Randalls Round
Nine Nightmares by Eleanor Scott
Randalls Round was published during what can be considered the heyday of the classic English supernatural tale, at a time when the likes of M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, May Sinclair, E.F. Benson and Walter de la Mare were still active. In the light of this fierce competition, it might not be surprising that Scott’s stories, which sometimes come across as rather derivative, failed to make an impact. This is a pity because, even when Scott appears to be following other models, her work is not simply good, but genuinely creepy. Randalls Round has been reissued by a number of small presses in the past years, but is now available as part of British Library’s brilliant Tales of the Weird series, which will surely give Scott’s stories the wider exposure they deserve.
In her foreword, Scott claims that the nine pieces in the collection “had their origin in dreams”, hence why this new edition is subtitled Nine Nightmares. Well, if that was really the case, Scott must have had some pretty restless nights! Whatever the inspiration, however, much authorial work has gone into crafting the “detached incidents and scenes” typical of dreams into taut little chillers.
One of the highlights is the title-piece, a story which, like others in the book, would today be clearly shelved under what is now recognised as the distinct sub-genre of folk horror. A male undergraduate visits the Cotswolds village of Randalls and witnesses what he thinks is a quaint folk dance in the market square. Exploring further, he discovers that the origins of this dance lay in a ceremony, probably sacrificial, which used to be performed around a local long barrow known as Randalls Bank. Against express advice, he decides to explore the barrow on the night of All Hallows’ Eve, never a great idea if you’re the protagonist of a folk horror tale. Similar echoes of Machen haunt Simnel Acres Farm, which also features an Oxford undergraduate who falls prey to ancient influences. The Old Lady also features Oxford undergrads, although girls in this case, and a tale of vampirism and blood sacrifice which recalls Seaton’s Aunt by de la Mare and, possibly, Braddon’s Good Lady Ducayne.
Two other strong stories have a clear M.R. James feel to them. In The Twelve Apostles, a wealthy American who buys an allegedly haunted English manor, seeks a missing treasure linked to the private Catholic chaplain (and supposed alchemist) of the Squire of the Manor in Elizabethan times. In Celui-là the protagonist Maddox spends some days of rest on the Breton coast, staying with the local curate. Despite the curate’s warnings, he becomes uncommonly obsessed with a strange figure he spots during an evening walk and a strange box containing a parchment with a strange invocation written on it. In this story and The Room, about a group of six friends who dare each other to stay the night in a haunted chamber, I distinctly felt a philo-Catholic sensibility. As is my habit, I read Aaron Worth’s informative introduction to the volume after I finished the rest of the book, and was not at all surprised to learn of Scott’s Catholicism and her studies of Medieval mystery plays, both of which could be considered influences which added colour to her stories.
The volume
includes two stories by one “N. Dennett” which are now generally attributed to
Leys/Scott. Unburied Bane features a decrepit cottage containing a witch’s
skull whereas The Menhir takes us back to full-on folk horror
territory. I guess there are enough similarities
with the rest of the stories to justify the attribution but, whatever their
authorship, I felt that these two stories were more over the top than the rest
of the volume and, consequently, less to my liking.
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