Sunday 22 January 2017
Book Review: The Other Wind
The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le GuinMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The final venture in the Earthsea series, this continues after the subtle events of Tehanu bringing together many of the characters and themes from the previous books in the series. Ursula Le Guin's strength is beautifully written mythic prose, contemplative and reflective of our own worlds and the issues and problems we struggle with. The main theme is that of humanity.
The world of Earthsea of course differs hugely from our own, yet the struggles are the same - power struggles, love, grief, loss, trauma, belonging or not belonging. It is the differences between our world and Earthsea that forces us to re-consider and re-evaluate how and why we approach these universal themes in the way that we do.
Alder realises that although he is tormented by his wife's death, banishing his grief causes him to loose a vital aspect of himself. Tehanu is haunted by the past and by her disfigurement and fear of fire, yet without her past she would not be as strong as she is. Tenar has lived through various incarnations, each adding to and enhancing her understanding of the world and the different cultures of Earthsea. Sparrowhawk has lost his wizard's power, yet he has found peace and the companionship of Tenar. Everything comes with a cost, yet without our range of experiences, we are not whole.
This is a story about succeeding against the odds, battling against the challenges life throws at us, of acceptance and compassion. In the story we see the characters draw together, learning from one another and their shared experiences, and all are changed as a result. It is this spark of humanity that underpins all of Le Guin's work, the examining of the human condition through the altered lense of other worlds, reflecting ourselves back at us, for better or for worse.
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Monday 16 January 2017
Sunday 15 January 2017
Book Review: The Wyvern Mystery
The Wyvern Mystery by J. Sheridan Le FanuMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Mildred Tarnley is the only redeemable character thus far. Reads like a combination of Jane Eyre x Gone to Earth? A madwoman (neglected wife from Hoxton in this instance - not the sort who has been up to 3am snorting coke then been snapped by Facehunter whilst draped in horrendous fashionable rags and staggering out of some nightlife hotspot in a desperate attempt to hold on to her fast fading youth - although she does possess a magazine with the latest fashions - none of your overpriced crap from Beyond Retro for this vile harridan) appears halfway through the book and takes up residence in her old rooms. Meanwhile meek and mild Alice (who is a criminal simpering bore) slumbers nearby unawares. Alice reminded me forcibly of Webb's Hazel Woodus, who was such a simpering idiot - in short she's a simpering personality devoid dullard.
The wretched Charlie is caught between the two women - one his concealed wife, the other his newlywed 'wife'. Why anyone would want to marry him (apart from the lure of inheriting Wyvern House) I don't know, he's neither compelling nor charming. Mildred keeps the household ticking over and seems the only one with an ounce of common sense, alongside culinary skill and other household chores.
This is the longest story I've read by Fanu and it does suffer from a huge number of chapters which just feel like filler. Sure he creates a great atmosphere and there are some notable and beautiful descriptions of character and countryside - but ultimately it doesn't satisfy in the same manner as some of his shorter and more gruesome spooky tales. This feels like a watered down short story stretched into a novel. I got really frustrated with the two 'newlyweds' - endless simpering declarations of love and 'darling' was a word I never wish to see repeated again. Ultimately you don't really care much about the outcome. Not his strongest work, compared to the fantastic Carmilla it pales in comparison. I got seriously fed up with it by the end, way too sentimental for my tastes, and it became a bit of a slog - what was the mystery of the title exactly? The 'secret wife' was hardly what I would define as a mystery, it just felt rather unsatisfactory as regards the plot.
The one thing I did like however, which redeemed the middle of the story slightly; was the blind wife slicing through the wallpaper with a knife and scuttling along the papered up passage connecting the two rooms, deliciously creepy scene!
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Book Review: The Heart of What Was Lost
The Heart of What Was Lost by Tad WilliamsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have been looking forward to this being published for about a year and Tad Williams did not disappoint! Anxiously awaited by copy in the post and began reading it as soon as I received it.
In short, it was fantastic to be back in the land of Osten Ard. This is a novella which deals with events immediately after where 'To Green Angel Tower' ended. Duke Isgrimmnur is encamped at Tanglewood Castle battling the Norns, whilst they struggle to excape and make their way back to Nakkiga. Eventually they manage to escape and Isgrimmnur and co follow and a siege occurs at Nakkiga. Not a huge amount actually happens, no Miriamele or Simon, but this was just to whet our appetites and span the time period until The Witchwood Crown, and it served its purpose wonderfully.
