Every ghost story on Earth, checked against the record.
577 legends. For each one we separate what the documents actually say from what people tell each other after dark.
Qivittoq: Greenland’s Mountain Hermit Who Became a Spirit
In Greenlandic folklore, a qivittoq (also spelled kivigtok; roughly “one who turns away”) is a person who walked out of the settlement into the mountains, never…
Mmoatia: Ghana’s Backward-Footed Akan Forest Dwarfs
Hunters in Ghana's Akan-speaking forests are warned to watch the ground for footprints that point the wrong way. Whoever made them is said to be about…
Touni Minwi: Mauritius’s 1994 Werewolf Panic
Touni Minwi doesn't lurk in shadows and wait. He greases his own skin with oil, climbs onto a roof, and drops down into a stranger's yard…
The Headless Lady of Frégate Island, Seychelles
The headless lady of Frégate Island is a ghost said to walk the shoreline of a tiny private island in the Seychelles at dusk, retreating into…
Violet of Fisherpond: Barbados’s Locked-Door Ghost
She doesn't moan or rattle chains. She locks the bathroom door. Violet is the ghost of Fisherpond Great House, a 1635 sugar-plantation manor in Barbados's Saint…
Ebigane: Gabon’s Shapeshifting Bat-Buffalo Vampire
In the epic songs of the Fang people of Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea, an ebigane (also spelled ébigane) is not one fixed monster but a…
Chipekwe: Zambia’s Unverified One-Horned Lake Monster
Fishermen on Lake Bangweulu in Zambia used to talk about something in the water that hippos would not go near. They called it chipekwe — a…
Bibi-Khanym: The Kiss Legend That Birthed the Veil
She kissed a stranger through her veil, and the mark it left is why, legend says, Central Asian women started covering their faces. That is the…
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Legends famous in their own language that English reference sites haven't caught up to. We write them first.