A History of Ghosts

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A History of Ghosts: 3. The Pregnant Ghost

The Pregnant Ghost

3. The Pregnant Ghost

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Kirsty Logan discovers how, and why, a ghost woman would give birth to a living child.

Kirsty Logan explores the classical Chinese ghost stories of Pu Songling, discovering how, and why, a ghost woman would give birth to a living child.

Illustration by Seonaid Mackay

'She will be made whole in her life and her afterlife, even if that means bending the rules of nature and society to suit herself.' 

Kirsty Logan explores the ghostly tales found in Pu Songling’s ‘Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio’, a collection of hundreds of fantastic, and slippery tales of ghosts, spirits and demons that include a most unusual ghost - a pregnant ghost, that gives birth to a living child.

Kirsty finds out how ghosts come to exist within a culture of ancestor worship - where the souls of dead family members should be at peace due to the care and veneration they receive from their descendants, and how the ghosts that emerge can be symbols of hope, or terror.

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A Natural History of Ghosts

Kirsty Logan explores the evolution of Ghost Lore.

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3. The Pregnant Ghost

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