new. Someone else said it in this thread: the tv show that played DBZ wasn’t even aired on that day.
The Jerome Grand hotel was built as “United Verde hospital” in 1926. It was built by “united Verde copper company” which was a mining company when they started their business in the area and felt the need for a hospital which although would be the 4th hospital in the state but with the best of facilities. Many modern equipment were available at the hospital and it was considered one of the most modern hospitals not only in the state but all over the Country. The Otis elevator in the building was first of its kind and it still functions to this day.
The hospital operated till 1950 when residents had already moved to different cities due to non availability of work and hazardous living conditions. After 1950 the hospital would lay abandoned for 44 years and the equipment, furniture and everything else inside stayed in the hospital like something frozen in time.
The hospital was acquired in 1994 by Larry Altherr from Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation who started the renovations and the Jerome Grand hotel opened for business in 1996.
Even though the hospital was one of the most modern hospitals of that era, many people died when the hospital was in Operation. The figure is assumed to be close to 9000. The hospital was cursed with many unfortunate accidents the first of which was the mining disaster that blew a part of the hospital when it was first opened. Seeing that so many people had died in the hospital one can guess that it is difficult to name all of the diseased people but one of the few suspicious deaths that happened and is still talked about is that of the maintenance man Claude Harvey. He was pinned down by the elevator and everybody thought of it as an accident but it was later revealed during an autopsy that he had already died before being crushed by the elevator. Another death was that of a caretaker hired during the 1970s to protect the building from vandals. He committed suicide and was found hanging inside the hotel.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES
When the hotel had just opened and only a few rooms were available, guests staying there would report off all kinds of mysterious activity and they still do to this day. So many spirits are said to haunt the hotel that it is believed that sometimes more ghosts roam the hotel than there are humans present at the hotel.
Guests would hear strange sounds and voices coming from closed rooms. Guests also reported smells coming from rooms, such as flowers, dust, cigar smoke, and whiskey. The most common apparition is of a child who is seen running up and down the hallways of the third floor which is said to be the most active floor. Guests would also hear children playing, giggling and even seeing the ghostly apparition of a child at the foot of their beds during nights just looking at them before disappearing in thin air. A lot of guests would hear a baby crying and would report it to the front desk only to find that the sound was coming from an empty room.
Poltergeist activity like the television and bedside lamps being unplugged and things sent flying in the room. Things missing only to be found later under the beds are some of the most common things that guests experience on a daily basis in their hotel rooms.
The maintenance man
The spirit of Claude Harvey, the maintenance man who died in the hotel is seen many times in the laundry or the boiler room doing his chores as though still at work. People believe that he doesn’t realise that he is dead.
Ghost Pet
Another famous apparition is that of a ghostly cat. The cat has been heard meowing, hissing and scratching at doors and walls. Both staff and guests have heard and felt the cat brushing against their legs and snuggling against them while on the bed. People could see the imprint of a cat on their bed. A guest even provided a photo evidence of the ghost cat spirit sitting on the table. This is only a small amount of paranormal activity that occurs at the hotel.
The hotel has such an abundance of paranormal activity that many paranormal explorers visit the hotel and they easily get in touch with the paranormal. The hotel does not provide any guided tours but those who want to experience any sort of paranormal activity have to book a room like other guests and only then they can get access to the hallways of the hotel and that is without bothering any other guests. The lobby and the hotel restaurant called “Asylum” are open to the public.
Dubrovnik is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites because of its old architecture that was beautifully preserved. Despite being one of the most prominent destinations just 1.5 nautical miles away from the city lies an island called Daksa.
Daksa is uninhabited and locals mostly stay away from the island. They believe that the island is haunted and for a good reason too.
During 1944, soon after WW2 there was widespread distrust between the people. The Nazi state was taken down but the ideology was still prevalent. People were hiding to protect themselves. Mainly in Europe people were being tried on suspicion of being Nazi collaborators. Many people were imprisoned and killed. However, this led to even the innocents being wrongly accused.
According to the reports, on Oct 18, 1944 Partisan forces entered the city of Dubrovnik and started rounding people whom they suspected of assisting the Nazis in some way or other. The true number is not exactly known but it is believed that they rounded about 300 people. From those people they singled out around 35-40 people and took them to the Daksa Island and killed them without any trial. Among those people was the mayor of the city and the priest. People were warned that if they try to go and find their family members on the island, they would meet the same fate. So for the next 50-60 years the bodies of these people were left on the island.
In 2009, the remains of 6 people were discovered by someone and they informed the authorities who did extensive research and found the remains of forty-eight more people. The number of bodies found is still highly debatable as it is now believed that more than 35 people were massacred because many more remains have been found. The bodies were given a proper burial in 2010.
