I talk a lot about New England folklore.

One of the biggest reasons for that is because the northeast part of the United States serves

as a sort of cultural bridge between the old world and the new.

It was there more than anywhere else where the old tales and superstitions first sat

root on American soil.

The witch hysteria of the late 1600s was an aftershock of a larger tremor that shook

Europe for decades.

The American version of the vampire has roots in Eastern European folk tales and legends.

Even holidays like Christmas and Halloween were really just old world injections into the

cultural soft tissue of America and the needle pierced us in New England first.

Most of the time there are other parts of the country that played host to pioneers and

adventurers as well.

People who risk their lives and loved ones travel across the cold Atlantic and build a new

home here on these shores.

And the age of colonization brought more than just settlers and supplies.

It brought lore.

Fathers up and down the east coast of what would one day become America came ashore with

heads full of superstitions and propensity to attach meaning to things we might overlook

today.

Put another way, they brought food for their journey and the seeds to grow more here.

The came with minds that were perfectly wired to build new folklore on the backs of old

tales, new fears, new legends, new hauntings.

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