Here we are given the side of the story mainly from the Norns themselves, which I found fascinating. What Williams has always done so well is fantastic characterisation, the individuals have complex sprawling family histories, and relationships, and the result is utterly believable. All the characters are fully fleshed and we follow them on their every twist and turn, their emotions, worries and fears. His worlds are incredibly complex, with their own systems of government, trade systems, continents, religions and mythologies.
The only other fantasy writer who I feel is on a similar level is Robin Hobb (although her dragon series and recent Fitz books didn't quit float my boat as much as her original two series), and possibly George R.R. Martin (although in my opinion he got seriously lost during Dance of Dragons which was a total snooze fest).
Tad Williams was the author that a few summers ago got me back into fantasy. I picked up some old yellowed copies of Memory Sorrow & Thorn at my local National Trust property as I was drawn to the 80's Michael Whelan cover art. They say never judge a book by its cover, but in this case I was spot on. Was completely drawn in and over the next couple of months ploughed through the four volumes. Utterly and completely immersive reading.
This was a brilliant taster for the new series - I hope it is every bit as gigantic as the original Memory Sorrow & Thorn series. Can't wait to read The Witchwood Crown!
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Book Review: Thursbitch
Thursbitch by Alan GarnerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another superb title by Garner, am slowly working my way though his books. This takes his usual themes of estranged individuals negotiating themselves and each other amongst a haunted environment. In this case the text follows a couple of friends/lovers as they explore the strange hills, valleys and strange almost shifting landscape. Garner repeatedly revisits the theme of locations or places which are 'haunted' or possessed by individuals and events which occurred there in the past.
Thursbitch focuses on John Turner, or Jack as he is named in the story who is journeyman or trader who travels long distances, and brings back all kinds of wonders for his immediate family: wonderfully embroidered lace on pockets, carved stone beakers. John seems to act as an unofficial keeper of the mysteries amongst the village - he regularly ingests hallucinogenic mushrooms and leads revels involving the worship of a bull figure (who appears as a vision) on the fields. Honey is smeared across stones as part of the worship of the god/s of the local vicinity.
As always standing stones play a central role in the story, here they are referred to almost as if they are people, all have names, and they seem almost to stalk the hills and environs, patrolling their borders. shifting location. Bees play a vital role in John's story, but as with all Garner's mysterious novels this is an obtuse and at times complex and frustrating tale. The background and history of the modern and historical characters isn't spelled out, we are left to piece together the unspoken.
The story ultimately deals with two different characters (I did at one point wonder if the character of John/Jack is 'reincarnated' in the body of the man in the contemporary half of the novel, although this isn't suggested as such, but there are many parallels between them, maybe Garner exploring again how history repeats itself and experiences are mirrored), and their coping with mortality and grief. John/Jack's apparent breakdown and solace in Christianity as a hellfire preacher was particularly moving, and his fury and anger towards the regional god/s who he had always worshipped was moving.
I felt the story explored our search for meaning and our struggle with the transience of people, places and time, but also about acceptance of what is, limnal spaces, and how eventually we will return to where we came from, return to the earth.
Wonderfully mesmeric and magical prose, incredibly atmospheric. Would definitely read this again, a great deal of symbolism and hidden layers to the story and text, at times obfuscated by Garner's use of dialect, but once I got used to this it was very rewarding. No one else writes like this.
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Saturday 14 January 2017
Tessa Farmer
"Tessa Farmer is an artist based in London. Her work, made from insect carcasses, plant roots and other found natural materials, comprises hanging installations depicting Boschian battles between insects and tiny winged skeletal humanoids"
.:.
View more of her work on her website: www.tessafarmer.com
Thursday 12 January 2017
Sunday 8 January 2017
Book Review: The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies
The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton SmithMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Normally it would take me a couple of days to read a book this length, but for various reasons I've been reading this on and off for a couple of weeks. It needs time to absorb the fantastically rich and opulent purpureal prose.
Clark Ashton Smith writes wonderfully, his imagination is wild, untamed and he revels in the bizarre and fantastic - the miasma of his diction clusters and saturates the page. He was a champion of unknown and rarely used words, and this enhances the sheer strangeness and esoteric theme of many of the stories. The book abounds in strange and exotic flora and fauna, forgotten tombs, strange worlds, explorations into space, discoveries of time travelling, witches, mummies, black magic and the occult arts. In short, it's FABULOUS, and as a whole an incredibly rich collection of work.
