HAPPY HALLOWEEN WITH SOME MORE LONG-FORGOTTEN HORROR TALES

Has it really been 31 days already? Happy Halloween from Balladeer’s Blog with this look at some more horror stories that are over 100 years old. They make for a nice Monster Rally feel since they feature a variety of supernatural beings.

THE VENUS OF ILLE (1837) – By Prosper Merimee. An ancient bronze statue of Venus is found during excavations. A series of injuries and worse follow, until it can no longer be denied that the statue comes to life and commits acts of violence.

        The bronze Venus takes a perverse liking to a prosperous young man and steals a ring the man is supposed to put on at his impending wedding ceremony. When the man goes through with the marriage without the purloined ring, the statue visits him and his bride on their wedding night and kills him.

Even melting down the statue does nothing to wash away its evil influence.

THE YARN OF LANKY JOB (1913) – Written by John Masefield. A lazy seaman called Lanky Job is caught sleeping on watch one last time. He is thrown off the ship and eventually rescued by a passing ship. To his horror, the vessel is crewed by humanoid rats who are the undead spirits of rats who sank with ships over the centuries.  

THE COFFIN MERCHANT (190?) – Written by Richard Middleton. A woman named Eustace Reynolds is the latest recipient of an advertising flier from a coffin merchant informing her she will soon need to buy a casket. Everyone who receives these fliers has died within 24 hours. 

THE HORNED SHEPHERD (1904) – By Edgar Jepson. Weird and macabre tale of a pagan sect which still worships the horned god Pan. Once every hundred years a human incarnation of Pan is born into the community. This time around it is a shepherd whose head has sprouted horns amid his hair.

        The Horned Shepherd also plays music on a pan-flute which transfixes listeners and has other supernatural effects. When the time comes for this century’s incarnation of Pan to be sacrificed like his predecessors he does not stay dead.  

THE CASE OF THE DOW TWINS (1877) – This story by E.P. Mitchell involves the title characters – conjoined twins separated by surgery. They still share each other’s physical and emotional sensations. When one of them dies, the surviving twin is able to inhabit the dead twin’s body and their own at the same time, making for one soul inhabiting both bodies. Complications ensue.   

THE FAIR ABIGAIL (1894) – Written by Paul Heyse. After the Franco-Prussian War, a Prussian soldier from that conflict moves on from Abigail, a woman he knew years earlier but has apparently died. She turns up in his hotel room years later and begins an odd courtship with him. She lures him to a graveyard where she reveals that she is now a vampire.

THE DANCE OF THE DEAD (1810) – Author unknown. A piper named Willibald is hired to save a dying burgo meister, and his music succeeds in saving his life. The burgo meister refuses to pay him (What was it with people refusing to pay pipers the money they were owed?) and when Willibald argues about it, he is imprisoned.

        The piper dies during his incarceration, following which his ghost haunts the town every night, playing his pipe music which causes the dead to rise from their graves and dance in the streets. 

THE PARLOR CAR GHOST (1904) – W. Bob Holland’s tale about a ghost who haunts a train. A compassionate and courageous woman succeeds in getting the spirit to tell why it is condemned to this haunting. She manages to release him from his fate.

THE TALL WOMAN (1860) – Written by Pedro Alarcon. An engineer in Spain often catches sight of a Tall Woman around the time of personal tragedies throughout his life. At long last, he succeeds in catching up with her and confronting her. She reveals she is his personal devil and is only doing her ordained duty.

THE BROWNIE OF THE BLACK HAGS (1828) – By James Hogg. In Scotland, a Brownie named Merodach spends years locked in servitude to a family whose lady of the house loathes him and treats him sadistically. He returns her spite and eventually forces her to accompany him on a walk across Scotland which results in her death. 

FIORACCIO (1890) – Giovanni Magherini-Graziani’s short story about a fence for stolen goods – the title character. Antonio Fioraccio led an evil life and even on his death-bed in old age was unrepentant. He blasphemed and mocked the notion of the existence of any devil.

        After he dies of natural causes and is buried, his corpse is soon found above ground on his gravesite, with no sign of any dirt being disturbed by shovels. The undead Fioraccio informs people who knew him in life that he is unhappy with his burial site and asks for another.

        Disturbed by the corpse’s refusal to stay buried, the late fence’s associates give in and have it buried elsewhere. The process begins again, with the body refusing to stay underground. This happens again and again, and finally the new excuse is that the nearby church bells make it impossible for Fioraccio to rest in peace.

        The corpse again keeps returning to the surface and insists a burial in the Arno River is what it needs. This is done but the dead body fights its way to the surface insisting the waters are not cold enough. At long last Fioraccio gives up and accepts the fact that he is in Hell, damned for all eternity.

FOR MY REVIEW OF THE 1909 HORROR STORY THE GHOST PIRATES CLICK HERE.