Hope Mirrlees Gollancz Lud-in-the-Mist - a
prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the
Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a
great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring
to believe only in what is known, what is solid. Nathaniel
Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for
making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past;
a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of
his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he
realises that something is changing in Lud - and something must be
done.
I first read Lud-in -the-Mist about a decade ago having finally tracked down a copy after years of searching. I'd first heard of it many years ago via Neil Gaiman but in those pre-internet days had started to think of it is an author's fiction; a dream book from Morpheus' library or a grand deception to send wannabe bibliophiles into a frenzy of futile furtling. And then I found one newly reprinted as part of the Gollancz Ultimate Fantasies sequence alongside more well known fantasy stallwarts suich as Conan, Elric and Lyonesse.
My first read all those years ago revealed to me that it was an intriguing but achingly slow read that I soon began to think of as Lud-in-the-Mud. Truthfully though it just wasn't the right book for me at the time. I'm very much a whim reader and I follow my moods when choosing a book to read which often leads to me getting stuck in particular genres for a while. At that time I was reading lots of neo-noir, southern gothic and beat literature by folks like Charles Willeford, Barry Gifford, Harry Crews and Richard Brautigan so a delicate and very English fantasy about faeries written in 1926 proved a tad slow.
A decade on and whilst all those authors mentioned - particularly Brautigan - still have a place on my shelves my whims have since led me down the paths that spurred me to start the Wyrd Britain blog and so it was time for another visit
Lud-in-the-Mist, the principal town of the state of Dorimare, is a merchant town situated at the confluence of the rivers Dapple and Dawl and it is the former of these that lies at the heart of Lud's problems as it rises in the land of Faerie far to the west and it brings the madness of the fruits of that land.
The story sends the mayor of Lud on a journey across Dorimare and beyond in his search for answers to the misfortunes that have beset him and along the way, as is to be expected, he learns new truths and new values.
The book is a gentle read that finds it's conflict in the contrasts of the stolid and unimaginative middle class of the town and the wild, carefree, lawlessness of the faeries with Mirrlees laying her sympathies right in the middle and so the story becomes one of finding a way of life that embraces both law and anarchy, industry and art.
And one of my first impressions was right, the book is slow but that's definitely to its advantage. It's a gentle river along which one can float whilst sampling it's bounty of fairy fruit.
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This is the music from week five of our celebration of the 37 years worth
of Peel Sessions.
This week...
Roxy Music (1972)
Half Man Half Biscuit (1986)
Flying saucer Attack (1996)
Public Image Ltd (1979)
Van Der Graaf Generator (1976)
Orbital (1993)
If
you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us
continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the
blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
No matter how many times I read it that opening line still gives me chills. I first read Wyndham's masterpiece as a teen having watched and loved the 1981 TV show (US / US) and with little chance then of ever seeing it again. It was love at first read. In fact, it was love at first sentence.
Over the intervening years (decades) I've read it more times than I care to mention and for some reason that I've never quite worked out but mostly I suspect because I can't walk past a copy I've amassed a collection of 25 different editions of the book including one in Dutch and in case you're wondering, no, not a word.
It's the story of Bill Masen and Josella Playton as they navigate a devastated world full of newly blinded people being occasionally preyed upon by genetically engineered and very murdery walking plants. Written in the aftermath of the Second World War the book reflects Wyndham's wartime experiences watching over a London devastated by nightly bombings and muses over still depressingly relevant topics such as catastrophic civil breakdown, social change, genetic modification and even satellite warfare.
Associate links are included here for your convenience and to help mitigate the running costs of the zine.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
'Devil Doll' is the story of ventriloquist and mesmerist 'The Great Vorelli' (Bryant Haliday) who has a fraught relationship with his dummy, a creepy little fella by the name of 'Hugo' with whom he bickers and argues in a grudging master / servant relationship and who he keeps locked in a cage when off stage, which is just as well because this dummy walks, wields a knife and definitely doesn't like him.
The plot revolves around Vorelli's scheme to seduce wealthy socialite 'Marianne Horn' (Yvonne Romain) and to do something unspeakable with her soul, not to mention her body.
I'm sure many of you will already be very aware of another ventriloquist dummy named Hugo who steals the show in the fantastic 1945 Ealing horror anthology 'Dead of Night'. The little fella here isn't a patch on his elder namesake but still manages to exude creepy menace. Haliday though, unlike Michael Redgrave in 'Dead of Night', isn't a damaged soul tortured by his puppet he's a sadistic, manipulative pantomime villain with no redeeming features who we are fully intended to boo and hiss.
