YORK — The ghosts here aren’t malicious. Mary is quiet and unobtrusive. Joel is benignly mischievous.

“The lady in white” – she’s never had a proper name – is something of a wandering tramp.

Take a candlelit tour through the darkened streets of York, a picturesque coastal village where ghost stories have long been an obsession, and you will learn all this and more.

For $8, you will learn about the plague that nearly wiped out the town in 1616 and of one man said to have never recovered from the guilt of surviving when his wife and child didn’t. You will learn about the gruesome murders of accused witches, about a shipwreck on a nearby island that ended in mass cannibalism, about the ghost who can still be heard weeping because her newborn son was wrenched from her arms just before she was hanged for murder.

“People love this tour,” said Gary Phipps, a schoolteacher who started Ghostly Tours with his wife, Carol, about seven years ago. Since then, the tours – which begin at a tombstone engraving shop – have become one of the biggest tourist attractions in this tiny community a few miles south of Kennebunkport, the high-priced Maine enclave where the Bush family vacations.

But trolling for ghosts around here isn’t just for Halloween or for tourists. In New England, where it’s not considered the least bit extraordinary to live or work in buildings well over 300 years old, people are pretty comfortable with the past – and with visits from souls who used to live there. They talk about ghosts – over dinner, at the local bar – and go on the tour themselves.

“If your own house isn’t haunted, your friend’s is or your boyfriend’s is, or the person’s down the street is,” said Rebecca Flohr, 21, who grew up in the York area.

The tour is long on theatrics. The guide wears a dark, hooded gown and carries a fake, bloody hand to be pulled out during a walk through a cemetery.

But the hourlong outing also is full of lore that could come in handy during a game of Trivial Pursuit or “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

Q: Why do barbershops have red-and-white poles outside?

A: Because at one time barbers also performed bloodletting, when getting rid of “bad blood” was believed to cure ailments. People would visit the barber, where they would tightly grip a pole so their veins would pop out and one could be cut to release a flow of blood. When a barber wasn’t letting blood and was available to give haircuts, he would hang this pole, streaked with rivulets of red, in front of his shop.

Q. Why do we say “Bless you” when someone sneezes?

A: Because people once believed that a violent sneeze could expel a person’s soul and leave the person vulnerable to possession by evil spirits. They would utter an immediate blessing to ward off such evil.

Some of the other stories are more lighthearted. A stop at a Civil War memorial reveals a mistake: Maine fought for the North, but this statue of a soldier appears to be wearing a Confederate uniform.

“We’ve often wondered if we were just delivered the wrong statue and if there is some other little town, perhaps down in Georgia or somewhere, with a similar problem,” Holly-Clark said.

On frigid winter nights, the statue is said to weep.

“Maybe he’s crying because he’s never gotten used to Maine’s cold weather,” Holly-Clark said, “or maybe he’s lonely for the souls of his fellow Confederates.”

Not everyone around York buys any of this.

They often point to “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that purportedly is based on the life of York minister Joseph Moody. Moody, who apparently killed a childhood friend in a hunting accident, is depicted to have worn a black handkerchief over his face because he constantly saw the ghost of his dead friend.

But records at the Old York Historical Society reflect otherwise. Moody was said to have been a depressed man – a condition made even worse when his wife and child died in the plague of 1616 – but accounts from members of his congregation and notations in his diary indicate he never wore a black veil or saw ghosts.

“Myths,” said Scott Stevens, executive director of the historical society.

Stevens said one of his employees – the caretaker of some of the town’s oldest structures – insists the ghosts exist. One ghost is supposed to be Mary Bulman, who never got over her husband’s death in the French and Indian War. Another is the “lady in white,” a woman said to have once haunted an old tavern by beckoning to men who had consumed too much ale; in recent years, she has moved to a house across the street from the old tavern.

Maybe the most popular ghost is Joel. People say he haunts the Lobster Barn, a restaurant and pub housed in a 200-year-old barn that was moved from a neighboring town many years ago. The barn’s original owner, Joel, is said to have been so annoyed at the displacement of his building that he traveled with it to forever punish the new owners with pranks.

His antics are notorious: He slams doors; he breaks glasses. Once he overturned everything in the salad bar.

“We always say that Joel came with us,” said Betty Weaver, who owns the Lobster Barn. “Whenever anything goes wrong, we say Joel did it.”

As if on cue, bartender Erin Boissonneautt, who was getting ready for the lunch rush, dropped a wine glass.