Savernake Forest story

[FunBoyThreesome]

Who remembers that one? Easily the scariest thing I’ve ever read on here and I’ve never quite been able to forget it.

Any other spooky stories to share as we get closer to Halloween?

This link should go to the post that I think OP is referring to:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/chat/3484225-Savernake-forest?reply=84272321&utmcampaign=reply&utmmedium=share

@FunBoyThreesome If your computer / phone is not set to the same timezone as the UK, the posters who are in the UK will see posts labelled as a different time than you do.

Thank you @Bergamotte but that link doesn't work.

As for any time difference (even though I suspect the OP is in the UK!) none of her posts are at 40 minutes past anything.

I give up! 😆 I'm getting a headache!

.

I know the story OP, I think about it often.
esp when I let my dog out late at night. Giving me chills right now actually!!!

Can you tell me briefly what the story is about @Ultraalox please.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/3484225-Savernake-forest

it’s here, 11th post down.

You’ve been warned!!!

It’s a demonic type presence in the forest. I didn’t even want to read it again tbh. I just skimmed it to check I had the correct story!

From that link, this one was at 09:40 (my time at least). Looks like it was copied from another thread:

ToeToToe · 20/01/2019 09:40
This is it - I don't think this is the OP, I think they copied it onto another thread:
"Found it. Warning: it's very long (sorry) and very freaky, and if anyone can come up with a rational explanation I'd be extremely grateful because I'm generally a pretty rational non-woo where's-the-evidence person, but I've never been able to explain this and it still makes my heart beat faster and the hair stand up on my arms when I think about it, years later.
I was pet sitting for my friend several years ago. She had moved into a sort of small holding right on the edge of a village in the SW, with a huge garden that backed onto trees. At the time she had a right menagerie - chickens, ducks, a couple of Shetlands, cats and four black retrievers, three fully grown and one a half grown puppy. Originally DH had been going to come with me as a little holiday but the dates she ended up having to go away for work clashed with a couple of his medical appointments so he stayed at home with our dog and I went to petsit alone.
It was about halfway through my stay, a couple of nights to go. Late evening, already dark when I heard a massive commotion from the chicken shed, banging and thumping. I assumed a fox or something had got in so went out to check. As I was halfway across the garden the noise stopped instantly as if it had been shut off; by the time I got to the shed all was calm and the chickens were all settled, mostly asleep. No sign of any intruder or disturbance at all, nothing to explain the noise or any indication that the chickens had made a noise. Bit freaky but I didn't (and still don't) know much about The Way of Chicken so I locked up again and left them to it.
As I went back in the house a small black shape ran past me out of the back door and I realised the puppy must have got out. It streaked across the garden and off towards the woods. Cue much cursing, then calling her name in vain. More cursing when she didn't come back. I grabbed a torch and put one of the other dogs on the lead, partly for protection, partly because I thought the pup was more likely to come back if I had one of her canine companions with me and partly because I didn't fancy my chances of finding my way back to the house on my own even though there were a couple of vague paths that I'd followed when walking the dogs throughout the week.
Off we trudged into the wood along one of these paths, me calling pup's name at intervals and trying not to imagine murderers and rapists behind every tree trunk. We got to a point where it felt like the trees were starting to thin out and I remember thinking that I didn't remember a clearing on this path and we must have gone wrong somewhere when the dog with me slowed right down and started to resist going forward. I tried to jolly her along - while my stomach suddenly dropped like a stone - and she started growling, a really low serious rumbling growl. By this time I was practically shitting myself. I tried shining the torch ahead but the beam just sort of bounced back off the darkness if that makes sense? I got the sense of something - or somethings - moving but just sinuous deeper black shapes against the blackness and always on the periphery of vision. (The hairs on my arms are standing up again just remembering how completely and utterly terrified I was. I have honestly never known a feeling like it.)
At this point the dog sank right down, still growling, hackles up and refused to budge. I muttered something like "Jesus, you have got to be kidding me" and this ugly gurgling inhuman sort of voice hissed, right up close as if someone was right next to me "don't say that name". At the same time there was a horrible snickering sort of laugh. I cant express how utterly petrified I was. I can't remember having any coherent thoughts apart from the word "evil". That's the only clear thing I can remember. Me and the dog were frozen to the spot with pure fear. Then a different voice, really commanding, said "GO. BACK." That sounded more in my head but echoey, where the others had sounded out in the air IYSWIM?
Wherever it came from it did the trick. Me & the dog turned and belted back through the woods. She basically towed me, I just clung onto her lead stumbling to keep up and sobbing with fear. I lost the torch somewhere on that wild run but there was no way I was stopping to find it. How I didn't run blindly into a tree I'll never know, she guided me I guess. I can remember thinking desperately that I mustn't let go of her lead or "they" would get me.
When we got back to the garden she suddenly stopped - I did fall over her this time, onto my hands and knees - turned around and started snarling, proper teeth bared, rabid-looking snarls, back at the trees and the darkness. I thought I heard the snickering again but the blood was pounding in my ears so hard I can't be sure. I scrambled up and ran to the back door and she followed me but backing and snarling all the way as if holding something at bay. Oh, and the chicken shed was banging and thumping again. I got the back door open, me and her belted in, I slammed home every bolt behind us. The other dogs left behind were staring at the door and growling too with their hackles up and when I saw all three of them, puppy included, acting like that I started to cry properly because I honestly thought I was trapped in some horror film nightmare and was going to die. I don't know - I still don't know - what the black shape was that ran past me out of the house and triggered all of this because the puppy was right there in the kitchen.
Anyway I made sure every door and window was locked and bolted, I turned on every light in the house, I wandered round mumbling all sorts of weird half-religious half-spiritual shit to ward off evil spirits. Gradually the dogs settled down and stopped growling, and eventually stopped glancing at the door. Funnily enough I didn't sleep for one second that night and I rang my DH and begged him to come over the last couple of days. I know I didn't dream it because I was covered in scratches from running through the woods and had grazed hands from where I fell over the dog in the garden.
Nothing like that has happened before or since and I hope it never, ever does. It was the single most horrible, terrifying experience of my entire life

That’s the one ☝🏼

I'm enjoying that it was copied from another thread. All very "a friend of a friend" in the best ghost story tradition

That's pretty creepy 😬😬😬

@Ultraalox and @Evolutionarygoals THANK you. I am going to read it now.

