Paul Finch (ed.) - Terror Tales Of Cornwall (Telos, May, 2017)
Neil Williams Mark Morris - We Who Sing Beneath the Ground
Golden Days of Terror
Ray Cluley - In the Light of St Ives
Morgawr Rising
Reggie Oliver - Trouble at Botathan
From the Lady Downs
John Whitbourn - ‘Mebyon versus Suna’
The Serpent of Pengersick
Paul Edwards - The Unseen
Finned Angels, Fish-Tailed Devils
Jacqueline Simpson - Dragon Path
Jamaica Inn
Paul Finch - The Old Traditions Are Best
Guardians of the Castle
Mark Valentine - The Uncertainty of All Earthly Things
The Hooper
Kate Farrell - His Anger Was Kindled
The Bodmin Fetch
DP Watt - Four Windows and a Door
Owlman
Steve Jordan - Claws
The Cursing Psalm
Adrian Cole - A Beast by Any Other Name
Of the Demon, Tregeagle
Mark Samuels - Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning
Slaughter at Penryn
Sarah Singleton - The Memory of Stone
Queen of the Wind
Ian Hunter - Shelter from the Storm
The Voice in the Tunnels
Thana Niveau - Losing Its Identity Blurb:
Cornwall, England’s most scenic county: windswept moors; rugged cliffs; and wild, foaming seas. But smugglers and wreckers once haunted its hidden coves, mermaid myths abound, pixie lore lingers, henges signal a pagan past, and fanged beasts stalk the ancient, overgrown lanes …
The serpent woman of Pengersick
The screaming demon of Land’s End
The nightmare masquerade at Padstow
The feathered horror of Mawnan
The terrible voice at St Agnes
The ritual slaughter at Crantock
The hoof-footed fetch of Bodmin Moor
And many more chilling tales by Mark Morris, Ray Cluley, Reggie Oliver, Sarah Singleton, Mark Samuels, Thana Niveau and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre.The welcome return of a magnificent series. Well done to Paul, his contributors, and Telos from rescuing it from Davy Jones' Locker.
So far this book is living up to my high expectations:
Mark Morris -We Who Sing Beneath The Ground
Newly appointed assistant-deputy head teacher Stacy has just moved to Porthfarrow from Manchester after her divorce. After quiet but rather odd pupil Adam North doesn't turn up for a few days, she decided to go to his parents' farm to see what's going on, despite the school secretary's (rather feeble) attempts to discourage her. Of course, she'll wish she'd listened and stayed away....
Golden Days of Terror - An enjoyable description of Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" and "The Birds" and how these works put Cornwall "firmly and forever...onto the horror story map".
Ray Cluley - In The Light of St. Ives
Emily has to go down to St. Ives to see her sister Claire, who's in hospital with first degree burns after apparently setting her house on fire. Claire always has been a bit flighty, leaving Emily to pick up the pieces. Another story I didn't quite get; something about yellow and green appearing everywhere, causing Claire to cover everything she could, including herself, in black paint. A tale of unease and weirdness that happens to be set in St. Ives.
Morgawr Rising - Everything you always wanted to know about this Cornish sea serpent, and more...
Reggie Oliver -Trouble at Botathen
Tregillis narrates this story of Botathen Place, a now somewhat decrepit house bequeathed to Oxford by the late Prof. Blight "for the benefit of undergraduates in the vacations". He and some fellow undergrads have been invited down by Prof. Soper to spend a few weeks at a "reading party". One day on a solitary walk, he finds himself unable to continue walking along a path near a stream. Eventually he has to turn back. Later that night he finds a diary tucked into a bookshelf in the library which holds shocking revelations. A gem of a story!
From the Lady Downs - The Story of Cherry of Zennor, or Jenny Permuen, a young woman in the late 18th century who claimed to have spent time living with the faeries.
John Whitbourn - Mebyon Versus Suna
Another unnamed narrator, this one an extreme Cornish nationalist. He finds himself living near Exeter because of his wife's new job, doesn't hesitate to show his views to his new Devonian neighbour, Mr. Ayling. This includes declaiming "The Armes Prydein" or Prophecy of Britain from his open windows on sunny days, to broaden his neighbours outlooks. For a change of pace, he'll recite "Song of the Western Men", Cornwall's unofficial national athem. Mr. Ayling eventually gets fed up and decides to 'make a formal complaint to the proper authorities". Now 'Mr. Bigmouth" is in for trouble. A delightful mix of humour and horror.
