However, Lord Bullhaven, present throughout the whole conversation, allows the ghosts to settle in his land in northern Scotland, a place called Insleyfarne.

Lord Bullhaven, however, is revealed to be "the sort of person who couldn't bear anything to be even the least bit unusual or out of the ordinary", and had gathered the ghosts of England at Insleyfarne to exorcise them.

Rick, his friend Barbara (daughter of the school cook) and new boy Peter Thorne, travel to Insleyfarne by plane to save the ghosts.

Rick, Barbara and Peter find the Hag, close to "death", and she instructs them on supernatural remedies to save the other ghosts, such as saying Latin curses backwards and using dried wormwood to cure the Shuk's tail.

[8] Stephen Krensky, for the New York Times praised the original book for its charming and witty characters, calling them "a welcome change from the perennial chain-rattling spooks."

Krensky criticized the illustrations by Giulio Maestro in the American version, which were "careless and uninspired Halloween caricatures", not meshing well with the characters themselves.