First time director Lindsay Shonteff gets the most out of an obviously tight budget and a fairly sparse story by '633 Squadron' author Frederick E. Smith and creates and, crucially, maintains a nicely sinister atmosphere throughout, helped no end by a suitably menacing score, all the way up to the wonderfully twisted ending.
It's by no means a classic. In the pantheon of movies featuring terrifying ventriloquist dolls named 'Hugo' it comes a definite second and like it's predecessor might well have benefitted from being part of a movie rather than the whole of one but it absolutely deserves a place in the hearts of all lovers of strange low budget horror.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
For '3 Wyrd Things' I've asked various creative people whose work I admire to tell us about three oddly, wonderfully, weirdly British things that have been an influence on them and their work - a book or author, a film or TV show and a song, album or musician.
This month: Andy Sharp
Andy is a musician, writer and multimedia artist and the driving force behind English Heretic, an autonomous creative research project. Pioneering
the form of literary and aural aesthetics, he has released over a dozen
albums and booklets.
On the 13th of this month Repeater Books are releasing 'The English Heretic Collection: Ritual Histories, Magickal Geography' a collection of his researches and rituals. I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak at the book and I have to say if you have an interest in the outer edges of culture and the hidden branches of history then this book is for you - buy it here (UK / US)
We are very pleased in advance of the publication of his book to be able to bring you Andy's selections for this month's 3 Wyrd Things.
I've got an idiosyncratic take on the relationship between our 'wyrd' and the weird art it produces. I think 'wyrd' is the unique thread of our influences, which if we apply imaginally to creative output will allow access to a waking dream of personal mythology. That's the main gist of the last few years work as English Heretic A kind of surreal reworking in the countercultural midden of my adolescence.
Graves, isn't necessarily the biggest literary influence on me, more one that has unwound unexpectedly, a loose thread in the biographical tapestry, and also an influence inherited from my parents. As a family, we loved the BBC adaptation of Graves' I Claudius – I am pretty sure I didn't know it was by Graves or who Graves was at the time. That kind of obliviousness to future importance, I would say is a litmus test to the veracity of a wyrd influence. Graves wrote I, Claudius / Claudius The God using a form of 'poetic time travel' that he called the Analeptic Method. Similar in a way that you might do astral projection and then post-facto verify visions using Qabalah. Graves gives an example of this method in The White Goddess, where he attempts to decode the numerology of 666 to the emperor Nero. It's very eccentric, his whole approach to the mythology of poetry – but I am fascinated by the dream history of the occult that develops from this approach. On top of this all, the TV series also had a kind of joyful salaciousness. John Hurt around that time (playing Caligula) was incredibly ubiquitous too – from The Naked Civil Servant to Alien – and The Shout. I Claudius was initially panned for its unconvincing sets, fancy dress party togas and wonky toupees. But I think that's part of the magic, the luxurious ambition of Alma-Tadema, bathetically realised with MFI home furnishings. There's something of the camp operas of John Waters and George Kuchar here.
Jerzy Skolimowski's adaptation of Graves' short story “The Shout” left a powerful impression on me, as a teenager. The psychotic, itinerant charlatan, cuckolding the English marriage was a pure and frightening application of Graves' obsession with his single poetic theme – the battle between the poet and the wyrd for the muse. Not though as an engendered plot but more that this theme mirrors the solve-et-coagula in any creative journey.
The Shout also has an amazing sub score, as the hapless cuckold played by John Hurt happens to be an experimental musician. We see and hear him creating these musique concrete pieces during the film – that were actually scored by Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks of Genesis.
The Shout is told in flashback, by two inmates of an asylum, watching a cricket match within the grounds of the hospital. It's the perfect metaphor for the occult forces behind the polite rules of English life. I think it's significant that in JG Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company – a similar intrusion of priapic shamanism to the village – the psychopathic hero Blake performs an Aboriginal mating act with the hole left by a cricket stump on his school playing field. I think both The Shout and Ballard's book are huge influences in my attempt to pollinate the country's geography and phoney tradition with a magically seeded satire – most definitely Satyre with a 'y'.
Graves' The White Goddess which I began to explore at the time I started English Heretic, has cut in to many projects almost despite myself. His chapter on “The Triple Muse” seems to exactly choreograph the scenes of ritual sacrifice in Blood on Satan's Claw. Here Graves' investigations into May-Eve tree cults are very compelling fictions of witchcraft. Robin Hood and Maid Marian become the lascivious black ram and seductive pucelle of a rebellious coven. Elsewhere, I've explored modern renditions of Graves' love chase. J.G. Ballard's Crash is pure Graves, only set along the causeways of West London. Vaughan, the psychopathic wyrd, is accurately described in Graves' words at the opening to Crash, appearing as a lean and dark spectral figure at the hospital bed of the protagonist Ballard.
