Gotico Rurale
Racconti 2000 - 2024
by Eraldo Baldini
I’ve had occasion to argue in other posts on this blog that, while the term “folk horror” is primarily associated with the British literary and cinematic landscape, the genre finds clear parallels in other cultures. In Italy in particular, legends of witchcraft and pagan survivals, together with fog-bound plains and abandoned post-industrial hinterlands, provide fertile ground for “folk horror”. Though perhaps underrated, this is a rich tradition, rooted in the lore of Italy’s regions, transmitted through the anthropological studies of Carlo Ginzburg and the journalistic and literary curiosity of Dino Buzzati, and later revived in the cinematic and literary works of figures such as Pupi Avati, Danilo Arona and, from a younger generation, Luigi Musolino.
Against this backdrop, Eraldo Baldini emerges as a key figure. Born in 1952, Baldini specialised in cultural anthropology and ethnography, publishing research on Italian folk traditions, particularly Romagnol myths and rituals, before turning to fiction that blends a noirish atmosphere with Italian lore. Baldini’s short story collection Gotico Rurale, first published in 2000, then reissued in an expanded edition with six new stories in 2012 and further augmented with two additional stories in 2024, is a seminal contribution to the genre. So much so, indeed, that its title (literally meaning “rural Gothic”) has come to serve as the Italian equivalent of “folk horror”.
The collection is therefore certainly worth reading for its central role in Italian folk horror, and because it contains the story that marked Baldini’s first venture into fiction, Re di Carnevale. This tale, which follows a city journalist sent to cover the revelries of a traditional carnival in a remote village, with the tragic consequences one might expect, won its author the Premio “Gran Giallo Città di Cattolica” in 1991 and set him on a literary course that drew deeply on his earlier anthropological work.
Considered on its own merits, however, and set aside
from its “historical” significance, the collection proves rather uneven.
Baldini is at his best when he harnesses the tropes of folk horror and
transposes them to an Italian setting, often grounding them in specific
regional folklore. This is the case in Nella Nebbia, which reworks the
Po Valley legend of the Borda, a supernatural being that lures children to a
watery death, and in La Befana vien di Notte, which lends a darker edge
to the familiar figure of the Befana.
He is similarly effective when he situates his stories
in the past, lending them a historical dimension, as in Urla nel Grano,
whose protagonist is a veteran of the First World War, and La Collina dei
Bambini, with its allusions to the “Children’s Crusade”.
Other pieces, however, have little to do with the Gothic. While their inclusion may be justified on grounds of variety and tonal contrast, they arguably dilute the collection’s overall impact. I am thinking in particular of the darkly comic (but entirely non-supernatural) Country Fight Club; A Volte Sbagliano, a humorous spy story; and I Denti del Nonno, which contains elements of the grotesque or body horror but lacks any genuine folk-horror atmosphere.
Gotico Rurale,
then, is certainly worth seeking out, especially as an introduction both to the
eponymous Italian genre and to the fiction of Eraldo Baldini. Whether it will
fully satisfy dedicated folk horror enthusiasts is, however, another matter.
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