Penny Dreadfuls - Scary Stories for Around the Fire
From wendigo, to bogeymen, ghosts, haunted ships, and monsters prowling the woods, out here there be monsters. One of the most traditional, and might I say necessary, activities to undertake on a camping trip is a good old fashioned scary story.
If you’ve read our deep dive on how to best tell a campfire story, which if you haven’t you should, it’s really cool, you’ll know that the tradition of telling campfire stories goes back to when our ancestors first began using fire and fire pits. Nowadays, we tend to go a little creepy with our stories.
And so we will be bringing you the best of the best, spine-tingling, goosebump causing, oh-my-god-what’s-in-the-woods, give the kids nightmares stories we can find!
First up, one of Canada’s own: La Dame Blanche, or the Lady in White of Montmorency Falls…
I know of a waterfall where you may catch sight of a ghostly bride who never walked down the aisle.
In the early summer of 1759, amid the Seven Years War, Mathilde Robin, a beautiful Canadienne woman, found her true love in Louis Tessier, a local farmer. Louis asked Mathilde’s father for her hand, which he gladly gave with the couple set to wed at the end of the summer. Throughout the season Matilde worked on tailoring her own white wedding gown.
However, war soon came to the shores of Montmorency as the British advanced on the French controlled land. The French military was set to meet the British, and called upon the volunteer militia of the area. Louis was one of them.
As the Battle of Beaufort raged, the women and children took shelter praying for their men to return safely. They waited for news of their loved ones, until word came: the French had won, the men were coming home!
Mathilde waited, and waited, but Louis never returned.
Now in some versions of this story, Mathilde went along the river banks and found her love’s body on the shores. At least that would have given her some kind of closure, this is not that story.
In this story, Mathilde waits but neither in life or death is she reunited with Louis.
As her neighbors celebrated the victory, Mathilde returned home and went to the oak chest where she had stored her finished wedding dress. Donning the gown and veil, she walked to the falls and climbed the cliff, to the place where she and Louis had spent so many precious moments together. And there – where she once felt so much love, she now felt only pain – she threw herself to the water’s mercy.
These days, during the height of the summer when love blossoms, into early fall when the hush of winter begins to invade, you may see a young woman in white, crying, her tears and veil joining the falls, still mourning her lost love.