The book is split into three sections: short stories, prose poems, poetry and I feel as been carefully selected to represent a real range of his writing and output. Immensely enjoyable, an absolute must for any Lovecraft fans or enthusiasts of weird fiction. Highly highly recommended!
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Friday 6 January 2017
Clark Ashton Smith: 'The Mandrakes'
Gilies Grenier the sorcerer and his wife Sabine, coming into lower Averoigne from parts unknown or at least unverified, had selected the location of their hut with a careful forethought.
The hut was close to those marshes through which the slackening waters of the river Isoile, after leaving the great fosest, had overflowed in sluggish, reed-clogged channels and sedge-hidden pools mantled with scum like witches' oils. It stood among osiers and alders on a low, mound-shaped elevation; and in front, toward the marshes, there was a loamy meadow-bottom where the short fat stems and tufted leaves of the mandrake grew in lush abundance, being more plentiful and of greater size than elsewhere through all that sorcery-ridden province. The fleshly, bifurcated roots of this plant, held by many to resemble the human body, were used by Gilles and Sabine in the brewing of love-philtres. Their potions, being compounded with much care and cunning, soon acquired a marvelous renown among the peasants and villagers, and were even in request among people of a loftier station, who came privily to the wizard's hut. They would rouse, people said, a kindly warmth in the coldest and most prudent bosom, would melt the armor of the most obdurate virtue. As a result, the demand for these sovereign magistrals became enormous.
The couple dealt also in other drugs and simples, in charms and divination; and Gilles, according to common belief, could read infallibly the dictates of the stars. Oddly enough, considering the temper of the Fifteenth Century, when magic and witchcraft were still so widely reprobated, he and his wife enjoyed a repute by no means ill or unsavory. No charges of malefice were brought against them; and because of the number of honest marriages promoted by the philtres, the local clergy were content to disregard the many illicit amours that had come to a successful issue through the same agency.
It is true, there were those who looked askance at Gilles in the beginning, and who whispered fearfully that he had been driven out of Blois, where all persons bearing the name Grenier were popularly believed to be werewolves. They called attention to the excessive hairiness of the wizard, whose hands were black with bristles and whose beard grew almost to his eyes. Such insinuations, however, were generally considered as lacking proof, insomuch as no other signs or marks of lycanthropy were ever displayed by Gilles. And in time, for reasons that have been sufficiently indicated, the few detractors of Gilles were wholly overborne by a secret but widespread sentiment of public favor.
Even by their patrons, very little was known regarding the strange couple, who maintained the reserve proper to those who dealt in mystery and enchantment. Sabine, a comely women with blue-gray eyes and wheat-colored hair, and no trace of the traditional witch in her appearance, was obviously much younger than Gilles, whose sable mane and beard were already touched with the white warp of time. It was rumored by visitors that she had oftentimes been overheard in sharp dispute with her husband; and people soon made a jest of this, remarking that the philtres might well be put to a domestic use by those who purveyed them. But aside from such rumors and ribaldries, little was thought of the matter. The connubial infelicities of Gilles and his wife, whether grave or trivial, in no wise impaired the renown of their love-potions.
Also, little was thought of Sabine's presence, when, five years after the coming of the pair into Averoigne, it became remarked by neighbors and customers that Gilles was alone. In reply to queries, the sorcerer merely said that his spouse had departed on a long journey, to visit relatives in a remote province. The explanation was accepted without debate, and it did not occur to any one that there had been no eye-witnesses of Sabine's departure.
It was then mid-autumn; and Gilles told the inquirers, in a somewhat vague and indirect fashion, that his wife would not return before spring. Winter came early that year and tarried late, with deeply crusted snows in the forest and on the uplands, and a heavy armor of fretted ice on the marshes. It was a winter of much hardship and privation. When the tardy spring had broken the silver buds of the willows and covered the alders with a foliage of chrysolite, few thought to ask Gilles regarding Sabine's return. And later, when the purple bells of the mandrake were succeeded by small orange-colored apples, her prolonged absence was taken for granted.
