Romancing the Gothic is back with the #AScareADay challenge, where each day we read the selected poem or story listed in the RtG challenge list, and post our thoughts on it.
This year, I thought I’d do a blog series of inspired pieces on this challenge, and then collate them, edit them, and put them out to Ko-Fi members as a free eBook (also available to buy for non-members, but as a Ko-Fi shop exclusive).
October 1st – Robert Herrick – ‘The Hag’ (1648) – Read it here.
Listen here.
Whole Challenge list is here.
This is a descriptive writing exercise in response to the poem. I love word games and I haven’t written much purple prose lately, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to stretch myself a bit.
Here’s a piece inspired by the Hag of the Night or Matilda of the Night, known as Mallt y Nos in Cymraeg.
Mallt y Nos rides. She rides in blue with silver trim, a grey cloak splaying out from her shoulders. Her face is caught by a shaft of moonlight, striking downwards through the clouds and landing on her pale cheek harsh as a slap, stripping her of the youthful bloom she can only conjure in the dark. In shadow, her face seems fair, the flush of the chase blossoming red over sun-hidden skin and brightening the stars of her eyes. The moon, breaking the full-bellied clouds and aggrieved at this obfuscation, lays bare the dangers pitted in her flesh, the smouldering crevices of a darker nature burning in her dark stare.
Mallt y Nos rides. She rides on a horse as black as the threatening cumulus, whose hide steams and froths like the blackest, richest, boiling sea, like the churning steeds skimming the surface of the Menai strait, smashing their fragile bodies against the immovable shore. From his nostrils, spumes of hot mist stream into the storm, and every stride rolls upon the thunder. His sharp hooves rend the heavy air with quick, bright flashes, and blinding is the silver of his bit and bridle.
Mallt y Nos rides, but she does not ride alone. Her companion leads, the giant shadow, the huntsman in grey, the veiled king with horn and bow. He is the night, and the clouds are his cloak, and he rides with the rain. No light patter, this, nothing to lighten the heart with soft rhythms and petrichor. This is no drizzle to be scorned as a nuisance, not a downpour to be danced in, no mizzling misery, nothing to be so disrespected. This rain is driving rage, sweeping out prey in its relentless beating, sending out souls before it and riding them down to their doom.
Mallt y Nos rides. She rides with thorns in her heels, with cruelty upon her lips. She rides behind the rain, until her prey is flushed out of its meagre, useless cover, and runs for its life. She rides with her master, she rides with the red-eared corpse-dogs, she rides with her quiver full and bow ready, a blade at her belt. She rides, ready to sever soul from body, head from neck, heart from chest, and all the while, she smiles. She rides, for the Hunt is all she loves, and the only thing that makes her feel alive. She smiles until her cheeks crack and craze, until rigor grips her smile in its frozen vice, until it hurts and burns and stabs with acute agonies, but she cannot stop smiling, and her teeth erode to craggy nubs in the jagged air.
Mallt y Nos rides. She smiles. She weeps. And she is riding still.
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