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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 30, 2021 19:38:07 GMT
There are already threads on black forests and plants that hate you, but why not one focused on flowers in particular? Fresh on my mind, both from the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales: John Lee Mahin, Jr. - "The Red Lily" Eli Colter - "Farthingale's Poppy" (not so evil, but still) And some others: Emma Vane - "The Moaning Lily" H. G. Wells - "The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid" Seabury Quinn - "The Blood-Flower" Seabury Quinn - "The Black Orchid" Clark Ashton Smith - "The Seed from the Sepulchre" Louisa May Alcott - "Lost In A Pyramid, or, The Mummy's Curse" (despite the name!)
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Post by helrunar on Jul 30, 2021 19:42:58 GMT
There's a great example of a "flowers of evil" episode in Sax Rohmer's novel Brood of the Witch-Queen. I think the main idea was made use of in a number of other stories by various authors.
It's not supernatural but the oleander plant in Anya Seton's Dragonwyck is most definitely a fleur fatale.
Clever idea for a thread!
cheers, H.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 30, 2021 19:43:58 GMT
There are already threads on black forests and plants that hate you, but why not one focused on flowers in particular? Fresh on my mind, both from the July 1925 issue of Weird Tales: John Lee Mahin, Jr. - "The Red Lily" Eli Colter - "Farthingale's Poppy" (not so evil, but still) And some others: Emma Vane - "The Moaning Lily" H. G. Wells - "The Flowering Of The Strange Orchid" Seabury Quinn - "The Blood-Flower" Seabury Quinn - "The Black Orchid" Clark Ashton Smith - "The Seed from the Sepulchre" Louisa May Alcott - "Lost In A Pyramid, or, The Mummy's Curse" (despite the name!) Clark Ashton Smith was obsessed with flowers, particularly people turning into flowers, and wrote many stories about it. A favorite of mine is "A Voyage to Sfanomoë."
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 30, 2021 19:52:34 GMT
Also, and I hesitate to bring it up, because I recently made the mistake of rereading it, and it is horribly long-winded and dreary, but Scott Smith's THE RUINS. (In fact, I reread all of his novels!)
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Post by The Thing in the Vacuum Valve on Jul 30, 2021 20:09:49 GMT
Also, and I hesitate to bring it up, because I recently made the mistake of rereading it, and it is horribly long-winded and dreary, but Scott Smith's THE RUINS. (In fact, I reread all of his novels!) I haven't read him at all, but do enjoy the film of the same name which was (I presume) based on his book. He actually wrote the screenplay for it. Creepy, low-budget, and a little different!
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 30, 2021 20:10:57 GMT
Also, and I hesitate to bring it up, because I recently made the mistake of rereading it, and it is horribly long-winded and dreary, but Scott Smith's THE RUINS. (In fact, I reread all of his novels!) I read The Ruins when it first came out, and I thought it was OK. Lots of bad things happening to not-too-sympathetic young people. I saw the movie, too. It was also OK, though it's a challenge to make flowers look scary on screen.
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drauch
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 56
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Post by drauch on Jul 30, 2021 20:21:39 GMT
Passion Flower by Wyatt Blassingame might, kind of fit the bill. An evil flower turns into a woman to seduce the narrator. Collected in Dancing Tuatara's Tales of Terror and Torment Vol. 1 and the all-Blassingame collection, The Unholy Goddess and Other Stories.
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Post by Middoth on Jul 30, 2021 20:42:11 GMT
Flower Valley by J. S. Whittaker (acid flowers)
The House on Stillcroft Street by Joseph Payne Brennan (the flowers that prefer living vase)
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 30, 2021 21:14:21 GMT
Passion Flower by Wyatt Blassingame might, kind of fit the bill. An evil flower turns into a woman to seduce the narrator. Collected in Dancing Tuatara's Tales of Terror and Torment Vol. 1 and the all-Blassingame collection, The Unholy Goddess and Other Stories. In the Mabinogi two magicians make a woman out of flowers, she is called Blodeuwedd.
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Post by Middoth on Jul 30, 2021 21:19:31 GMT
In the Mabinogi two magicians make a woman out of flowers, she is called Blodeuwedd It was just a start to her metamorphosis.
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Post by helrunar on Jul 30, 2021 21:32:10 GMT
Alan Garner's novel The Owl Service is a brilliant expansion of the Blodeuwedd myth. There's a good serial film adaptation from 1968 or 1969 but I doubt it is available with Russian subtitles. A young man who portrayed one of the troubled adolescents died in a bar fight in London shortly afterwards. Really tragic.
H.
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Jul 30, 2021 21:46:20 GMT
In the Mabinogi two magicians make a woman out of flowers, she is called Blodeuwedd It was just a start to her metamorphosis. Yes. She is made as a wife for the hero Lleu, who is cursed by his mother and cannot have a normal woman as his wife. Later she tries to have him murdered and as punishment is turned into an owl. One of the two magicians who creates her is a king. He couldn't live when not at war unless he had his feet kept on the lap of a virgin, which I find an amazingly imaginative idea.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 30, 2021 21:54:37 GMT
In the Mabinogi two magicians make a woman out of flowers, she is called Blodeuwedd. The Marjorie Bowen short story "He Made A Woman" ( Seeing Life, 1923; Weird Woods, 2020, ed. John Miller, British Library Tales of The Weird) has a mad scientist who manages to replicate this feat.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 30, 2021 21:59:49 GMT
Of course some flowers genuinely are evil, like pansies -
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Post by Swan on Jul 30, 2021 23:12:08 GMT
Passion Flower by Wyatt Blassingame might, kind of fit the bill. An evil flower turns into a woman to seduce the narrator. Collected in Dancing Tuatara's Tales of Terror and Torment Vol. 1 and the all-Blassingame collection, The Unholy Goddess and Other Stories. In the Mabinogi two magicians make a woman out of flowers, she is called Blodeuwedd. And Gwydion said to Math, when it was Spring: "Come now and let us make a wife for Llew." And so they broke broad boughs yet moist with dew, And in a shadow made a magic ring: They took the violet and the meadow-sweet To form her pretty face, and for her feet They built a mound of daisies on a wing, And for her voice they made a linnet sing In the wide poppy blowing for her mouth. And over all they chanted twenty hours. And Llew came singing from the azure south And bore away his wife of birds and flowers. The Wife of Llew by Francis Ledwidge
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