If you were to walk through the Glenchass area, you might not think much of this unassuming corner on the outskirts of Port St Mary.

Yet it holds a rich Neolithic history and was once an important mining area. It is also the site of a Second World War tragedy, when a B17 American Air Force bomber crashed there in April 1945, killing all 11 people.

But Glenchass also appears to be a hive of folklore, with tales ranging from the quirky to the deeply unsettling. We take a look at four spooky stories, all said to have taken place in this small area.

To get a feel for Glenchass, I walked along Perwick beach and up through the glen, across Fistard Road and on to Glenchass itself. I would love to say there was an eerie, oppressive atmosphere beneath the trees. But I struggled to reconcile the pleasant, rather innocuous valley with the stories you are about to read. Still, knowing the strange tales associated with the area did make me wonder what might be lurking beyond the next bend.

These curious accounts from many years ago are recorded in the book A Guide to Folklore Sites on the Isle of Man.

One tale, often referred to as the fairy feast, tells of an old sailor sound asleep in his Glenchass home who was awoken by strange noises coming from his kitchen. Investigating, he was astonished to find a large group of people sitting by candlelight on a long bench, cutting up beef with cleavers and saws. Recognising them as fairies, he knew better than to interfere and quietly returned to bed. By morning, he found the house left spotlessly clean and tidy.

Another story, known as the fairy kidnap attempt, suggests fairies were not always so kind. An expectant mother lay awake one night while her husband slept beside her when she saw fairies with large heads and ears shaped like wine bottles peering into the room. As they began creating an effigy, she feared they intended to take either her or her unborn child. Only when she finally managed to wake her husband did the fairies flee.

In a quieter but no less unsettling account called the tall white woman, a farmer working his fields at sunset encountered a tall, ghostly woman dressed in white near a hedge. No words were exchanged, but the experience affected him so deeply that he never entered that field after sunset again.

Perhaps the strangest story is the grinning hag. A man walking from his Glenchass home towards Fistard noticed something black in a hedge.

Thinking it was clothing, he approached, only for it to rise up as an old woman. She advanced towards him, ‘grinning fearfully’, opening her mouth wide enough to swallow him, at which point he fled home as fast as he could.