An abandoned house with shadowy windows, a hand that floats in the air, a grey lady that vanishes…these are the “things” that have been witnessed along Nova Scotia’s shores. Storyteller Cindy Campbell-Stone tells a spine-tingling performance of unexplained encounters in folklore.
Cindy Campbell-Stone is a member of the Storytellers of Canada and the Storytellers Circle of Halifax. She is a great supporter of Dartmouth Book Exchange and agreed to present her The Shadow in the Window program, not once but twice, at our store. Both performances were completely booked and had great reviews for the night. Cindy is a member of the Helen Creighton Folklore Society, which likes to promote the works of Dr. Helen Creighton. Dr. Helen Creighton was a folklorist who collected over 60,000 different types of songs, stories, anecdotes, and superstitions from around Nova Scotia. Many would have been lost if not for her, including the song Farewell to Nova Scotia. Many of Cindy’s stories come from Helen’s book Bluenose Ghosts, but she does have several from her own collection. As a result, her ghost stories are both traditional, with some more modern ones mixed in.
Cindy didn’t always like telling ghost stories. At her grandmother’s, back when she was 10 years old, her cousin Allan dared her to read a comic book called Ripley’s Believe It or Not outside on the porch steps under a yellow bug light. Keep in mind, this was on Prince Edward Island, when there were no street lights. She was terrified; she read about ghosts and things in the dark, and it wasn’t long until she was back inside. From that time on, she wouldn’t read about ghosts, and to this day, she still doesn’t like horror stories. But, she likes the suspense, she remembers the tingling of her spine, sitting out on those steps reading a ghost story, not knowing what is real and what is not real; she liked that feeling. She also loves Halloween. Last year, she dressed up as a witch and stood in her window, slowly waving at the trick-or-treaters, fooling them, is she real or is she mechanical? Cindy likes scaring people and making short stories longer.
This is a picture of Cindy’s Great Aunt Mary’s house in Prince Edward Island, which, interestingly enough, has a road sign that says No Exit right in front of it. Can you see a Shadow in the Window? Maybe it is a trick of the light, the sunset, or it could be something else.
Some of the stories Cindy told us about included: Jack in Tantallon, whose wife had a limp and walked with a cane. His wife died birthing their fifth child, along with the baby. We listened to the many difficulties Jack had in hiring a housekeeper/nanny for his other children. We heard about Dr. Robinson in Annapolis Royal, who was driving home in his buggy one night in the pouring rain, when his horse stopped and refused to continue on. Cindy believes that Annapolis is one of the most haunted areas of Nova Scotia. We heard about a young couple who rented a house in Oyster Pond on the Eastern Shore. One night, they asked the woman’s grandmother to come babysit while they went out a dance. Needless the say, she never babysat for them again.
We learned about the vanishing hitchhiker. There have been many of these stories over the centuries. The vanishing hitchhiker is someone who gets into a vehicle, be it a car, a horse and buggy, or a transport truck, and while they are being taken home, they just disappear. Sometimes there is a true reason on why they disappear, but sometimes you just never know. Cindy sang us “Bringing Mary Home”.
We had a brief history lesson about the Duc d’Anville expedition during King George’s War. The expedition was a complete failure. It was plagued by bad weather; it took 3 months to cross the Atlantic, many of the crew fell sick and died of scurvy and typhus, and Duc d’Anville died shortly after arriving of a heart attack. Maybe you have seen his ship or heard its creaking in our harbour.
We learned about Helen Creighton’s experience at Hartlen’s Point in 1928, collecting songs. Instead, she ended up hearing stories about the Ghost House and of forerunners. This was the first ghost story that Helen had ever collected, and she took this picture of the house. It turns out that it was made out of wood collected from shipwrecks.
Cindy told us of young Emily of Garrison House in Annapolis, a playful, young, mischievous ghost from room 5. Cindy even read from Bee Stanton’s book, Atlantic Ghosts: Tales from the Haunted Coast. This book has been short-listed for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Non-Fiction! Repeated mentions of Bee Stanton throughout the night gave me the idea to invite Bee to the second performance of Cindy’s The Shadow in the Window as a special surprise guest for Cindy and the attendees.
Bee Stanton is the author and illustrator of Atlantic Ghosts: Tales from the Haunted Coast. Who is the lady in blue who haunts Peggy’s Cove? Why is there a strip of land called Ghost Alley in New Brunswick? Who is the ghost with a reserved seat in a PEI theatre? Why is Bell Island, Newfoundland, one of North America’s most haunted places? Bee also illustrated the new edition of Bluenose Ghosts. As we thanked Cindy for another great performance, I introduced her to our surprise special guest, and it was definitely a great surprise.
Cindy will be returning to Dartmouth Book Exchange in September with her Lady in the Lighthouse: The Catherine Gallagher Story in two repeat performances. Catherine, also known as Mrs. Edward Gallagher, was known as one of the main sources for folklorist Dr. Helen Creighton. This show contains various stories from her life and eight of the forty songs that she sung for Helen.
Cindy’s website is https://cindystoryteller.com/ and can also be found on Facebook at Cindy Campbell-Stone aka Cindy Storyteller