Gilles, living tranquilly with his books and cauldrons, and gathering the roots and herbs for his magical medicaments, was well enough pleased to have it taken for granted. He did not believe that Sabine would ever return; and his unbelief, it would seem, was far from irrational. He had killed her one evening in autumn, during a dispute of unbearable acrimony, slitting her soft, pale throat in self-defense with a knife which he had wrested from her fingers when she lifted it against him. Afterward he had buried her by the late rays of a gibbous moon beneath the mandrakes in the meadow-bottom, replacing the leafy sods with much care, so that there was no evidence of their having been disturbed other than by the digging of a few roots in the way of daily business.
After the melting of the long snows from the meadow, he himself could scarcely have been altogether sure of the spot in which he had interred her body. He noticed, however, as the season drew on, that there was a place where the mandrakes grew with even more than their wonted exuberance; and this place, he believed, was the very site of her grave. Visiting it often, he smiled with a secret irony, and was pleased rather than troubled by the thought of that charnel nourishment which might have contributed to the lushness of the dark, glossy leaves. In fact, it may well have been a similar irony that had led him to choose the mandrake meadow as a place of burial for the murdered witch-wife.
Gilles Grenier was not sorry that he had killed Sabine. They had been ill-mated from the beginning, and the woman had shown toward him in their quotidian quarrels the venomous spitefulness of a very hell-cat. He had not loved the vixen; and it was far pleasanter to be alone, with his somewhat somber temper unruffled by her acrid speeches, and his sallow face and grizzling beard untorn by her sharp finger-nails.
With the renewal of spring, as the sorcerer had expected, there was much demand for his love-
philtres among the smitten swains and lasses of the neighborhood. There came to him, also, the gallants who sought to overcome a stubborn chastity, and the wives who wished to recall a wandering fancy or allure the forbidden desires of young men. Anon, it became necessary for Gilles to replenish his stock of mandrake potions; and with this purpose in mind, he went forth at midnight beneath the full May moon, to dig the newly grown roots from which he would brew his amatory enchantments.
Smiling darkly beneath his beard, he began to cull the great, moon-pale plants which flourished on Sabine's grave, digging out the homunculus-like taproots very carefully with a curious trowel made from the femur of a witch.
Though he was well used to the weird and often vaguely human forms assumed by the mandrake, Gilles was somewhat surprized by the appearance of the first root. It seemed inordinately large, unnaturally white; and, eyeing it more closely, he saw that it bore the exact likeness of a woman's body and lower limbs, being cloven to the middle and clearly formed even to the ten toes! These were no arms, however, and the bosom ended in the large tuft of ovate leaves.
Gilles was more than startled by the fashion in which the root seemed to turn and writhe when he lifted it from the ground. He dropped it hastily, and the minikin limbs lay quivering on the grass. But, after a little reflection, he took the prodigy as a possible mark of Satanic favor, and continued his digging. To his amazement, the next root was formed in much the same manner as the first. A half-dozen more, which he proceeded to dig, were shaped in miniature mockery of a woman fsom breasts to heels; and amid the superstituous awe and wonder with which he regasded them, he became aware of their singularly intimate resemblance to Sabine.
At this discovery, Gilles was deeply perturbed, for the thing was beyond his compsehension. The miracle, whether divine or demoniac, began to assume a sinister and doubtful aspect. It was as if the slain women herself had returned, or had somehow wrought her unholy simulacrum in the mandrakes.
His hand trembled as he started to dig up another plant; and working with less than his usual care, he failed to remove the whole of the bifurcated root, cutting into it clumsily with the trowel of sharp bone.
He saw that he had severed one of the tiny ankles. At the same instant, a shrill, reproachful cry, like the voice of Sabine herself in mingled pain and anger, seemed to pierce his ears with intolerable acuity, though the volume was strangely lessened, as if the voice had come from a distance. The cry ceased, and was not repeated. Gilles, sorely terrified, found himself staring at the trowel, on which there was a dark, blood-like stain. Trembling, he pulled out the severed root, and saw that it was dripping with a sanguine fluid.
At first, in his dark fear and half-guilty apprehension he thought of burying the soots which lay palely before him with their eldritch and obscene similitude to the dead sorceress. He would hide them deeply from his own sight and the ken of others, lest the murder he had done should somehow be suspected.
Presently, however, his alarm began to lessen. It occurred to him that, even if seen by others, the roots would be looked upon merely as a freak of nature and would in no manner serve to betray his crime, since their actual resemblance to the person of Sabine was a thing which none but he could rightfully know.
