Tales From the Catacombs: Frankie’s Halloween Edition

by David W. Falls

Where the Purr Meets the Paranormal

Every October, as pumpkins flicker and candy bowls brim, cats quietly reclaim their throne as icons of the eerie. But beneath the twitch of a tail and the flicker of unblinking eyes lies an ancient truth few dare speak aloud: these creatures aren’t just mysterious, they’re mythological stewards of the supernatural status quo, quietly organizing across nine lives and the thresholds between worlds. 

From Celtic crossroads to candlelit cottages, supernatural cats have prowled through folklore not as sidekicks, but as keepers of the uncanny. And now, after centuries of spectral labor, they’ve organized, determined to preserve Halloween’s spooky sanctity… one purr at a time.

And so, when the veil thins and shadows grow long, these whiskered wonders don’t just lounge in windows, they haunt them. Ghost cats have padded and pawed their way into legends around the globe, leaving behind not just fur, but folklore. 

Compiled under candlelight and mischief by Frankie, our resident feline folklorist and spectral historian, what follows is his curated archive of phantom felines whose stories echo through graveyards, lighthouses, and forgotten attics… their paws as silent as secrets. Frankie claims every tale is true; but whether these are histories or hauntings, that’s for the shadows to decide.

Extra Treat:
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The Phantom of Greyfriars: Edinburgh’s Ghost Cat Legend

Greyfriars Kirkyard is often called the most haunted graveyard in Scotland – a place where tourists flock for tales of restless spirits and the infamous Mackenzie Poltergeist. Amid these specters lurks another, quieter presence: a sleek black feline known as Middenpaw. Some say he was once the beloved companion of a 17th-century stonemason; others claim he’s the cursed spirit of a warlock’s discarded confidant, forever condemned to patrol the moss-veiled tombstones.

Visitors tell of fur brushing past their calves on windless nights or paw prints appearing in fresh snow only to vanish into bare stone. One 19th-century diarist, Lady Euphemia Corstorphine, described a “silent gaze from a sable creature seated upon my late husband’s headstone; its eyes were as two dying coals, and yet it neither blinked nor breathed.”

Middenpaw is rumored to appear each Halloween at midnight, leaping from the shadows to bat aside falling leaves as if chasing long-forgotten souls. For some, the sight is a blessing; for others, a warning. Superstition holds that if you see him and offer no greeting, you’ll be followed by inexplicable bad luck… or at least a week of middle-of-the-night howls followed by phantom zoomies through empty halls. 

Frankie notes he’s still checking the archives for evidence, but says “the pattern is compelling.”

But Scotland has no monopoly on phantom felines. Cross the border to England’s most notorious fortress, and you’ll find another shadowy mouser still patrolling the stones.

Grimwhisker of the Tower

The Tower of London is no stranger to ghosts, Anne Boleyn is said to wander with her head tucked beneath her arm, the Princes in the Tower are whispered to still cry out from the stones, and the resident ravens guard their ground with uncanny vigilance. But among these famous phantoms prowls a less heralded figure: a phantom feline known as Grimwhisker. Some call him a shadowy mouser whose eyes burn red in torchlight before vanishing into the night. Others claim he patrols the very chambers where prisoners once awaited execution, his appearance a herald of betrayal or doom.

Accounts tell of sentries unnerved by blood red glowing eyes along the battlements, only to find nothing but cold stone when they gave chase. Guards on night patrols have reported the scrape of claws on cobblestone, the echo oddly out of step with their own. One 19th-century soldier swore Grimwhisker leapt at him from the shadows; he raised his bayonet, only for the creature to dissolve into mist mid-air.

Even today, keepers and night staff whisper of a dark shape slinking along the Tower walls, silent but watching, as if still patrolling for treason. 

Frankie claims the archives list him under “Official Mouser, Special Assignment: Hauntings and Treason,” though he doubts Grimwhisker ever filed a report on time.

Yet the Old World does not hold all the records. Across the seas, in the painted chambers of Edo Japan, a more sinister cat once curled itself into legend.

Blood on the Silk Pillow

In the Edo period, the ruling Nabéshima family of Hizen Province was plagued by a mysterious illness that seemed to drain the life from their young prince. Guards stationed outside his chambers reported no intruder, yet each morning the boy grew weaker, his face pale against embroidered silk. Servants whispered of strange sounds from within – an odd rasping purr, too low and steady to belong to the concubine said to comfort him.

The truth, revealed in hushed fragments, was that a bakeneko (a supernatural cat of Japanese lore, feared for its power to shapeshift) had killed and assumed the form of O Toyo, the prince’s favored concubine. By night, this feline impostor bent low over him, stealing his lifeforce drop by drop.

Legends say only a humble retainer, armed with sacred prayer beads and a deep suspicion of cats, uncovered the deception. He waited, feigning sleep outside the chamber, until the creature revealed its monstrous feline form. When struck down, it howled like a hundred cats before dissolving into mist, leaving behind only claw marks scratched into the chamber’s painted screens.

The tale endures as one of Japan’s most chilling bakeneko legends, a warning to beware the gaze of a cat that lingers too long. 

Frankie swears he once unearthed a paw-printed scroll labeled “Do Not Trust Concubine Cats” in the archives, but he refuses to translate it.

Not all hauntings belong to castles or courts. Some settle in humbler places, like a gristmill in Vermont, where loyalty outlasted even the flood.

