TGR 10.22.18. Our Haunted Family Tree

This week on The Gralien Report, as we continue to make our way through the weeks leading up to the ancient “Feast of the Ancestors” (or Halloween as we’d more commonly call the same time of year today), we take a haunted look at happenings in the news, which range from the opening of the new Halloween movie in theatres, promoted as a direct sequel to the original classic (both starring Jamie Lee Curtis) to strange things happening in our oceans. We also take time to look at odd claims one man made about things he saw on Earth’s moon; also, coinciding with the posthumous release of his final book, we look at the late Sir Stephen Hawking’s “predictions” for the future.

Then in hour two, after a few eerie stories sent along by readers, Micah shares a peculiar legend from his family going all the way back to ancient Wales, where the story of a haunted oak tree was prevalent at the Nannau estate. “Howel Sele, a Welsh chieftain, and Lord of Nannau, was privately slain, during a hunting quarrel, by his cousin, Owen Glyndwr, or Glendower, and hidden for a long time within [the tree’s] hollow trunk,” an article from 1832 states. “The remembrance of this tragical event was afterwards preserved by tradition in the family of the Vaughans of Hengwyrl; nor was it wholly lost among the peasants, who would point out to the traveller the “Haunted Oak;” and as they passed it in the gloom of the night, would quicken their pace, and perhaps murmur a prayer for personal protection, against the crufts and assaults of the demon of the tree.”

We take a look back at the peculiar legends associated with this unique element of Micah’s own family history, as well as a classic radio drama based on it, on this week’s edition of The Gralien Report.