Bridges

Taken from a bridge. There are a lot of strange stories about bridges which seem to be particularly haunted places. There are many stories in the Paranormal Database.

There is also a long tradition of tales concerning trolls hiding under bridges, or pacts made with the devil in order to be able to cross a bridge safely.

It makes me wonder just why bridges are seen as such scary places. Perhaps in olden times they were, being good places to ambush people (as they still are in war). They were probably often rather dangerous to cross in the days before elf and safety and a rickety bridge is definately not a good place to be. They were definately dangerous to build, one of the more famous examples being the Tay Bridge where 75 men were killed all in one go when the bridge collapsed. But it was otherwise common for men to be killed while building such large structures. The larger ones were and still are also often used as places to commit suicide from.

The latter was said to be the case with at least one of the haunted bridges near where I was brought up. It was over an old railway line and a man was said to have jumped off it and to still haunt it. I was scared of that bridge and used to keep as quiet as possible whenever I had to go under it, as making a noise was said to rouse the ghost. One time, a friend and I ran through it a few times shouting but we didn't see him on that occasion. There was another one which was supposed to be haunted by a woman at night. Whever I had to cycle over it at night I would close my eyes for the second or so it took to cross it (it was a very tiny bridge, just spanning a small burn) so that, if the woman was there I wouldn't be able to see her.