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Post by Michael Connolly on Jun 21, 2019 12:07:19 GMT
I thought that was a dress ring? I don't think you'd be able to see his ring from that angle.  Again, what have I started? |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 24, 2019 20:33:11 GMT
Please let us all know what you think of the stories..... I thought the first two stories I read--"Unholy Relics" and "The Haunted Drawers"--were entertaining enough, though the narrator isn't particularly likable with his snide attitude (I found Eva from "The Haunted Drawers" much more sympathetic, despite how appalling the narrator thought she was). No complaints here about the grisly climax of the title story. I'm still looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jun 25, 2019 8:57:19 GMT
Please let us all know what you think of the stories..... I thought the first two stories I read--"Unholy Relics" and "The Haunted Drawers"--were entertaining enough, though the narrator isn't particularly likable with his snide attitude (I found Eva from "The Haunted Drawers" much more sympathetic, despite how appalling the narrator thought she was). No complaints here about the grisly climax of the title story. I'm still looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." Why's that exactly? |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 25, 2019 10:56:45 GMT
"Fatal Oak" is a priceless gem indeed! 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? 
Apparently they did - www.bucksas.org.uk/rob/rob_2_8_332.pdfThere's also supposed to be a tobacco jar made from a gibbet post erected in Lincolnshire in 1792, now held by the Guildhall museum in Boston (Lincolnshire). |
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Post by ropardoe on Jun 25, 2019 10:57:15 GMT
I'm still looking forward to "The Demoniac Goat." Why's that exactly? Because, who doesn't like a demoniac goat? It is, anyway, one of the better, if not the best, story in the book. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jun 26, 2019 11:34:41 GMT
Because, who doesn't like a demoniac goat? It is, anyway, one of the better, if not the best, story in the book. For all the criticism of M.P. Dare, I think that his two stories I still have in anthologies ("'Bring Out Your Dead'" and "Borgia Pomade") are effectively written. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 30, 2019 13:05:04 GMT
In A Nun's Tragedy, the two confirmed bachelors (they're actually misogynists) almost come to grief at the slimy hands of a Sister who was walled up alive. It's reminiscent of Perceval Landon's marvelous Thurnley Abbey but I can't see too many of us complaining about that. This has been one of the highlights so far for me. At his best, Dare comes across as some kind of missing link between Jamesian antiquarian horror and Weird Tales-style pulp. The misogyny and bigotry are sour notes, but otherwise Unholy Relics is an entertaining read. In fact it isn't until The Nymph Still Lives that Gregory Wayne owns up to ever having been..er...turned on - in this case by a young lady ghost in a see-through dress doing a seductive dance on Hadrian's Wall! One of the slighter entries, along with "A Forgotten Italian." On the other hand... Best dialogue so far though goes to Fatal Oak - "But My God man that scorched corpse sitting in that chair is your wife!" "I think you've made a mistake with your tenses there - that scorched corpse sitting in the chair was my wife" and to cap the whole sordid tale of adultery and hanging off "This is the kind of case best investigated by one of those Scotland Yard chappies, preferably with the name Inspector MacArbre!" ...here's the sort of thing that makes the book worth tracking down. |
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Post by dem on Jun 30, 2019 17:36:56 GMT
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. : ( For Those Who Dream Monsters, Mortbury Press, 2013; Vault Advent Calendar, 2017) Read it here). Also worth the effort, J.F. Straker's swinging murder - detection - Black magic - fancy dress novel, The Goat, Harrap, 1972) Donald Dale - Flesh for the Goat-Man: ( Horror Stories, March 1940). "It was with glowing hearts and eyes that Virginia Emptage and Bruce Shanlon looked down upon the peaceful little sanatorium they had both helped to make a success. And they laughed together at the old legends that told of the time when the Goat-Man would come out from the hills to ravish and destroy those whom he had marked with his ghastly halo of fire ... They laughed - until it happened!" Not read it yet, but looks to be the usual 'it was the Mayor dressed up in an unlikely costume all along!" shudder stuff. And he would have gotten away with it too were it not for that pesky [soon to be] newly-wed couple! In a similar vein; Arthur Leo Zagat - Girl of the Goat-God: ( Dime Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1935: Robert Weinberg [ed.] Weird Menace #5: Slaves of the Blood Wolves, 1979). Morgan Lafay [Arthur Leo Zagat] - Goat Girl of Lussac: ( Spicy Mystery Stories, Dec. 1936). |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 30, 2019 22:38:28 GMT