Whispers in the Grain

In a decaying gristmill tucked deep in a Vermont valley, locals whisper of an invisible mouser who never left. Built in 1823, the mill once housed a gray tabby named Scuttle, fiercely loyal to its keeper. When a sudden flood swept them both away in 1879, townsfolk claimed their bond was too strong to dissolve, and that Scuttle returned, tethered to the ruins like a shadow stitched to stone.

The old mill still stands, half-collapsed and choked with ivy, its timbers creaking in the wind. Travelers say that if you linger by the broken wheel, you can hear faint purring beneath the warped floorboards, or feel the brush of fur against your calves when no cat is near. Cold spots cluster near the grain chute, and more than one stray has been seen pawing desperately at empty air, their tails bottle-brushed in fear.

Tales abound: a tourist who dropped a tuna sandwich swore it vanished mid-fall with a whisk of unseen motion; maintenance crews insist they’ve found paw prints pressed into flour that hasn’t been milled since Rutherford B. Hayes was in office. One visitor even reported glimpsing a spectral tail slip into a bag of rye which, when shaken, let out a soft, unmistakable meow.

Scuttle still guards his crumbling domain, whether in flesh or in phantom fur.

And not every ghost cat hides in folklore. Some linger in the present, padding softly through the rooms of the living, their presence as real as memory.

The Purr that Lingers

This tale blurs folklore and lived experience. Children’s author Kevan Atteberry wrote Ghost Cat after his wife passed away and he began noticing a mysterious feline presence in their home. 

Though the couple had once cared for a stray cat that eventually vanished, Atteberry later sensed its return – brushing against his leg, leaping onto the bed, always just out of view.

One evening, he reportedly heard a steady purr rising from an empty armchair; and rather than being frightened, he found himself apologizing aloud for having taken its place. Houseguests, too, sometimes claimed to catch a glimpse of “that shy gray cat” before realizing there was none to be found. The experiences were not chilling so much as oddly reassuring, a reminder of companionship that seemed unwilling to fade.

Out of these encounters came a picture book at once playful and mournful. Ghost Cat is a gentle fable, capturing how love’s imprint can outlast absence. In its pages, the unseen feline becomes both a comfort and a question, padding through memory and imagination. Atteberry transforms private grief into a story children can delight in, and adults can recognize as a tender testament to the pawprints that linger long after loss.

From hearth to harbor, the pawprints continue. Along Lake Erie’s edge, one ginger cat keeps his eternal watch over storm and shore.

The Watcher of the Waves

Perched on Lake Erie’s edge, the Fairport Harbor Lighthouse once housed a ginger cat named Sentinel, companion to the lighthouse keeper. Through the long, damp nights, Sentinel kept watch as faithfully as any sailor, padding up and down the spiral stairs and curling near the keeper’s boots. When the cat passed in the 1930s, it seemed the lighthouse lost more than a pet, it lost part of its rhythm.

But reports soon trickled in: phantom paw prints appearing in fresh dust, a low purr rumbling near the base of the light, fleeting glimpses of a cat darting around corners where no cat should be. The stories multiplied until they became part of the lighthouse’s lore.

Some say Sentinel still prowls the beacon on stormy nights, standing guard against the lake’s mercurial moods. Visitors have even left offerings – sardine tins, sprigs of catnip – tucked among the rocks, small tributes to a guardian spirit with whiskers. One windblown tourist swore their phone insisted on changing “lighthouse” to “lightmouse,” a slip they took as a spectral wink. Others describe the disconcerting feeling of being sized up for wearing synthetic fur, followed by a faint, unmistakable hiss carried off on the wind.

Frankie swears Sentinel has the best attendance record of any lighthouse cat, living or dead – never missing a storm, never failing to check the shore for lost souls. In Fairport Harbor, the keeper’s lantern may have gone out, but the cat’s watch endures.

Taken together, these stories remind us: the cats have not retired. They’ve unionized – forever on watch, curled in the corners of myth and memory.

The Union Hall of the Unseen

And so, they persist; Middenpaw with his midnight patrol, Grimwhisker pacing the Tower walls, O Toyo’s silk rustling in the dark, Scuttle standing guard in sawdust and shadow. Sentinel keeps watch above storm-lashed shores, while Bastet’s hymn hums beneath Egyptian stars. Some seek vengeance, others solace. A few simply refuse to clock out. But all remain, curled into the folds of folklore like cats on an old quilt: silent, defiant, incorrigible.

Their stories cross centuries, whisper through half-forgotten languages, and leave pawprints in places science won’t admit exist. You won’t find them in textbooks. You’ll find them in chills, in flickers, in the weightless press of paws on your chest when you’re alone.

As the nights grow longer, when you pass a darkened alley or feel the hush before a candle flickers out, remember, you’re not alone. Somewhere, a tail twitches in approval. A whiskered archivist is updating the ledger. The purr endures.

Frankie reminds us: if your own cat seems especially restless this Halloween, staring into corners or batting at shadows, it may be best to let them carry on with their cat business. The Union Hall of the Unseen is always recruiting. Membership dues: one shadow, paid nightly in purrs and shenanigans. 

And perhaps your cat is already a member – slipping out at midnight meetings, returning with whiskers twitching and secrets unsaid.

Consider yourself warned… and try to have a Happy Halloween!

With Ghost Cats of Halloween: Frankie’s Spooky Special, David invites readers into the flickering candlelight of folklore, where phantom felines still pad across graveyards, towers, and haunted lighthouses. From myth to memory, his writing reminds us that when it comes to cats, the story never truly ends.