A Scare A Day Reading Challenge
Romancing the Gothic founder and organiser, Dr Sam Hirst, is back for another month of A Scare A Day. Dr Hirst curates a daily reading list, and the challenge is to read the story or poem for that day and post your thoughts on social media using the tag #AScareADay (not #ScareADay – don’t forget the ‘A’ at the start like I always do!)
Last year, I posted a creative response to each story or poem featured in the challenge, and turned them into Season 05 of Eldritch Girl, where I talked about the stories and poems, and read my fiction/non-fiction piece inspired by the daily read.
This year, I’m pairing the challenge with #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days so I’m going to be suggesting a film pairing to go with the story/poem, the way I do for my book reviews over on Divination Hollow.
The challenge list is posted on RomancingTheGothic.com, and below.
The “A Scare A Day” Daily Reading List 2026
October 1st – Joanna Baillie – Night Tales of Other Times – 1790 – Read it here
October 2nd – Nikolai Karamzin – The Island of Bornholm – 1794 – Read it here
October 3rd – Anne Bannerman – The Black Knight of the Water – 1802 – Read it here
October 4th – William Harrison Ainsworth – The Spectre Bride – 1821 – Read it here
October 5th – Charles Pigault-Lebrun – ‘The Unholy Compact Abjured’ – 1825 – Read it here
October 6th – Mary Elizabeth Braddon – ‘The Cold Embrace’ (1860) – Read it here
October 7th – Amelia Edwards – ‘In the Confessional’ (1871) – Read it here
October 8th – Elizabeth Stuart Phelps – ‘Since I Died’ (1873) – Read it here
October 9th – Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – ‘The Witch’ (1893) – Read it here
October 10th – Arthur Machen – ‘The Novel of the White Powder’ (1895) – Read it here
October 11th – Gertrude Atherton – ‘The Striding Place’ (1896) – Read it here
October 12th – Ella Peattie – ‘From the Loom of the Dead’ (1898) – Read it here
October 13th – Mrs Wilson Woodrow – ‘Secret Chambers’ (1909) – Read it here
October 14th – W W Jacobs – The Well (1911) – Read it here
October 15th – Violet Hunt – ‘The Prayer’ (1911) – Read it here
October 16th – Rabindranath Tagore – ‘The Lost Jewels’ or Monihara (1917) – Read it here
October 17th – Ellen Glasgow – ‘The Past’ (1920) – Read it here
October 18th – Mikhail Bulgakov – ‘The Red Crown’ (1922) – Read it here
October 19th – John Masefield – ‘The Haunted’ (1923) – Read it here
October 20th – Elsa Morante – The Secret game (1941) – Read it here
October 21st – Dorothy Quick – ‘After an Air Raid’ (1943) – Read it here
October 22nd – Mayra Montero – ‘Corinne, Amiable Girl’ (1991) – Read it here
October 23rd – Ahmed Khaled Tawfik – ‘The Wall’ – Read it here
October 24th – Mariana Enríquez – ‘The Little Angel’s Exhumation’ (2014) – Read it here
October 25th – A. C. Wise – ‘The Stories We Tell About Ghosts’ (2017) – Read it here
October 26th – Brandon O’Brien – ‘The Lagahoo Speaks For Itself’ (2017) – Read it here
October 27th – Darcie Little Badger – ‘Those Hitch-hiking Kids’ (2023) – Read it here
October 28th – Tyler Sookralli – ‘The Devil Wears Skin’ (2024) – Read it here
October 29th – Eleanna Castroianni – ‘They Return’ (2025) – Read it here
October 30th – Ash Vale – ‘consumed’ (2026) – Read it here
October 31st – Quincy Lee – ‘The Dark Follows Me’ (2026) – Read it here
A Scare A Day: Day 11
Day 11: “The Striding Place” by Gertrude Atherton (1896). Read it here.
I read this twice, and felt like I was missing something, but I think I’ve worked it out – see my plot summary below. The ending was very abrupt, but the meat of the story is in there, and the punchy tragedy does hit.
The Strid, which is the body of water featured in the story and a truncation of ‘Striding’, as in The Striding Place of the title, is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world, and it looks like nothing; a narrow stream you can easily jump over. Do not be fooled. The water is the entire river turned on its side (some claim it is 65m deep, but this has not been verified reliably) and forced between narrow rocks at a cracking pace, and it’s so deep that it sucks you under and drags you against the rocks. It has caverns carved out of the rock, so it’s not as simple as a vertical sort of canyon. I don’t know if anyone has ever survived falling in; some claimed to have survived, or even swam in it. These claims are looked at in a few YouTube videos, like the short introduction to it embedded below, and the much longer one by @NorthernIntrovert.
A Scare A Day: Plot Summary
Weigall is a bored young man on a grouse shooting trip, who has a deep intimate friendship with Giffard, who is missing. They had been having a discussion about astral projection, and Weigall asked what would happen if you returned to find your body was uninhabitable? Giffard laughed this off, and said he would have a go at operating “broken machinery”.
Giffard’s absence is very odd – Weigall doesn’t believe he’s been murdered, or killed himself, so where is he?
Weigall goes for a walk and finds himself at The Strid. There, he sees a human hand waving from the water. He jumps to the conclusion it must be Giffard. He attempts to pull Giffard out, and succeeds in pulling him at least beyond the narrow point of suction, and runs to find him floating in a pool further down.
There he finds a man in evening dress, but he has no face – it has been pulverised by the rocks. He could not have lasted in the water for 2 days, but perhaps had astrally projected his way out of it until he was found, and then returned to his body to alert Weigall? I think this is the conclusion we’re meant to reach.
A Scare A Day: Film Pairing
Today’s film is Rökkur/Rift (2017) dir. Erlingur Thoroddsen, written by Erlingur Thoroddsen.
This features a gay couple, Gunnar and Einar, who have broken up. Gunnar goes to Einar’s cabin after receiving a strange message from him, and things get weird.
It’s about grief and loneliness, ghosts and hauntings, and has a very similar tragic twist to this short story. There’s also some timey-wimey stuff, which reflects the flexible time feel of the short story in terms of how long Giffard was in the water for, and how he was able to wave for help, etc.
If you want a gay hybrid horror set in Iceland, with some gnarly themes and backstory (TW child abuse), then try this one.
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