Television
Play For Today: A Photograph.
I first watched this in March 1977, totally creeped out by its insinuations of vituperative rural magic against a sleazy underbelly to the urbane. More than this though, it's the titular photograph of the play that infected my imagination and still does. It's an entirely conspiratorial photograph, like Mary Moorman's grassy knoll or Antonioni's BlowUp.
Without spoiling the plot, a smarmy Radio 3 art critic receives a photograph in the post – it shows two flirtatious, country girls sitting outside a small white caravan. One blonde, one raven haired, Abbaesque, in a way, though there's something occult about them, troubled and troublesome, likely to experience poltergeist intrusions beneath a Starsky and Hutch poster. It's the grain of The Unexplained magazine. Definitely archetypes of naughty paranormality in the 70s. Anyhow, the critic's hopelessly nervous and downtrodden wife becomes obsessed with the photograph, blowing it up to massive proportions. In doing so, she discovers it's not two girls, but one, they both have the same faded tattoo on their arm. Cut to the music critic, in bed with his lover, an alabaster heart on the cabinet. We don't see his lover's face but there's the same tattoo on their arm..... as a clue to its meaning, I can't help hearing Coil's Tattooed Man recalling this scene. The ending is a total cognitive twist of the magic box, similar to that we see in Mulholland Drive. Never quite resolved, but throwing up unpleasant characters and permutations all the way. But unlike the over-saturated America of Lynch, it was the cheap plywood sets of Play for Today that suggested the beige misery of 70s suburbia could easily give way to a realm of pagan and terrifying energies.
It took me years to rediscover A Photograph and I was delighted to find it was intended as an oblique sequel to the more cult and vaunted Play for Today episode, Robin Redbreast. Both A Photograph and Robin Redbreast were written by John Bowen. Again, A Photograph, like all true intrusions in our wyrd biography, haunted me from the future. I suspect the shudder watching it in 1977, was as much from today's influence as its creepy Lynchian English vibe. Replace Bobby Peru in the trailer park of Lynch's nightmare, with the outcast family living on the periphery of all our villages.
But it's really the mystery of searching too much into an image that worked its way into my creativity. Pareidolia in the media age, that phantoms readily appear in the magnified darkrooms of Polaroid technology. David Lifton who first uncovered the Badgeman in Mary Moorman's JFK photo, has now identified 5 assassins staked out along the wall. No doubt about it these are shadow agents from the deepest cortical folds. Poltergeists of our innate tendency to paranoia in a hostile environment. The wife in A Photograph is gaslit into mad obsession, the blown-up picture revealing another plot behind surface reality.
Music
“Nostradamus” from Songs of Witchcraft and Magic
Peter Bellamy
Buy it here (UK / US)
I used to visit the pagan supply shop in Ipswich, often just to imagine the possibilities of an off-kilter English Heritage souvenir shop. I've bought all kinds of magical tat from this shop, a Baphomet statue with removable horns, a plastic necromancer's skull, and bags full of Horned God incense. I often tried to play live swathed in incense, and no matter when I visited the supply shop and whatever auspicious calendrical date the gig fell on, they would always recommend the male energies of the Horned God incense. It was like a sketch from an occult Fast Show, “Horned God it will be again, Sir”.
Anyway, I took a chance on this CD compilation from this shop, an album curated by The Museum of Witchcraft and was totally bowled over by Peter Bellamy's “Nostradamus”. The song was written by Al Stewart, the lyrics lifted from Erika Cheetham's controversial interpretations of Nostradamus' predictions. Stewart's version is great, a bongo and acoustic guitar driven epic, however Bellamy's take is far more haunting. Delivered in a baleful medieval bellow, accordion wheezing like an emphysemic sailor, it's a time-travelling shanty for sure. It is though the verse alluding to the deaths of the Kennedy brothers, JFK, Bobby and Joe that really captured me:
In the new lands of America, three brothers now shall come to pass. Two alone are born to rule, but all must die before their hour.
JFK and Bobby's assassinations were American nightmares, televised live, but Joe Kennedy died over English skies. He had volunteered for a suicidal bombing mission, flying from Fersfield in Norfolk, his Torpex loaded plane exploding over Blythburgh in Suffolk. I created a black plaque for Joe Kennedy and shortly after discovered this song. It feels like this is the real soundtrack to that plaque. There's another lyric in the song that perfectly sums up history's violent ricochet and psychodrama, one that has propelled the doom laden course of the project:
Oh the more it changes, well the more it stays the same, And the hand just rearranges all the players in the game.
