We craft and tell stories because we’ve stood on the uncertain edge between the waking world and our imagination, between enchantment and fear. And we remember other stories that help us build our own stories, scraps of lumber and fragments of narrative we gather together to make stories for ourselves.
Image from the Hungry Ghost festival celebrated in china in early autumn
In honour of All Hallows’ Eve, here are three ghost stories from the Monguor, in northwestern China. Notice how strikingly different—and yet how eerily similar!—these are to European tales on similar motifs.
I discovered the woods by our house just as the year was turning.
I’d seen them before, of course. In any stroll along the pavement past the art school towards the conference center, looking across the brackish water of the reservoir, the woods were obvious enough. And I knew, in a vaguely academic way, that people sometimes went for walks in those same woods.
With the longest, darkest night of the year upon us, we wish you the joy of it. There’s a reason, I think, that so many cultures celebrate these nights—why such a cold, dark time is full of lights and laughter and merriment.
