Roll up, roll up. This is the one and only Haunted Victorian Flower Oracle competion!

[Summerdream]

My youngest daughter is named after a flower. Her name is Jasmine and she is very spiritual. Her best friend was born in the Czech Repubic too. Her mom only speaks Czech to her and they have taught Jasmine some of the language too. It is very cool.

Summerdream

[Elven]

There was once an old gravedigger who spent all his day, toiling in the sun with his bent shovel. One day, while resting from the heat, from the corner of his eye, he noticed a young woman silently moving between the old and pitted tombstones.

Spying her at length, so as she would not see him, he watched, as she bent down to each grave, and quick as a mouse snatched the flowering blooms from the urns. Turning to see if she was being watched, she would place them in her straw basket.

To the man, she looked like a common beggar. Wild and black was her hair, her clothes torn and dirty, her feet bare and her shawl an old blanket. He had no doubt that she would spend the day, annoying the villagers, knocking on each door, to pinch a penny for the violets, daisy, daffodils, hollyhocks and lupins, she had gathered.

The gravedigger was angered, Wretch! he thought. He waved his shovel above his head, shouting to drive her away. But the woman stared and scowled at him, tightly clutching the basket to her side. She muttered an oath, bent down and defiantly swiped a cluster of blooms and put them in the basket. As the gravedigger drew near, the woman stood her ground, her black flashing eyes fixed upon him.

"There'd be no one here to see the coloured blooms above their chests, or breath in the sweet perfume, not now, they are dead and gone. They're eyes be full of grubs and their nose be filled with dirt", she growled. I have little ones with hungry bellies and not a crust to feed them with". She eyed him warily.

The gravedigger spat at her feet. He had not a morsel of sympathy for her troubles, no doubt 'a tale' he thought. He had no wife, nor children, his heart was as cold as the earth he dug, and the tombstones he cleaned. Lunging forward, he seized her basket, breaking the handle, he flung the flowers over grass and graves nearby, stamping and trampling them until they were bruised and broken. Then he grabbed her hair, and kicking and cursing, she was shown to the churchyard gate and harshly sent her on her way.

From a safe distance, she stared back over her shoulder. Her fists clenched and teeth gritted, she was enraged with hate.
"Go dig deep gravedigger! she yelled. "Dig yourself a deep resting place!" she waved her fist. "You will nought see the autumn moon, nor the one after. Before the summer flowers bloomed and withered, a mound of clay will cover your coffin!!" From her pocket she cast down a handfull of black hellibore leaves across the path, and quickly ran into the woods.

The days passed as always, and often the gravedigger would spy the woman peeping from behind the trees in the laneway near the cemetry gate. Though she never ventured close enough to bother his flowers, he would sometimes hear her call "Gravedigger - there'd be not much time left now .. dig your own hole while you're a digging others ... the Summer is wearing on." Then as suddenly as she had arrived, she would vanish into the woods.

One morning, hard at work in an old neglected grove of the cemetry, he paused in his duties to rest his aching back, when he eyed, hanging from the Yew tree, a tattered cloth bundled and bound to one of the branches. Unfastening it, he found it filled with rusted coffin nails, chips of granite, moss, a lock of hair, and the dried petals of violets, daisy, daffodils, hollyhocks and lupins.

That night, as the winds blew firecly and the windows of the gravediggers cottage rattled and bumped, he heard a noise outside. Grabbing his lantern in hand he ventured into the graveyard to see what the disturbance was. The rain sheeted down as the gravedigger wanderred toward to the rectory. As he did he heard a cock's crow pierce the darkness - a sure presage that the Angel of Death was calling. Frightened, he turned around and ran, his eyes blinded by the pelting rain. But in his hasty retreat, the lantern light sputtered and died, and turning off his path stumbled and fell into a hole filled to the tussocks with water, where he drowned, and was never seen again.

As the sun rose that next day, a woman could be seen wandering through the cemetry with a basket. She grabbed a shovel that lay on the ground and filled the grave of the digger, singing as she worked.
'You had best mind your manners" she spoke to the hole. "You'll be wanting some friends now you've come to live with us, and you can tend you own grave", she mocked "For I will not place one flower upon you!"

And the vicar heard the woman talking as he prepared his Sunday sermon, and he looked out of his window to the cemetry to see who was there. But nothing he could see but the sunshine and the birds, a shovel and a basket of flowers.




Inspired by Ken Radford from ye old tale the Gravedigger decomposed and recomposed by Elven to try and win, if she may, the loooovely deck which the mistress and master has prepared

[Bat Chicken]

I recently had a reading Caredwin involving a Golem crouched on a crypt.... perhaps it was referring to my obsessive collecting of beautiful decks!

This oracle deck is gorgeous! A haunted, well traveled version would be so fun!

[bleuivy]

I (alas!) can't think of anything spooky to post about. So...flowers.

We used to have a rose garden in our back yard. Then one day, the fine government of the District of Columbia informed us that our soil might have too much arsenic due to some chemical dumping that happened during World War 1 and 2. So we were forced to give up gardening.

Actually, that is sort of spooky. Just not in the way you mean.

And also, congrats on a gorgeous deck! You must feel quite proud.

[Ruby7]

Flowers can be creepy!!

Anyone remember "The Day of the Triffids"?

Ruby7

[seneris]

I had a nightmare... and I had some kind of deja vu or something in it. I dreamed I was in some kind of theater, listening to a lecture. There was this man talking, and I knew he somehow was going to become possessed (sp?) and he would 'throw up' several spirits. Only he kept talking and there were no spirits seen. It was very strange: on the one hand I was waiting for the spirits to come out, on the other hand I was terrified.
At some moment the thing I knew was going to happen was happening, and I started to run. I was almost at the exit when I saw a woman singing opera music. Spirits started to come out of her mouth too. And then I got away.
I still feel a bit numb.
Didn't dream about flowers though...

[rash212]

wow another competition... so cool!

[huredriel]

Originally Posted by Crowqueen

If I win, I'll send him the deck .

Hmmm I have doubts about this

Ghosts and flowers ........ hmmmm how come I only disappear for a few mere hours and suddenly four pages of a comp pop up????

Have yet to see a ghost ........ quite wistful about it actually ........ tho in reality I'd probably crap myself ........ but flowers ........ I think there will be ghostly flowers in my garden ...... as I'm ripping everything out to start again ...... in fact I'm sure my garden views me as a demonic presence!!

[caridwen]

There was a young lady from Bower
some say a little bit dour
she fell head over heels with a man on two wheels
and lost her ability to shower
(with her haunted flower)

[Alta]

spooky story and/or flowers? ooh.

Is it a mushroom or is it a flower? Translucent, delicate, semi-mystical, used to find (rarely) little patches of them in my former Nova Scotia home in the woods. Just a thrill to look at, but don't touch!

Also, *muffled drum roll* known as Corpse Plant

Corpse Plant