Also, he thought, the roots might well possess an extraordinary virtue, and from them, perhaps, he would brew philtres of never-equalled power and efficacy. Overcoming entirely his initial dread and repulsion, he filled a small osier basket with the quivering, leaf-headed figurines. Then he went back to his hut, seeing in the bizarre phenomenon merely the curious advantage to which it might be turned, and wholly oblivious to any darker meaning, such as might have been read by others in his place.
In his callous hardihood, he was not disquieted overmuch by the profuse bleeding of a sanguine matter from the mandrakes when he came to prepare them for his cauldron. The ungodly, furious hissing, the mad foaming and boiling of the brew, like a devil's broth, he ascribed to the unique potency of its ingredients. He even dared to choose the most shapely and perfect of the woman-like plants, and hung it up in his hut amid other roots and dried herbs and simples, intending to consult it as an oracle in future, according to the custom of wizards.
The new philtres which he had concocted were bought by eager customers, and Gilles ventured to recommend them for their surpassing virtue, which would kindle amorous warmth in a bosom of marble or enflame the very dead.
Now, in the old legend of Averoigne which I recount herewith, it is told that the impious and audacious wizard, fearing neither God nor devil nor witch-woman, dared to dig again in the earth of Sabine's grave, removing many more of the white, female-shapen roots, which cried aloud in shrill complaint to the waning moon or turned like living limbs at his violence. And all those which he dug were formed alike, in the miniature image of the dead Sabine from breasts to toes. And from them, it is said, he compounded other philtres, which he meant to sell in time when such should be requested.
As it happened, however, these latter potions were never dispensed; and only a few of the first were sold, owing to the frightful and calamitous consequences that followed their use. For those to whom the potions had been administered privily, whether men or women, were not moved by the genial fusy of desire, as was the wonted resuIt, but were driven by a darker rage, by a woful and Satanic madness, irresistibly impelling them to harm or even slay the persons who had sought to attract their love.
Husbands were turned against wives, lasses against their lovers, with speeches of bitter hate and scatheful deeds. A certain young gallant who had gone to the promised rendezvous was met by a vengeful madwoman, who tore his face into bleeding shreds with her nails. A mistress who had thought to win back her recreant knight was mistreated foully and done to death by him who had hitherto been impeccably gentle, even if faithless.
The scandal of these untoward happenings was such as would attend an invasion of demons. The crazed men and women, it was thought at first, were veritably possessed by devils. But when the use of the potions became rumored, and their provenance was clearly established, the burden of the blame fell upon Gilles Grenier, who, by the law of both church and state, was now charged with sorcery.
The constables who went to arrest Gilles found him at evening in his hut of raddled osiers, stooping and muttering above a cauldron that foamed and hissed and boiled as if it had been filled with the spate of Phlegethon. They entered and took him unaware. He submitted calmly, but expressed surprize when told of the lamentable effect of the love-philtres; and he neither affirmed nor denied the charge of wizardry.
As they were about to leave with their prisoner, the officers heard a shrill, tiny, shrewish voice that cried from the shadows of the hut, where bunches of dried simples and other sorcerous ingredients were hanging. It appeared to issue from a strange, half-withered root, cloven in the very likeness of a woman's body and legs — a root that was partly pale, and partly black with cauldron-smoke. One of the constables thought that he recognized the voice as being that of Sabine, the sorcerer's wife. All swore that they heasd the voice clearly, and were able to distinguish these words:
"Dig deeply in the meadow, where the mandrakes grow the thickliest."
The officers were sorely frightened, both by this uncanny voice and the obscene likeness of the root, which they regarded as a work of Satan. Also, these was much doubt anent the wisdom of obeying the oracular injunction. Gilles, who was questioned narrowly as to its meaning, refused to offer any interpretation; but certain marks of perturbation in his manner finally led the officers to examine the mandrake meadow below the hut.
Digging by lantern-light in the specified spot, they found many more of the roots, which seemed to crowd the ground; and beneath, they came to the rotting corpse of a woman, which was still recognizable as that of Sabine. As a result of this discovery, Gilles Grenier was arraigned not only for sorcery but also for the murder of his wife. He was readily convicted of both crimes, though he denied stoutly the imputation of intentional malefice, and claimed to the very last that he had killed Sabine only in defense of his own life against her termagant fury. He was hanged on the gibbet in company with other murderers, and his dead body was then burned at the stake.
