Halloween folklore and fowl

This Halloween, step into the shadows of rural folklore with Cara Wheeldon to discover spooky poultry tales, ghostly roosters, banshee-like wails, and sinister headless hens. All from Britain's haunted farmyard past.

- 

As October creeps in, the nights stretch longer, the shadows grow deeper, and the coop, usually a place of clucks and calm, can take on a more mysterious air. While most poultry keepers are thinking about moults and winter prep, Halloween gives us the perfect excuse to dust off some of the darker tales from Britain’s rural past. Because if you thought chickens were immune to the supernatural, think again.

THE GHOSTLY WHITE ROOSTER OF YORKSHIRE

In Yorkshire and along the Borders, there are tales of a ghostly white rooster, an omen bird believed to foreshadow death. This legend is tied to older beliefs about “wraiths” or spirit doubles. According to folklorist John Rhys in his 1901 book Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx, “presages of death are very common on the Border... the most fatal is to see your wraith walking to or away from you.” In some versions of this tale, the wraith took on avian form, with a pale rooster appearing silently before tragedy struck.