I first read about the Hexham Heads when I was about 11 and the idea of a were-wolf prowling around the house gave me the screamin-me-mees for a few days!
For those unfamiliar with the story, have a looky at this ~
'This series of peculiar events began in February 1972. An 11-year-old boy and his younger brother were weeding their parent's garden in Hexham, Northumberland when they unearthed two carved stone heads.
Both heads were roughly a little smaller than tennis balls and very heavy. They were crudely carved and weathered looking, one resembling a skull-like masculine head and the other a slightly smaller female head. The female head supposedly resembled a witch. The heads were cut with hollows for eyes and mouth and a rough protrusion as a nose.
Shortly after the boys had taken the heads into their house, a number of peculiar incidents began to occur. The heads would turn around all by themselves and household objects were found inexplicably broken. At one point one of the daughters of the family living in the house found her bed showered with glass. However it was the next door neighbours who experienced the most startling occurrence.
A few nights after the discovery of the heads, a mother living in the neighbouring house was sitting up late with her daughter who was suffering from toothache. She and her daughter saw what they described as a "half man, half beast" enter the room. They both screamed and husband came running from another room to see what all the commotion was about. By this stage however, the beast had walked off down the stairs. It could reportedly be heard "padding down the stairs as if on it's hind legs". The front door was found open so it was presumed that the creature had left the house that way.
Soon after this incident a doctor who had studied the Celtic culture and had written several books on it took possession of the stone heads to study them. She had several other heads that were similar and she was certain that the Hexham heads were Celtic and around 1800 years old. The doctor lived in Southampton about 150 miles from Hexham and had heard nothing of the strange goings on encountered by the previous owners of the heads. She put the two stone heads with the rest of her collection. A few nights later she too encountered the mysterious creature. She woke from sleep feeling cold and frightened. She looked up and saw standing in front of the door of the room and saw a half-man, half-animal type creature.
Her description of the event runs as follows "It was about six feet high, slightly stooping, and it was black, against the white door, and it was half animal and half man. The upper part, I would have said, was a wolf, and the lower part was human and, I would have again said, that it was covered with a kind of black, very dark fur. It went out and I just saw it clearly, and then it disappeared, and something made me run after it, a thing I wouldn't normally have done, but I felt compelled to run after it. I got out of bed and I ran, and I could hear it going down the stairs, then it disappeared towards the back of the house."
After this, the doctor and her family saw what they described as a huge black creature, like a werewolf appear a number of times around the house. It particularly appeared a lot on the stairs where it would always run half-way down the stairs and then jump over the banisters to land in the hall, where it would run then off on padded feet. Sometimes it could be heard padding around although it could not be seen and sometimes doors would fly open seemingly for no reason. The doctor stated that there was "an evil presence about the house". Eventually she decided that the stone heads were the source of the problem and got rid of the whole collection.
The two Hexham heads passed into the hands of other collectors who experienced no werewolf phenomena however some did report that a sense of evil seemed to be emitted by the witch like head which made them very uncomfortable. Eventually the heads became untraceable and their current whereabouts is unknown.
One of the strange additions to the mystery was the claim by the previous owner of the house in Hexham, where the heads were discovered, that he had in fact made the heads as toys for his children in 1956 and they had been lost in the garden. According to him the heads were not Celtic at all but only around 20 years old when they were found. Apparently, there was a test done on the heads in Southampton and Newcastle Universities to determine the age of the heads but the results of those tests are no longer available so the mystery remains.'
Taken from http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/roswell/fate/.../544/hexham.htm
Oooooerrrrrr........................
Hammy x x x