This one is a good short story overall, but my favourite image is right at the beginning. I really struggled to read this, as the whole style is like nails running down the blackboard of my brain, but I got through it. It was definitely worth the payoff.
October 3rd – E. T. A. Hoffman – ‘The Sand-Man’ (1817) – Read it here.
I love the actual folk horror of the eye-stealing sand-man and his beaked children nesting in the moon. Respect to the single dads out there providing human eyes for their children after a hard night of blinding people with sand.
I thought about doing something with the automaton and the clockwork woman, but isn’t that… quite a lot of modern media? I think there’s maybe an interesting story in there somewhere along the lines of a man being beguiled by a clockwork girl, forgetting the real one he’s supposedly in love with, and then having her dismantled in front of him, but that’s literally the story of Blodeuwedd, made of flowers to be a wife without agency, and the plot of several TV shows, so… perhaps not.
I went with the folktale, and something more fun. Here is a little tribute to the sandman, in the same meter as Herrick’s The Hag from Day 1.
Look man, it is hard
to be no-holds-barred
With a conscience of any kind;
You have to suppress
to avoid distress,
and ease any trouble of mind.
For a moon-crook nest
to sit two abreast
is hardly cheap for the renting;
and, furthermore,
a fam’ly of four
requires expenses expending.
Then is the question
of indigestion
when the young are not prop’ly fed;
To grow to full size
They need human eyes,
and must have some before they a-bed.
Look man, it’s strife,
This troublesome life,
Lugging endless bags full of sand;
What’s worse, employees
are hardly at ease
when tasked with the next job at hand.
You can’t get the staff,
so don’t make me laugh,
It’s better to play one’s own tune
And don’t you blame me,
It’s those kids, you see,
And my landlord, the man in the moon.
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