Also worth the effort, J.F. Straker's swinging murder - detection - Black magic - fancy dress novel, The Goat, Harrap, 1972) That's an amazing cover. The novel sounds like a far-out, groovy happening. Donald Dale - Flesh for the Goat-Man: ( Horror Stories, March 1940). "It was with glowing hearts and eyes that Virginia Emptage and Bruce Shanlon looked down upon the peaceful little sanatorium they had both helped to make a success. And they laughed together at the old legends that told of the time when the Goat-Man would come out from the hills to ravish and destroy those whom he had marked with his ghastly halo of fire ... They laughed - until it happened!" Not read it yet, but looks to be the usual 'it was the Mayor dressed up in an unlikely costume all along!" shudder stuff. And he would have gotten away with it too were it not for that pesky [soon to be] newly-wed couple! Too bad this story doesn't appear in the first--and thus far, only-- collection of Dale's shudder pulp stories. Particularly given that she's my favorite shudder pulp writer. Arthur Leo Zagat - Girl of the Goat-God: ( Dime Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1935: Robert Weinberg [ed.] Weird Menace #5: Slaves of the Blood Wolves, 1979). I've read Weird Menace #5, but I don't remember a thing about Zagat's tale. Then there's the odd little "Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl" (included in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, ed. Chris Baldick), by Joyce Carol Goates. |
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Post by dem on Jul 1, 2019 8:18:59 GMT
 C. C. Senf: ( Weird Tales, March 1929). Under the surface of a West Indian island Canevin found a strange people who worshiped Pan - then the catastrophe. Blurb not strictly accurate. Canevin merely relates the experience of an acquaintance, Charles Grosvenor, who travels to the supposedly deserted island of Saona on behalf of a timber company keen to strip the woodlands of oak. Wondering at the absence of insects and mystified by the odd behaviour of the stream, Grosvenor eventually discovers a steel ladder which he descends deep down below the surface. At foot of the ladder, a temple, whose centre piece is a magnificent statue of a goat carved in gold. A secret civilisation of Pan worshippers - so this is where all the action is! Sure enough; "Sojourn here .... with Pan's people in love and peace" invites the incomparably beautiful Priestess, Clytemnestra. Sounds like my kind of ancient civilisation. Fantastic and mildly suspenseful for sure, but nothing remotely proper horror about any of the above, but stick around long enough and that may change. No promises but there may even be a little .... {Spoiler} .... instant mass mummification action. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 1, 2019 8:26:46 GMT
Another classic cover of the goat. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 1, 2019 22:43:48 GMT
C. C. Senf Henry S. Whitehead - The People Of Pan: ( Weird Tales, March 1929). Under the surface of a West Indian island Canevin found a strange people who worshiped Pan - then the catastrophe. Blurb not strictly accurate. Canevin merely relates the experience of an acquaintance, Charles Grosvenor, who travels to the supposedly deserted island of Saona on behalf of a timber company keen to strip the woodlands of oak. Wondering at the absence of insects and mystified by the odd behaviour of the stream, Grosvenor eventually discovers a steel ladder which he descends deep down below the surface. At foot of the ladder, a temple, whose centre piece is a magnificent statue of a goat carved in gold. A secret civilisation of Pan worshippers - so this is where all the action is! Sure enough; "Sojourn here .... with Pan's people in love and peace" invites the incomparably beautiful Priestess, Clytemnestra. Sounds like my kind of ancient civilisation. Fantastic and mildly suspenseful for sure, but nothing remotely proper horror about any of the above, but stick around long enough and that may change. She doesn't look quite as excited to perform the osculum infame as Mr. Tudor was in "The Demoniac Goat," but "The People of Pan" is a top five Whitehead story in my book. Speaking of "The Demoniac Goat," Asmodeus--a.k.a. the Goat of Mendes--is clearly the star of Unholy Relics. No disappointment there. As for "The Haunted Helmet," I was struck by how casually some of the characters react to a possessed helmet that wanders around. My reaction would not be along the lines of, "I think we'd better leave it alone, and see what happens by morning. But really, my man, there's nothing to be afraid of." Sure enough, the ghost likes to assault folks, despite Alan Granville's unjustified optimism. |
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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2019 10:50:25 GMT
She doesn't look quite as excited to perform the osculum infame as Mr. Tudor was in "The Demoniac Goat," but "The People of Pan" is a top five Whitehead story in my book. Now you mention it, the Priestess does look kind of reticent - maybe she's stalling for death? Agree, it's a marvellous story and I adore the Curtis Senf cover painting. To be honest, it's only a very few of his Weird Tales creations don't do it for me. Even the, perhaps, 'less accomplished' interior illustrations have something about them. Not sure it's quite what you're after, but as the title suggests, Goat-Cry Girl-Cry, William Seabrook's "authentic" account of a voodoo baptism, temporarily features a goat ... |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 2, 2019 20:42:05 GMT
I finished Unholy Relics last night, and thank you to all the Vault denizens who recommended it. Of the remaining tales, the standout for me was "Borgia Pomade," which seemed familiar--it turns out I'd read it once before, in Terror! (edited by Bryan A. Netherwood). What's not to like about cursed cosmetics brewed up through black magic? |
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Post by ropardoe on Jul 18, 2019 10:11:32 GMT
There have been some great aerial shots of Toulouse in the ITV4 coverage of the Tour de France yesterday and this morning. Including the location of Dare's "Unholy Relics" story. What a stunning city. (The highlights programme this evening might include some of the shots, but if so it'll be right at the start.)
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