Paul Finch [ed] - Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands

[Dr Strange]

I am really looking forward to getting hold of this book. Two of the nonfiction entries are on subjects that have fascinated me on-and-off over the years: the case of Major Weir, and (especially) the Arthur's Seat coffins (though I very much doubt that they have any actual connection to Burke & Hare). The coffins are in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh -

[dem bones]

Oct 8, 2021 11:46:13 GMT Dr Strange said:

I am really looking forward to getting hold of this book. Two of the nonfiction entries are on subjects that have fascinated me on-and-off over the years: the case of Major Weir, and (especially) the Arthur's Seat coffins (though I very much doubt that they have any actual connection to Burke & Hare). The coffins are in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh -

The coffins were a new one on me - can only agree any suggestion of a Burke and Hare "connection" seems tenuous at most (so it's probably true). It's kind of become a tradition that at this point I proclaim the current Terror Tales as unquestionably the finest of the series to date - and this one most likely is. Certainly there's been nothing so far - fact/"fact" or fiction - this reader disliked, when law of averages says there's usually one or two items are not going to press his buttons.

[Dr Strange]

Nice little film about the coffins -

[Dr Strange]

Oct 8, 2021 19:03:25 GMT dem bones said:

Oct 8, 2021 11:46:13 GMT Dr Strange said:

I am really looking forward to getting hold of this book. Two of the nonfiction entries are on subjects that have fascinated me on-and-off over the years: the case of Major Weir, and (especially) the Arthur's Seat coffins (though I very much doubt that they have any actual connection to Burke & Hare). The coffins are in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh -

The coffins were a new one on me - can only agree any suggestion of a Burke and Hare "connection" seems tenuous at most (so it's probably true).

Actually, I am a bit more open to that connection now, after watching that short film I posted above. I hadn't really kept up with more recent developments - but if the coffins really were all made and buried at the same time, and only shortly after the Burke & Hare trial when the number of victims would have been common knowledge in Edinburgh, then maybe there is something in that. It was the idea that they had been buried individually by someone who knew about Burke & Hare's activities while they were still ongoing that always seemed a bit far-fetched to me.

[dem bones]

Today's instalment. Death drums of the ancients; witches versus wife beater; the curse of the Bruces; and the Sutor of Selkirk.

Willie Meikle - Herders: Brian Meadows and a small team of students, unearth a Roman mural during an archaeological dig on a country farm, depicting a series of stick figures in a sequence - "no limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, no arms, left leg gone, no legs. no head" - repeated over and over. When Meadows works out that the sequence is a coded drum score, his drinking buddy, Dave Smith, the village copper, warns him never to play as he's heard it only once before, and the occasion ended unpleasantly. The rhythm summons the Herders - an ancient, rural equivalent of the Masons given to human sacrifice. Tonight Meadows is to address the locals in the Church hall. He can't shake that infernal beat out of his head.

The Vampire of Annandale: When the 1st Lord of Annandale reneged on a promise not to hang a lowly brigand, St. Malachy laid a powerful curse upon entire Bruce clan. Among its more dramatic manifestations, the reanimation of a Yorkshireman to nightly prey upon the village folk until staked, chopped up and cremated in his grave. Author admits that some aspects of this case are easily rationalised, but not, thankfully, the eyewitness accounts of the bloated corpse prowling in the night. After all, "life would be boring if we had blithe explanations for every one of these eerie legends."

S. J. I. Holliday - Birds of Prey: "What comes to me will come to you. What ails me, will ail you." Meg, Elspeth, Helen, Isobel and Agnes the Labrador, the everyday witches of Prestonpans High Street, instruct Dallis in suburban voodoo to take down her fist-happy spouse. Would love to see this one adapted as a contemporary EC comic strip.

The Selkirk Undead: Fatal misadventure of Rabbie the cobbler who was hired to make a smart new pair of boots for a dead man.

[Dr Strange]

Oct 9, 2021 11:49:32 GMT dem bones said:

Willie Meikle - Herders

I like the sound of this one. I usually like Meikle's stuff, though I haven't really read that much of it. I've got an early collection of his Scottish horror stories that I really should read again (The Johnson Amulet & Other Scottish Terrors, 2001), and the first of his Carnacki collections (Heaven & Hell, 2012). He's good at the pulpy/EC stuff. He lives in Canada now.