The hut was close to those marshes through which the slackening waters of the river Isoile, after leaving the great fosest, had overflowed in sluggish, reed-clogged channels and sedge-hidden pools mantled with scum like witches' oils. It stood among osiers and alders on a low, mound-shaped elevation; and in front, toward the marshes, there was a loamy meadow-bottom where the short fat stems and tufted leaves of the mandrake grew in lush abundance, being more plentiful and of greater size than elsewhere through all that sorcery-ridden province. The fleshly, bifurcated roots of this plant, held by many to resemble the human body, were used by Gilles and Sabine in the brewing of love-philtres. Their potions, being compounded with much care and cunning, soon acquired a marvelous renown among the peasants and villagers, and were even in request among people of a loftier station, who came privily to the wizard's hut. They would rouse, people said, a kindly warmth in the coldest and most prudent bosom, would melt the armor of the most obdurate virtue. As a result, the demand for these sovereign magistrals became enormous.
The couple dealt also in other drugs and simples, in charms and divination; and Gilles, according to common belief, could read infallibly the dictates of the stars. Oddly enough, considering the temper of the Fifteenth Century, when magic and witchcraft were still so widely reprobated, he and his wife enjoyed a repute by no means ill or unsavory. No charges of malefice were brought against them; and because of the number of honest marriages promoted by the philtres, the local clergy were content to disregard the many illicit amours that had come to a successful issue through the same agency.
It is true, there were those who looked askance at Gilles in the beginning, and who whispered fearfully that he had been driven out of Blois, where all persons bearing the name Grenier were popularly believed to be werewolves. They called attention to the excessive hairiness of the wizard, whose hands were black with bristles and whose beard grew almost to his eyes. Such insinuations, however, were generally considered as lacking proof, insomuch as no other signs or marks of lycanthropy were ever displayed by Gilles. And in time, for reasons that have been sufficiently indicated, the few detractors of Gilles were wholly overborne by a secret but widespread sentiment of public favor.
Even by their patrons, very little was known regarding the strange couple, who maintained the reserve proper to those who dealt in mystery and enchantment. Sabine, a comely women with blue-gray eyes and wheat-colored hair, and no trace of the traditional witch in her appearance, was obviously much younger than Gilles, whose sable mane and beard were already touched with the white warp of time. It was rumored by visitors that she had oftentimes been overheard in sharp dispute with her husband; and people soon made a jest of this, remarking that the philtres might well be put to a domestic use by those who purveyed them. But aside from such rumors and ribaldries, little was thought of the matter. The connubial infelicities of Gilles and his wife, whether grave or trivial, in no wise impaired the renown of their love-potions.
Also, little was thought of Sabine's presence, when, five years after the coming of the pair into Averoigne, it became remarked by neighbors and customers that Gilles was alone. In reply to queries, the sorcerer merely said that his spouse had departed on a long journey, to visit relatives in a remote province. The explanation was accepted without debate, and it did not occur to any one that there had been no eye-witnesses of Sabine's departure.
It was then mid-autumn; and Gilles told the inquirers, in a somewhat vague and indirect fashion, that his wife would not return before spring. Winter came early that year and tarried late, with deeply crusted snows in the forest and on the uplands, and a heavy armor of fretted ice on the marshes. It was a winter of much hardship and privation. When the tardy spring had broken the silver buds of the willows and covered the alders with a foliage of chrysolite, few thought to ask Gilles regarding Sabine's return. And later, when the purple bells of the mandrake were succeeded by small orange-colored apples, her prolonged absence was taken for granted.
Gilles, living tranquilly with his books and cauldrons, and gathering the roots and herbs for his magical medicaments, was well enough pleased to have it taken for granted. He did not believe that Sabine would ever return; and his unbelief, it would seem, was far from irrational. He had killed her one evening in autumn, during a dispute of unbearable acrimony, slitting her soft, pale throat in self-defense with a knife which he had wrested from her fingers when she lifted it against him. Afterward he had buried her by the late rays of a gibbous moon beneath the mandrakes in the meadow-bottom, replacing the leafy sods with much care, so that there was no evidence of their having been disturbed other than by the digging of a few roots in the way of daily business.
