Richard Dalby - Tales of Witchcraft

[jonathan122]

Tales of Witchcraft - ed. Richard Dalby (Michael O'Mara Books Ltd., 1991)

Foreword
The Peace of Mowsle Barton - Saki
The Fenstanton Witch - M. R. James
Unburied Bane - N. Dennett
The Toad Witch - Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Carven of Onyx - Ron Weighell
Furze Hollow - A. M. Burrage
Miss Cornelius - W. F. Harvey
One Remained Behind - Marjorie Bowen
Catnip - Robert Bloch
The Yew Tree - Shamus Frazer
Gramma - Stephen King
The Hollow of the Three Hills - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Taking - Roger Johnson
The Day of the Underdog - Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes
The Executor - David G. Rowlands
Gavon's Eve - E. F. Benson
The Witch's Cat - Manly Wade Wellman

[helrunar]

I started reading the E. F. Benson tale "Gavon's Eve" during my lunch break today.  Wonderfully evocative prose, and a tale that is new to me.

I came to work without my usual book and was relieved that I still keep Mr. Dalby's excellent anthology on a shelf here in my little cell.

cheers, H.

[dem bones]

Richard Dalby (ed.) – Tales of Witchcraft (Brockhampton Press, 1995. Originally Michael O’Mara, 1991)

Victoria Orr-Ewing

Foreword – Richard Dalby

Saki – The Peace of Mowsle Barton
M. R. James – The Fenstanton Witch
N. Dennett – Unburied Bane
Jessica Amanda Salmonson – The Toad Witch
Ron Weighell – Carven of Onyx
A. M. Burrage – Furze Hollow
William F. Harvey – Miss Cornelius
Marjorie Bowen – One Remained Behind
Robert Bloch – Catnip
Shamus Frazer – The Yew Tree
Stephen King – Gramma
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Hollow Of The Three Hills
Roger Johnson – The Taking
R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Day Of The Underdog
David G. Rowlands – The Executor
E. F. Benson – Gavon’s Eve
Manly Wade Wellman – The Witch’s Cat

Blurb:
In the world of Tales of Witchcraft, nothing is as it seems. In these stories of the supernatural, everything is open to question. The line between good and evil is sometimes exceedingly thin, and there is often no means of knowing whether the mysterious events described are the product of forces beyond our comprehension or simply the fancies of an over-active imagination.

Tales of Witchcraft is a collection of chilling stories of witchery guaranteed to increase your pulse rate. It is peopled not only by wicked women and wily men, but by the most ordinary folk visited with strange powers. The stories have one thing in common: they are not explicable by resort to rationality.

Selected from the very best of the genre, this collection includes jeux d’esprit by authors such as E. F. Benson and Saki who are better known for their more conventional writings, as well as stories by authors such as Stephen King and Robert Bloch, whose speciality is the weird and nightmarish. They all reveal that secret fascination for the uncertain and the unknown.

Many of the stories are frankly frightening — and not to be read in a lonely house on a dark night. Others have the quality of moral tales, and some are simply humorous. But all of them will make you wonder, very quietly. Is it possible, just conceivably, that there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our normal, everyday philosophies?

Saki - The Peace of Mowsle Barton: (Westminster Gazette, 18 Feb. 1911). Mr. Crefton Lockyer exchanges the nerve-shredding stress of the city for the tranquillity of a sleepy rural village. Unfortunately, his arrival coincides with a fresh outbreak of hostilities between old Martha Pillamon and an equally vindictive Betsy Croot, each accusing the other of witchcraft. A ghastly incident at the duck pond is the final straw. Mr. Lockyer returns to the relative calm and sanity of Paddington.

Jessica Amanda Salmonson - The Toad Witch: When her elder brother dies, Rosemary casts around for someone to blame. She settles for "the old witch," Mrs. Osiris, who is really old, keeps a weird, skinny dog, and lives in a cottage by the swamp. If anyone is turning little children into toads it has to be her! Mrs. Osiris must burn.

Roger Johnson - The Taking: (Deep Things out of Darkness, 1987). I read, and very much enjoyed this one late last year in the author's In the Night, In the Dark. Envious of her land, a Mother and son pursue a vendetta against young widow, Janet Fisher, eventually striking lucky with an entirely fabricated accusation of witchcraft. Classy ghost story, partially inspired (if that is the right word) by 'W.W.''s account of the St. Osyth Witch Trial, as reproduced in Peter Haining's The Witchcraft Papers.

[dem bones]

Harry Ferman

Manly Wade Wellman - The Witch's Cat: (Weird Tales, Oct 1939, as by 'Gans T. Field'). A curious tale of a skinny black cat that lived in the witch's house. Old, wicked and hideously unfortunate looking, Jael Bettiss revels in posing as a witch to appal and frighten her neighbours. She lives at a ramshackle house in the Hollow, her sole companion a cat, Gib, half-starved, lean, white patches dyed black for cosmetic purposes.