@FunBoyThreesome OP please come back to the thread. I'm sorry for being snippy and banging on at you! I was just getting frustrated because I couldn't figure out which the story was and thought you were directing me to the wrong one!

There was a post on a woo thread years ago about a werewolf or similar. I think they might have been farmers and were out in the fields at nighttime. They saw the thing on its hind legs jump a wall and said it was circling them. Can’t remember how it ended but I still think about it now.

I live IN the woods (not Savernake!) and take the dog out around 10.30pm every night. When I moved here I was scared, now I am really chilled about it. If the story is true, and no reason I wouldn't believe it, the most worrying thing is the behaviour of the dogs.

But with regard to voices near or in the head, I recently tried to go into our town church, not lived here long so first time ever, and on entering the large, deserted church alone, at midday, I felt utter dread and rushed out. I "felt" like something had said "GET OUT!" in my head, but that might have been my imagination. But whatever, it sounds terrifying. I would have felt the same as the OP from the copied thread.

Yes, exactly. It's the internet-era version of 'Here is a mysterious manuscript written in a strange hand, that was once pushed under my door at midnight in an isolated country house...'

I have now read it.......... 💀💀💀

Oh, my GOD that is scary! 😱

And actually, genuinely, I do believe every word.

Oh my God! 😂 I will be thinking about this all day (and night now!)

I remember it and enjoyed reading it the first time and yes it freaked me out! I don’t actually believe it’s real though

I distinctly remember the Savernake Forest yarn and to be honest I got about half way through and realised it was all made up. The writing was decent enough but it was clearly fictional. I've read much better and way scarier.

Or the haunted office in the converted mill. I quite liked that one. It was pacy and low-key.

That was my favourite one and I got home in the evening looking forward to reading the updates and it had been deleted!
I got so invested in it that I found the mill office - I looked up office space to rent in Essex and a sinister looking white clap board house came up.

I want to know more about the werewolf story!

Bonus points for using the word "sinuous" in a story. Would've got a tick in red pen from my P7 English teacher.

I wish I could find it. I’ll have a go.

Ok I found the werewolf story. Posted by Faverolles in June 2011.

Haven't finished reading the thread yet, but I was the one who told the werewolf on a farm one - last time, I rang my ex-boss to tell me the story, and I wrote it out on here.
As far as I can remember correctly, here goes:-

I worked on a farm near Pendle Hill (think witches, spooky etc) There was a field that wasn't really used - they occasionally cut it for hay or silage, but no-one was allowed to go alone, and they always took a gun.

A few years before, there were sheep in that field, and there were nasty cases of sheep worrying, and several sheep killed and some missing. The vet was called to give his verdict as to what was doing the damage - he said the teeth prints were similar to a dog, but bigger than he had ever seen.

Thinking it was a dog, my boss and his son went out that night with guns to get the dog.
It was about 11pm, they were hiding behind a wall watching (the field was surrounded by tall walls, maybe 5 ft tall, and backed onto a wood. So they were waiting, and they saw in the dark, but shadowy from moonlight, something huge climb over the wall and sort of lope towards the sheep, near to where my boss was hiding. It went quietly near the sheep then had a burst of speed and grabbed a sheep with it's mouth, my boss stood up with the gun ready to shoot, and the thing must have heard him because it dropped the sheep and stood
up on it's hind legs looking round. It was huge, and towered above the nearby wall.

My boss reckoned it was at least 8 ft tall. He and his son jumped into the land rover and raced home, terrified.

The next day, they moved the sheep to land the other side of the farm, and never put animals in there again.

Anybody new to the farm was warned against going to that field.

I think I’ve mashed two stories together in memory cos I also found this which is more scary. I can’t credit the OP as AI can only find the original text.

"We were staying in a static caravan on a site right on the edge of some dense woodland in Wales. It was late, well past midnight, and my partner and I were walking back from the site clubhouse. The paths weren't well lit, so it was pitch black once you got away from the main building.

As we started walking down the gravel path towards our row, we heard something moving in the trees to our left. At first, I thought it was just a deer or a stray dog. But it didn't sound right—the footsteps were heavy, but they were weirdly paced.

Then we noticed it wasn't just walking past; it was matching our exact speed. Every time we slowed down, the rustling in the brush slowed down. When we sped up, it sped up. My partner stopped dead in his tracks to listen, and the moment we stopped, the noise stopped completely.

That was when the panic really set in because we realized it was actively tracking us. It started circling us in a wide arc through the trees, moving from our left side, ahead of us, and then behind us. You could hear the branches snapping and the leaves crunching, always just out of the beam of our phone torches.

The feeling of absolute malice and dread was suffocating—like we were being hunted. We didn't look back; we just broke into a dead run for the caravan. We scrambled inside, slammed the door, and locked it. For the rest of the night, we sat in the dark listening to something heavy pacing around the outside of the caravan, brushing against the metal sides."

😱😱😱😱