[andydecker]

Oct 9, 2021 13:05:09 GMT Dr Strange said:

Oct 9, 2021 11:49:32 GMT dem bones said:

Willie Meikle - Herders

I like the sound of this one. I usually like Meikle's stuff, though I haven't really read that much of it. I've got an early collection of his Scottish horror stories that I really should read again (The Johnson Amulet & Other Scottish Terrors, 2001), and the first of his Carnacki collections (Heaven & Hell, 2012). He's good at the pulpy/EC stuff. He lives in Canada now.

Meikle is a name I stumbled upon in Lovecraft themed anthologies. I can remember thinking the stories okay, but can't remember one.

[dem bones]

Oct 9, 2021 13:05:09 GMT Dr Strange said:

Oct 9, 2021 11:49:32 GMT dem bones said:

Willie Meikle - Herders

I like the sound of this one. I usually like Meikle's stuff, though I haven't really read that much of it. I've got an early collection of his Scottish horror stories that I really should read again (The Johnson Amulet & Other Scottish Terrors, 2001), and the first of his Carnacki collections (Heaven & Hell, 2012). He's good at the pulpy/EC stuff. He lives in Canada now.

Pretty sure the Bride and I shared a drink with Mr. Meikle and his mates at a Vampyre Society meeting in The Duke of Yorke, Holborn, way back when. He'd recently had a story published in The Velvet Vampyre and his mates were passing around photo's of the glam folk who'd attended a recent Whitby Goth/ Vampyre weekend. They were nice, friendly guys, looked the part, too. I believe one of his Carnacki stories is Monster of Glamis themed?

[Dr Strange]

Oct 9, 2021 17:02:16 GMT dem bones said:

I believe one of his Carnacki stories is Monster of Glamis themed?

Yes, it's in Heaven & Hell - The Beast of Glamis.

If I remember right, some of the stories in The Johnson Amulet & Other Scottish Terrors feature his own modern-day "occult detective".

[dem bones]

Paul M. Feeney - The Clearance: Carrock, Perthshire. James Sinclair, psychic since childhood, has made a profession of his "gift," cleansing many a property of it's stranded spirits. Now Randolph Lumley, a man he dislikes on sight, approaches him to rid the family mansion of supernatural residue. Sinclair has his work cut out. The place is infested with spectres accumulated over several centuries, and they are not a happy crowd.

"Peasants, servants, conscripts, and common soldiers. Ordinary people, not even forgotten by history, but never known in the first place. Exploited and ruined by their supposed betters, ancestors of Lumley, the privileged and elite."

Sinclair, the product of a miserable and impoverished working class background, is hardly unsympathetic to their desire for vengeance. Feeding on his resentment, the phantom horde launch themselves at the present day Lumley in lieu of his ancestors. While there is nothing to link Sinclair with the murder - Lumley was a discreet man - still he will never be free of that night's dreadful repercussions.

The Overtoun Bridge Mystery: Dumbarton's suicide spot of choice for dogs.

S. A. Rennie - The Fourth Presence: 1909. Charles Creighton, rabid misanthrope, leads an expedition to the Antarctic in his belief he has located the entrance to Inner Earth. The mission is a disaster, culminating in multiple deaths, including his own. Among the few survivors, Prof. John Lorimer, who, fatally, respected Creighton's wish to have his body brought home to East Fife and interred in the Leng Memorial Chapel. Something appalling accompanies Creighton's corpse back to Scotland to unleash death and destruction on all mankind, beginning with his widow, Kathleen and brother, Hugh (author of The Jade Sarcophagus in the May Blackwoods). A suitably action packed shocker to end on, almost a dark occult ripping yarn, whose horrors include frostbite, Black Magic Hollow Earthers, persecution by something akin to a spectral abominable snowman, and the spectacular destruction of a chapel and surrounding graveyard.

While I can't think of one Terror Tales volume that I didn't get on with, this is surely the first where every story appealed. Hope others get as much morbid enjoyment from it as I have. Well done Paul and contributors!

[Paul Finch]

Thanks for that thumbs-up, DB. Glad you enjoyed.

If I say so myself, we've managed to get some splendid writing into this volume.

I got happier and happier as each story arrived.

[Susi Holliday]

"S. J. I. Holliday - Birds of Prey: "What comes to me will come to you. What ails me, will ail you." Meg, Elspeth, Helen, Isobel and Agnes the Labrador, the everyday witches of Prestonpans High Street, instruct Dallis in suburban voodoo to take down her fist-happy spouse. Would love to see this one adapted as a contemporary EC comic strip."

