Black Forest: Trees of Evil

[dem]

Spin-off from relatively well populated Plants Hate You! thread. Tree's that uproot, squash, maim or otherwise attack. Haunt with a vengeance. Spawn malevolent spiders. Resent being used for hanging folk and/ or recycled as furniture, etc. etc.

Benevolent haunted trees entirely unwelcome and need not apply.

Joseph Eberle (Weird Tales, Aug. 1952)

Paul W. Fairman - The Secret Of Gallows Hill: (Fantastic Adventures, January 1952). Gorman travels to the Deep South to find out who murdered his brothers, both throttled in a desolate house atop Gallows Hill. Old-timer Calloway explains that during the War of Independence, the redcoats hung the owner, Jim Sypes, from his own tree. The Lieutenant who passed the death sentence was Gorman's ancestor. Sypes loved his trees, and they loved him.

Anonymous - The Man With The Green Thumb: (Mister Mystery #4, March 1952). Under pressure from Tony Draco, a power crazy wannabe Mobster, ace horticulturist Dr. Dana picks up the wrong cup and gulps down his special growth formula. Dana is getting very accident prone these days, not that it seems to matter. First he cuts his finger on jagged glass but the wound heals with no blood spilled. When a speeding car bounces off him, Draco demands he hand over his notes for the miracle serum. Dana refuses, Draco pumps him full of lead but the doctor just keeps on coming. A single blow from his trunk-like arm kills the gangster stone dead. There can no longer be any doubt. Dr. Dana is turning into an oak tree.

Eleanor F. Lewis - Vengeance Of A Tree: (W. Bob Holland [ed], Twenty-Five Ghosts(1904). Central California. Walter "that infernal city chap" Stedman, recently arrived in C---- town, is arrested for the murder of his secret sweetheart, Margaret Kelsey. Determined that justice be done, chief accuser Farmer Brown rounds up a lynch mob. The masked avengers spring young Stedman from jail and hang him from a stout white oak. He was, of course innocent. His ghost takes possession of the tree ....

Gerald W. Page - The Tree: (Magazine Of Horror #10, Aug. 1965). It gets struck by a meteor and turns all evil.

Percy B. Prior - The Tree-Man Ghost: (Weird Tales, March 1928: 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories, 1993). "A dramatic ghost-legend of Scotland - the aftermath of a cold-blooded murder for the treasures of an abbey."

Bill Sanderson(The Ash-Tree)

See also:

Shamus Frazer - The Yew Tree: (Charles Birkin [ed.], Tandem Book Of Ghost Stories, 1965)

'J. Sheridan LeFanu' - The Churchyard Yew: (Weird Tales, July 1947: August Derleth, Night's Yawning Peal, 1952). Far more knowledgeable commentators than me (e.g., everyone) suggest Derleth as author of this mildy ghoulish terror tale.

Fred M. White - The Purple Terror: (The Strand, Sept. 1898) Title never fails to cheer me up. Read Here

Phil Robinson - The Man Eating Tree: (Under the Punkah, 1881: Richard Dalby [ed.], Dracula's Brood, 1989).

Oscar Cook - Si Urag Of The Tail: (Weird Tales, July 1926: Christine Campbell Thomson [ed.], You'll Need A Nightlight, 1927).

M. R. James - The Ash-Tree: (Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary, 1904).

M. P. Dare - Fatal Oak: (Unholy Relics, 1947).

David G. Rowland - The Apples Of Sodom: (Eye Hath Not Seen, 1980).

There must be loads. Please flesh out.

[dem]

Sept 1, 2020 8:19:50 GMT Dr Strange said:

Not sure if we have a dedicated trees/forests thread, but here are the contents for Weird Woods -

Anon. – The Whisperer in the Woods (1880)
Edith Nesbit – Man-Size in Marble (1887)
Getrude Atherton – The Striding Place (1896)
EF Benson – The Man Who Went Too Far (1912)
WH Hudson – An Old Thorn (1920)
Elliot O’Donnell – The White Lady (1912)
Algernon Blackwood – Ancient Lights (1912)
Mary Webb – The Name-Tree (1923)
Walter de la Mare – The Tree (1922)
Marjorie Bowen – “He Made a Woman” (1923)
MR James – A Neighbour’s Landmark (1924)
Arthur Machen - N (1934)

I know for a fact that I've already got the Nesbit, Benson, Blackwood, James, and Machen elsewhere - but I've ordered it anyway. It was probably the de la Mare that swung it for me, as I don't think I've come across that one before - I've checked and it is not the same story as The Almond Tree (1909).

