009: The Mourner's Curse

Pleasing Terrors

Mike Brown

Arts, Performing Arts, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2016

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The stories of Charleston, South Carolina are composed of a tangled web of dreams and memories. They’ve been passed through historians, artists, writers, and tour guides, twisting into a new shape with each retelling.

Deep within the historic city lies a graveyard. Cloaked in ivy and wildflowers, the cemetery is a tranquil spot for a walk and a popular sightseeing destination… as long as the sun is shining. In the dark of night, the graveyard belonging to the Unitarian Church of Charleston transforms from peaceful to terrifying, leaving late-night tour participants shrieking in fear at the ghostly woman lurking behind tombstones. Are the stories surrounding the graveyard’s mistress a true account of a pair of star-crossed lovers still searching for each other beyond the grave, or are they nothing but a spooky story to tell in the dark?

Where does fact begin and fiction end?

Episode Highlights:

Mike Brown’s graveyard
The history of Charleston, South Carolina
Ghostly residents of King and Queens Street
The curse of King’s Street Gate at the Unitarian Church of South Carolina
A scream in the graveyard
What is folklore?
Life and times of Edgar Perry
Star-crossed lovers
Annabel Lee
Folklore, facts, and fiction

Resources:

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Some stories were never supposed to be told.
0:06.0	Stories that exist in the twilight between science and the supernatural,
0:12.0	between history and horror, stories that speak of
0:17.2	terrifying things, stories that you want to hear, stories that you need to hear, stories that will sink their
0:26.9	teeth in and never let you go.
0:31.0	My name is Mike Brown, and this is pleasing terrors.
0:37.0	Episode 9, The Mourner's Curse.
0:45.0	A key is turned, a gate swings open,
0:51.0	and a small group of people leave behind a historic yet mundane city and enter a place of dreams and
1:00.0	nightmares, a resting place for the dead that is not as quiet as it should be.
1:07.4	They walk on a brick path that winds its way into the darkness, past leaning tombstones and gnarled trees draped in Spanish
1:16.2	moss. The graveyard is walled in and densely overgrown, and it looks like no one has been here in over a hundred years.
1:27.0	The distance sounds of the city recede and the group is enveloped in a sense of isolation that is almost palpable.
1:37.0	It is June 2008 and they are part of a ghost tour exploring the shadows of Charleston, South Carolina.
1:47.0	Ghost tours are very popular in Charleston.
1:50.0	Each night, visitors to the city travel down shadow-filled alleys and explore dark forgotten
1:56.6	corners, rich in history and legend.
2:01.0	This particular group was being led into one of the most forbidding and forbidden places,
2:07.0	a hidden graveyard not often visited by ghost tours at that time. I know what happened there, because I was their guide.
2:17.0	As we congregated in a small lighted area not far from the gate, I told them about the history of the graveyard
2:25.2	and the church to which it belonged. There were other stories, rumors, whispers,
2:32.3	legends, which I was not allowed to mention.
	...

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