After the melting of the long snows from the meadow, he himself could scarcely have been altogether sure of the spot in which he had interred her body. He noticed, however, as the season drew on, that there was a place where the mandrakes grew with even more than their wonted exuberance; and this place, he believed, was the very site of her grave. Visiting it often, he smiled with a secret irony, and was pleased rather than troubled by the thought of that charnel nourishment which might have contributed to the lushness of the dark, glossy leaves. In fact, it may well have been a similar irony that had led him to choose the mandrake meadow as a place of burial for the murdered witch-wife.
Gilles Grenier was not sorry that he had killed Sabine. They had been ill-mated from the beginning, and the woman had shown toward him in their quotidian quarrels the venomous spitefulness of a very hell-cat. He had not loved the vixen; and it was far pleasanter to be alone, with his somewhat somber temper unruffled by her acrid speeches, and his sallow face and grizzling beard untorn by her sharp finger-nails.
With the renewal of spring, as the sorcerer had expected, there was much demand for his love-
philtres among the smitten swains and lasses of the neighborhood. There came to him, also, the gallants who sought to overcome a stubborn chastity, and the wives who wished to recall a wandering fancy or allure the forbidden desires of young men. Anon, it became necessary for Gilles to replenish his stock of mandrake potions; and with this purpose in mind, he went forth at midnight beneath the full May moon, to dig the newly grown roots from which he would brew his amatory enchantments.
Smiling darkly beneath his beard, he began to cull the great, moon-pale plants which flourished on Sabine's grave, digging out the homunculus-like taproots very carefully with a curious trowel made from the femur of a witch.
Though he was well used to the weird and often vaguely human forms assumed by the mandrake, Gilles was somewhat surprized by the appearance of the first root. It seemed inordinately large, unnaturally white; and, eyeing it more closely, he saw that it bore the exact likeness of a woman's body and lower limbs, being cloven to the middle and clearly formed even to the ten toes! These were no arms, however, and the bosom ended in the large tuft of ovate leaves.
Gilles was more than startled by the fashion in which the root seemed to turn and writhe when he lifted it from the ground. He dropped it hastily, and the minikin limbs lay quivering on the grass. But, after a little reflection, he took the prodigy as a possible mark of Satanic favor, and continued his digging. To his amazement, the next root was formed in much the same manner as the first. A half-dozen more, which he proceeded to dig, were shaped in miniature mockery of a woman fsom breasts to heels; and amid the superstituous awe and wonder with which he regasded them, he became aware of their singularly intimate resemblance to Sabine.
At this discovery, Gilles was deeply perturbed, for the thing was beyond his compsehension. The miracle, whether divine or demoniac, began to assume a sinister and doubtful aspect. It was as if the slain women herself had returned, or had somehow wrought her unholy simulacrum in the mandrakes.
His hand trembled as he started to dig up another plant; and working with less than his usual care, he failed to remove the whole of the bifurcated root, cutting into it clumsily with the trowel of sharp bone.
He saw that he had severed one of the tiny ankles. At the same instant, a shrill, reproachful cry, like the voice of Sabine herself in mingled pain and anger, seemed to pierce his ears with intolerable acuity, though the volume was strangely lessened, as if the voice had come from a distance. The cry ceased, and was not repeated. Gilles, sorely terrified, found himself staring at the trowel, on which there was a dark, blood-like stain. Trembling, he pulled out the severed root, and saw that it was dripping with a sanguine fluid.
At first, in his dark fear and half-guilty apprehension he thought of burying the soots which lay palely before him with their eldritch and obscene similitude to the dead sorceress. He would hide them deeply from his own sight and the ken of others, lest the murder he had done should somehow be suspected.
Presently, however, his alarm began to lessen. It occurred to him that, even if seen by others, the roots would be looked upon merely as a freak of nature and would in no manner serve to betray his crime, since their actual resemblance to the person of Sabine was a thing which none but he could rightfully know.
Also, he thought, the roots might well possess an extraordinary virtue, and from them, perhaps, he would brew philtres of never-equalled power and efficacy. Overcoming entirely his initial dread and repulsion, he filled a small osier basket with the quivering, leaf-headed figurines. Then he went back to his hut, seeing in the bizarre phenomenon merely the curious advantage to which it might be turned, and wholly oblivious to any darker meaning, such as might have been read by others in his place.
