Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: History of The Pale Lady | Horror History

The Pale Lady's history is as mysterious and unsettling as her appearance.

STORIES HURT. STORIES HEAL. The Pale Lady is an urban legend who was popularized from the short story "The Dream" found in Scary Stories 3: More Tales To Chill Your Bones. As one of the more iconic illustrations from the book series, she played a prominent role in the 2019 movie, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark.

But her story goes back even further, to the autobiography of English author Augustus Hare. This urban legend has been altered by each culture it has been retold in, so in this video I'll be tracking her appearances through history and analyzing her character.

There's no one piece of media I would consider canon for this one, so this episode will be more about the character's history changing in many forms over the years.

#ScaryStories #SSTTITD #ScaryStoriesMovie

CHAPTERS
0:00 Lucy Morgan's Dream
1:07 Intro
2:05 The Pale Lady in Scary Stories 3
3:07 Augustus Hare's Version
5:46 Stephen Gammell's Pale Lady Illustration
7:28 The Pale Lady in Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)
11:40 Building Her Timeline

About Horror History
Horror History is a series that analyses specific characters, monsters, places or events in the fictional worlds of your favorite horror franchises.

About Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind...but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time—stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying home.

Other

Music provided by Epidemic Sound:

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Edited by Andrew Botz-Zapp | @ClaudeGnome

[deltalord]

Although her sequence in the movie was super creepy I'm kinda sad they changed the pale lady into another horror monster when in the book she was supposed to be a helpful spirit that warns you of future dangers in dreams.

[stressedoutsoup]

my mom literally had to tell the librarians and after school supervisors in elementary school to NOT let me check these books out under any circumstances because my night terrors became so bad… so i had my friends check them out for me

[Joelle]

imma be real, as a person who only saw the movie before reading the books, the scene when she hugs Chuck felt just so sad. I felt as if she wanted to comfort him, by giving him a hug, but just ended up absorbing him. I think this because she was patting herself where he should have been and sounded confused/concerned by the fact he was no longer there. Plus I don't think it would be too far out of character for what little information we have on her.

[stumbling_]

These stories paired with the art always terrorized me as a child. I still remember the story where the bride gets trapped in a chest in the attic, everyone thinks she just ran away but is found years later, dead.

[labyrinthgirl]

The woman astral projecting to a house and people believing it's haunted, only for her to show up in the flesh later on to purchase the house, was also a segment on the TV show, "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction." As you were talking about it, I heard my favorite line from that episode. "It's you. You're the ghost. You're the one haunting this house."
Gave me chills.

[Ex_impius]

I’ll never forget buying “Scary stories to tell in the dark” at a book fair at my elementary school in 1986 when i was 6 years old. I was hooked immediately but it also scared the shit out of me!

[lopirobinson]

I can still almost remember the specific smell these books had when I read them in 4th grade. I actually got in trouble because I would sneak to the reading corner and listen to the audio book while reading the actual book when I was supposed to be doing other assignments. Figures horror became my favorite type of film and book.

[shroomyk]

I love that Schwarz included extensive notes at the back of each book. It's been quite fun tracking down the folklore and history behind the stories.

[jamesabernethy]

I've said before that i'm not a massive fan of watching horror movies but find the lore and production of them really interesting. You have a great channel with a lot of personality. Great writing, solid research, snappy pacing, smoothly edited visuals. Fantastic work.

[saverna]

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was always the first thing I picked up during Scholastic Book Fairs, but I was always too scared to buy it 😅

[nevermoreraven]

The scary stories trilogy was the first books I really got into in elementary school. I didn't like reading but I started reading those and kept checking the books out over and over again. I've always loved horror my favorite movie for a long long time was House on haunted hill with Vincent price

[lilliebobson]

Maybe she is still decent and her hugging you into her body is her way of protecting you.

[mikecrews]

I remember being read this book to our 1st grade class back in 1997, how scared I was of the pictures! Especially of the lady haunt

[jcurses]

In 3rd grade they had “Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark” series. We got to rent 1 book per week and the third installment was always checked out. The day came where no one had checked it and I quickly nabbed it. I got to my desk and started skimming through it. The kid next to me kept bugging me to let him see but I kept refusing. I turned the page and saw THIS image…without a word I closed and slid the book from my desk to his.

I am a 37 year old man and this image still makes me cringe. I can’t be the only one; right?

[bofurthedwarf]

I remember when I was in school and I read the Scary Stories book (well, to say I “read it” isn’t exactly true. I really just looked at the pictures) and I remember seeing the picture of the Pale Lady and being terrified of her. I was only eight and for some reason my school had the Scary Stories trilogy in the fourth graders’ section of the library. It gave me nightmares for years until I was ten. Even still today I occasionally get a nightmare about her. But I had no idea how famous this figure actually was until I found out the Pale Lady from the Scary Stories movie was the same as the “blob lady”, as I called her. That’s kinda cool.

[mikefrost]

Personally… I didn’t find the Pale Lady all that creepy… sure, she’s got an unsettling appearance, but she was barely the thing that scared me from these books. That would belong to Harold and “The Babysitter”. Turning the page to see that picture still gives me the creeps to this day.

[elvingearmasterirma]

Honestly the og illustrations inspired me to draw more as a kid. Sometimes children need to be scared!

[Wolfbane]

I'd love to see you do another horror history brake downs of other stories from the books. I loved reading about the inspiration for each of them and would like to see a Horror history about them one day. Especially The White Dress and Wonderful Sausage. ((Both of those stories left major impacts on me as a kid. Wonderful Sausage is why I won't hardly eat any type of pork product and The White Dress along with my mom's constant warnings about washing every piece of clothing you get from the store.))

[homurakasaino]

-short intro
-nice story
-chilling
-calm story-telling

[wereleopard]

Wasn’t there a movie or show where a lady was looking for her perfect home and dream about it and one day found it being sold for a low price because the owner/owners were seeing a ghost and then realized the lady wanting to buy the house is the ghost that was haunting the house.