The island has an eerie atmosphere with locals avoiding the island and warning others to do the same thing. People who have visited the island feel that the island radiates the negativity of the bad things that happened there. Most of those who visit the island are travellers who want to explore the place. The paranormal experiences are relatively few as people rarely visit the island. People have visited the island on small ships or big boats. The crew of the ship always try to stay far from the island. Locals always warn others to not go on the island because they believe its cursed and angry spirits roam the island. They have allegedly heard terrible moans and screams from the island. A person who visited the island found scratch marks on their back while exploring the place.
The island is up for sale for around two million euros but nobody has shown any interest in buying the island and it is widely believed that it’s the angry spirits that are stopping the sale of the island.
Leap Castle was built during the 1300s by the O’Bannon clan. The castle has a very grim history of more than 700 years and is the location of countless battles between clans and later family feuds within the clan as well.
O’Carrolls was a violent and supposedly evil clan who battled the O’Bannons for the castle before finally taking control of the castle in the 1500’s. Before the violent disposition of the castle the land was already a place for many deaths because of the battle. However, the history of the castle became even more grim from then on. O’Carrolls were ruthless people who did not show any mercy. When the head died, there was a family feud between the brothers for power. One brother killed the other while the latter was holding a mass for family members in the chapel which is now known as “bloody chapel”.
The ownership was passed again in the later 1600s to the Darby family and the fighting for ownership and power continued on till the 1900s when the castle had already been passed on to many different people. The brutal history of the castle was already well known but the magnitude of the inhumanity brought upon the people was revealed once again when the restoration work was started in the castle in the late 1900s a wall was removed which revealed hundreds and hundreds of human skeletons lying on spikes which belong to guests who were supposedly thrown from upper floors to kill them. From the evidence found on the victims, it is believed that these murders occurred till the 1800s which means not only the O’Carrolls but the families that owned the castle after them also committed the same crimes.
There are many known spirits said to roam the castle and its grounds. The spirit of the murdered brother is said to haunt the bloody chapel. For hundreds of years people have seen light coming out of its windows and the spirit roaming around the chapel.
The spirit of the two little girls that supposedly lived in the castle during the 1600s have been spotted by visitors playing in the main hall of the castle. They are sometimes even spotted along with an old woman referred to as the nanny.
A Red lady is also seen roaming in the halls of the castle holding the dagger in one hand.
The spirit that has frightened people for the longest period of time and some people believe that the spirit existed even before all those families started living there. An evil demonic entity known as the “Elemental”. This malevolent being is said to have been unleashed on the castle through black arts which according to some might have happened during the early days of the castle. But a former resident “Mildred Darby” who had the first known experience with the evil entity describes her terrible encounter. It is said that she started practicing dark arts which led to the release of the elemental spirit. She describes it as being the size of a sheep, an inhuman skeletal face and dark decomposed eyes. The horrible smell that was already present in the castle intensified a hundred times. It was the smell of a decomposing body.
The elemental does not show itself until it is bothered by people but people have reported being pushed, badly scratched and feeling extremely nauseated.
The castle is described by many as the most haunted place in Ireland and definitely one of the most haunted places in the world.
While researching about Leap Castle, i came to know that Sam and Colby visited the castle just recently and as I am a big fan of Sam and Colby i watch all the videos as soon as they are uploaded on YouTube. However, this time i didn’t because i wanted to see how well I have researched.
Centralia, PA – the whole town and interstate was removed in 1962* to accommodate an enormous underground coal mine fire that’s still burning today. The whole neighborhood grid (weirdly, I don’t remember if there’s houses still or not?) and highway is still there, and there’s still smoke coming up through cracks in the street. The whole dystopian vibe that always accompanies an abandoned town + wondering if I’d fall through a hole in the street into some literal hellscape below was plenty for me. Walked around for an hour or so and then hightailed it out of there.
*edit after re-reading Wikipedia article: fire started in 1962, town mostly relocated in 1983 after kids started falling into sinkholes, rest of the re-location via eminent domain in 1992.
