October 31 is Halloween! So BOOOOOO!

What better way to celebrate the spooky season than with a few jack o’lanterns and scary stories.  

Stamps, in order:
Halloween
Angola 2019
part of their Annual Holidays  series

Halloween
France 2004

Halloween
Austria 2005
Designer: M. Satke

Halloween
France 2001
By the great team Sylvie Patte &Tanguy Besset

The practice of carving ghoulish faces on vegetables may have roots in Ireland, where large turnips served as early canvasses. In fact, the name, jack-o’-lantern, comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack. Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America, home of the pumpkin, and it became an integral part of Halloween festivities.
How Jack O’Lanterns Originated in Irish Myth | HISTORY

Although Halloween itself is now largely a non-religious celebration, it grew out of All Hallows’ Eve, which is the night before All Saints’ Day, an early Christian observance still widely celebrated today. By the 1500s, All Hallows’ Eve—a name eventually shortened to Halloween—was celebrated in the British Isles on October 31 amid bonfires, costumes, and revelry. Brought to North America by immigrants from Ireland and Scotland, Halloween became a distinctively American celebration. After World War II, trick-or-treating gave Halloween a youthful emphasis, but since the 1970s adults have joined in once again.
USPS New Stamp Issues 2016, Forever Stamps (Stamp News Now)

Halloween tales to terrify

Headless Brakemen from Vancouver’s Gastown
From Haunted Canada series 2 
Canada Post 2015
Designers; Kammy Ahuga & Lionel Gadoury

The Brakeman, from BC. is another tale of rail decapitation. The rail station in Gastown, Vancouver has quite a few spooks, with some making afterlife careers scaring the life out of poor security guards. This stamp highlights a story from 1928, about brakeman Hub Clark. He was checking the tracks one wet night when he slipped and fell, knocking himself out, just in time for a passenger train to roar along, decapitating him. Yeah, two decapitations is quite a head count. Anyway, poor old Hub wanders about the station to this day, minus his head. No word on whether he’s still checking the tracks or hunting for his head. 

Marie-Josephte Corriveau 1733 – 1763

Marie-Josephte Corriveau (Lévis, Quebec) 
From Haunted Canada series 2 
Canada Post 2015
Designers; Kammy Ahuga & Lionel Gadoury

Marie-Josephte Corriveau is a complex story tied to a documented execution that took place in the colony of Québec.  Initially, Corriveau and her father, Joseph Corriveau, were arrested and tried for the murder of her husband, Louis Étienne Dodier.  She was convicted of being an accomplice and sentenced to a flogging while her father was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. 

When faced with the prospect of hanging, papa Corriveau confessed to being an accomplice only. His daughter was the killer. Marie-Josephte Corriveau was re-arrested, tried and executed in 1763. Afterwards, British authorities suspended her body in a gibbet for the public to see. She remained on display for about a month, until locals, distressed at the sight of the decaying corpse, asked the local British commander to allow her burial. She was finally taken down and buried, along with the gibbet, at the Saint-Joseph-de-la-Pointe-Lévy graveyard. 

Ah, but the story doesn’t end there. In 1851, the church had the cage dug up and stored. It was stolen at one point and reappeared as part of  P. T. Barnum’s show. From there it changed hands and went to the Boston Museum for some years, until the Musée de la civilisation in Québec finally acquired it, where it is on permanent display.

Corriveau’s spirit wasn’t too happy with her execution and shenanigans after her burial and is said to continue haunting Lévis, Québec. Legend has it, Marie-Josephte stalks the area, still encased in the gibbet, terrifying the unsuspecting. Atlas Obscura has an interesting article on Corriveau that explores the historical and cultural aspects of the story, The Hanging Cage That Held An Infamous Québec Murderess – Atlas Obscura.

Bell Island Hag 

Bell Island Hag
From Haunted Canada series 3
Canada Post 2016
Designer: Lionel Gadoury

Newfoundland is home to the Bell Island Hag who haunts the island’s marshes. She’s either a beautiful siren or an archetypal old crone, again, depending on which tale you read. This one edges towards the cautionary tale territory. 

It begins with a young woman who loses her way, while walking through the dangerous marshes. Why she was traveling through them is unclear, because the locals avoided the area. They believed it was home to the “little people” who brought bad luck and curses to any who crossed their paths. The woman became terrified and hopelessly lost and cried out for help. Over and over she called out to her neighbours but no one in the town would venture out.  Despite screaming for hours, no one lifted a finger to aid her. Instead they closed their doors and windows to block out her cries.

She perished in the marsh, leaving behind a vengeful, banshee-like hag (or alluring ghost). She chases down the unwary who enter the marsh, trapping them. When caught, the victim is said to hear the hag repeat “No one came to help me when I died in that swamp. No one will help you.”  

Spooky Canada is a fun site to poke around if you are interested in looking into more ghost stories. I used their article, Hag of Bell Island and Mine Shaft 2 | Spooky Canada as a primary reference for this tale. 

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The tales all came from an article I previously wrote in 2021.  You can read more here Things that go bump in Canada. If you need myths and scary tales to while away Halloween, you can find more here.