In his callous hardihood, he was not disquieted overmuch by the profuse bleeding of a sanguine matter from the mandrakes when he came to prepare them for his cauldron. The ungodly, furious hissing, the mad foaming and boiling of the brew, like a devil's broth, he ascribed to the unique potency of its ingredients. He even dared to choose the most shapely and perfect of the woman-like plants, and hung it up in his hut amid other roots and dried herbs and simples, intending to consult it as an oracle in future, according to the custom of wizards.
The new philtres which he had concocted were bought by eager customers, and Gilles ventured to recommend them for their surpassing virtue, which would kindle amorous warmth in a bosom of marble or enflame the very dead.
Now, in the old legend of Averoigne which I recount herewith, it is told that the impious and audacious wizard, fearing neither God nor devil nor witch-woman, dared to dig again in the earth of Sabine's grave, removing many more of the white, female-shapen roots, which cried aloud in shrill complaint to the waning moon or turned like living limbs at his violence. And all those which he dug were formed alike, in the miniature image of the dead Sabine from breasts to toes. And from them, it is said, he compounded other philtres, which he meant to sell in time when such should be requested.
As it happened, however, these latter potions were never dispensed; and only a few of the first were sold, owing to the frightful and calamitous consequences that followed their use. For those to whom the potions had been administered privily, whether men or women, were not moved by the genial fusy of desire, as was the wonted resuIt, but were driven by a darker rage, by a woful and Satanic madness, irresistibly impelling them to harm or even slay the persons who had sought to attract their love.
Husbands were turned against wives, lasses against their lovers, with speeches of bitter hate and scatheful deeds. A certain young gallant who had gone to the promised rendezvous was met by a vengeful madwoman, who tore his face into bleeding shreds with her nails. A mistress who had thought to win back her recreant knight was mistreated foully and done to death by him who had hitherto been impeccably gentle, even if faithless.
The scandal of these untoward happenings was such as would attend an invasion of demons. The crazed men and women, it was thought at first, were veritably possessed by devils. But when the use of the potions became rumored, and their provenance was clearly established, the burden of the blame fell upon Gilles Grenier, who, by the law of both church and state, was now charged with sorcery.
The constables who went to arrest Gilles found him at evening in his hut of raddled osiers, stooping and muttering above a cauldron that foamed and hissed and boiled as if it had been filled with the spate of Phlegethon. They entered and took him unaware. He submitted calmly, but expressed surprize when told of the lamentable effect of the love-philtres; and he neither affirmed nor denied the charge of wizardry.
As they were about to leave with their prisoner, the officers heard a shrill, tiny, shrewish voice that cried from the shadows of the hut, where bunches of dried simples and other sorcerous ingredients were hanging. It appeared to issue from a strange, half-withered root, cloven in the very likeness of a woman's body and legs — a root that was partly pale, and partly black with cauldron-smoke. One of the constables thought that he recognized the voice as being that of Sabine, the sorcerer's wife. All swore that they heasd the voice clearly, and were able to distinguish these words:
"Dig deeply in the meadow, where the mandrakes grow the thickliest."
The officers were sorely frightened, both by this uncanny voice and the obscene likeness of the root, which they regarded as a work of Satan. Also, these was much doubt anent the wisdom of obeying the oracular injunction. Gilles, who was questioned narrowly as to its meaning, refused to offer any interpretation; but certain marks of perturbation in his manner finally led the officers to examine the mandrake meadow below the hut.
Digging by lantern-light in the specified spot, they found many more of the roots, which seemed to crowd the ground; and beneath, they came to the rotting corpse of a woman, which was still recognizable as that of Sabine. As a result of this discovery, Gilles Grenier was arraigned not only for sorcery but also for the murder of his wife. He was readily convicted of both crimes, though he denied stoutly the imputation of intentional malefice, and claimed to the very last that he had killed Sabine only in defense of his own life against her termagant fury. He was hanged on the gibbet in company with other murderers, and his dead body was then burned at the stake.
Tuesday 3 January 2017
Pottery jug with green glaze depicting human face at front with arms beneath. The arms are formed of applied strips and are bent at the elbow so that the gloved hands are pressed against the body at shoulder level. The hair is represented by a strip of clay above the top of the handle. This is decorated with pierced holes and short, incised lines, probably representing braiding. Restored from fragments.
Sunday 1 January 2017
GRISLY WITCH PITS: INSTAGRAM
a selection of my own photos from various locations
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