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Post by dem bones on Mar 7, 2015 12:50:43 GMT
Rosemary Pardoe (ed.) - Saints & Relics (Haunted Library, 1983) Dave Carson Rosemary Pardoe - Introduction
Darroll Pardoe - Vita Sancti Cubiani David G. Rowlands - The Tears of Saint Agathé A.F. Kidd - Grandsire Triples Roger Johnson - The Wall Painting: M. M. Thomas - The Vigil Of St. Oswald
Other Illustrations: Allen Koszowski, A. F. Kidd, Wendy Adrian Wees, Alan Hunter.Rosemary Pardoe - Introduction: The editor's favourite ghost stories on the subject, beginning with "the archtypal relic tale", Vault favourite M. P. Dare's beyond barking Unholy Relics. Single shorts by Cecil Binney, R. H. Benson, A. N. L. Munby, R. H. Benson, Canon Basil Smith and Vernon Lee, three apiece by Christopher Woodforde and Roger Pater, and A Morbid Taste For Bones, the Brother Cadfael mystery novel by Ellis Peters, are the other recommendations. Darroll Pardoe - Vita Sancti Cubiani: Two short whimsical pieces featuring St. Cubbi, incompetent Saint, rubbish self-flagellant and seriously flawed hermit (he even takes up with a woman. And she's not even a succubus!). For all his faults, Cubbi is at least free of the airs and graces of his stuck up contemporaries, Heronymous and Serapion, and at least his incapacity to observe a fast results in a peasant's ascension to Heaven. David G. Rowlands - The Tears of Saint Agathé: How, while visiting his friend Father Petitpierre in the Ardèche hills, Father O'Connor located the bones of the child saint, nine centuries missing, with assistance from the beloved martyr herself. If that minimalist synopsis makes it all sound rather too gentle, perhaps now is a good time to mention that there is a very disconcerting scene involving a cadaverous cowled flasher. Richard Dalby revived the story for his The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories (Robinson 1990) A.F. Kidd - Grandsire Triples: "The sins of the fathers must be paid for ever more." Campanology capers as a cursed bell rope and the ghost of a murdered cuckold pursue a vendetta versus the Carter family from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. It began when Elizabeth, the trophy wife of Scholastic Mason, took up with a Mr. Joshua Carter in the 1740's. Perhaps Scholastic made things difficult for the pair because Joshua eventually found it necessary to lock him away in the belfry to starve. But 'The Scholar' - as he liked to call himself - proved a more formidable foe in death than life and hardly had Carter time to benefit from his crime than he was hanged in an improbable bell-ringing "accident." Now Mason is out for the present-day descendant, Brian, captain of the bell-ringing team. But before he does for him, why not strike at his wife and baby son .... There's a moral to this story, namely; should you find St. Dunstan's knife in a junk shop, don't hesitate, just buy it. There might come a day when it's all that stands between you and the void. Roger Johnston - The Wall Painting: When sainthood is bestowed upon one who better warrants excommunication, you can bet there will be hell to pay at a later date. The synopsis on a thread devoted to his collection, A Ghostly Crew: Tales From The Endeavour, is adequate as I'm likely to get it. M. M. Thomas - The Vigil Of St. Oswald: An almost M. R. James meets Tales From The Crypt vibe to this nasty tale of the doom that came to know-it-all misanthrope, George Pearson. To spite a female archaeologist who bested him in an argument, George makes away with her team's exciting find, a rune-inscribed box recovered during a dig in the Welsh Marches. According to jovial Rev. William Collins, an expert in such matters, the box may contain the severed hand of St. Oswald of Northumbria, martyred by the pagans circa 640 AD. George reckons this is a load of old tosh, especially when the Reverend insists that, should it be the genuine article, the hand will be free of corruption ....
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Post by ripper on Mar 8, 2015 12:22:35 GMT
Richard Dalby generally includes a sprinkling of tales by Haunted Library authors in his anthologies, and good on him for doing it, I say. I've read the middle three stories, only the ones by Pardoe and Thomas have eluded me up to now. I seem to remember that the child saint in Kidd's piece is disfigured facially in some way. I think I read it in one of her chapbooks, maybe the one she produced at the time of the 20th G & S celebration in 1999, but not sure.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 8, 2015 17:52:25 GMT
Richard Dalby generally includes a sprinkling of tales by Haunted Library authors in his anthologies, and good on him for doing it, I say. I've read the middle three stories, only the ones by Pardoe and Thomas have eluded me up to now. I seem to remember that the child saint in Kidd's piece is disfigured facially in some way. That's the one. St. Agathé has a spreading mole on her face dating from when the Devil touched her, though Fr. O'Connor who, to his credit, is never one to scream "miracle!" when there's a perfectly rational explanation to be had, dismisses the blemish as a "rodent ulcer."
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 8, 2018 12:14:36 GMT
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