The Serpent of Pengersick - I'll bet you didn't know that Hammer Films made a movie based on Cornwall's Serpent of Pengersick legend, did you? Fine, fine, so you did know, but I didn't. Apparently it's a ghastly snake/woman "that supposedly lived in Pengersick Castle in the county's southwest corner during the early 16th century".
Paul Edwards - The Unseen
Lee spends his 30 pounds Job Seekers allowance on two classic horror videocassettes with an unknown dvd called "The Black Remote" thrown in free. The seller is a man with a van from Perranporth, Cornwall at the local market. He returns home to find his wife furious that he's recorded over their wedding video with "The Last House on the Left", having accidentally shown their son a graphic rape scene before realizing. Later that evening he decides to watch "The Black Remote" which consists of a series of murders carried out off camera in a remote mansion in Cornwall. He finds a a horror movie forum ("Let Them Die Slowly") where "Jan" tells him the (uncut) dvd is rare and hard to obtain "However, it does tend to see out those who are suitable - those who are worthy, shall we say". After a few days later, he's invited to "a special screening of the most complete version of THE BLACK REMOTE at Asterion House (where it was filmed). Hmmmm, should he or shouldn't he?
Finned Angels, Fish-tailed Devils - Cornish mermaid legends and lore
Jacqueline Simpson - Dragon Path
Four young people, Mick, Geoff, Julia and Anne hike to the Cheesewring, standing stones on a "dragon path" or ley line. Jeff and Julia "take the mick" out of Mick and debunk one of the Celtic legends he's always boring them with. They tell him he needs "not so many leys and a few more lays" (that's pretty good, actually) "but not with my Julia". Anne merely pities him and thinks him crazy. Michael extracts a terrible revenge on all of them, but there is something more powerful than he.
Jamaica Inn - The book, the legends, and the real place.
Paul Finch - The Old Traditions Are Best
Young offender Mancunian Scott, 16, is in Padstow, Cornwall thanks to his probation officers Russ and Mary, a married couple. They encounter a Morris dancer who tells them the story of the Obby Oss and the much newer Peace Oss. Of course, Scott can't resist the temptation to disappear from a pub lunch and see what unoccupied houses he can find and break into. He should know better, for once....
Guardians of the Castle - Spriggans: who they are and what they do.
Mark Valentine - The Uncertainty Of All Earthly Things
The narrator (you guessed it, unnamed) accepts a position as curator of a "little museum devoted to the almost forgotten explorer and missionary "Congo" Grenfell, in Sancreed, a village in the far west of Cornwall. Generously endowed, there will be no need to chase after funding. He meets Leah Penrose, who's creating a Sancreed tarot deck. She invites him to visit the rocket shed above town, where they have an encounter with the mystical. For me, the story ended too abruptly.
The Hooper - "a faceless entity, hellish in origin, which was specifically sent to terrorise the inhabitants of Sennen Cove.
Kate Farrell - His Anger Was Kindled
The elderly Reverend Luke Prideaux is vicar of St. Michael's, Penharrack, a small village off the tourist trail. His congregation has drifted away and, having lost the plot completely, he does nothing to bring them back. David Densham is sent by the Church Commissioners to inform the vicar that the church has been deconsecrated and sold, along with the rectory, and the plot will be developed into "highly desirable lifestyle apartments". Despite evidence to the contrary, he arrives just as the evening service is due to start with an apparent congregation. Afterwards, he informs Prideaux of the details and gives him notice to quit in one month and that a place has been reserved for him at St. Clement's Home for Retired Clergy. The vicar refuses to go, and his odd congregation bolt the doors....
The Bodmin Fetch - The name conjured up a nice juicy story; instead we get Robert of Mortain, Second Earl of Cornwall, and William Rufus (King William II) lots of history, and a somewhat horrific apparition.
