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Post by dem bones on Jul 4, 2011 14:25:22 GMT
Peter Haining (ed.) - A Circle Of Witches: An Anthology Of Victorian Witchcraft Stories (Robert Hale, 1971) Introduction - Peter Haining
Part One: Fact
Mrs. E. Lynn Linton - Witchcraft In England
Mrs. E. Lynn Linton - The Witches Of Scotland
Lady Wilde - Irish Witch Tales
Miss Mary Lewis - Witchcraft And Wizardry In Wales
Part Two: Fiction
Mrs. H. L. - The Magic Ring
Lady Duff-Gordon - The Amber Witch
Anon - The Witch Spectre
Catherine Crowe - Possessed By Demons
Amelia Edwards - My Brother’s Ghost Story
Anna Bonus Kingsford - The Enchanted Woman
The Hon. Mrs. Greene - Bound By A Spell
Mrs. Ethel Marriott-Watson - The Witch Of The Marsh
Pauline Mackie - Ye Lyttle Salem Maide
Mrs. Baillie Reynolds - A Witch Burning
Mrs. H. D. Everett - A Water Witch
Beatrice Heron-Maxwell - The Devil Stone
Jessie Adelaide Middleton - Black Magic
Mrs. Hugh Fraser - The SatanistBlurb: Witchcraft and Victorian gentlewomen are certainly an unusual combination — but then this is no ordinary anthology. Fascinated by the macabre literature of Victorian times — and that written by women in particular — the editor of this book spent a number of years researching the major subject which provided a recurring theme for these ladies, the subject of witchcraft.
At first glance it would seem unlikely that the demure women of Queen Victoria's very proper times would have been interested in the dark arts. Yet, in the items of both fact and fiction in this book, readers will find the ladies' research extensive, their knowledge detailed and their storytelling powers remarkable.
A Circle of Witches is a sequel to the editor's previous bestselling anthology of Victorian ghost and horror stories, The Gentlewomen of Evil, which has since been published in both America and Europe.Been so long since last I dug this out it's like having a brand new book to get to grips with. The Witch Of The Marsh (and PH's bizarre potted biography of the "author") we've met several times, most notably on the Australian Ghost Stories thread where James provides a photo of "Ethel". On the surface, this selection doesn't look top heavy on Witch Trial-specific fiction though the extracts from Lady Duff Gordon's (translation of William Meinhold's) The Amber Witch and Pauline Mackie's Ye Lyttle Salem Maide likely qualify, and I had high hopes for: Mrs. Ballie Reyolds - A Witch Burning: New England. Parson Gilbert Caton, a young English settler appalled at the witch hysteria sweeping New England, visits one of the accused in her dungeon on the eve of her execution. The good people of Mizpah have already burned her mother, likewise innocent, and Luna has given up on any hope of clemency. "Kill me here with your own hands. I do not fear death - I have nothing to live for - I only fear torture - only to die shrieking with devilish men gloating on my agony." Suitably moved, Gilbert arrives at an alternative plan - "I am going to put you on my back, and to carry you out of prison under my cassock." Luna duly slips out of her dress, stuffs it with straw to resemble a sleeping woman, and together they set off up the pitch dark staircase. What could possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, if you're only in it for horror and cruelty, nothing: a suspenseful encounter with a drunken turnkey is about as encouraging as it gets. For fans of Victorian melodrama, however, it's a decided treat which utilises two of the days most guffawable clichés, the long lost kindly uncle who turns up in nick of time and the girl adopting male apparel to escape under the nose of the mayor.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 12, 2011 20:23:41 GMT
Anna Bonus Kingsford - The Enchanted Woman: In her sleep, the narrator witnesses the abduction of an attractive young wife by a lecherous sorcerer. When she rejects his advances, the old perv spitefully denounces her as a witch and she's burnt at the stake. So far very ABC - albeit it beautifully written ABC - but, as the the woman goes up in flames, something as spectacularly horrible as it is unexpected happens to her features. Anna Bonus Kingsford's writing has a dreamlike, almost hallucinatory quality not dissimilar to dear 'Ethel's The Devil On The Marsh and Haining writes in his introduction that she felt it necessary to reassure her readers that she wasn't some kind of drug fiend! can't believe this one didn't make more of an impression when first i read it.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 13, 2011 10:22:15 GMT
Haining writes in his introduction that she felt it necessary to reassure her readers that she wasn't some kind of drug fiend! She was some kind of mystic, though - a "Christian theosophist", and prone to "visions". This story comes from her "Dreams & Dream Stories", which is supposed to be a factual record of her dreams and visions. This footnote (by the book's editor, Edward Maitland) is also given in the book - On the night previous to this dream, Mrs Kingsford was awoke by
a bright light, and beheld a hand holding out towards her a glass
of foaming ale, the action being accompanied by the words, spoken
with strong emphasis,--" You must not drink this." It was not her
usual beverage, but she occasionally yielded to pressure and took
it when at home. In consequence of the above prohibition she
abstained for that day, and on the following night received this
vision, in order to fit her for which the prohibition had apparently
been imposed. It was originally entitled a Vision of the World's
Fall, on the supposition that it represented the loss of the Intuition,
mystically called the "Fall of the Woman," through the sorceries
of priestcraft.
Personally, I'd rather have the beer, and I'd take this as a warning of what could happen if I was to become abstinent.  |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 13, 2011 21:52:57 GMT
Thanks for the info, Dr. S. The technique worked for her, or at least, I enjoyed The Enchanted Woman very much! It reminds me of that Anne Letitia Barbould short that shows up in every Gothic anthology, Sir Bertrand; high on atmosphere, jump cuts from one strange scenario to the next, as nightmares tend to. Incidentally, all the stories in Circle Of Witches bar the extract from The Amber Witch and The Witch Spectre are available to download for free from Horrormasters. You can tell they've been scanned from Haining's book as dear old 'Ethel' is credited with The Witch Of The MarshYet another extract. I read The Amber Witch through rather than settle for a juicy highlight, but no such luxury with The Hon. Mrs. Green - Bound By A Spell which looks like it might be fun from the tantalising glimpse Haining provides. In this episode, the reaper Silvester Milano emerges from the forest all wide-eyed and blood-splattered, having slain the werewolf that did for M. Delemont. Even more impressive, the beast was crushing an infant between its jaws at the time. What has all this to do with Delemont's widow Elizabeth, a woman despised throughout the village of Protogno as an evil witch? And where's the little son she's forever abusing? |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 14, 2011 12:42:09 GMT
Yeah, it's strange though - the dream/vision thing is such a cliche as a framing device for horror stories that I can't sort out in my own memory whether many writers ever actually claimed to have got ideas for their stories from dreams (or fevers, or drug states). I mean, I have a feeling that some maybe did (Poe? Lovecraft? Ashton-Smith?) - but the only one I can think of for sure is Jekyll & Hyde, which is often cited as having been based on a dream (though drugs probably played a part too). No doubt someone will shortly tell me that there is a well-known anthology... actually, it sounds like the sort of thing Chistopher Evans would have edited.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 14, 2011 13:12:43 GMT
I got part of my ideas for 'The Death Tableaux' from waking dreams - that is walking directly from being awake into a dream. Practiced it every night for about two years and I think it worked twice. Always difficult to say: subjective states, semi consciousness, hypnotic trance, illusion, self deception and so. I'm sure there are others who were inspired by dreams.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 14, 2011 17:15:57 GMT
According to Harry Ludlam, Bram Stoker blamed his dream of a "King Vampire of the undead rising from the tomb to go about his ghastly business" on "a too generous helping of dressed crab at supper." Where would horror fiction be without crabs, eh? The one that gets me wondering is authors who claim to have written their best work under the influence of drink (often the impression given is copious amounts of it were involved). i'm no reason to doubt them and Shane McGowan is living(ish) proof that it's possible, but it must be a rare gift. don't know about you but i'm absolute crap when i'm sober but ten times worse when i've had few.
anyhow, whoever was responsible for this next had most likely been caning the Um Bongo Superstrength as its so ridiculous even Chetwynd-Hayes would have binned it as beyond the pale for the 1st Armada Monster Book.
