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View Full Version : Ghost of a drowned man - Anger, France



Iris
April 16th, 2006, 02:55 PM
This was one of my favourite ghost stories when I was a kid (I was a weird kid. LOL) and I've recently come across it again in a book entitled 'Ghosts' edited by Morven Eldritch. I wondered if anyone else had heard this story or knew anythig more about it, since google didn't turn up anything when I tried looking for more info. The story goes smething like this:

Brittany, France 1951 - A cyclist (allegedly by the name of John Allen) found his bike had a puncture just outside Anger. It was raining very heavily and, failing to mend the puncture in the downpour, the cyclist walked on, pushing his bike, until he found an old farmhouse. Thinking to take shelter until the storm had passed, he approached the house and found it boarded up - however the door was unlocked. The house had been abandoned for a long time and the scattered pieces of furniture were covered in mold. However, John decided to stay, light a fire and warm up before moving on. He gathered dry wood and went to fetch paraffin from his saddlebags which he had left in the hall. He suddenly noticed a wet trail against the dust in the hall floor. Beginning to feel afraid, he followed the trail back into the living room, to find it ended at the sofa, upon which sat a few tattered strips of fabric, the remains of some old pyjamas. Trying to be rational, John told himself he could not go back outside in the pouring rain, and carried on lighting the fire - which promptly blew out. Sddenly he heard a noise out in the hall - the noise of something wet and heavy being dropped onto the floor, with a loud squelching sound. Running out to investigate, he saw the wet trail was absolutely sodden now, and the water seemed to be inching its way forward along the hall, into the living room - accompanied by a wet, dragging sound. The trail stopped at the old pyjamas, which began to ooze water and filled out into the shape of a man. The cyclist fled the hosue and ended up spending the night in a local tavern, where, allegedly, the barman told him this story -

During the second world war, the farmhouse was owned by an artist, a collaborator named Marc Baus who betrayed many resistance fighters and was attacked by a mob in his home in 1948. He was found dead two months later, floating in a pond behind the farmhouse. His body had been dragged through and laid on the settee...

That story still gives me chills! So, anyone ever heard this before?

Bunthulhu
April 16th, 2006, 03:22 PM
Oooh I've heard that one :)

It's meant to be true is it? Considering it involves someone who's crazy enough to go cycling in a storm in the middle of nowhere and then go and wander round a big spooky abandoned house, also in a storm, it seems a bit piffley to me :lol:

ValD
April 16th, 2006, 04:22 PM
Yes, almost certainly fiction. Can't find anything about a French collaborator named Marc Baus; Baus is a Spanish name anyway. And why did "the mob" wait for three years to attack his house?

Little Billy
April 16th, 2006, 04:24 PM
Yes, almost certainly fiction. Can't find anything about a French collaborator named Marc Baus; Baus is a Spanish name anyway. And why did "the mob" wait for three years to attack his house?

Still a ripping good story, either way.

LB,
Doesn't CARE if his ghost stories are true or not.

Iris
April 16th, 2006, 04:54 PM
The book states that he was in prison for some time and had only just returned home when the 'mob' attacked. Also, allegedly this 'John Allen' was on a cycling tour of Europe or somesuch. The thing that puzzled me most was...why were the 'remains of the pyjamas' STILL on the old sofa? However badly hated Baus was, his body would surely have been taken away and buried, not left to decay inside his HOUSE???!

Curiouser and curiouser! lol.

Bunthulhu
April 16th, 2006, 08:34 PM
Yeah the pyjamas bit bugged me too. If he'd just been left on the sofa, his bones would be there too, not just the pyjamas! Plus it would surely have still smelt terrible.

Oh dear, Ashley is over-analysing things as usual :lol:

LadySnake
April 17th, 2006, 03:14 PM
True story or not, I loved it!!! Thank you!!!!!:ghost: