A TRADITION OF CHRISTMAS STORIES THAT CHILL NOT FROM THE COLD, BUT FROM FEAR Forgotten today, for centuries winter stories-tales of the fantastic and macabre-were a requisite of the holiday season, and ghost stories by the fireside on Christmas Eve were as much a part of traditional celebrations as festively decorated trees and joyous carols. Yuletide ghost stories have grown to be forgotten, remembered now only dimly through annual retellings of the tribulations of Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge at the hands of four Christmas ghosts. Yet in the season when dark nights are their longest and...