Oooh. That was excellent. Great transition to the pool itself. The apparition was well done. Had an old novel feel to it. Swarthy is definitely a 20th century word, isn't it? Well done.
Nicely done riff on that E.F. Benson tale, Simone! Folk horror is wonderful, and the anthologies like "Damnable Tales," with these tales from (some) long-forgotten magazines and journals--the Substacks of their day--are real gems. In my recent hiatus, I'm doing a deep-dive into the lore and literature, and also getting back into H.P. Lovecraft's tales. Lovecraft was a founder of what, in his time, was called "amateur journalism," which is basically what we're engaged in here on Substack, Medium, and similar ventures. He and his fellow "amateurs" wrote their literary works in small-circulation mags and journals as a hobby (these were rather well-heeled society folk, who could finance such things), critiqued one another, and did similar high-toned things for fun. Some of these mags evolved into the first pulps, which became the launch pads for not only Lovecraft at the height of his creative power, but other greats like Ray Bradbury--things like "Weird Tales" and "Amazing Stories." Alas, such platforms are long gone! But a good job here, with a nice, solid tale of impartial judgement left to a preternatural being with an objective sense of truth and falsehood. A timeless theme in myth and folklore; 10/10!!!
Thank you John. I think I am going to be digging deeper into some of these folklore tales. I have just read a couple that were quite discreetly sexy for the time so might get spiced up a bit.
Hey, go for it. All of the legends of incubi, succubae, the atrocities of the witchfinders and such, are manifestations of the overheated imaginations (VERY overheated, and VERY bizarre) of cloistered, celibate monastics (the obsessive tediousness of the Malleus Maleficarum testifies to just how repressed and morbid such beliefs can get), and the notorious manifestations of "possessions" and similar phenomena are credibly argued by some to be mental illness on one hand, and, from a more avant-garde angle, acts of rebellion by people just fed up with living under the thumb of a bunch of halfwits wielding spiritual and temporal authority, to the point of torture and capital punishment. Aldous Huxley treated this masterfully in his book "The Devils of Loudon," which director Ken Russell turned into a film with Vanessa Redgrave (a classic I have yet to see) in the early '70s--quite a spicy work truth be told, and Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose," done as an entertaining film with Sean Connery in the late 1980s (basically a detective story in a 14th century Benedictine monastery, where Connery is a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan guided by Science and Reason in the middle of a group of superstitious bumpkins, aided by a very young Christian Slater as his apprentice--the monastery is known for its books; and monks start dying mysteriously when a book by Aristotle thought lost goes missing). So legends are perfect ground for adaptation--looking forward to seeing the results!
Oooh. That was excellent. Great transition to the pool itself. The apparition was well done. Had an old novel feel to it. Swarthy is definitely a 20th century word, isn't it? Well done.
Thank you. That's the feel I was going for. As i mention in the footnote it was inspired by an early 20th Century story.
Nicely done riff on that E.F. Benson tale, Simone! Folk horror is wonderful, and the anthologies like "Damnable Tales," with these tales from (some) long-forgotten magazines and journals--the Substacks of their day--are real gems. In my recent hiatus, I'm doing a deep-dive into the lore and literature, and also getting back into H.P. Lovecraft's tales. Lovecraft was a founder of what, in his time, was called "amateur journalism," which is basically what we're engaged in here on Substack, Medium, and similar ventures. He and his fellow "amateurs" wrote their literary works in small-circulation mags and journals as a hobby (these were rather well-heeled society folk, who could finance such things), critiqued one another, and did similar high-toned things for fun. Some of these mags evolved into the first pulps, which became the launch pads for not only Lovecraft at the height of his creative power, but other greats like Ray Bradbury--things like "Weird Tales" and "Amazing Stories." Alas, such platforms are long gone! But a good job here, with a nice, solid tale of impartial judgement left to a preternatural being with an objective sense of truth and falsehood. A timeless theme in myth and folklore; 10/10!!!
Thank you John. I think I am going to be digging deeper into some of these folklore tales. I have just read a couple that were quite discreetly sexy for the time so might get spiced up a bit.
Hey, go for it. All of the legends of incubi, succubae, the atrocities of the witchfinders and such, are manifestations of the overheated imaginations (VERY overheated, and VERY bizarre) of cloistered, celibate monastics (the obsessive tediousness of the Malleus Maleficarum testifies to just how repressed and morbid such beliefs can get), and the notorious manifestations of "possessions" and similar phenomena are credibly argued by some to be mental illness on one hand, and, from a more avant-garde angle, acts of rebellion by people just fed up with living under the thumb of a bunch of halfwits wielding spiritual and temporal authority, to the point of torture and capital punishment. Aldous Huxley treated this masterfully in his book "The Devils of Loudon," which director Ken Russell turned into a film with Vanessa Redgrave (a classic I have yet to see) in the early '70s--quite a spicy work truth be told, and Umberto Eco's novel "The Name of the Rose," done as an entertaining film with Sean Connery in the late 1980s (basically a detective story in a 14th century Benedictine monastery, where Connery is a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan guided by Science and Reason in the middle of a group of superstitious bumpkins, aided by a very young Christian Slater as his apprentice--the monastery is known for its books; and monks start dying mysteriously when a book by Aristotle thought lost goes missing). So legends are perfect ground for adaptation--looking forward to seeing the results!
Delightfully unexpected- love a vengeful sense of justice- excellent 👌
Vengeful spirits, especially in female form, seem to be one of my tropes.
It’s not a bad ‘zone’ to explore
Interesting!
Thank you Bill