By: Little Dreamer
Bear with me, this might turn out to be a bit of a long read, but I'm sure it is worth it. I have rarely read any South African ghost stories on the Net and felt that maybe I needed to do something about that. South Africa sports some of the best myths among the "Flying Dutchman" which has been popularized by the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but the true story is nothing like the film's version.
Captain Hendrik van der Decken, of Holland, wanted to sail past the Cape of Storms (Cape Town) but apparently the weather was horrid and it was Good Friday or something, he cursed and swore at the weather and made an oath to that he will sail past the Cape even is he has to try until the end of days. Well as long as there is an ocean, the "Flying Dutchman" will sail the seas and try to get past the Cape of Storms. It is said that when another ship approaches the Dutchman and accepts the letters it hands over to post they will suffer a major accident. The ship has been sighted and recorded by King George V and his brother Albert. Thus the sighting of the ship promised a future of impending doom.
A local and rather recent story (it stems from the early 1970's) had it's origin in Uniondale, a small town in the Klein Karoo. The story is that of the "Uniondale Ghost" as she is commonly known in South Africa.
The history goes as follows:
The girl and her fiancé was driving on his motorbike on Easter weekend on the road to Uniondale. They made a major accident where she died, the fiancé survived and later married someone else.
If, on a dark night during Easter you drive to Uniondale and see a smallish girl hitchiking and you happen to pick her up, usually the smell of appleblossom would accompany her. She would disappear sometime during the drive and only the smell of the flowers would remain.
Other times if you become aware of the smell of appleblossoms while driving on that road you should know that the Uniondale Ghost had hitched a ride with you and she wishes to go back to her fiancé.
As far as I know her visitations do not bode any evil. A group of ghosthunters claim to have put her to rest, but I'm not so sure...
A last well-known story is that of the "Ghost wagon in the "Spokeveld" (Ghost feld).
The wagon would chase across the fields in the early morning silence with an incredible speed across unseen roads.
Major Ellis recounts the following events in an old book. He was driving in the past coach from Ceres towards Beaufort-West. he was sitting up front with the coach driver when the wheel broke. They had to pull off the road in order to check what happened when they heard a wagon racing towards them. Ellis thought it was on the road heading straight towards them, but Anthony de Beer, the coach driver said No, the sound doesn't come up from the road. Apparently the noise the wagon made was amazing. As the wagon stormed past them Anthony shouted, "Where the devil are you going?"
A loud voice answered, "To hell," and this was followed by a chorus of horrid laughter. As the wagon raced past a gust of icy wind followed them, as can be expected during an encounter with the spirit world. They caught a glimpse of the driver, he had a deadly white face with deadly piercing eyes and a white bandana tied around the lower part of his face. Laughter followed this as well. A few seconds after the wagon passed, the noise disappeared and a scary calm descended over the landscape. Anthony and Ellis ran back towards the coach, but saw two men sitting next to a fire and approached them, the men turned to look at them with deadly white visages and disappeared. The fire which was burning moments earlier was dead and no trace of a recent fire was visible.
Anthony was very depressed, because they knew the story of the ghost wagon.....the legend says that if the wagon races towards you, but no one does anything and it crashes into you, everyone is doomed; but if one person shouts out to the wagon (as Anthony did) he saves everyone's lives at the cost of his own.... Anthony's body was found a week later at the bottom of a cliff with his coach and horses.......
Thank you for reading so patiently, I hope that it was at least a bit interesting. This is really the truth.
1 comment:
For one the lady and her fiance was on their way to her mother and they were driving a car not a motorbike it was on Good Friday and it was raining she was sleeping while he was driving and they made an accident. He only woke up in the hospital and she died when they had been flung out the car. I am busy writing a book on paranormal activities and have done my research just though I let you know.
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