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ghostly.scents
ghostly.scents
From: shander@soc.duke.edu (Lisa Shander)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: More Ghostly Scents
Date: 28 Feb 1995 18:59:19 GMT
Here are a couple of personal experiences regarding ghostly scents.
My husband and I recently bought and moved into a small, 50 year old
cottage in North Carolina. It does its share of creaking and
groaning, but considering the building codes here 50 years ago, I
don't attribute anything other-worldly to the noises.
However, about a month ago, my husband and I were getting dressed to
go out to dinner. I was going back and forth between the bathroom and
our bedroom, through the little hall, when I began to notice an odd
odor. Maybe something burning, but sweeter. I checked the kitchen;
nothing burning there. The fireplace hadn't been used in two weeks.
I went back to the hallway, and the smell was now very distinct -
cherry pipe tobacco.
I called to my husband to sniff the hallway. He's always accused me
of having super-smelling powers, and makes fun of the way I sniff
around trying to find out where odors are coming from. On this
occasion, however, he walked out into the hallway and said, "whew!
Who's been smoking a pipe?"
We checked all around our house - not a soul to be seen outside. The
heat hadn't been on for at least a half hour, and when I turned up the
thermostat to start the blower to check for a smell, there was none.
The scent disappeared after a short time, and we haven't smelled it
since. I can just imagine that our 1945 cottage was built for a WWII
verteran who enjoyed a good pipe every now and then.
My other story takes place in Florence, Italy, about 7 years ago. My
husband and I were looking for a cheap place to stay, and were
directed to a large building by the train station that contained eight
separate pensiones. We had to climb to the fourth floor to find one
with a vacancy, and we settled into a beautiful, but small, room with
a view of the mountains, some antique furniture, and a sink in the
corner. The bath and shower were down the hall. We met two girls
from Australia that day who took the room next to ours. One of the
girls could speak fluent Italian.
That night, I went to the sink in the corner of the room to remove my
contact lenses, and I swore I smelled wax burning - the way churches
smell when many candles are lit. I made my husband sniff the area,
and he didn't smell a thing. The next morning, the smell was gone.
I asked the girls next door if they had been burning a candle the
night before, and they said no. That night, I smelled the wax again,
and this time had the girls come in to sniff. (They probably thought
I was crazy) However, they smelled wax too. The girl who spoke
Italian found the proprietor of the pensione and asked about the
smell.
It seems that the entire building had been a monastery for a few
hundred years, and that the fourth floor had been where the monks had
their cells. In the corner of each room, they had had a prayer stool
and candles, so they could pray through the night. The proprietor
said that the smell was "in the walls," but I wondered why the wax
could only be smelled at night, only in my room, and why didn't my
husband smell it? I kinda hoped that some monks would appear to me
that night, but no luck. But I did smell the burning wax every
evening we were there after 10pm.
--
Lisa Krawczynski Shander | email: shander@soc.duke.edu
Computer Software Specialist |
Department of Sociology | "I am the concierge; chez moi, honey"
Duke University | - KaTe
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