Shadows and Stories Online Trivia | The Unexplained

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. There is a common tale of a person travelling at speed along a dark country lane with only moonlight illuminating the surrounding fields. The person, looking to the fields, suddenly notices a shape flitting parallel to them, behind a hedgerow on the other side of the field. What is it about the shape which suggests it is supernatural?

Answer: It is keeping pace with the fast moving vehicle

Stories vary around the country with some travellers being terrified of a dark beast running at speed alongside them, and others fleeing in panic from a spectral figure. The fright in most cases comes from both the fact that the shape is partially hidden and therefore cannot be identified and also that it is clearly fast enough to keep up and would be difficult to escape from.

2. Is it bad or good luck to see Black Shuck? ('good luck' or 'bad luck')

Answer: bad luck

Black Shuck is the name given to East Anglia's huge phantom Black Dog. Tales of supernatural Black Dogs appear all over the country. They are said to wander around countryside and dark lanes and in most cases, their appearance is seen as a death portent.

Some of the dogs are described as having only one eye in the centre of their head, others have huge saucer-like eyes. Nearly all are described as having massive teeth and claws and as being huge.

3. Imagine the famous photograph of the tall hooded ghostly monk standing at the altar of Newby Church. What does its face look like?

Answer: White sheet

If you do not know the picture, it can be seen by going to the following address: http://flapjack44.net/newbymonk.jpg. The photographer only realised something was awry when his film was developed and the figure of the monk appeared in the frame. The photograph has undergone numerous tests both at the time and more recently - and it has still not been shown to be a fake.

4. On Christmas Eve, in the late 1880s, two sailors decided to sleep on the top floor of an empty house for the night. During the night, they were disturbed by the sound of muffled footsteps climbing the stairs and a horrific 'thing' entering the room. One man made a dash for the door and raced downstairs leaving behind his companion trapped in the room with the spectral shape of a grotesque man advancing towards him. In his terror, the second man fell through the window and his body was impaled on a spiked railing. What was the address of the house?

Answer: 50 Berkeley Square, London

Another ghost at the house is said to be that of a young woman, who, trying to flee from unwelcome advances, climbed out onto the window ledge, lost her footing and fell to her death. Her screaming ghost has been seen hanging from the window ledge. The sound of furniture being dragged across bare floorboards and books and furniture being hurled out of the windows into the street below are other manifestations although when investigations are made, the house is always found to be quiet and deserted. 50 Berkeley Square still stands.

5. In February 1855 after a night of heavy snowfall, odd tracks appeared in several towns in South Devon. During the night something unidentified had raced across the snow through these towns, covering more than a hundred miles. What did the tracks look like?

Answer: Cloven hoofprints

Each print, roughly shaped like a cloven hoof, was about 4 inches long and appeared to belong to a two legged creature. The tracks were found across ground, on top of 14-foot walls, across the roofs of houses and vanishing at the edge of ponds or rivers only to appear again on the far bank. Occasionally, the prints stepped right up to the front door of a home, where they then turned and walked away in another direction, and across the hundred mile distance, no one had seen or heard the creature. The next morning, only the tracks remained.

6. Imagine another famous photograph, this time the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. What is the background of the photograph?

Answer: Staircase

The Lady had been sighted many times before she was caught on camera. Legend has it that she was locked in the Hall by her husband who had learned of a scandal involving her past, and never allowed to leave. Although her death was officially reported as being of smallpox, many believe she died after being pushed (or throwing herself) down the staircase shown in the photograph.

7. What well known haunting site was reputed to be plagued with a phantom nun and poltergeist activity which involved objects being thrown, a member of the family being attacked and pushed out of bed and scrawled messages addressed to 'Marianne' on the walls?

Answer: Borley Rectory

The family most affected by the haunting at Borley was the Foysters and the messages scrawled on the wall by an unseen hand (sometimes as people watched) were addressed to Marianne who was the rector's young wife. Most of the messages were unintelligible although one read, "Marianne, please help get" and another, "Pleas for help and prayers".

8. In 1880s London, a businessman returning home late at night was confronted by a figure with large glowing eyes which vaulted 10 feet over the railings of a cemetery into his path. Another night, two sisters were returning home when a figure jumped out in front of one of them and spat blue 'fire' in her face. Witnesses said that the creature jumped high over the terrified victim, landed on the roof of a nearby house and bounded off into the night. What is the common name of the terrifying attacker?

Answer: Spring Heeled Jack

A girl answered the door and found a cloaked man in the shadows: "I'm a policeman. For God's sake, bring me a light, for we have caught Spring Heeled Jack in the lane!" She fetched a candle and to her terror its light illuminated the face of Jack himself who attacked her. Jane's police statement said "His hands were as cold as ice and like powerful claws.

But the most frightening thing about him was his eyes. They shone like balls of fire." The suggestion that Jack had a 'spring' mechanism in his shoes is unlikely as sprung footwear has been tested for military purposes and many test subjects suffered broken ankles.

The mystery of Spring Heeled Jack has never been explained.

9. What phenomenon is the most common form of 'ghost' found on photographs placed on the internet?

Answer: Orbs

In fact, although I make no comment as to the veracity or otherwise of the photographs of orbs on the Net, it is actually a very easy visual to fake. All you need is a camera and something with dust on it (such as a duster!). In a darkened area, with the camera set to 'flash', shake the duster above and in front of the camera and then take the picture.

The dust particles reflect the light of the flash and hey presto, you have orbs!

10. Which of the following lists of ghosts has been made up by me?
1. A limping butler haunts the BBC's Broadcasting House; a ghostly panther and an invisible pianist haunt Cardiff's Donat's Castle; a spectral horse-driven London bus drives down Bayswater Road.
2. The ghost of jockey Fred Archer rides the racecourse at Newmarket; an ape haunts Athelhampton Hall in Dorset; a highwayman in the form of a whistling stone haunts the spot where he was killed on Hampstead Heath.
3. A bear haunts Cheyne Walk in Chelsea; at Berkshire's Bisham Abbey the ghost of Lady Hoby is 'in negative' with black hands and face and white clothes; walking skeletons haunt Chillingham Castle in Northumberland
4. A giraffe haunts the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussauds; the bridge over the river Mersey has a troll underneath it; a knitting ghost lives in the pantry at Bankside Castle in Middlesex.

Answer: List 4

A few more reported ghosts to round the quiz off:
Inverawe House in Scotland is the home of Green Jean, a houseproud spirit who puts out fresh soap and towels for guests.
The ghost of a dog carries its owner's head at Hergest Court in Herefordshire (presumably after picking it up after its master had been beheaded).
The ghost of an old woman known as 'the Old Hell Cat' knits with red-hot needles at Raby Castle in Durham.

Source: Author Flapjack44

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor natsim before going online.
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Shadows and Stories Trivia Quiz

Haunted by the image of a ghostly monk in front of an altar? Test your knowledge of the UK's better known ghosts and spooky folklore. Avoiding royal ghosts, this concentrates on apparitions in dark country lanes, quiet back roads and old buildings.

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