DP Watt - Four Windows And A Door
Tom Flanagan takes his wife and kids on holiday to Polperro, in the vain hope of keeping them all away from mobile phones, tablets, etc. and closer together as a family. On the way to and from Fowey by boat, they see an odd, abandoned clifftop house that seems to haunts their daughter Emily. A few months later she disappears, apparently taken out of school by her father. Tom is at a conference far away, and the video footage shows her walking away alone. A story of loss, unease and strange Otherness.
Owlman - The story of the Owlman legend which started in 1976 in Mawnan, Cornwall.
Steve Jordan - Claws
Sonia, 17, and Ron, 18, and Sam (?) have the misfortune to work at Pirates Bounty Arcade on a quaint street near Newquay Harbour during the summer break from college. Business is bad even in the tourist season, thanks to ancient, rundown machines and a less than sparkling decor. Their nasty boss, Jared "was a man who thought a pastel blue suit and hair grease were the height of fashion, and smelt like an odd mix of Brut aftershave and a corpse's final f*rt". (Steve Jordan deserves some kind of award for that unforgettable description) Machines are breaking down too often and all sorts of ill-luck besets the arcade; could it be the piskies fault?
The Cursing Psalm - Apparently, it's Psalm 109. We learn about Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Admiral of the Fleet in 1707, and the curse put upon him with it by a sailor he unjustly put to death.
Adrian Cole - A Beast By Any Other Name
Derrick Treskillion's body is found mangled by his wife in a tin mine he owned. The police rule that he was killed by a big cat. Cranlow is a writer trying to find a new angle for his book on the subject. A man in the pub, Jack Harrower, suggests he interview the widow, now married to Treskillion's business partner. Ransome, the widow's second husband, isn't happy at being questioned.
Of the Demon, Tregeagle - The entertaining legend of Jan Tregeagle, "a powerful but cursed being whose howls and screams have been heard all along the peninsula from the wild, grassy ridges of Bodmin Moor to the secret, rocky coves at Land's End.
Mark Samuels - Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning
Yet again, an unnamed author narrates this. Having become somewhat friendly with a co-worker, Celia Waters, she then leaves the company to take part in an experimental play. The author gives a lukewarm promise to attend, since he'll be visiting a cousin near the Minack Theatre in Cornwall at the same time. The piece, entitled "New Quests for Nothing" does not go down well, causing most of the audience including the narrator, to leave before it ends. Twenty years later, having forged a new career, the narrator finds Celia again in a totally unexpected place. Dedicated to Reggie Oliver; I think I can see the influence. Not to my taste but one I won't forget soon.
Slaughter At Penryn - Recounts a sad, brutal legend that may or may not have a foundation in truth.
Sarah Singleton - The Memory of Stone
50-something Michael, having ruined his career and marriage by falling in love with a woman he met briefly at a work conference and then stalked, goes down to stay at a derelict cottage in the wilds of Cornwall, owned by his brother. When he starts to see little white children, he's actually happy about it. Another tale more of unease than anything else, but I personally enjoyed it more than the previous story.
Queen of the Wind - The legend of Maggy Figgy, a witch who could command the wind.
Ian Hunter - Shelter From the Storm
Three Explorer Scouts, Juggs, Murray and Billy, are on a practice 9-mile walk in preparation for a 150-mile walk next year from Land's End to Bude. They seem to have got themselves lost in bad weather and end up camping out in a derelict church. The find a metal panel with the inscription "In the memory of champions of Tregeare Rounds: the Reverend Treeve Carveth, Pascoe Myor, Kenver Gerrans, Jago Kliskey who stood against He who was bound in darkness and bound Him again" which, of course, does nothing to encourage them to leave. Poor Juggs falls through the weak floorboards and into a crypt, where a coffin tied with rope holds an unusual occupant. This one's a winner, folks!
The Voice In The Tunnels - A legend of the St. Agnes tin mine near Polbreen, where a woman committed suicide and whose voice is still said to haunt it.
Thana Niveau - Losing It's Identity
Miranda is 73 and can't bring herself to leave her beloved Lost Moon cove, where she met her late husband Will. One day while walking along the cove, she discovers that the sea is definitely not her friend. Well-told, but not one of my favorites.
Hope I'm not stepping on your toes, Dem, by posting these commentaries....