I do believe the key to discovering our personal wyrd is to apprehend the paranoid doubling so inherent in our imagination. The same primal images re-emerging ever more forcefully, on different landscapes with different characters
Again, though there's so much music from “England's Hidden Reverse” that are conscious influences, I've chosen “Nostradamus” because it has become a completely unintentional touchstone. The litmus of my wyrd.
Bellamy committed suicide in 1991. He was actually from Norfolk, where Kennedy flew to his death. Oscillations of tragedy, Bellamy killed himself feeling his career was on a downward trajectory. Kennedy applied for the suicidal flight mission to steal back the mantle from his brother, who had become a war hero. There's Greek myths everywhere if we care to look. I think Bellamy, had he survived, would have had his day again, like Shirley Collins, Simon Finn and Bonnie Dobson. It makes the song all the more poignant that he could not foresee his future vindication.
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The opening tale by Rebecca Kuder is a very Richard Brautigan-esque story of a house burning told in remembrance by a father left to raise his feral son which I liked a lot but it did leave me craving to know more about the son. The Brautigan echoes continue with Richard Gavin's story about a mother keeping a preternaturally organised and tidy house with the aid of whatever is in the old cabin. I'm not entirely sure I got what Gavin was doing here but it made for an enjoyably strange read.
Colin Insole's 'The Shepherd's House' is a story of mysterious deaths that haunt, and have always haunted, a small town. It's got an intriguing premise and despite being one of the longest in the book I certainly wouldn't have complained if it had been longer.
The next two kind of lost me a bit as Helen Grant's 'The West Window takes a story of a young man saying goodbye to his family's ancestral home and allows it to gallop off into unnecessary strangeness long after it should have drawn to a close whilst Steve Duffy's 'The Psychomanteum' felt like it was written with a southern gothic tick sheet. Neither were terrible by any means but they failed to grab me.
Reggie Oliver's 'The Crumblies' where a family takes possession of the home that had been the inspiration for a series of children's books shares a similar premise to Kim Newman's novel 'An English Ghost Story' and makes for an intriguing story. It's written with Oliver's customary finesse but with its dangling plot threads and hidden ending it does read a bit like a synopsis of a much longer story.
There are echoes of 'Hellraiser' in David Surface's thoroughly creepy 'The Devil Will Be At Your Door' as the mystery of a house where two children, who don't seem to have ever existed, have disappeared draws in fresh victims before the book loses me again with the next two stories which both feel entirely over-written. John Gale's 'The House of the Mere' which seems to be the story of a thesaurus who moves to the country to escape a naiad whilst Albert Power's 'Fairest of the All' is an icky blend of 'Lolita' and 'Dorian Gray'.
We're back on track with Lynda E. Rucker's 'Miasmata', a fun little tale of a mysterious door that feels like it would have made for a fine 80s horror novel and it features a thinly disguised cameo for Brian Showers of Swan River Press.
I'm always very pleased to read a new Mark Valentine story and 'The Readers of the Sand' is a delicately enigmatic tale of a meeting between four people with an affinity for the stuff in question. Carly Holmes tells a nicely creepy story of loss hidden from prying eyes and expressed in secret in the gracefully poignant 'Doll's House' whilst James Doig's 'At Lothesley, Montgomeryshire, 1910' is an entertaining slice of pastoral gothic horror very much in the vein of M.R. James.
Rebecca Lloyd is another that seems to be channelling 1980s horror with 'In Cromer Road' bringing back all manner of Amityville memories in her story of a house plagued by ghostly winds. Katherine Hayes' ' House of Sand' is an oddly hallucinogenic tale of a house party slowly dwindling away to nothing and the house along with it whilst for Jane Jakeman the modest terraced house lies at the centre of the entire 'Mythology' of a nation before the book ends with Timothy Granville's 'The Piner House' where a building exerts a narcotic influence on it's tenants and is a fabulously dreamlike way to close the book.
As I've said before in other reviews and will no doubt say again anthologies are a notoriously tricky prospect to review. What I enjoyed will not necessarily transfer to another reader but when a collection is as strong as this then it does make life a lot easier. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and whilst I know it's out of print now having sold out almost immediately there is a possibility of another run in January 2021 for which I would heartily recommend contacting the publisher to let them know you're interested.