Edit 2: jesus fucking christ yes, this town was the inspiration for Silent Hill.
r/literal9
My grandparents had a big farm when I was growing up and all of the grandkids would help work it over the summer when we were out of school. Anytime we saw a rabbit we were supposed to get it with the hoe or grab the shotgun. I was around 12 or so when I saw a little rabbit in the beans and I didn’t want my grandfather to see it so I tried to chase it off. Followed it into the brush on the land and for whatever reason I just kept following it because usually I’d lose sight of them pretty quickly once they hit the brush. Kept following it until found what was clearly an old barn ruin. These are pretty normal to happen upon where I’m from and they’re fun to look around inside, so I went in. It was weirdly kept up really well with antique tools in great shape and fresh hay. I worried had crossed into our neighbors’ property so high-tailed it out of there. I asked my grandfather about it and he said our land went way far past what had described, and I couldn’t have left our land in the short amount of time was gone, so he followed me out there and we couldn’t find it. I checked every summer I worked there and never found it again. Not creepy but it always drove me crazy where that stupid barn went.
r/urgehal666
There’s this old abandoned hotel a couple hours away from me. It’s not like a modern hotel, but like an old Victorian house that was turned into a B&B. It’s totally boarded up, big fence around it with barbed wire. Apparently it’s pretty damn haunted.
In high school me and some friends went to go check it out. It’s in the middle of this a circular road, not a roundabout but you can go around several times before feeding back onto the main road. It takes about ninety seconds to go around this circle. Anyway, the first time we drive through all the shades on the windows are drawn. We drive around again, only half of the shades are drawn. The next time we drive by all the shades are open. We drove around one last time and all the shades were drawn again. We freaked out and drove the hell out of there.
r/oceanceaser
In the interior of BC I spent a lot of time exploring in the truck. Found loads of abandoned buildings and cabins but the coolest place that a friend showed me was an abandoned hippie commune deep in the forest. There were some crazy house designs, one looked like an ark, one was a ~40ft teepee clad with aluminum.
The place was clearly built by people who had very little building experience, but lots of creativity and motivation. There was a lot of weird stuff found on the property, and I even found a bike that was stolen off me the year prior.
Was driving through Illinois to get to Chicago about a decade ago with a group of friends and we stopped at a Taco Bell. The first thing we noticed was that the workers were acting very odd. Everything they said was monotone and rehearsed. After sitting in this fairly busy restaurant for a bit, we kind of all just looked at each other at the same time as we realized that none of the conversations happening around us made any sense. The people were speaking, and it was English, but the sentences weren’t logical. They were just saying words at each other. We didn’t say much about it until we got outside, at which point we all freaked out and confirmed each others’ experiences at once, and got the fuck out of there. We jokingly refer to that place as the “NPC Training Center” since the people didn’t seem to be real, or they were learning how to be human or something. Still freaks me out.
Edit: yes, I believe the orders were all correct, which I
guess just ups the creepy factor
Edit 2: we were young and actually pretty straight edge at
the time, none of us were high or anything.
Edit 3: the best I can remember about the weird conversations was that they were stringing several prepositions in a row with no real sentence structure, forced laughter and nodding, stuff like that. Like they were mimicking how humans talk. Think of those “what English sounds like to a non-speaker” videos on YouTube, but EVERYBODY was doing it all around us.
r/Illbeanicefella
A couple years ago a buddy and I got turned around on a side road in rural north Missouri. I had no service for GPS and it was pouring rain so I headed south toward my destination hoping to run into a main highway. We ended up coming into the town of Skidmore MO. It’s a tiny town in the middle of nothing but there’s something dark about that place. Infamously in the 80s a man known as the town bully was killed in broad daylight in the middle of town there. Not one person spoke up about who killed him and it’s never been solved despite many witnesses. There’s also been disappearances, and a brutal crime a few years ago involving a baby being cut out of a woman’s womb. Keep in mind this is a town of only 270 people. As we drove down the main drag several people gave us a blank but intimidating stare, completely unnerving. Once we got out of the town my buddy mentioned he’d had a sense of impending doom or danger as we drove through, weirdly enough I’d been feeling the same way. I’d never had a such a persistent gut feeling of danger like that before. We agreed to never ever fucking go through Skidmore again. There’s something seriously evil about that town, it shouldn’t exist.
r/hey_there_kitty_cat
Not just one, but there’s a whole lot of places in rural NZ that will scare the shit out of someone who isn’t used to it. Hell even some of my Kiwi friends would sometimes be like fuck no l’m not hiking out there with you guys, good luck. If had to choose one, we were doing a 5 day hike, had pretty good maps and directions. Now there’s a lot of nationally funded huts throughout the island, very well marked. We found this one random hut that was definitely not on the maps, with a bunch of older guys just hammered partying inside. And this was way out of where these guys could’ve just walked up from town to party in for the afternoon. No gear whatsoever, just the craziest looking 60+ guys hammered in this random unmarked cabin. When we came back by later the place was absolutely empty and musty, so they packed up their trash and stuff but it still seemed all gross and dirty. We were all kind of baffled, did we actualy meet all these crazy hillbilly old men partying in the middle of nowhere? They obviously weren’t going up there to clean it up, and where the hell did this cabin even come from just in the middle of these mountains? And how did they just randomly hike up there with cases of beer and booze and speakers?
r/NamesJeffrey
Not creepy, just weird to me. A music store seemed to just show up in my town. I’d lived here three years and never saw it. Went in, and the guy had one bass guitar in the store. Me, being a bassist, played it and fell in love. Bought it, and then the next week when was in town, the store was totally empty, and looked like it hasn’t been open in a long time.
