R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Welsh Tales Of Terror

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R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) - Welsh Tales Of Terror . (Fontana, 1973, 1975)

Cover artwork for May 1975 2nd edition: Justin Todd!

Introduction - R. Chetwynd-Hayes

Glyn Jones - Jordan
John Christopher - A Cry Of Children
Arthur Machen - The Shining Pyramid
Angus Wilson - Animals Or Human Beings
Richard Bridgeman - Morgan's Trust
Marie Trevelyan - Water Horse's And Spirits Of the Mist
Caradoc Evans - Be This Her Memorial
Hazel F. Looker - The Lost Gold Mine
Dorothy K. Haynes - Mrs. Jones
Ronald Seth - The Reverend John Jones And The Ghostly Horseman
Glyn Jones - Cadi Hughes
Jack Griffith - Black Goddess
Richard Hughes - The Stranger
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Lord Dunwilliam And The Cwn Annwn

'Non-fiction'

Hazel F. Looker - Old Ben
W. Howells - The Cyoeraeth
D. E. Jenkins - The Brown Hobgoblin of Bed Gelert
Hazel F. Looker - The Man On A Bike
Marie Trevelyan - Dead Man's Candle
Marie Trevelyan - The Tolling Bell
Marie Trevelyan - The Black Lady Of Boverton
Rev. Elias Owen - Satan and a load of Bibles
W. Howells - The Ghost of Pont Cnnc Bach
W. Howells - Corpse Candles
D. E. Jenkins - The White Lady Of Aberglaslyn Pass
Rev. Elias Owen - The Devil's Tree
D. E. Jenkins - A Perilous Struggle

Blurb:
Wales - the land of myth and magic, where phantoms lurk in the deep, dark mines and the wild mountain heights shiver with the echoes of age old horror ....

The death bell of Llantwit
The dark lady Of Boverton
The Montgomery rats
The shrieking ghost of Breconty
The night-hag of Glamorgan
The Carmarthen goblin
The devil of Cylfant
The hell-hounds of Bala

Grippingly gruesome tales ...

Peter Haining also edited a volume along these lines, The Magic Valley Travellers (Gollancz, 1974) which scored slightly higher with me as it contains Walter Map's priceless 'factual' vampire account, The Living Dead Man, and:the magnificent The Fatal Prediction, A Romantic Tale which Haining's credits to 'Anne Of Swansea', although he is evidently the only person to have come to that conclusion. That said, Chetwynd-Hayes makes a decent fist of this one (the John Christopher and Jack Griffith selections reveal a hitherto unsuspected familiarity with John Burke's Tales Of Unease series). 'Best' story would have to be Machen's 'nasty fairy folk' classic, The Shining Pyramid, but i've not got any notes on that yet, so you'll have to make do with;

Glyn Jones - Jordan: A giant of a man with a hideously scarred face and body hopping along on an iron leg, and he's only interested in buying one thing - corpses. Jordan is clearly not a man to cheat, but that's exactly what the narrator and his fellow con-merchant Danny try to do, the latter masquerading as a recently dug up body then scarpering once he's been paid for. Come the day when, prayerbook in hand and singing his favourite funeral dirge, Jordan bears down on the tavern to claim what's rightfully his ...

Dorothy K. Haynes - Mrs. Jones: Fat Mrs. Jones wins all the local cookery competitions with ease. One day a crone asks for one of her yummy biscuits but Mrs. Jones rebuffs her with "I don't bake for the likes of you" .... whereupon she's spirited away to the fairy kitchen at the Cove to do just that for eternity.

Caradoc Evans - Be This Her Memorial: Capel Sion: The tragic life and death of the deeply pious old Nanni who prays for death when the minister she raised from an infant announces that he's moving on for pastures new. As RCH points out in his introduction, it's a sly study of religious hypocrisy (notable in the pushy door-to-door Bible-salesman from Hell) and the ending is a killer.

Angus Wilson - Animals Or Human Beings: Welsh Marches. Fraulien Partenkirchen's parents pack their troublesome daughter off to Wales to take up the position of housekeeper to eccentric old Miss Ingelow. The old girl is a fervent anti-vivisectionist and devotes her life to adopting the unfortunate creatures destined for the laboratory. The Fraulien decides she doesn't like pets - not when they're huge buck rats, anyway - and resigns just in time to avoid witnessing Miss Ingelow's grisly death.

Glyn Jones - Cadi Hughes: Begins with the news that Ifan is literally dying by inches and goes on to describe the hideous damage gangrene is wreaking on his legs. The story then gives way to an appraisal of his devoted wife Cadi, a bossy, very practical woman who is already preparing his wake, making particular note of her petty spite toward honest pit worker Ifan down the years. Finally, God turns up on the doorstep. I bet you didn't know he was a card-carrying misogynist, did you? Truly bizarre.

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Lord Dunwilliam And The Cwy Annwn: The arrogant Lord Dunwilliam, adrift in a snowstorm, chances upon a solitary cottage where live Evan ap Evans and his beautiful daughter, Silah. Dunwilliam is used to getting what he wants when he wants it and he's decided Silah is going to be his by any means necessary. Evans spins him some cock and bull story about the girl having a fearsome lover, Annwn the Wild Huntsman whose pack are Hell-hounds, but as if an educated man would believe that ...

Thanks to Franklin Marsh for providing me with a copy of the '73 edition

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Fresh from enjoying the recent Paul Finch-edited Terror Tales Of Wales, thought I'd dip back into this earlier volume.

Jack Griffiths - Black Goddess: 1930. Fearless Iestyn Morgan the colliery manager and five of his men are trapped in the mine following a tunnel collapse. It doesn't help that one of the party, John Daniel, is a Religious maniac while Iestyn's oldest friend, Bill Rees, has taken to babbling about the Black Goddess, "this spirit of evil demanding human sacrifice - even burnt offerings - to satisfy its cruel appetites." With the air fast running out and still no sign of a rescue party, Iestyn smells gas ....

Marie Trevelyan - Water-Horses and Spirits of the Mist:A non-fiction extract from her Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales, 1909, featuring, among others, the Welsh banshee, the Gwrach-v-rhibyn, a winged hag with mismatched eyes who is often accompanied by a pack of black hell hounds. The dogs are mainly for effect. She's lethal with or without them.