Happy Hallowe'en!

I guess I should say, "Happy November!" Can you believe November is already upon us? Not only that, but I am currently in Week 4 (out of 8!) of Michaelmas Term. Halfway through! Time flies, as they say.

But back to Hallowe'en. With grad school applications, finalizing my schedule for Christmas Vacation, and my weekly essay on archaeological theory, I had plenty to do this weekend. Even so, I wasn't about to let an Oxford Hallowe'en pass me by without at least a little celebration.

The Oxford Information Centre organizes many themed tours throughout the year, including Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll was a student and teacher at the college of Christ Church), C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien (close friends and teachers at Oxford), and, of course, Harry Potter (they filmed more than just the Ferret Tree here, you know). The tour du jour on Hallowe'en? "Magic, Murder, and Mayhem." Absolutely, yes.

It was a drizzly day, but not unbearable, so my friend Petra and I decided that this tour was a must. Our excellent guide was a man named Rob Walters, the author of Haunted Oxford, as well as a few other books of local interest. He is incredibly knowledgeable on all things Oxford--people, buildings, and ghosts alike--so we got a good dose of Lewis Carroll and Harry Potter trivia along with the expected murder and mayhem. Although I really enjoyed hearing all the stories he had to tell, for the purposes of this post I will stick to the ghost stories. And as I have other work I need to tend to, I'll limit myself to retelling one story from each of the three M's: magic, murder, and mayhem.

MAGIC
One cold, dark December night, in the year 1832, the Vice-President of Brasenose College, Reverend T.T. Churton, was walking down the alleyway behind the college when he spotted a dark, cloaked figure standing at one of the windows. It seemed as if the figure was trying to pull a student through the window. Churton knew this to be an impossible task, as iron bars and wire mesh covered all windows to prevent students from leaving the college through the alleyway.

Rob Walters at the Ghostly Window

But as he approached closer, he could hear the screams and see the gushing blood of the student as the figure pulled him through the wire mesh. Churton ran to the figure to put an end to the horror, but he could not touch him. A mysterious force kept him away. Unable to help the student, the Vice-President ran around to the front entrance of Brasenose and alerted the Porter to the situation. The two immediately ran to the student's room, and as they opened the door a throng of screaming, fearful students fled to the quad. Edward Trafford lay on the floor, his head marked by severe cuts from the wire mesh. He was dead.

The students in the room that night were part of a so-called Hellfire Club, and Trafford, the club's president, had been attempting to summon the Devil when, as the students recounted, blood suddenly burst from his head and he collapsed to the floor.

Churton was the only witness to the scene in the alleyway, but he believed until theend that he had seen the Devil. And if you look through today's records, you will see that Edward Trafford of Brasenose College did indeed die on that very night.

MURDER
This story is less ghostly, but does capture some the horrors that have taken place here at Oxford in years past.

After Mary I acceded the throne in 1553, she quickly restored Catholicism as the religion of England and left a bloody trail in the wake of her reforms. This bloody trail led straight to Oxford in 1555 with the execution of the Oxford Martyrs: Hugh Latimer, Anglican chaplain to King Edward VI; Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of Rochester; and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. These three men were powerful in the Anglican  Church, and thus in direct opposition to Catholicism and the Queen. All three were tried for heresy, and on October 16, 1555, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned at the stake. Cranmer was made to watch his fellow Anglicans die from a tower on the city wall. After seeing the horror of their demise, he issued a recantation of his Anglican beliefs, accepting the Pope as supreme and infallible. This recantation was deemed insufficient, so he wrote another. And another. And another. In all, he wrote five recantations before one was finally accepted. He was to give this recantation as a public address in the University Church.

On that fateful day, he took to the pulpit and began with a prayer. But instead of reciting his prepared remarks, he renounced all of his previous recantations, called the Pope "Christ's enemy," and declared that his sinful hand, which wrote and signed the recantation, would be punished by burning first. He cried, "Let me burn as Latimer and Ridley did!" The townsfolk responded, "So you will!" He was pulled from the church and brought to the very spot where the two before him were executed nearly six months earlier, and he was burned to his death.

Rob Walters where the Oxford Martyrs perished.

Today, the spot where the Oxford Martyrs were executed is marked by a cobblestone cross in the middle of Broad Street. Supposedly, some have seen phantom flames emerging from the stone marker. Ghostly or not, this spot continues to be a place of remembrance, and some will lay flowers on it to this day.

MAYHEM
Just as with the above story, the following tale may not be ghostly, but it is terrifying nonetheless. Historically, at Oxford (and other medieval institutions) there has been an intense rivalry between what is called the 'town,' or non-academic town residents, and the 'gown,' or academic members of the university (because we wear funny gowns, get it?). This rivalry would lead to heated altercations, usually beginning in the town pubs and from there spreading onto the streets. Perhaps 'altercation' isn't the appropriate word... As the saying goes, "There are historic battlefields on which less blood has been spilt than in the streets of Oxford."

On one such occasion in 1355, a riot between the town and the gown erupted at the Swyndlestock Tavern and quickly grew into a battle involving thousands of townspeople and students. Each side came equipped with various weapons, and at the end of the several-day conflict 63 students had perished. Oxford promptly banned students from visiting the town pubs.

Was a student murdered here? MAYBE!

The scariest part of that story is the glee with which our tour guide, a proud member of the 'town,' told it. I probably don't have anything to worry about, right?

Anyway, those are just a few examples of the stories I heard. Others involved a ghost driven by the guilt to the grave of his lover's husband (whom he murdered, of course), the spirit of William Archibald Spooner haunting the New College chapel by night, and the murder of the last wild boar in Oxford by means of Aristotle. Perhaps I will tell them one day, but I haven't the time now.

Now, I don't believe in ghosts, so I remain quite skeptical about some of these stories. However, as we stood along the so-called Dead Man's Walk, mere meters away from where a Royalist colonel had been (wrongfully) executed for treason, our guide mentioned a very interesting fact. He said that 10% of the British population believe they have had a "ghostly experience."

"Where have most of those experiences occurred?" He grinned. "Oxford."

The rain began to pick up and a chill settled over the air. As we continued on our tour, I thought to myself: If there is any place in the world that can convince me ghosts do exist, this is it.

An Autumn Shot along Rose Lane

Hope everyone had a spook-tacular weekend!
Alyce