The Armada Ghost Book - ed. Christine Bernard

[allthingshorror]

Armada (1967)

Both covers - Gino D' Achille

CONTENTS:

Introduction
Sandy MacNeil and His Dog - Sorche Nic Leodhas
School For the Unspeakable - Manly Wade Wellman
The House of the Nightmare - Edward Lucas White
The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost - H G Wells
The Giant Bones - Sorche Nic Leodhas
Prince Godfrey Frees Mountain Dwellers and Little Shepherds From A Savage Werewolf and From Witches - Halina Gorska
The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall - John Kendrick Bangs
The Red Room - H G Wells
Spooks of the Valley - Louis C Jones
The Lads Who Met the Highwayman - Sorche Nic Loedhas
A Pair of Hands - Sir Arthur-Quiller Couch

[dem bones]

A handful of gentle genre classics, three reprints from Phyllis R. Fenner's Ghosts, Ghosts, Ghosts (Franklin Watts, 1952, 1961) and a triple helping of American born Scottish folklorist 'Sorche Nic Leodhas' (LeClaire Gowans Alger, 1898-1969) make for an inauspicious start to the series.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - Sandy MacNeil and His Dog: Gaelic Ghosts: Tales of the Supernatural from Scotland, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964). Cairncragie. Young Sandy is the last of a once prosperous family with just a crumbling house and barren fields to his name. Popular with his neighbours, he has an uncanny affinity with dogs. One night a large black hound with glowing red coals for eyes adopts him as its new master. Sandy can't bring himself to turn the brute away even though it's so obviously dead. So far, so good but far from being a proper Devil Dog in the Zoltan/ Shuck/ Cujo tradition, Sandy's spectral pet brings nothing but good fortune. If I'd read this as a seven year old, it's unlikely I'd have continued with the book.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Lads Who Met the Highwayman: (Ghosts Go Haunting, Young America Book Club 1965). Two brothers spend the holidays working on their uncle's Highland croft. Returning one night from the local fair, the boys are waylaid at the crossroads by a man in black who demands their purse. They hand it over and scarper. Uncle has a good guffaw when they tell him of their frightening encounter. The mugger is the harmless ghost of a local highwayman, hanged from an oak the previous century.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Giant Bones: Gaelic Ghosts: Tales of the Supernatural from Scotland, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964). An archaeologist explores the caves along the coast in search of the giants' graveyard. The ghosts of same don't take kindly to puny humans interfering with their bones. His subsequent delirious account of the adventure is explained away as a near-drowning experience.

Louis C. Jones - Spooks Of The Valley : A century ago, George, a tin pedlar, was murdered for his meagre life savings and his corpse buried under a woodpile in the Hudson Valley. He enlists the aid of two youngsters to dig up his bones and remove them to a cemetery so he can finally rest in peace.

H. G. Wells - The Red Room: Wells, then 28, prepares to spend the night in the allegedly haunted Great Red Room at Lorraine Castle on behalf of Her Ladyship. The three housekeepers - decrepit pensioners all - do nothing to ease his nerves. Wells is aware that the last to take on the ghosts fell down the staircase and broke his neck, but he has no belief in the supernatural and every faith in his loaded pistol.

H.G. Wells - The Inexperienced Ghost: The Mermaid Club, a private golf course in Surrey. Clayton is known among his friends as a talented raconteur, so when he insists that he recently spent an hour in conversation with a particularly troubled ghost, they are not entirely convinced. The ghost, he tells them, didn't amount to anything in life - he was a London schoolteacher - and shows every sign of making an even greater failure of death. When Clayton came upon the spectral tutor in the clubhouse last night, he'd forgotten how to vanish. Eventually, after much encouragement and cajoling on Clayton's part, the spook hit upon the right combination of gestures and hand movements to release him back to limbo. Despite the misgivings of one of the party, Clayton attempts to replicate his elaborate routine ...

Edward Lucas White - The House of the Nightmare: "Ain't no neighbours come here. Say they're afeared of the ghosts." After driving his car into a ditch, the narrator encounters a pitiful youth with a harelip who agrees to let him stop the night provided he does for himself. The house is unlit, all dust and mould, but our man makes the best of it, prepares a meal for them both from his packed lunch and builds a fire in the grate. The boy refuses the food but appreciates the blaze as he is always cold. Lucas (or whoever) is concerned how this lad manages on his own with his mother dead and his father "away", but the boy assures him matter-of-factly that he's fine, the ghosts don't make trouble and all that really bothers him are his nightmares. Once he'd tormented a sow and now that angry creature haunts his dreams, making like it's going to tear him apart and eat him ....

[cauldronbrewer]

Apr 18, 2013 8:18:30 GMT dem bones said:

Louis C. Jones - Spooks Of The Valley : A century ago, George, a tin pedlar, was murdered for his meagre life savings and his corpse buried under a woodpile in the Hudson Valley. He enlists the aid of two youngsters to dig up his bones and remove them to a cemetery so he can finally rest in peace.

I read this story a few days ago in Barbara Ireson's Spooky Stories 1. Sadly, the coincidence is spookier that the story itself.

[dem bones]

I think the author could have made more of the exhumation and local ghost's hang-out, the ruined Staat house, but in truth, Spooks Of The Valley is fair typical of the "do not frighten the infants at any cost!" policy adopted by this and too many children's' ghost story collections of the day. That Barbara Ireson's Spooky Stories series clearly owes much to the Armada's, but her selections look that bit stronger.

[cauldronbrewer]

Apr 19, 2013 12:34:15 GMT dem bones said:

Barbara Ireson's Spooky Stories series clearly owes much to the Armada's

Ireson also included a story by the aforementioned Sorche Nic Leodhas in Spooky Stories 2. "The Beekeeper and the Bewitched Hare" is mild fare, but at least it features a death by bee swarm.

[jepersonoatcake]

I remember the earlier, pre-decimal cover with a fond shudder - gave me the creeps badly as a young 'un.

Re the stories themselves: yes, they were mostly rather gentle pieces - but both The House Of The Nightmare and School For The Unspeakable have their fair share of genuine horror. The latter, in particular, is highly atmospheric - "What they called Disaster/Killed us not, o Master" - and is memorable for its "good" teacher ghost being as terrifying as his venal, if... meets A Clockwork Orange charges. Was too young at the time to recognise the name Manly Wade Wellman - how things change!