I have learned something wild and genuinely creepy, and interesting enough that I want to share it.

Some of the details in this thread have popped up in my feed previously but bear with me if some of this sounds familiar, the payoff is new...

To begin, this is our house:

We bought it in 2017, the realization of a lifelong dream to own a home on Cape Breton Island, where I was born and raised.

We had always hoped to find a heritage farmhouse in a secluded rural location and this house more than fit the bill.

Known locally as Flat Roof Farmhouse, it was completed in 1886, built by Archie Gillis and his wife Mary. They lived in this shed for two years while the house was under construction.

It sits on a mountainside surrounded by woods, the last house on our remote gravel road.

By the time we bought it, it had been uninhabited for years and the gardens and fields were completely overgrown. The house is lovely and bright and has incredible details but it needed tons of work if it was going to be saved. It was the kind of challenge we’d been looking for.

This is Flat Roof Farmhouse in the 1920s, when it was still a working farm.

I’ve talked about how the house has an interesting history, and you can learn more about that in the thread below but bottom line:

Flat Roof Farmhouse is apparently haunted by an old lady. https://twitter.com/tomryanauthor/status/1057727567384494081

This year we decided to tackle one of the biggest jobs - replacing all of the windows and siding and having the walls properly insulated.

Unbelievably, the windows are original - 136 years old! - and although they’re beautiful they are also rotten and drafty. Time for new ones.

The work started a couple of weeks ago. The siding was stripped, and one by one the windows were pulled out and replaced with new ones.

Which is when things started to appear in the walls.

Sitting on top of one window - placed very deliberately - was a clay marble and a primitive knife with a hand carved handle.

On top of another, in the same position, was a wooden form the size and shape of a child’s foot.

I’ve tweeted about both of these finds already BUT after I posted the wooden shoe the other day, @br_myers DMd me to tell me she’d heard that builders used to put baby shoes in walls for good luck.

That sent me down an Internet rabbit hole and here’s what I learned:

These items are what’s known as ‘spiritual middens’ - “caches of objects often hidden in the walls of houses to serve specific MAGICAL PURPOSES.”

.......

I KNOW, RIGHT???

But wait, there’s more!

One of the most common middens - dating back to the Middle Ages - are children’s shoes hidden in the fabric of a building - often around doors & windows - concealed as magical charms to protect the occupants against evil influences such as DEMONS, GHOSTS & WITCHES.

But that’s not all: a knife or other metal object would often be hidden in the same way because A WITCH WILL NOT CROSS SUCH A THRESHOLD.

I am still looking for info about the marble - I’m thinking there must be a similar tradition having to do with a child’s plaything.

Regardless, this is all VERY COOL

and also

TERRIFYING and EXTREMELY UNSETTLING omg

There are three more windows to be removed. I will report back.

In the meantime should I:

Anyway happy holidays from Flat Roof Farmhouse!

Update: we found a bundle of papers. Nothing sinister and most of them were so dry and fragile that they crumbled to dust, but this piece from an 1898 almanac is frame worthy! Astrology!