Got a new bass out of it though, so I’m cool with it being a spooky ghost store.
r/seersucker.
In the 7th grade I had a friend that lived near a beach on a bay of lake Michigan. One day in early May it reached 70 degrees, nearly unheard of for that time of year in northern Wisconsin. My two friends, including the beach friend, excitedly rode our bikes down to the beach to maybe dip our toes in, expecting still frigid waters, and then “tan” for the rest of the afternoon. The water, though, was surprisingly warm. Like bathwater warm. In this particular area of the bay the water was shallow for about a half mile out, and we joyously splashed around, wading deeper and deeper until we were about chest deep. As we dunked each other and swam with abandon I started to feel sick. Bad headache, nausea, wobbly. Just then, my other two friends mentioned that they also felt sick. We headed back to shore, nearly crawling by the time we got out. The three of us collapsed under a tree and fell asleep for 2ish hours. When we woke up we talked about how weird it was. I dipped my toe back in the water and it was freezing cold. To this day have no idea what was in there. I do know that there is a chemical plant in town that used to manufacture things like agent orange, and that their practices were known to be less that environmentally conscious. I have never touched that water since.
Built in 1909, the Höfði house is famous all around the world as the meeting place of President Ronald Reagan of the United States and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union which was an important step towards the ending of the cold war. Even before this meeting which took place in 1986 the house has hosted several famous residents.
It was initially built for the French consul Jean-Paul Brillouin in Iceland, and was the exclusive residence of poet and businessman Einar Benediktsson (1864-1940) for twelve years (1913-1925). From 1925 to 1937 painter Louisa Matthíasdóttir grew up in the house since her family resided there. From the 1940s to the 1950s the British embassy resided in the house before it was purchased and restored for formal occasions by the city of Reykjavík. The house was built from timber and design imported from Norway.
One of the earliest occupants of the house believed it to be haunted by the spirit of a woman. They allegedly witnessed the spirit on various occasions. Rumours on how the woman had died vary from an accidental drowning to suicide and many more. When the British embassy resided in the house, John Greenway, the member of the embassy who lived there requested that the house should be sold as he would allegedly experience something that he called ” bumps in the night”. One other legend is that the place where the house was built is haunted by the spirits of ancient Viking warriors who used to have a house that was burnt down at the same place and they were buried there.
Whether the place is really haunted or not is a matter of debate but the house is known as one of the most haunted places in Iceland. Foreign ministry has stated that “we do not confirm or deny that the Höfði house has a ghost” thereby causing even more people to believe that there is something supernatural going on in the house.
Hui bon hoa was moved to Saigon from China in search of work. He started working in a pawn shop and learnt French so that he can build better business relations with the French. He started his own real estate business and soon became one of the biggest and wealthiest merchants in the area. He had three sons who came back to help his father in the business and a daughter named Lan whom he loved and treasured.
Unfortunately, the daughter contracted leprosy which had no cure at that time. The disease can spread easily and the patient has to be isolated. The disease was considered more of a curse by the people at that time and due to the Hoa’s family influence and social status they could not let society get wind of this. As a result the daughter was kept locked in a private room and the maids went there day and night to give her food. The Hoa family even prepared a fake funeral for her daughter and it was told that she died from an illness so that nobody says anything about her missing from the social gatherings. The daughter used to cry from loneliness and people used to hear her cry thinking that it was the ghost of the dead daughter.
The daughter was ultimately driven to insanity because of the loneliness and she committed suicide. Hui bon hoa was devastated but he couldn’t bury her daughter outside now, so he made a cement coffin inside the room and was buried there. Due to his love for the daughter he couldn’t come to the terms with her death and still had the maids bring her food everyday.
On the one year anniversary of her death the maids saw something terrifying. When they came to pick up the rice plates, they saw that the rice was half eaten and the daughter was sitting on top of the coffin. She screamed and ran to get others. The family came and witnessed the whole event with their own eyes. Later the daughter was buried outside privately. Since that time, the daughter has been said to roam the halls of the house. People even saw shadows moving in the windows and heard the crying of a girl.
The house has now been converted into the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts museum. People visit the place to know more about historical events and facts but they leave with more than just historical facts.