Muncaster Castle, near Ravenglass in Cumbria, England, is one of the main castles I would love to visit. Not only does it look the part, none of this namby-pamby stately house shite, but it also has a ghost that one doesn’t often hear about in castles.
The ghost in question happens to be the ghost of Thomas Skelton, a.k.a Tom Fool who was, as his name suggests, the castle fool (jester), always playing pranks and tricks on people. He was held in quite high regard throughout the castle.
This guy though, was a bit of a dick. His tricks weren’t your average jumping out and shouting boo, or pulling someone’s chair out from under them before they sat down. This guy, when asked for directions outside the castle walls, liked to point unsuspecting travellers in the direction of the quicksand pits. Which they would inevitably fall in and die. Now I don’t know how familiar everyone is with quicksand, but I suspect that unless you came prepared with Cary Elwes fully kitted out as Westley from The Princess Bride, you probably wouldn’t survive the quicksand. Let’s face it, Buttercup would have been utterly fucked if he hadn’t been there.
Anyway I digress. So yes, Tom “Arsehole” Skelton thoroughly enjoyed “pranking” people into going to their deaths in quicksand. Not only was he a major ballbag, but he was also a horrendous kiss-arse who loved nothing more than trying to prove himself and his loyalty to the lord of the castle, one Sir Ferdinand Pennington.
Now, Sir Ferdy had a daughter who was a bit of a modern day lass. She didn’t like anyone telling her what to do, she was boisterous and adventurous (my kinda gal) and was so headstrong that she got the nickname “Helwise”.
Helwise was due to be a bride in an arranged marriage (set up by Daddy Ferdy) but as with most young and pretty girls her age, she weirdly didn’t want to get married to someone her dad picked for her, who was probably an old troll with man-boobs. Instead, she had the hots for a local carpenter (not a bad trade by any means). When her dad found out, he was of course, livid and asked Tom Skelton to “sort it out”.
Tom, all too happy to oblige and try and better his position with the lord of the castle, invited the carpenter to the castle for a few drinks and a good time. The carpenter clearly either hadn’t heard the rumours about Tom, or was hoping if he impressed Tom, it’d impress Helwise’s father who would give them his blessing to be married.
Whatever the chippy’s thoughts, it didn’t end well and Tom ended up getting him absolutely shit-faced before proceeding to hack the guy’s head off with his own chisel. Personally I was more bewildered as to why he brought the blasted thing with him on a night out. Leave work at work, I say.
So, now that it was safe to say the carpenter was never going to be the head of a major corporation, wasn’t very headstrong, and that certainly was not the way to get ahead in life (sorry, not sorry), Tom lugged the body through the castle and hid it.
It didn’t take Helwise very long to find out what happened (probably the massive stench of rotting corpse gave it away) and she was so overcome with grief that she confined herself to a nunnery (probably for the best) and eventually went mad (prayers 19+ times a day will do that to you).
Tom went unpunished, as was usually the case in those days and it’s said that his sinister spirit still lingers within the castle to this day, playing his sinister tricks. He is often heard or felt, but never seen…
The M.O Podcast 