Everything changes when Jael comes into possession of a book of spells. She is fraud no longer! The bogus witch turned genuine article compels Gib to speak. She mixes a paste which, once applied all over, transforms her from crone to youthful, seductive beauty. She slips dreamboat postman John Frey a love-philtre to lure him from his sweetheart, Ivy Hill, hitherto the undisputed village belle. When John shows signs of resistance, Jael moulds a wax doll of her rival and sticks it with pins.

Gib regards these seismic developments with horror, especially now Jael considers him surplus to requirements. It is time for the bewitched cat to undo the evil of his mistress.

M. R. James - The Fenstanton Witch: (Ro Pardoe [ed.], Ghosts & Scholars 12, 1990).

Also the story of two students of King's College, in the sixteenth century (who were, in fact, expelled thence for magical practices), and their nocturnal expedition to a witch at Fenstanton, and of how, at the turning to Lolworth, on the Huntingson road, they met a company leading an unwilling figure whom they seemed to know. And of how, on arriving at Fenstanton, the learned of the witch's death, and of what they saw seated upon her newly-dug grave. - M. R. James, Stories I Have Tried To Write

Thanks to Rosemary Pardoe we know MRJ got further with this one than others. Two foolish parsons, Nicholas Hardman and Stephen Ashe, perform a necromantic ritual over the grave of Mother Gibson, suspected witch, recently ducked beyond her limit in the village pond. Their efforts meet with rather more success than they would have wished. The dreamlike sequence regarding the watchmen's procession with terrified prisoner in tow is particularly effective.


Robert Bloch - Catnip: (Weird Tales, March 1948). Why should a grown-up boy be afraid of a little old lady and her tomcat? Isn't that "witch" stuff just for Hallowe'en? When 14-year-old Ronnie Shires, school bully and all round unspeakable little shit, throws a rock at Mrs. Mingles' tomcat, the old woman chases him from her property. Furious at being shown up in front of his sycophants, Ronnie vows revenge. Of course, he never meant for his lit cigarette butt to set the cottage ablaze with Mrs. Mingles trapped inside ....

So much gripping drama, only for story to be sacrificed to seen-it-coming-a-mile-off punchline.

[dem bones]

"In the present climate, with evangelical, fundamentalist Christian groups trying to get anything to do with witches and witchcraft banned, it is a pleasure to see that the publication of this new anthology from Richard Dalby has not been affected."

- Opening line of Ro's Pardoe review of Tales of Witchcraft, The Ghost Story Society Newsletter #9 (Dec. 1991).

E. F. Benson - Gavon's Eve: (Illustrated London News, 13 Jan. 1906). On the insistence of a lovesick gillie (fishing attendant, according to Oxford dictionary), Mistress Macpherson, official #1 local old hag and alleged witch, performs necromantic rites at a sacred Highland site - the pagan alter in the ruins of a Pict Castle. Sandy is anxious of the whereabouts of his ex-fiancée, Catherine Gordon, who disappeared en route to his cottage several months ago. Mistress Macpherson works her sorcery. Something stirs in the Loch.

Marjorie Bowen - One Remained Behind: A Romance à la Mode Gothique: (Help Yourself Annual, Stock Exchange Dramatic & Operatic Society, 1936). Personal favourite to date. Rudolph, charismatic, thoroughly obnoxious University student, is bent on achieving fame - as the greatest poet of his age - vast wealth, via the card table and the discovery of hidden treasure, and revenge on four individuals who he perceives as disrespectful. To this end, he performs an elaborate ritual from the impossibly rare (even Lucifer says so) Grimoiriam Veram of Alibeck the Magician (Memphis, 1517), timing it for the evening of the Comtesse Louise's wedding. Rudolph's commendable diligence is rewarded with success, but, as ever, there is the heaviest price to pay. Henceforth, Rudolph is haunted around the clock by a silent ghost only he can see - and this is the very of his troubles.

[dem bones]

Just when I was beginning to wonder if I'd had my final run in with the nuns ....

Ron Weighell - Carven in Onyx: Renovation work at the Convent of Longlenn unearths a concealed altar reputedly used by the Knight's Templar in "the worshippe of Baphomet." Sister Catherine, the young novice who makes the discovery, also finds a peculiar black stone which she unthinkingly pockets. Sadly for Catherine and fellow brides of Christ, this amulet is possessed by a multi-tendrilled elemental which, once released, spreads a lethal pestilence throughout the nunnery. As the death toll increases, the Prioress turns to her friend, the Abbot, as the only man sufficiently studied in the Black Arts to drive out the Demon. The Holy man, however, has his own agenda.

To be honest, Sister Clare's order are not the least creepy, just putrescent, but this tale of medieval diablerie, greed and betrayal is now personal joint pick of Tales of Witchcraft.