Van Butchell turned to Dr. William Hunter, under whom he had studied, and Dr. William Cruikshank. They took on the task, injecting the body with preservatives to which coloring had been added to give Mary’s cheeks a rosy glow. A pair of “nicely matched glass eyes” completed the effect. Mary was then dressed in a fine lace gown and embedded in a thin layer of plaster of Paris in a glass-topped coffin with curtains.

As they disembarked to stretch their legs after the long train ride, a gaunt cowboy with a. 45 revolver rounded the side of the railroad depot and crossed the main street to the town saloon. Eyeing another man across the street, he shouted: “Ah bin lookin’ for ya, an’ now ah’m gonna’ kill ya.” He then pulled out his gun and fired.

The alligator story is one of many modern folktales (frequently with an ironic or horrific twist) that are retold as true, with embellishments to make them seem plausible. They appear in varying forms in different parts of the world and, like many stories, travel rapidly on the grapevine. Certain modern folktales have become classics.

He was watching an execution taking place in the square below. He was no innocent bystander, however. The person being executed was himself-in effigy. As the executioner struck off the head of the dummy the live marquis remarked that he did not even have a headache.

‘It’s like 10 electric razors running at once,’ said one resident. ‘A powerful generator,’ confirmed another. Harbormaster Ted Rose stressed the seriousness of the problem. ‘Sometimes it gets so loud you have to talk above it. It can drown out conversations and wake people from a dead sleep.’

Are you sick and tired of having the same traditional Christmas dishes such as roasted turkey, fried chicken, barbecue, spaghetti, fruit salad and red wine among others served before your very eyes over and over again? Then, why not for a change, dress your Christmas table with these 10 odd delicacies you probably heard for the first time.

For several hundred years the Tower of London was home to a menagerie of wild animals, including a number of lions that later became the basis of a hoax. Dawk’s News-Letter for April 2, 1698, announced: “Yesterday being the one April several persons were sent to the Tower of London to watch the annual lion-washing ceremony.” This fictitious event continued to attract gullible visitors. Indeed, 158 years later, in 1856, many bought tickets to attend the ceremony. They were unaware of the significance of the date, April 1, or that the lions had been moved to the London Zoo 21 years before.

Outside the laboratory, copper wires suspended on poles run for more than a mile into the countryside. Inside, mysterious equipment – coils of wire, weirdly shaped jars, strange crystals, saucers of murky liquid – glows and pulsates. The few local people who dare to approach the mansion tell of explosions, of bolts of lightning that strike when no storms are near, and of the reclusive, secretive nature of the scientist himself.

Normally, pirates did not carry women to sea. Indeed, they had a custom that strictly forbade such practice. But the evidence is that Rackham and his gang accepted Anne and Mary as equals. According to the accounts of two French captives, the women usually wore dresses on board ship: “When …we gave chase or attacked, they wore women’s”.

The communication may take the form of a direct message conveyed psychically by one friend to the other, a message sent through a medium, or even an intuition or conviction by one friend that the other is dead. Christie-Murray keeps a register of everyone taking part in the scheme and will investigate any messages that are received.