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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2011 21:55:41 GMT
Jim McGarry (ed.) – Irish Tales Of Terror (Fontana, 1971) Introduction – Jim McGarry
James Reynolds – The Weeping Wall
Sean O’Casey – The Raid
Patrick Bardan – The Warning
Jim McGarry – The Clonmel Witch Burning
Shane Leslie – The Diplomatist’s Story
W. B. Yeats – The Sorcerers
James Reynolds – The Headless Rider Of Castle Sheela
J. S. Le Fanu – The Dream
William Carleton – Wildgoose Lodge
Jim McGarry – The Island Magee Terror
Charles Maturin – Melmoth The Wanderer [extract].Blurb IRELAND — the land of legend, where pixies, ghosts and witches are a part of life. From this isle-of storytellers comes a hair-raising collection of sinister, eerie tales by such masters of mystery as Sean O'Casey, Shane Leslie, Sheridan le Fanu and W. B. Yeats.
The CLONMEL witch burning
The mysterious coachman of MULLYMORE
The weeping wall at LOUGH ALLEN
The ISLAND MAGEE terror
The headless rider GALTYMORE
The ghost of SLIABH—MISH
The LOUTH fire murders
The phantom warriors of RAHLIN ISLAND
and many more blood-chilling Tales of Terrorjust a stub post for now as, inspired by nosferatu's post on Sea Tales Of Terror, thought i'd post details of this and Oriental ... so we've threads for each individual volume in the Fontana Tales Of Terror series. The two that stood out for me from Mr. McGarry's selection were William Carleton's Wildgoose Lodge and his own account of The Clonmel Witch Burning which saw Bridget Cleary tortured to death by her husband and at least nine others in 1895. Michael Cleary's defence was that the real Bridget had been abducted by fairies, he only took part in destroying the evil changeling they'd left in her place.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 3, 2012 8:43:28 GMT
Having found a different toad I thought it’s time to review this Irish collection. Incidentally, it must have a look-in as the most inappropriate cover as there are no toads in Ireland; I have it on good authority that they were banished by St Pat. BlurbIRELAND — the land of legend, where pixies, ghosts and witches are a part of life. From this isle-of storytellers comes a hair-raising collection of sinister, eerie tales by such masters of mystery as Sean O'Casey, Shane Leslie, Sheridan le Fanu and W. B. Yeats.Introduction – Jim McGarryJim gives the game away in a short introduction, mostly telling us that there is a factual basis for some stories and Ireland is a ghostie kind of place. One of the problems with this collection is that it plays on ‘Irish’ and ‘ghosts’ and mixes up fiction with apparent fact. Makes it slightly difficult to firstly, believe the supposedly historic ghost stories and secondly, to enjoy the tales. Having said that, there are some true stories that are more horrible than the others and there are a couple of hidden gems; particularly Shane Leslie – The Diplomatist’s Story. .
James Reynolds – The Weeping WallReynolds begins the anthology with a story of wall in castle Scrinzy in Poland. Miss Considine, a lovely Irish girl, marries a Polish Cavalry officer having met him at the Dublin horse show. His family has a grim and awful history of dark doings. There’s a wall in the castle that weeps every time someone is about to die in horrible circumstances and, in an ‘oh gosh really!’ fashion, it spells out their name. It can only be seen by the family. Similarly to most traditional Irish love songs, everyone dies. It’s a well told tale but marked like a number in the anthology with a kind of catholic undercurrent. By this I mean the people that believe you can get cured at Lourdes have a a set of naughtier friends who believe you can also do nasty things with ritual objects and the like. It’s not the fact that you possibly can do this witchcraft stuff – it’s the credulous reaction to it that makes the collection a bit ‘Dickensian’. Sean O’Casey – The RaidO’Casey belongs to the world of literature and by line two of this story of a British raid in 1920 in an Irish slum we know we’re not going to like it. The Irish and Welsh and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent the Scots have a love of words for words sake. For me, this often tends to get in the way of a good story. If you compound it with an uncomfortable tale of the Black and Tans abusing the Irish you are left with something that is utterly horrible but not horror.
Patrick Bardan – The WarningBryan MacGuire loves a beautiful Irish farm girl then changes his mind and troupes off with a slightly more middle class one. – Generally an awful mistake in a land with access to potent spells and witchery. It’s a sound enough short story of witchcraft. Jim McGarry – The Clonmel Witch BurningThis is the last recorded case of witchcraft in the Western world (although that may have now changed with the introduction of some African witches in the UK) For sheer awfulness the brutal and horrific killing of a young girl by her family makes utterly sickening reading.
