If you’re going to celebrate Halloween, could you at least include some local colour?

October 31, 2026 — 5:30am

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Some criticise Halloween as an American import, but Australia has always had a taste for ghosts and ghouls. In what other country does the most beloved song feature a ghost who will still be heard as you “pass by that billabong”?

That suicidal swagman, hero of Waltzing Matilda, is only one ghoul among many. Bill Wannan in his Dictionary of Australian Folklore lists 21 Australian ghost stories, most featuring details more terrifying than anything the Americans or Europeans can offer.

There’s the Headless Ghost of Berrima, for example, which Wannan says is “probably the best attested ghost story in Australia.” In 1842 Lucretia Dunkley was hanged in Berrima Gaol, alongside her lover Martin Beech. They’d been convicted of the axe murder of Dunkley’s husband.

Adding to the outrage was the fact the two had enjoyed a “hearty breakfast” following their bloody crime, and that Lucretia had made “jovial comments” to the coppers who arrested her. Lucretia and her lover were both found guilty.

Lucretia was pregnant but they were both hanged anyway. After the hangman had completed his task, the heads of both offenders were removed for scientific study, this being a time when pseudo-scientific studies of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald