The mean man with a long white beard

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In 1850's small town Ireland there was a man with a long white beard who was mean and feared by all. He got into fights with all the townsfolk, children ran from him, and everyone wished he did not live there. He was ornery and bad tempered and never hesitated to pick a fight.

One morning the townsfolk found the mean man's head impaled on a metal spike on a fence in the center of town. His body was gone, the eyes were open, the expression of the face was angry, and the long white beard was blowing in the breeze.

Something unknown had happened in the night and now everyone's wish was answered. The mean man was no more.

A week later, the head was still on the fence. No one removed it and it was scaring all who passed. A letter to the editor in the local paper asked how long they would be having this gruesome sight in the middle of town, and specifically mentioned the beard.

The next day after the letter was published, the head was gone and disturbed dirt below showed that someone must have come in the middle of the night and buried the head right below the place it had been on the fence. All of the townsfolk were relieved and forgot about the man in short order. It was as if he had never been there bothering them.

In the 1970's the town was leveled and revitalized. New streets were laid and houses built. One home was built right over the spot where the head was buried and no one was the wiser to the events of over 100 years before.

But anyone who moved into that house had terrible times with the ghost of a mean man with a long white beard. People moved in and out quickly after being terrorized. Some said they were not afraid of ghosts and tried, but they left quickly too. No one wants to live with a ghost that is mean, and will not let you live in peace.

An exorcist was called in to see if he could do anything to rid the house of the awful ghost. This man searched the archives of the town and found the letter about the man's head on the fence.

He told of always doing this type of research for any ghostly place he was brought in to cleanse. Over his many years of getting ghosts to leave places, he had found it better to try to figure out who they were in life if he could. He mentioned finding reference to the mean man to be easier than most searches he had done over the years.

The exorcist spent a couple of weeks trying to rid the house of the mean man's ghost, but the mean man would not leave. He felt betrayed by his killer and was going to stay put. This was the place he had been left, and this was the place he was going to stay.

This is the only exorcism failure of this exorcist, and and the mean man's ghost has stayed. The exorcist thinks the lack of a body is part of the problem, but that the unpleasant personality of the ghost is the main issue.

The house is still there, but no one lives in it, and no one ever will. There has been talk of tearing down the house and making green space, but that has never come about.

I heard this story a week ago on a manifestation podcast I was listening to. It will take too long to tell you how this relates to manifestation. But it is the only story I can think of having a long white beard in it. Only Santa comes to mind in the beard regard and I have no stories to tell about that jolly fellow.

This post is for today's freewrite prompt by Hive account@mariannewest with the prompt of "a long white beard". Never did I ever think I would be writing this story and especially not just after I heard it.

My photo was taken with a cheap point and shoot camera when I was playing with light in Bangkok. I did not think I would use this photo either, but I think it fits the post.