By Jake Bachus

    This story happened in the era of wooden sailing ships around the Cape of Good Hope.  Many sailors disappeared around the Cape of Good Hope at this time.

    Once there was a sailor who wasn't afraid of anything or anybody.  One day he was trying to sail around the Cape of Good Hope.  Suddenly a storm kicked up and the captain locked himself in his cabin.  The captain started to laugh and dare the storm to do its worse.  Suddenly a glowing figure appeared and the captain threatened the figure.  When the captain pulled his gun's trigger, the gun blew up in his hands.  The figure put a curse on the captain that he would sail the sea forever.
 
 

    The brown lady is said to be a ghost in Raynham Hall.  She has been reported a couple of times and has been seen.

    The first report of the brown lady was in 1835.  Some guests were there for Christmas.  One guest which was a Colonel Loftus, saw a woman in a brown dress floating down the stairs.  He didn't get a good look at her because she disappeared.  A couple days late he saw her again.  He did wish he hadn't.  He said her face had a horrible grin.  And her eyes were gone.  Only her sockets were there.  He said it was a face you won't want to see again.

    Some people think she is Dorothy Walpole, which was the sister of the powerful English politician, Sir Robert Walpole.  She died near the 1730's.  She married someone in the Townsend family, who owned Raynham Hall.  They say if that's true then she must travel because she also haunts Houghton Hall that her brother built.
 
 

    A famous English philosopher named Jeremy Bentham was a little strange.  He put in his will that he wanted to be preserved and put on display in the University of London.   When he died in 1832, his body was stuffed and preserved in a glass case.  After a while, his head began to decay and fell off.  So they replaced the head with a wax model and put the skull in between his legs.  Now, his ghost roams the halls of the University carrying his skull under his arm and rolling it down the halls.
 
 

    There was a monastery that was prone to flooding.  A monk always had to watch the flood waters.  Once a monk, named Ignatius, fell asleep on watch.  The monastery flooded and killed the monks.  The monastery was torn down and a house was put in its place.  One night the woman in the house saw a black figure.  It started to choke her.  Then Ignatius's ghost stopped the figure.