Thanks for the listing, Dr. S. Turns out we did have a dedicated thread of sorts - it just didn't take off yet.

[Dr Strange]

Cool. And the book just arrived today, so here are my thoughts on the first story from Weird Woods -

Anon. - The Whisper in the Wood (All The Year Round, Dec 1880). Dartmoor, 1845: Ronald Morris, on honeymoon with his young wife, sets off for a stroll across the moors, never to be seen again. As if that's not bad enough, he had in his pocket the only copy of his late Uncle's will, which would have provided for his widow and the child she was carrying. 20 years later, Ronald Jr. is working as a lowly clerk in a warehouse in the City when he decides to accompany a couple of friends on a fishing holiday in the West Country. Not really being much of an angler, Ronald often wanders off by himself, and one day comes across a strange wooded area where the wind blowing through the trees sounds uncannily like a whispering human voice...

The setting for the story is Wistman's Wood in Devon, described in the editor's intro as "one of England's highest oakwoods" (and described by a Victorian geographer in 1848 as a place "with an evil reputation among the country people") - he also describes the story itself as "a somewhat over-the-top gothic chiller", which is pretty spot-on I think.

LATER: After googling for images of Wistman's Wood, what happens in the story seems a lot more believable.

[Dr Strange]

A couple more from Weird Woods -

Edith Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble (Home Chimes, Dec 1887). I'm a big fan of Nesbit's horror stories and I've read this one several times before. There's no doubt it is a classic - but trees don't really come into it very much, apart from when the narrator walks through some woods and hears some suspicious rustling. Editor defends his choice by saying "it might be the church in Man-Size in Marble that produces the story's chilling drama, but the surrounding trees make the atmosphere", which is fair enough I suppose.

Gertrude Atherton - The Striding Place (first published as "The Twins", The Speaker, June 1896). Set in Strid Wood, North Yorkshire and apparently rejected by The Yellow Book for being "too gruesome", this is a short and fairly unpleasant tale about a man searching for his best friend who has gone missing while on a shooting holiday. Don't know if I've ever read anything by Atherton before - according to editor's introduction she "gained notoriety as a snob and a bigot". (But still no sign of any "language".)

The Striding Place (aka The Strid) gets it's name because it is just about possible to get across the deep and fast flowing water here in a single stride: but it's also said that nobody who has fallen in has ever survived.

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

H.R. Wakefield - Lucky's Grove (The Clock Strikes Twelve - 1940)
Cutting down a tree from a sacred grove on a rich man's estate to provide a Christmas tree for the big house does not make for a cheerful festive season.

[ropardoe]

Sept 4, 2020 15:55:36 GMT dem said:

Sept 1, 2020 8:19:50 GMT Dr Strange said:

Not sure if we have a dedicated trees/forests thread, but here are the contents for Weird Woods -

Anon. – The Whisperer in the Woods (1880)
Edith Nesbit – Man-Size in Marble (1887)
Getrude Atherton – The Striding Place (1896)
EF Benson – The Man Who Went Too Far (1912)
WH Hudson – An Old Thorn (1920)
Elliot O’Donnell – The White Lady (1912)
Algernon Blackwood – Ancient Lights (1912)
Mary Webb – The Name-Tree (1923)
Walter de la Mare – The Tree (1922)
Marjorie Bowen – “He Made a Woman” (1923)
MR James – A Neighbour’s Landmark (1924)
Arthur Machen - N (1934)

I know for a fact that I've already got the Nesbit, Benson, Blackwood, James, and Machen elsewhere - but I've ordered it anyway. It was probably the de la Mare that swung it for me, as I don't think I've come across that one before - I've checked and it is not the same story as The Almond Tree (1909).

Thanks for the listing, Dr. S. Turns out we did have a dedicated thread of sorts - it just didn't take off yet.

Fine if you want a book of stories about woods, trees not in woods and stories which only mention trees in passing!  Some of the stories are very good, even excellent, but at least half don’t belong in the book.  I must say that the introduction is good though - pointed and quite timely.  Almost (but not quite) worth getting for that alone.

[Dr Strange]

Sept 5, 2020 8:41:37 GMT ropardoe said:

Fine if you want a book of stories about woods, trees not in woods and stories which only mention trees in passing!  Some of the stories are very good, even excellent, but at least half don’t belong in the book.  I must say that the introduction is good though - pointed and quite timely.  Almost (but not quite) worth getting for that alone.

