The following folklore is, like Pagham-on-Sea, entirely fictional. A Medieval Account of the Meteor Strike, c.1189 Chronica Maiora (Anonymous monk of Fairwood Abbey, a Benedictine foundation of 1165, dissolved 1532) trans. and ed. Harold Bishop, (Basingstoke University Press, 1973) In the days of the Romans, a hairy-tailed star fell from heaven and struck the ground… Continue reading Folklore of Pagham-on-Sea: The Meteor (Part 1)
Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte Miss Charlotte sits behind her desk, the wood covered in tiny tally marks gouged into the paint. Everything is clinical, white. The only personal item is a mug featuring a cartoon devil and the legend: I'd Tell You To Go To Hell But I Work There. It is pristine, but gathering… Continue reading The Doctor Will See You Now
This week in gothic horror chat, I'm looking at another theme mentioned in the first post. I'm going to use a horror novel I think fits the Welsh Gothic genre as an example of how effective this element is, and how it can drive the plot forward. Isolation is another key theme of the Gothic… Continue reading Goth is [not] dead: Isolation
Hello again! I've done a couple of posts on the themes and conventions of Gothic novels, and the many subgenres there are (there are actually more, but a good place to look is the University of Wales Press series on Gothic Fiction). I have also discovered a cool WikiHow post on How To Write Gothic… Continue reading Goth is [not] Dead: Darkness
Horace Walpole is credited/blamed for kicking off the 'Gothic' literature genre in 1765 with his novel The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Tale, which was intended as a subtle joke. Walpole meant 'Gothic' in the sense of 'barbarous' or 'derived from the Middle Ages', but his supernatural tale of perverse obsession and melodramatic tragedy sparked something… Continue reading Goth is [not] Dead: (Sub)Genre-Chat