Tell me how to make this happen!! 

[williemeikle]

Oct 9, 2021 17:02:16 GMT dem bones said:

Oct 9, 2021 13:05:09 GMT Dr Strange said:

I like the sound of this one. I usually like Meikle's stuff, though I haven't really read that much of it. I've got an early collection of his Scottish horror stories that I really should read again (The Johnson Amulet & Other Scottish Terrors, 2001), and the first of his Carnacki collections (Heaven & Hell, 2012). He's good at the pulpy/EC stuff. He lives in Canada now.

Pretty sure the Bride and I shared a drink with Mr. Meikle and his mates at a Vampyre Society meeting in The Duke of Yorke, Holborn, way back when. He'd recently had a story published in The Velvet Vampyre and his mates were passing around photo's of the glam folk who'd attended a recent Whitby Goth/ Vampyre weekend. They were nice, friendly guys, looked the part, too. I believe one of his Carnacki stories is Monster of Glamis themed?

Nope, wisnae me. Yes, I was a regular in the Duke of Yorke, but that was when I was working in Holborn in the '80s, haven't been in there since 1990 when I left London and never looked back :-) .

Yes, I had work in Velvet Vampyre, but no mates passing around photies of folk in Whitby as I've never done the Whitby goth thing.

But yes, I have a Carnacki story set in Glamis. I used to drive past Glamis Castle every day on my way to work back in the early years of the century (there have been other Scottish set Carnacki stories over the years too, spread over the four collections)

I used to be on here a bit, years ago. Sort of slacked off since I moved to Newfoundland and got to writing full time. I'll have a wee snoop around, see if there's anybody I still remember. I'm not as much of a Lowlands lad as Johnny, more of a Central belter ( from North Ayrshire ) but I had great-grandparents in the Borders.

Willie

[dem bones]

Oct 9, 2021 17:02:16 GMT dem bones said:

Nope, wisnae me. Yes, I was a regular in the Duke of Yorke, but that was when I was working in Holborn in the '80s, haven't been in there since 1990 when I left London and never looked back :-) .

Yes, I had work in Velvet Vampyre, but no mates passing around photies of folk in Whitby as I've never done the Whitby goth thing.

Willie

Carole Bohanon [ed.] The Velvet Vampyre XXII (Winter, 1993)

Photo: Iain Wallace: Models, Christine & Heather.

Apologies, Willie! Exhumed my VV stash last night, and the guys we met were the Vamp Soc's Glasgow area rep, Scott Cairns and friends - there's a group photo in the Spring 1994 issue (XXIV). Also dug out three of your contributions from the same period; Seraphim, illustrated by Scott Whetton (The Velvet Vampyre XXI, Autumn 1993); Morning Sickness, illustrated by Franklin Bishop (The Velvet Vampyre XXII, Winter 1993); and Bridges, illustrated by Bert (The Velvet Vampyre XXV, Summer 1994). I'm guessing they were among your earliest published stories?

[williemeikle]

Oct 12, 2021 9:04:21 GMT dem bones said:

Oct 9, 2021 17:02:16 GMT dem bones said:

Nope, wisnae me. Yes, I was a regular in the Duke of Yorke, but that was when I was working in Holborn in the '80s, haven't been in there since 1990 when I left London and never looked back :-) .

Yes, I had work in Velvet Vampyre, but no mates passing around photies of folk in Whitby as I've never done the Whitby goth thing.

Willie

Carole Bohanon [ed.] The Velvet Vampyre XXII (Winter, 1993)

Photo: Iain Wallace: Models, Christine & Heather.

Apologies, Willie! Exhumed my VV stash last night, and the guys we met were the Vamp Soc's Glasgow area rep, Scott Cairns and friends - there's a group photo in the Spring 1994 issue (XXIV). Also dug out three of your contributions from the same period; Seraphim, illustrated by Scott Whetton (The Velvet Vampyre XXI, Autumn 1993); Morning Sickness, illustrated by Franklin Bishop (The Velvet Vampyre XXII, Winter 1993); and Bridges, illustrated by Bert (The Velvet Vampyre XXV, Summer 1994). I'm guessing they were among your earliest published stories?

Yep. My first story was published in Autumn 1992, so those were very early ones. Morning Sickness went on to be the first chapter in my early vampire novel, Eldren.