I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do enjoy a good ghost story.

Ghost stories and tales of haunted houses speak to what we are as humans, revealing our fears of death and the unknown and allowing us to confront them on one level or another. We like to be scared, a little bit anyway. We like mysteries, as long as they aren’t too threatening to our personal well-being. Ghost stories seem to fit the bill.

York claims to be the most haunted city in England, perhaps all of Europe. The evidence, as I saw it, was not a preponderance of spirits floating around the city core but rather the number of “ghost walks” being offered to the tourists. I didn’t try to count, but at one point on our tour there were three competing ghost walks at the same “haunted” site.

Choosing which guide to go with was a daunting task. The one recommended in our guide book seemed to no longer be in business, which left us with a plethora of men dressed in 19th century frock coats, all claiming that their walk was the best and most authentic. So we chose one at random, figuring they were all pretty much the same. (From what we could see of the other guides as our paths intersected, that turned out to be an accurate assessment.)

I will admit it was an entertaining hour. Our “guide” was a good actor, and with what I considered to be pretty weak material managed to keep the group engaged. Given the time spent walking from site to site there were only about five stories in the tour. Furthermore, most of those were in my opinion pretty thin. If you want me to believe something, give me dates, times, names of witnesses so I can get corroboration. Don’t just dramatize the event. Yes, I know, I missed the point, it is all about fun – but I am a natural skeptic. If you want me to believe York is haunted it will take more than just a good actor.

One of the stories, about a phantom Roman legion marching through a construction project, I did see mentioned in the Yorkshire Museum, with the man who “saw” the legion interviewed for posterity. I have to admit I wondered how often he told the tale since the first time in 1953, and how many pints of beer people bought him while he was spinning his yarn. As with many such stories, no-one else witnessed this occurrence, so we just have to take his word for it.

As for the rest of the stories, I didn’t see or hear any of the alleged ghosts, so you will pardon me if I doubt the veracity of the tales, but it was an entertaining way to spend a summer evening. Certainly bad things happened at some of the sites on our tour, but that doesn’t mean the place is haunted.

Not believing in ghosts, or at least the ones on the York Ghost Walk, doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the supernatural. There is too much hard evidence of things we don’t understand, and we do see though a glass darkly. However, conventional ghost stories lack credibility. The departed do not hang around to afflict or comfort the living or haunt the places where they lived or died.

If you are looking for real evidence of the supernatural you won’t find it on the York Ghost Walk. However, if you are looking for a pleasant outing with a bit of history thrown into the mix, you’ve made a good choice.