Water is a great place for a lost spirit. And the tarns of the Lake District are no exception. Within walking distance of Grasmere, there are three said to host spirits.

· Easedale Tarn already has a mark against it, being unpopular with none other than Wordsworth. He thought of it as a place of bad weather and dull sky. But maybe he also heard that there was a lost soul trapped there, constantly trying to find its way to the spirit world.

· If one lost soul is not enough, head higher up and reach Codale Tarn. This tarn not only has a soul searching for freedom; they say that if you look closely into its surface, you can see the dead staring back. As the waters from Codale flow down to Easedale, one can’t help but wonder if the lost soul of Easedale is the same one as Codale, desperately travelling from one to the other in its search for the next world. As for the faces of the dead, Codale is about as far away from the living as you can get in England. The Perfect place if you are hoping for eternal rest.

· Alcock Tarn lies on the other side of Grasmere. This piece of water was expanded by and named after James Alcock in the 19th century. The story goes that if you stand on the shoreline in the evening, you may see a mysterious spirit appear out of the mist or reflected in the light of the moon.

These are all great tales, yet none of them directly inspired my short story The Tarn. But there was one tale I heard when I was a schoolboy that stuck with me and influenced my little story of terror. It was in the Lake District, and it was on water, but it wasn’t on a tarn.

But that’s a topic for my next blog post.