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Post by dem bones on Jun 10, 2018 16:07:57 GMT
I have to confess I enjoyed it a great deal--more a reflection of the peculiarities of my own taste than any intrinsic worth. H. "Intrinsic worth"? Who needs it. All I require of a story is that it entertains, and Dare's certainly do for me. Have no idea how many times I've read Fatal Oak("The genius of country innkeepers for unobtrusive pumping is amazing"), but Dare's ghoulish attention to detail in describing the frazzled corpse of the adulteress still has me in fits. It's like M. R. James as re-imagined by 'Ghastly' Graham Ingels. The Beam: "Two days later, the priest came over again, heralding his arrival as before with many groans, stenches and explosions ..." Mount Stanton, a Worcestershire mining village. Fourteen-year old Eileen Smith comes under attack from a poltergeist. Busy-body Wayne advises the removal of a stout oak beam running the length of her bedroom which was purchased from the local mill after the owner hung himself. It's unclear - to me at least - where the hideous disembodied apelike arm fits into all this, but it's spectacular manifestation is a highlight. The Haunting Helmet: The funeral helm of Sir Everard Maundelay nightly detaches itself from a mismatched suit of armour in protest against it removal from the family crypt. Tellingly Wayne and Granville find the wandering helmet far less upsetting than It-girl Phoebe's scandalously brief tennis shorts. The Nymph Still Lives: Wayne visits the remnants of a pagan shrine along Hadrian's wall. His miserly tribute at the wishing well is repaid by a personal visit from local deity Coventina, a woman so beautiful that even he experiences a certain constriction in his breeches. Wayne awakens from his wonderful "dream" wearing a garland of wild flowers and clutching a Roman coin. |
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Post by humgoo on Jun 7, 2019 17:10:45 GMT
"Fatal Oak" is a priceless gem indeed! It shows clearly that an antiquarian story doesn't have to be subtle and restrained at all: "In a massive pseudo-gothic chair against the wall of the room sat all that was left of Mrs. Reval. The striking pre-Raphaelite hair was all scorched to a horrible tuft right on the crown of the head, the rest of which was bald, blackened skull. The face was a hideous charred and seared mass, from which grinned two rows of teeth from which the lips had utterly gone; and the once-statuesque body was a thing of shrivelled skin on which the Renaissance gown hung grotesquely as from a clothes-peg. It looked as though the woman had been struck by lightning." While the story looks like a pastiche of or an homage to MRJ's "Hanging Oak" tale (at least I thought so while reading it), Dare adds a note at the end saying that it's based on something real: "The story of the Bierton murder and gibbet is actually taken from Ms. notes on the history of the district, collected by a former rector of Aston Clinton, a neighbouring village. There does exist in Aylesbury to this day a snuff-box made out of the gruesome relic. — I have seen it."
So people did make things out of old gibbets? 
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Post by helrunar on Jun 8, 2019 3:46:14 GMT
It's lovely to see appreciation for M.P. Dare. I'll probably revisit some of the tales this summer.
MPD seems to have done his own psychic investigating, perhaps somewhat along the lines of Elliott O'Donnell, so perhaps the story is based on an actual relic and/or legend. Hard to say.
H.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 12, 2019 23:03:05 GMT
It's lovely to see appreciation for M.P. Dare. I'll probably revisit some of the tales this summer. The eldritch power of the Vault is such that it can drive a person to scour the byways of the ether for a battered copy of Unholy Relics. I'm particularly looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." |
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 13, 2019 0:52:40 GMT
It's lovely to see appreciation for M.P. Dare. I'll probably revisit some of the tales this summer. The eldritch power of the Vault is such that it can drive a person to scour the byways of the ether for a battered copy of Unholy Relics. I'm particularly looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." Just in case you're interested, I just discovered the Internet Archive has a copy ready to borrow in various digital formats. If not, best of luck finding a print copy that won't cost a fortune.... |
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Post by helrunar on Jun 13, 2019 3:41:25 GMT
When I read "The Demoniac Goat," I couldn't help thinking that MPD wrote the story as a spoof of Dennis Wheatley. I'll have to see if I still have that opinion if I read the tale again this Summer. I have the electronic edition; seems the print version is scarce.
Best, H.
