By Richard Day, Curator of the Old French House

It is dark.

A chill wind moans through claw-like branches of trees, swirls and scatters crackling, dried corpses of dead leaves. A narrow dirt road slopes down toward a hollow where branches close in overhead, blotting out the roadway in shadowy blackness.

A car slowly descends the road and stops just outside the dark hollow. The motor stops. The car lights go off.

In the car sit a boy and girl.

"Well," says the boy, "here it is: Ghost Hollow."

"Oh, wow!" whispers the girl, wide-eyed, and she scoots over near the boy.

The boy continues: "They say a girl who lived in a house nearby went down this road one night, and lost her head in that hollow. Some say she was riding her horse too fast and a low-hanging limb knocked it off. Some say it was a crazy-man cut it off."

The boy puts his arms protectively around his date.

"Anyway, they say at night you can see her ghost riding through the hollow, carrying a silver platter with her head on it."

The girl edges still closer.

"Oh, and one thing more--They say the ghost has this mysterious power that can pull people right into the hollow."

Suddenly the car starts rolling forward and it swallowed up in the tangled darkness of the hollow.

Was the hollow attracting another victim...or did someone take a foot off the brake pedal? Only the hollow knows.

Such is the legend of Ghost Hollow, as told by the youth of Knox County. Ghost Hollow is two miles northeast of Wheatland on SE700S, near the White River.

Ghost Hollow Creek, which flows through the Hollow, can be found on the latest Knox County and U.S. Geological Survey maps, so it has a certain "official" status as a haunted place.

Folklorists assure us, however, that there are many such haunted sites scattered through Indiana, with names like "Ghost Hollow, "Haunted Hollow," "Dark Hollow," "Devil's Hollow," "Spook Hollow," and "Sleepy Hollow."

There are also haunted bridges and tunnels, not to mention assorted buildings.

The interesting thing about these legends is that they are not told by the old-timers as is the case with most folklore, but by the young people. Folklorists tell us that these legends have much to do with coming-of-age and courtship practices of adolescents.

There are actually several, different stories told about Ghost Hollow, some as vague and insubstantial as the ghost itself.

In some versions the sex of the ghost is undetermined, in some the ghost carries the head under its arm and in still others it is looking for its lost head.

The essential thing is that the hollow is "haunted," especially when "the chill wind moans through the claw-like branches."

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EMAIL: rking@indian.vinu.edu