Greetings ghost lovers!
Tonight we had an old-fashioned night at home. It began with a sing-a-long around the piano.
Lestat, who is Daisy's companion and a vampire (not that there's anything wrong with that 
) loves to play, although he tells me the harpsichord is his real favourite. He says it reminds him of the old days.
After some very loud and tuneful singing Daisy asked if I would like to have a look at her family photo album. She said they weren’t just boring old photos. You see, Daisy’s ancestors were all actors and because of that she has loads of great old photos of them in their fancy costumes. The ones I am looking at are from the 1800’s.
Daisy said actors are very superstitious people about things like ghosts, and they are especially superstitious about the play Macbeth.
Daisy said her father (also an actor) said that he had seen many strange and unusual happenings when he has been involved in a performance of Macbeth.
Actors think it is bad luck to mention Macbeth by name while they are inside a theatre, and usually prefer to called it The Scottish Play. Daisy said the reason for this is that Shakespeare is said to have used the spells of real witches in his text, this apparently made the witches really mad and they cursed the play.
Therefore, to say the name of the play inside a theatre is believed to doom the production to failure, and perhaps cause physical injury or even worse to cast members. A large mythology has built up surrounding this superstition, with many stories of accidents, misfortunes and even deaths, all mysteriously taking place during runs of Macbeth (or by actors who had uttered the name).
Here are three ways to ward off the curse:
1)Immediately leave the building the stage is in with the person who uttered the name, walk around it three times, spit over their left shoulder, say an obscenity then wait to be invited back into the building.
2) Leave the room, knock three times, be invited in, and then quote a line from Hamlet.
3)Recite one of Shylock's monologues from The Merchant of Venice
Wow! I never thought I would learn about ghosts just from looking through a photo album!
Then it was time for bed. Daisy said she had the perfect story for a little voyager on the haunted trail. I could hardly wait to hear it!
First she made us a bedtime drink in some very pretty little cups that were just the right size for me! She said these cups were what the story was all about.
Here we are eagerly awaiting the story!
Here is the story of the pretty little cups…
One November a long, long time ago Daisy’s great grandmother Effie passed away very suddenly. Her death came as a great shock, especially to Daisy’s grandmother.
Daisy’s Grandmother lived next door to a lady who was a medium and held séances. The medium informed Daisy’s Grandmother that the ghost of Effie had made itself known to her during one of her seances. She had said that her spirit was restless because she had something she needed to tell Daisy's Grandmother.
It seemed that Effie had scrimped and saved for months to buy Daisy’s grandmother a birthday present, but had died before she had been able to go to the shop to pick it up. Daisy’s grandmother went to every shop in the vicinity of Effie’s house. She was beginning to think it was all some kind of hoax until she walked into a little gift shop that she had never been in before. She asked if a lady by a certain name had made a purchase there recently. The owner of the shop said that she had, and that she thought it was odd that the elderly lady had not returned to pick up the package as it had seemed very important to her. The lady in the shop gave Daisy’s grandmother the package and inside were a set of tiny little coffee cups, the very same ones we drank out of tonight!
The ghost of Effie never appeared again and the medium was convinced it was because she had completed her unfinished business on earth – spooky and all 100% true!
I'm off to bed now! Will write more soon
Love
Billy Goat x