Shane Leslie – The Diplomatist’s StoryHere is an absolute gem, five star story about a reticent diplomat whose social skills get him invited to every gathering – but he won’t go to one house. A lesson in story telling for anyone. Absolute must read. W. B. Yeats – The SorcerersYeats is probably my favourite poet and every reading of his work tends to confirm my belief that he was a genius. His prose doesn’t send any tingles along the spine but this account of a meeting of naughty Irish dabblers is a fairly straightforward depiction of the occult and its dark side. Certainly makes you look at the local baker in a new light. James Reynolds – The Headless Rider Of Castle SheelaAnother thoroughly good and well evoked tale of a bad horseman who ultimately gets his comeuppance. It’s highly descriptive and somehow has a real feel of authenticity. J. S. Le Fanu – The Dream Not my favourite Fanu. This story about an ill man is one of the ‘oh gosh really!’ brigade with all sort of moral overtones and unlikely coincidences and the price of naughtiness – in this case a drunkard reforms and then makes the classic error. William Carleton – Wildgoose LodgeRather than reading this tale by Carleton you’d be better served looking here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildgoose_Lodge_Murders for a true account. It’s a horrible story. Jim McGarry – The Island Magee TerrorPossibly the last witch trial – interestingly better documented here than in Irish records as they were burned in the civil war (unlike the witches). Charles Maturin – Melmoth The WandererVery good story about a miser and his poor nephew. The descriptions leading to the denouement of the poverty of the nephew and the miserliness of the uncle are extremely well executed and the dying scene has an absolute ring of authenticity. I was too thick to work out what the ending meant but nevertheless enjoyable stuff. There’s a bunch of myths and legends scattered throughout and they make better reading than a few of the stories. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Sept 3, 2012 10:08:56 GMT
Crikey - no toads on top of having no snakes. I don't suppose Ireland's got any dangerous insects either.
Is it the global opposite to Australia then?
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Post by jamesdoig on Sept 3, 2012 10:16:56 GMT
Is it the global opposite to Australia then? Indeed.  |
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Post by dem on Sept 3, 2012 10:30:44 GMT
Wonderful! Thanks for talking us on the guided tour through this one, Craig. Long been tempted to stage rematches with this and J. J. Strating's Sea Tales Of Terror - the only one from the series I didn't get along with initially. Seem to remember that the Charles Maturin extract makes a whole lot more sense in the sprawling but exceptionally rewarding novel, which, in dem world, is the Gothic you should read next after M. G. Lewis's gloriously ghoulish The Monk. Shane Leslie's ghost stories - those five-six i've read at least - are uniformly excellent. Paul Finch's modern revival as the 'Terror Tale' series for Gray Friars Press is shaping up as a worthy successor. To date we've had Terror Tales of the Lake District (Sept. 2011) and Terror Tales of the Cotswolds (April 2012), with ... East Anglia and ... London forthcoming. Paul contributes the myths & legends, and the significant departure from the Fontana's is that all of the stories are the work of contemporary authors, many instantly recognisable to Black Book of Horror fans. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 3, 2012 10:55:32 GMT
I should maybe say that there should be no toads in Ireland but apparently St Pat didn't do the job as well as we thought. There is one native species he missed.
It's confession time. Toads are my favourite little creatures with newts coming a pretty close second.
Regarding Shane Leslie, Dem, I really found his story head and shoulders above the rest of the team and have instantly put him on my must haves. He just has that absolute knack of getting you involved.
Is this the sum of his fiction?