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Five passengers board a train from London to (the fictional town of) Bradley. They all settle into the same compartment where they're joined by an old man by the name of 'Dr Schreck' who proceeds to use a tarot deck, his "house of horrors", to tell their fortunes. Spoiler - they're all doomed!
The most striking thing about the movie is the casting; Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are quite understandable (not to mention pretty much compulsory) as are the host of reliable familiar faces littering each segment such as Michael Gough and Bernard Lee but the other four men in the compartment make for a strange bunch. Neil McCallum was a jobbing actor with nothing of note on his resume before this (or after to be honest), Alan Freeman was a popular BBC radio DJ presenting the long running 'Pick of the Pops' show who had no prior acting experience, Roy Castle was a comedic light entertainer making the shift into movies and who later that same year would again share a bill with Peter Cushing in 'Dr. Who and the Daleks' (UK / US) (also made by Amicus) and, perhaps strangest of all, future Hollywood royalty Donald Sutherland who having studied in the UK had appeared in a movie with Christopher Lee the previous year, the Italian horror 'Castle of the Living Dead ' (UK / US), and would make a movie for Hammer, 'Fanatic', that same year and then episodes of 'The Avengers' and 'The Saint' before Hollywood beckoned.
The five stories revolve around several established horror tropes - a werewolf, a killer plant, voodoo, vengeful body parts and vampires - to varying degrees of success and seriousness. I have a real soft spot for this movie and for me it's Lee versus the disembodied hand that is the standout segment although perhaps the most memorable is Roy Castle's jazz voodoo story - also featuring Kenny Lynch, the Tubby Hayes Quartet and a great tune - but the general goofiness of Castle's performance and some casual racism have always grated on me slightly. McCallum's werewolf tale is the most Hammeresque of the five tales with it's big old house, ancient curses and hidden crypts whereas Freeman versus the foliage and Sutherland's sanguinary spouse most closely ressemble the Amicus template of movies to come although neither is particularly memorable.
It's far from being the best of the Amicus portmanteaus - I'll let you debate which is - but to my mind it's definitely the most fun. For the most part it's tongue is firmly planted in it's cheek and even when it's being serious director Francis seemingly can't help injecting a hint of silliness - Michael Gough taunting Lee with paper cut-out chimps. Like I said earlier I have a enduring soft spot for this movie, it's one of several that I turn to when I need a smile putting on my face as it never fails. Very few of it's constituent parts - one, maybe - would be able to hold their heads high in more rarified company but all together here they complement each other wonderfully.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Brian Catling Swan River Press "There hadn’t been monks at the abbey since 1600. Not living ones, that is." When
the puckish spirit of a monk begins haunting the storied village of
Pulborough, known for its ancient abbey, Maud Garner, manager of the
Coach and Horses Inn, arranges for the famous ghost hunter, Walter
Prince, to come investigate. And from there, things spiral out of
control.
I read 'The Vorrh' (UK / US) by Brian Catling about a year or so ago after reading a host of glowing reviews by folk I admire but whilst I could see why they'd like it I personally found it to be a little bit smug and a tad aimless. It was though very nicely written and so I decided, when I saw that Swan River were releasing a new work by him, to give him another go.
Munky is the story of the arrival of a ghostly monk into the abbey at Pulborough and the impact his arrival has on the congregation and the town.
Right from the off I found myself reminded of Max Porter's excellent 'Lanny', not in plot or style but in the more nebulous realm of 'feel'. I can't put my finger on why really but they just felt like they shared a reality.
The narrative of 'Munky' is loose to say the least. We are provided with snapshots of a larger story, glimpses into the reactions and the behaviours and we are left to fill in the blanks ourselves in a way that is simultaneously irritating and satisfying.
It's a super fast read - again like 'Lanny' - what I think of as a single sitter. It's like watching one of those wonderful little one off supernatural TV plays they were so good at making in the 70s like 'The Stone Tape' or 'Murrain' (to name two by Nigel Kneale) and as much as I enjoyed it I think I'll get even more out of it on repeat readings.
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
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) and with little chance then of ever seeing it again. It was love at first read. In fact, it was love at first sentence.
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- or listen below.
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) (also made by Amicus) and, perhaps strangest of all, future Hollywood royalty 
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), and would make a movie for Hammer, '
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- or watch it below.
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) by Brian Catling about a year or so ago after reading a host of glowing reviews by folk I admire but whilst I could see why they'd like it I personally found it to be a little bit smug and a tad aimless. It was though very nicely written and so I decided, when I saw that Swan River were releasing a new work by him, to give him another go.
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