New Zealand Ghosts & Other Haunts

I just finished reading a great collection of European Ghost tales. All are familial or historic in nature and one in particular really got to me.

IN a wild and windy section of Northern Scotland a family was in the process of moving into a two hundred year old villa which used to govern at the head of a stables. The previous two owners had left within a month of purchase and the price was such that the family were able to refurnish with entirely new items from department stores. It was the summer of 1971 and they were abuzz with excitement, due in part to the cheapness of the property and also because they were moving into an area rich with history and character.

After two uneventful nights, on the third afternoon of their ten day tenancy, the youngest child of three commented to her mother at lunchtime "Maam may I have some cheese and bread for Ponk?" Her mother asked what a Ponk was and was informed it was the animal that lived in her bedroom and that the Ponk had spoken to her this very morning after keeping her up the night before with its rattling, bounding and jumping all over her duvet and bed covers. It had apparently informed the young lass that ponk was its name.

The mother dutifully gave her some cheese and a piece of bread assuming youthful imagination at work. That night however they were all to meet Ponk. A pleasant day led to a windy but harmless night and after the kids went to bed, the parents sat drinking wine on their new furniture and listening to music. An hour or two passed and suddenly there came an almighty crashing sound upstairs. This was followed by screaming and "Mummy! Daddy!" to which they both leapt up and ran to their daughters bedroom to find everything within smashed and wrecked. The bed was all that remained with two frightened girls upon it. "Ponk came in and went mad at us!" the youngest explained. The older girl around 13 was crying softly, incapable of explaining what had happened. She later confessed to seeing nothing and items, paintings and clothes flew about the room.

The repeated over and over until the ninth night when sitting beside the fire place, mother and her daughters noted the sudden appearance of a large grey cat, sitting directly infront of them before the fire. They had not heard or seen a cat enter and did not own a pet of any kind. When the mother called to the animal, it craned its neck about and revealed two very cold human eyes, a narrow human nose and rows of teeth set into an all too human scowl framed by cat like features. It screamed "Ponk!" and promptly vanished.

The family left the property much as they had found it, but it was a year before they sold it again.

There is a similar story. . Well some what similar. . on the GOHNZ home page.

http://nzghosts.co.nz/Ireland3.htm




I'll see if I can find anything more on Ponk.

I think the correct spelling was actually "Ponc" or "Paunc" but it was pronounced Ponk.

Yeah scary stuff indeed! Especially as a cat lover, when the average Moggy becomes an icon for demonic evil! Meow!

Ah, well i'm not finding anything, but apparently the Capitol building in America has a haunted cat. . Also I found Flippy's cat page, which was strange, because thats what my friends call me. . But nothing about Ponk, Ponc or Paunc, i'll have a better look when i'v got more time, thanks Franklee, your posts never fail to catch my interest

Other things I found that may be of interest to some one:

http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/haunted/frame1.htm

None of this actually seemed paranormal to me. . In fact we have a similar phenomenon in Western Sydney of large black cats, if anyone wants to know more about that i'd be glad to tell you - But it is under haunted and there is a few witnesses to it, so who knows.

I also found something related to the story I linked on GOHNZ, allegedly Satanic rituals were done on the property, and they worshiped Cats in place of Satan, I am not entirely sure if Satanic rituals were commonplace in Ireland back then, or even are now. . Anyway, have a link http://www.haunted-britain.com/Eastern_Ireland.htm

There is some other interesting stuff there too

Hmm whats really interesting to note MBP (thats your new nickname that is easier than the full nick!) is the prevalence of cat worship across unrelated cultures over hundreds even thousands of years. Travel between several of these cultures didnt occur until after the industrial revolution and of course some of these cultures were well and truly dead by then. Take for instance the Roman Gnostics. An offshoot of the first apostolic church of rome, these guys believed as I do that G-d was in the detail. To become enlightened was an intellectual and emotional process known as Gnosis. The Gnostics were persecuted and everytime a cell developed, centurions or armed personnel would shut it down. There is a suggestion in historic tracts concerning Gnostics that they slaughtered and read cats entrails. Then there are the peruvians, who did the same. The Egyptians saw cats as a doorway to the world of the dead and Set the goddess of darkness was personified as a black cat. She was generally considered to be evil in aspect. The germanic tribes roaming through france and italy during the Roman occupations were also thought to tame and then follow their cats across vast regions of forest believing that the humble puss would lead them to safe quarters. I dont believe in many of the modern accounts of ritualistic abuse, either of people or animals. We ascribe far too much normal human cruelty to Satan. I think if he exists, he is laughing at us for mistakenly assuming his involvement in activities that come all too naturally to us...oh and the feeling is mutual MBP, I enjoy your postings too!

Can call me Ben if you'd like
I guess because it is such a common animal around the world it got picked up in a lot of cultures, unlike say, a giraffe. I don't know much about the Gnostics, might have to read about them now, always up for learning something new! but on the subject of ritualistic killings of cats, I recently saw pictures of a sacrificed kitten in Haiti, was an article next to it too, I can't confirm if it was real or not, pictures distressed me somewhat. . Anyway, despite how common a cat is, or was, it's still strange and amazing two peoples from opposite sides of the world (Gnostics and Voodooists) find they need to kill cats for there beliefs. I think the cat was killed to release something a-rather from the cat, not sure. . Also voodoo originated from Africa, so when I say opposite sides of the world, I meant Africa and Europe, not South America and Europe. . I believe the Tupi in South America also tamed cats, much like the Germanic folk, I do recall my mum saying something about them trading some tame cats for very mundane items with the Spanish (she is an archeologist, Egyptologist even, but she knows some other stuff) anyway, Tupi people were in Brazil I think, no where near the Andes, but I guess it's not surprising cats are so deeply embedded on two sides of a continent, especially such a compact one like S America. . I sure know how to babble, sorry Franklee, haven't slept in a bit

As for Satan, I quite like the Setian view on him, a force of nature, instead of a dark malicious being, I think it's quite silly how we are all up in arms about Satan, I have spent time with many abused dogs, in fact I adopted 3. . And I know Satan has nothing to do with the previous companions of these dogs being jerks and hurting them.

Anyway, i'm gonna go catch a few hours sleep before before I say anything really dumb. If I wake up and find this doesn't make sense, i'll re-write it, anyway. . Bed! See ya Franklee

Ok I understood all of that. Setians are cool. I also like the CoS myself (church of....) but Im not a satanist in any sense of the word. I practise Gnosticism to the best of my ability and when gnosis occurs Im gonna spend the rest of my life sailing around the world...unless the Gnosis happens to disprove the benefits of sailing....in which case I wont....err.....thud.

frightening thing