A List of Spooky Stories I Tell

Boo! Halloween is one of my personal favourite times of year. I love the spooky tales, horrible horror stories, ghoulish tales, ghost stories, yarns about witches, black cats and dogs with red eyes. Stories that make us shiver, cringe, hide behind the couch, are not ust kids' fare. Often these stories were written and/or told for adults. There are a good number of great stories for kids, but there is a bigger number of tales for older kids and adults.

These tales come from all over the world. After a recent listsreve request for stories of this kind, I put together a list of tales I tell. Below is is this list. Some can be told to younger ears, and some need to be shared with mature minds! They are listed with the less fearsome tales at the beginning of each section, and the chillier tales come last. There is some overlap with the end of the Tales With a Little More Terror and the beginning of the Terrifying Tales sections.

Original art by Simon Brooks on the back of a receipt! (C) 2016

Spooky Tales for Younger People
The Man Who Was Affraid of Nothing - Japan
Zara's Magic Kettle - Russian
The Big Toe (although in the last couple of years I have stopped telling this tale as it is told frequently at camps in the summer and has lost it's JUMP impact!
Black Bubble Bubble Gum, a story first told by Francis Caffrey although close to John Steinbeck's short The Affair at 7, Rue de M-
Kolbold on Board - A Scandinavian pirate ghost tale
Bony Fingers and Wet Lips - Europe/America
The Gunniwolf - An English variant of Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood - Germany/France
From Aloft - English/American
Baba Yaga - Russian
Baba Yaga's Black Geese - Russian
The Miser and the Apple Sauce -  A tale originally told by the wonderful Papa Joe
The Unwelcome Guest or The Tailor in the Graveyard - England - One takes place in a house, the other in a - you guessed it - graveyard!
The Viper - England/America - told as a true, personal tale, making it just a little more scary!
The Hedley Kow - England
Wicked John and the Devil - Wales and Ireland, America - this is a tale told by many people

Copped Hall, London, (C) Simon Brooks 2016

Tales With a Little More Terror (can be told to slightly older kids, or much older kids when ramped up!)
The Benders - a true story from the American Mid-West 1873
Cell 17 - a true story of the Carbon County Jail, Mauch-Jim Thorpe PA
The Unstopable Coffin - a joke story, told as a true, personal tale
The Other Mother - England
The Hunchback - A story from 1,001 Nights where a hunch is killed by choking, being pushed down stairs, and a couple of beatings
The Piper's Revenge - a tale of horror from Scotland
The Severed Head - Africa
Taily-po - American
Vasilisa the Beautiful, the story of Vasilisa and her doll - Russia
Wiley and the Hairyman - American
Hand of Glory - England
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves - Middle East. One of my favourites where Ali's brother is cut into four pieces and stitched back together for a descent funeral, and the thieves are killed with boiling oil, and their leader stabbed by Ali's maid servant

UK Gravestone, (C) Simon Brooks 2016

Terrifying Tales for Teens and Grown-Ups
WW Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw
RL Stevenson's The Body Snatcher
Edgar Alan Poe's The Black Cat
Mr. Fox - England
Mary Cullhaine - Ireland
Weyland Smith - England/Scandinavia - a man from the ancient Norse tales who kills a king's two sons and has sex with his daughter in revenge for maiming him and imprisoning him on an island. He flies off to find, once more, his wife - a Valkyrie
The Rosewood Casket - America
Golden Hair - an original telling of two other folk tales from Eastern Europe where a dead count steals a woman and her true love comes to rescue her

Original artwork for 'The Shadowlands' by Simon Brooks (C) 2016

Great Stories for Dark Evenings by the Fire
These are tales which can be fit into the last of the two categories but more for older kids and adults than young kids.
Margret of the Three Gifts - Scotland
Tam Lin - Scotland
The Roma Cheating Death - a Russian Gypsy tale
Hansel and Gretel - Germany

I hope you enjoy finding these tales and telling them yourself. And of course, if you want me to tell any of these tales to you, let me know! I do all sorts of programs including a split event where there are two sets - one shorter for younger kids and one a bit longer for older kids and adults. For more information about my Fight Night Program, shoot me an email:
Simon at Diamondscree Dot com
or visit my website:
http://www.diamondscree.com/
and go click on suggested programs under WHAT!
or here http://www.diamondscree.com/programs