Shane Leslie's Ghost Book (1956)
Shortfiction
Midir and Etain (1924)
The Hospital Nurse (1928)
The Lord-in-Waiting (1929)
As in a Glass Dimly (1931)
The Irreverence of God (1933)
The Drummer of Gordonmuir (1937)
The Diplomatist's Story (1955)
A Laugh on the Professor (1955)
The Coonian Ghost (1970)
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Post by dem on Sept 3, 2012 18:18:09 GMT
Don't have a copy of Shane Leslie's Ghost Book (can anybody help with the contents?) but here's where to find some of the shorts. As In A Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, and The Lord In Waiting can be found in A Century Of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, n.d.: 1934). The Hospital Nurse had earlier appeared in Lady Cynthia Asquith's The Black Cap (Hutchinson, 1928), The Lord In Waiting is from her Shudders (Hutchinson, 1929) and As In A Glass Dimly, When Churchyards Yawn (Hutchinson, 1931: Arrow, 1963) The Drummer of Gordonmuir appears in 2nd Century Of Creepy Stories ((Hutchinson, 1937) A Laugh On The Professor in Lady Cynthia Asquith's Third Ghost Book (James Barrie, 1955: Pan, 1957) The Diplomatist's Story, you already have. The Coonian Ghost in Peter Haining's The Wild Night Company (Sphere, 1971) The Irreverence of Fod in John Gawsworth's Full Score (Rich & Cowan, 1933), a 20-story collection in the Thrills series. Midir and Etain is included in Peter Haining's Great Irish Tales of the Unimaginable (Souvenir, 1994) |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 4, 2012 5:28:20 GMT
don't have a copy of Shane Leslie's Ghost Book (can anybody help with the contents?) but here's where to find some of the shorts. As In A Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, and The Lord In Waiting can be found in A Century Of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, n.d.: 1934). The Hospital Nurse had earlier appeared in Lady Cynthia Asquith's The Black Cap (Hutchinson, 1928), The Lord In Waiting is from her Shudders (Hutchinson, 1929) and As In A Glass Dimly, When Churchyards Yawn (Hutchinson, 1931: Arrow, 1963) The Drummer of Gordonmuir appears in 2nd Century Of Creepy Stories ((Hutchinson, 1937) A Laugh On The Professor in Lady Cynthia Asquith's Third Ghost Book (James Barrie, 1955: Pan, 1957) The Diplomatist's Story, you already have. The Coonian Ghost in Peter Haining's The Wild Night Company (Sphere, 1971) The Irreverence of Fod in John Gawsworth's Full Score (Rich & Cowan, 1933), a 20-story collection in the Thrills series. Midir and Etain is included in Peter Haining's Great Irish Tales of the Unimaginable (Souvenir, 1994) Thanks Dem. I'll need to dig those out and look at leslie in context. Found a bunch of stuff on the German wikipedia bibliographic page. The ghost story book is cited as non fiction: The End of a Chapter, 1916 Verses in peace and war, 1916 Henry Edward Manning, 1921 Doomsland, 1923 Mark Sykes, 1923 The Cantab, 1926 George the Fourth, 1926 The Anglo-Catholic, 1929 Jutland, 1930 Memoir of John Edward Courtenay Bodley, 1930 Studies in sublime failure, 1932 The Oppidan, 1933 The Oxford Movement 1833 to 1933, 1933 The Passing Chapter, 1934 Men were different, 1937 Mrs. Fitzherbert, 1939 The letters of Mrs Fitzherbert and connected papers, 1940 Poems from the North, 1945 The Irish tangle for English readers, 1946 Salutation to Five, 1951 Lord Mulroy’s Ghost, 1954 Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, 1961 Shane Leslie’s ghost book, 1964 |
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Post by helrunar on Oct 20, 2016 16:26:40 GMT
Inevitably, one wonders if this thread should inspire something on the boards along the lines of Toads on the Rampage. Toads Up the You-know? Toads out of a Hole? Toad in the Woad on the Road?
The mind reels...
H.
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Post by dem on Oct 20, 2016 18:54:40 GMT
Inevitably, one wonders if this thread should inspire something on the boards along the lines of Toads on the Rampage. Toads Up the You-know? Toads out of a Hole? Toad in the Woad on the Road?The mind reels... H. No better place to start than the masterpiece of slimy terror; Robin Evans, Croak |
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Post by dem on Oct 10, 2020 15:58:36 GMT
Shane Leslie - The Diplomatist's Story: ( Shane Leslie's Ghost Book, Hollis & Carter, 1955). Lord Monaghan relates the story of the non-screaming Mullymore Banshee. "Whenever a member of the family was to die, however distantly related, a carriage was always rolling on the drive, although it was never seen." During his stay his lordship is repeatedly disturbed by the sound of hooves and wheels on gravel beneath his window. Account culminates in an incident in Paris. Recognising the attendant from a premonition, Monaghan declines to step inside an elevator, which dutifully plunges to the basement, killing the operator. The Dufferin Curse strikes again.
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