Christine Bernard - 2nd Armada Ghost Book

[dem]

Christine Bernard (ed.) - 2nd Armada Ghost Book (1968)

Chris D'Achille

Christine Bernard - Introduction

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Ghost That Didn't Want to Be a Ghost
William Croft Dickinson - The Keepers of the Wall
Ruth Sawyer - Fiddler, Play Fast, Play Faster
H. G. Wells - The Magic Shop
Traditional - Mr. Fox
William Croft Dickinson - His Own Number
Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Man Who Walked Widdershins Round the Kirk
H. G. Wells - The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
E. Nesbit - The Ugly-Wuglies

Blurb:
Uncanny ... Weird ... Fantastic .... More stories of the strange and inexplicable specially chosen for boys and girls.
In the Second Armada Ghost Book you can enjoy the adventures of the Reluctant Ghost, laugh at the downfall of the evil Mr. Fox, wonder at the fate of the boy who walked the wrong way around the church .... or be horrified by the walls that moved, by H. G. Wells' terrible flower - and by the computers and map numbers that play their part in a macabre twist of fate.

Am particularly pleased to be reunited with Vol 2, not because it's especially good, but because The Man Who Walked Widdershins Round the Kirk is almost certainly the first ghost story ever read aloud to me at infant school. Not sure it scared me, but later obsession with supernatural fiction suggests it left its mark. So ... thank you, Miss Hindes. Hope you have had a happy life.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Ghost That Didn't Want to Be a Ghost: A disgruntled ghost is bad for morale, so the spectral chieftain offers to return him to life in whichever form he chooses. After much deliberation, the ethereal misery guts decides he wants to be a cat. Without wishing to be harsh, surely the most timid of six year old's would find this one underwhelming. But things pick up!

Traditional - Mr. Fox: A variation on the legend of Bluebeard's Castle (or is that vice versa?) and truly the stuff of classic gore fests.. The fair Lady Mary outsmarts her wicked suitor.

William Croft Dickinson - The Keepers of the Wall: Robson, a professor of medieval archaeology, foolishly ignores the advice of an old crofter to avoid the ruins of Duncross Castle after dark. They who preserve the wall are ever-vigilant to lure the living to assist them in their work.

H. G. Wells - The Flowering of the Strange Orchid : Mr. Winter-Wedderburn blithely cultivates a man-eating spider plant with disappointingly non-fatal results.

[dem]

A decent folksy pair. Ruth Sawyers would not be out of place in a Richard Dalby Christmas selection.

Ruth Sawyer - Fiddler, Play Fast, Play Faster: (The Long Christmas, 1941). Billy Nell Kewley of Castletown, the meanest fiddler on the Isle of Man, is duped by the Devil into performing before his minions at a Grand Ball late on Christmas Eve. A mournful Monk intervenes just as it seems Billy will wear his fingers to bloody stumps.

Sorche Nic Leodhas - The Man Who Walked Widdershins Round the Kirk: (Ghosts Go Haunting, 1965). Obstinate young Sandy MacGillivray defies soppy superstition to take a short cut around the church - and vanishes with a Poof! How can he return to corporeal form?

[ripper]

Nice to see Dickinson get two entries in this volume. I have only read a small number of his stories--not these two--and enjoyed them all. The Nesbit tale wasn't included in Wordworth's collection so I assume from that and from the title that it is intended firmly for children, but I really hope it doesn't stray into RCH goo-goo territory.

[dem]

Jan 11, 2018 10:52:55 GMT ripper said:

Nice to see Dickinson get two entries in this volume. I have only read a small number of his stories--not these two--and enjoyed them all. The Nesbit tale wasn't included in Wordworth's collection so I assume from that and from the title that it is intended firmly for children, but I really hope it doesn't stray into RCH goo-goo territory.

Hi Rip. Disappointingly, the Nesbit story is a 27 page extract from her novel, The Enchanted Castle. It's probably great, but I'd prefer to read it in the proper context if at all.

[helrunar]

The Enchanted Castle was something of a childhood legend at one time for me--it was mentioned in one of Edward Eager's books as being Nesbit's best novel for kids.  I was tremendously excited when I finally got hold of a copy, around age 13 or 14 I think, but then rather let down as I did not think it as good as Five Children and It or The Story of the Amulet (the two books by her I remember best from childhood reading).

I really remember nothing about Castle apart from dolls being involved. I believe Eager actually riffed on the plot in an episode in one of his books.

Dem, I really doubt that Castle would be your mug of ale. I presume you've read "Man Sized in Marble" which is a very fine little shocker.

G.

[dem]

Jan 11, 2018 15:45:09 GMT helrunar said:

The Enchanted Castle was something of a childhood legend at one time for me--it was mentioned in one of Edward Eager's books as being Nesbit's best novel for kids.  I was tremendously excited when I finally got hold of a copy, around age 13 or 14 I think, but then rather let down as I did not think it as good as Five Children and It or The Story of the Amulet (the two books by her I remember best from childhood reading).

I really remember nothing about Castle apart from dolls being involved. I believe Eager actually riffed on the plot in an episode in one of his books.

Dem, I really doubt that Castle would be your mug of ale. I presume you've read "Man Sized in Marble" which is a very fine little shocker.

G.

Hi Steve. Yes, I particularly like Man Sized in Marble, John Charrington's Wedding and, most of all, the masterpiece of morbidity that is From The Dead. The Wordsworth Editions Powers Of Darkness: Tales Of Terror is especially recommended. Am chary of her children's fiction as I prefer my Nesbit thoroughly miserable and, as Rip put it, a title like The Ugly-Wugglies suggests R.Chetwynd-Hayes on one of his really bad days.

[dem]

William Croft Dickinson - His Own Number: The tragic death of technician Murdoch Finlayson as seemingly preordained by a recalcitrant computer. Finlayson is convinced that a simple line of six digits is "his own number" and should he stay at the Department of Mathematics he will die. Consequently he hands in his notice and travels home to work on his brother's Highland farm, but there's no cheating destiny.

Another decent one. I enjoyed #2 more than expected, particularly the Ruth Sawyer story and the immortal Mr. Fox. Probably fair to say that some of Christine Barnard's selections for these early Armada's owe a debt to Kathleen Lines' The House Of The Nightmare.

[Dr Strange]

I picked up this recent hardback collection of Croft Dickinson short stories a couple of months ago - www.birlinn.co.uk/Dark-Encounters.html

In the introduction it says about "His Own Number" -

"There is a comparable and apparently authentic ghost story - or urban legend - about one of the older Cambridge colleges. Using a computer, the ghost issues warnings and threats... to date it has reportedly killed two people who disregarded them and the college has banned any further research on the subject. Details may be found in Cambridge College Ghosts by Geoff Yeates (Jarrold, 1994)."

Anyone know anything about this?