Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Recently I examined three neglected Gothic horror stories. Here are three more that deserve more attention than they generally receive.
DON’T BELIEVE SOURCES THAT TRY TO PASS THIS OFF AS A TRUE STORY.
THE SQUAW HOLLOW SENSATION (1879) – Author unknown. This macabre tale from America should be as well-known as works like The House of the Seven Gables or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Squaw Hollow Sensation deals with an Aztec mummy and was first published in serialized form in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat in 1879.
The story was originally presented as if it actually happened but as it becomes more grisly and fantastic the reader realizes it’s fictional. When gold mining uncovers an Aztec tomb in California an obsessed scientist conducts macabre experiments to try to revive Sethos, one of the entombed mummies. Some things are better left alone, however as we learn in a tale that includes wandering Aztec ghosts, twisted experimentation on the bodies of Sethos’ fellow mummies and a catalogue of atrocities. Continue reading
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. The wall was where Humpty Dumpty had decided to sit. Humpty Dumpty could be found on the wall, sitting. Sitting was the activity Humpty Dumpty was engaging in and the wall was the place he had chosen to sit. Everyone agreed that the wall was where Humpty Dumpty was sitting. It was of no avail to wistfully pretend that Humpty Dumpty was seated elsewhere. With an air of resignation all and sundry were forced to agree that the wall, despite how much they might desperately wish for it to be otherwise, was indeed where Humpty Dumpty sat. 
