Christmas Ghosts: The Tradition of Winter Tales

We have told supernatural tales at midwinter for a very long time. In this talk we are taken back to the earliest winter tales of the Middle Ages and the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe. We then explore the lost years of the 17th and 18th centuries, where it is often thought that Christmas was not celebrated much – but ghost tales at Christmastide were very much part of the season.  In the 19th century many traditional Christmas ghost tales were collected, and even now it is considered one of the spookiest times of the years.

Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008.  At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library.  She has also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years and has published a number of collections of stories. She is the Editor of the Journal of William Morris Studies and was the newsletter editor for Society of Decorative Art Collections. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.