Yes, the main criterion for inclusion seems to be that the story mentions a wood or forest in Britain that can be given a definite geographical location, rather than them actually being central to the story itself.

[ropardoe]

Sept 5, 2020 10:57:18 GMT Dr Strange said:

Sept 5, 2020 8:41:37 GMT ropardoe said:

Fine if you want a book of stories about woods, trees not in woods and stories which only mention trees in passing!  Some of the stories are very good, even excellent, but at least half don’t belong in the book.  I must say that the introduction is good though - pointed and quite timely.  Almost (but not quite) worth getting for that alone.

Yes, the main criterion for inclusion seems to be that the story mentions a wood or forest in Britain that can be given a definite geographical location, rather than them actually being central to the story itself.

Not sure.  The location of “A Neighbour’s Landmark” isn’t identifiable - the existence of a real Betton Wood seems to be coincidence.

[humgoo]

And they certainly won't be able to find a "real" location for the garden(?) in Machen's "N" (arguably Machen's best story??) ...

[andydecker]

Sept 4, 2020 18:42:28 GMT Dr Strange said:

Cool. And the book just arrived today, so here are my thoughts on the first story from Weird Woods -

LATER: After googling for images of Wistman's Wood, what happens in the story seems a lot more believable.

Indeed this doesn't look like a safe place.

[Dr Strange]

From Weird Woods -

EF Benson - The Man Who Went Too Far (Pall Mall, June 1904). Another one I've read before - oddly, I seemed to remember not liking it at all but mostly enjoyed it this time around. The paganism/Pan theme is unusual for Benson (as far as I remember), but the warning about the dangers of going "too far" (rather than saying don't go there at all) was interesting, I thought - though I was still a little put out by Frank's apparent volte-face at the end.  Entirely set in the depths of the New Forest, yet still manages to get in a passing mention of golf.

[ropardoe]

Sept 5, 2020 12:59:33 GMT Dr Strange said:

From Weird Woods -

EF Benson - The Man Who Went Too Far (Pall Mall, June 1904). Another one I've read before - oddly, I seemed to remember not liking it at all but mostly enjoyed it this time around. The paganism/Pan theme is unusual for Benson (as far as I remember), but the warning about the dangers of going "too far" (rather than saying don't go there at all) was interesting, I thought - though I was still a little put out by Frank's apparent volte-face at the end.  Entirely set in the depths of the New Forest, yet still manages to get in a passing mention of golf.

A great story but one of the ones I don’t think belong in the book.  It’s set in the New Forest but a lot of the New Forest isn’t woodland, and most of the major events in the story, including the climax, don’t take place in the wood.  The first couple of pages certainly make one think its going to fit right in, but mostly it’s meadows, rivers and villages with no weird wood vibe at all.

[dem]

Sept 5, 2020 8:41:37 GMT ropardoe said:

Fine if you want a book of stories about woods, trees not in woods and stories which only mention trees in passing!  Some of the stories are very good, even excellent, but at least half don’t belong in the book.

Sept 4, 2020 19:40:43 GMT Dr Strange said:

A couple more from Weird Woods -

Edith Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble (Home Chimes, Dec 1887). I'm a big fan of Nesbit's horror stories and I've read this one several times before. There's no doubt it is a classic - but trees don't really come into it very much, apart from when the narrator walks through some woods and hears some suspicious rustling. Editor defends his choice by saying "it might be the church in Man-Size in Marble that produces the story's chilling drama, but the surrounding trees make the atmosphere", which is fair enough I suppose.

Must admit, the inclusion of Man-Size in Marble (just for a change) had me wondering. I guess you could argue of most ghost stories with rural settings that "the surrounding trees make the atmosphere."

[Dr Strange]

From Weird Woods -

WH Hudson - An Old Thorn (The English Review, May 1911). Not sure what to make of this one. There's a solitary hawthorn tree on a hill just outside a village in the South Wiltshire Downs. It has ivy growing on it. The locals say it is very old and has never looked any different to the way it does now. There's an old story about a man who once climbed on the tree as a child coming to a bad end. Maybe it was the tree getting its revenge on him for "hurting" it. Or maybe not. Maybe the tree sometimes grants wishes. Or maybe not. Probably just about qualifies as "weird" (fate, destiny, and all that), but it's not nearly weird enough for me. Reminded me vaguely of Thomas Hardy's The Withered Arm, but with all the horror taken out.

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Climb Not - Chris Priestley (Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, 2007)

Young Joseph ignores the warning carved in the old Elm tree that has become the focus of his obsession since his dog was scared away by something in the hollow in the trunk.