Anon - The Witch Spectre: (1845) A priest encounters a pair of disembodied legs on his way to the church. He tries to engage them in conversation but, receiving only ghostly grunts in reply, strikes out with his whip. A terrible shriek, the legs collapse and the ground beneath them is drenched in a familiar frothy white substance. As he watches in astonishment, "the prostrate phantom .... continued to eject vast quantities of milk from every part" until the spell passes and lying before him is Old Sarah Kennedy, the village witch, who has adopted spectral disguise to siphon the milk from the local cows. She expires on the spot and the Devil carries her off! A true story, no less, submitted to The Dublin Review by 'A Society lady in County Cork'.
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Post by Steve on Jul 17, 2011 9:30:11 GMT
The one that gets me wondering is authors who claim to have written their best work under the influence of drink... I think the trick is to have your germ of an idea first and then get slowly bladdered while you're writing. Alcohol's good for oiling the wheels, as it were, but I've never had a good idea while I was pissed. Plenty of occasions where something's seemed like a good idea at the time mind you but, come the harsh light of day, I've never been left with anything more than an almost tangible sense of regret and half a cold kebab (or possibly half a cold regret and an almost tangible sense of kebab). Fags are a useful tool, I always found. I mean, they'd kill you as soon as look at you obviously but the cliched image of the chain-smoking hack hunched over his typewriter, fag ends piled up three feet high in the ashtray, I'm sure there's something to that. There's nothing like a fag to focus the mind. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 17, 2011 15:34:58 GMT
According to Harry Ludlam, Bram Stoker blamed his dream of a "King Vampire of the undead rising from the tomb to go about his ghastly business" on "a too generous helping of dressed crab at supper." Where would horror fiction be without crabs, eh? The one that gets me wondering is authors who claim to have written their best work under the influence of drink (often the impression given is copious amounts of it were involved). i'm no reason to doubt them and Shane McGowan is living(ish) proof that it's possible, but it must be a rare gift. don't know about you but i'm absolute crap when i'm sober but ten times worse when i've had few. anyhow, whoever was responsible for this next had most likely been caning the Um Bongo Superstrength as its so ridiculous even Chetwynd-Hayes would have binned it as beyond the pale for the 1st Armada Monster Book. Anon - The Witch Spectre: (1845) A priest encounters a pair of disembodied legs on his way to the church. He tries to engage them in conversation but, receiving only ghostly grunts in reply, strikes out with his whip. A terrible shriek, the legs collapse and the ground beneath them is drenched in a familiar frothy white substance. As he watches in astonishment, "the prostrate phantom .... continued to eject vast quantities of milk from every part" until the spell passes and lying before him is Old Sarah Kennedy, the village witch, who has adopted spectral disguise to siphon the milk from the local cows. She expires on the spot and the Devil carries her off! A true story, no less, submitted to The Dublin Review by 'A Society lady in County Cork'. Wonderful! Reminds me of this one from Reign of Terror 2: The Merchant of Rotterdam by Henry Glassford Bell - Oh yes! Victorian horror comedy at it's most Dave Allen! A rich and cruel man breaks his leg kicking some poor fellow downstairs, has it amputated by the local doctor who 'needs one to teach with' and so employs the district's finest false leg maker to construct him a prosthesis of cork and springs that will be 'even finer than his flesh'. But oh no! "I am lost! I am lost! I am possessed by the devil in the shape of a cork leg!Stop me! For heaven's sake stop me!" The false leg goes mad and won't stop walking, even when the flesh has fallen from his bones. Lovely. ? Is it time for a haunted legs thread? Probably not  |
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