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 13, 2019 8:03:39 GMT
When I read "The Demoniac Goat," I couldn't help thinking that MPD wrote the story as a spoof of Dennis Wheatley. I'll have to see if I still have that opinion if I read the tale again this Summer. I have the electronic edition; seems the print version is scarce. Best, H. That's one for my "Goat Stories of an Antiquary" volume (along with Canon Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara" along others"). |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 13, 2019 12:51:43 GMT
The eldritch power of the Vault is such that it can drive a person to scour the byways of the ether for a battered copy of Unholy Relics. I'm particularly looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." Just in case you're interested, I just discovered the Internet Archive has a copy ready to borrow in various digital formats. If not, best of luck finding a print copy that won't cost a fortune.... Thank you! Sadly, I've never found reading digital books to be enjoyable as reading paper ones (though I'm not a technophobe, and I think it's great how the rise of digital formats has made so many works accessible to readers). That probably makes me sound older and more curmudgeonly than I really am. On the bright side, I did find a reading copy that didn't cost a fortune, though I haven't seen it with my own eyes yet. When I read "The Demoniac Goat," I couldn't help thinking that MPD wrote the story as a spoof of Dennis Wheatley. I'll have to see if I still have that opinion if I read the tale again this Summer. I have the electronic edition; seems the print version is scarce. Best, H. That's one for my "Goat Stories of an Antiquary" volume (along with Canon Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara" along others"). As it turns out, both stories evidently appear in The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, edited by Robert M. Price (Chaosium, 1994). Now I'm wondering how much goat-themed horror there is out there. I can think of at least two memorable goats in horror films: the one from the seance scene in Drag Me to Hell and Black Phillip from The Witch. |
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 13, 2019 13:03:27 GMT
Just in case you're interested, I just discovered the Internet Archive has a copy ready to borrow in various digital formats. If not, best of luck finding a print copy that won't cost a fortune.... Thank you! Sadly, I've never found reading digital books to be enjoyable as reading paper ones (though I'm not a technophobe, and I think it's great how the rise of digital formats has made so many works accessible to readers). That probably makes me sound older and more curmudgeonly than I really am. On the bright side, I did find a reading copy that didn't cost a fortune, though I haven't seen it with my own eyes yet. That's one for my "Goat Stories of an Antiquary" volume (along with Canon Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara" along others"). As it turns out, both stories evidently appear in The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, edited by Robert M. Price (Chaosium, 1994). Now I'm wondering how much goat-themed horror there is out there. I can think of at least two memorable goats in horror films: the one from the seance scene in Drag Me to Hell and Black Phillip from The Witch. I'm glad you managed to find a print copy and hope you enjoy it. I feel traitorous for admitting it, but I've come to find digital books easier to read than print. Of course ereaders are lightweight and can hold many books, vs. the 500pg soft or hardbacks I used to carry around. Please let us all know what you think of the stories..... |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 13, 2019 13:05:23 GMT
I can think of at least two memorable goats in horror films: the one from the seance scene in Drag Me to Hell and Black Phillip from The Witch. I believe a goat appears in the wonderful L'ANTICRISTO (1974), but I have not watched it recently. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 13, 2019 13:10:47 GMT
I can think of at least two memorable goats in horror films: the one from the seance scene in Drag Me to Hell and Black Phillip from The Witch. I believe a goat appears in the wonderful L'ANTICRISTO (1974), but I have not watched it recently. If you'll allow goats of Mendes (I'm going with that as the correct plural) there's The Devil Rides Out, and probably others I can't think of right now. The goat that played Black Phillip in The VVitch also had a small cameo in It Comes At Night (which I've seen, but didn't think much of) - bloody-disgusting.com/news/3441249/goat-witch-appears-comes-night/ |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 13, 2019 13:33:01 GMT
The goat that played Black Phillip in The VVitch also had a small cameo in It Comes At Night (which I've seen, but didn't think much of) Just to clarify, I didn't think much of It Comes At Night as a film - the goat's performance was fine. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 13, 2019 21:54:56 GMT
Now I'm wondering how much goat-themed horror there is out there. Quite a bit I imagine  |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 13, 2019 22:44:20 GMT
Groovy!
I suspect the possibilities are virtually endless if we include goat-headed but anthropomorphic manifestations of Satan, and more limited if we restrict ourselves to genuine goats (or at least specters/demons that appear to be such).
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Post by helrunar on Jun 14, 2019 3:15:01 GMT
James, you are a god. May pert nymphets ever dance before your throne.
cheers, H.
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