It easier than you’d think to have a nap on High Street in Glastonbury. Young, dreadlocked people do it quite a lot. Older dreadlocked or pony tailed people do it as well. I wanted a bed. The best place to find a place to stay in Glastonbury is the Tribunal on High Street. Actually the accommodation […]
Excerpts from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” 1595-96
https://youtu.be/rPD2vdtzZ3Y Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream is likely the most influential fairy tale of all time, albeit geared towards adults. It also gave us three of the most famous of all … Oberon, Titania and of course, Puck. Oberon has an odd provenance, starting with ties to the Merovingian dynasty, who are rumored by some to […]
Eating Poe: Poe in Baltimore, his last act on the mortal stage, living and dying in the shadow of the sea
And so we find Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore. Those who look to unravel the mystery of how Poe died here are chasing windmills or chasing a buck. There’s a good reason we’ll never know the truth about Poe in Baltimore on his fateful last visit. It’s none of our business. Dying is a private […]
The Secret of the Raven: At the end of Poe’s life, one finds the unexpected … hope
I spent much of the past eighteen months living with Edgar Allan Poe. I can’t say I knew the man when I first started. I had some travel experiences with him, basic biographical sketches and of course, his tales and poems. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to get into his skin. I needed his […]
The Ash Tree by M.R. James
M.R. James nearly always appears at the top of the lists for the best gothic horror story authors, and for good reasons. His Ghost Stories of an Antiquarian (1904) is perhaps one of the best collections of spine tingling short stories ever written. + + + Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the […]
Is it really the House of the Seven Gables? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way the Turner-Ingersoll mansion in Salem breathes New England history
“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted […]
A historic home in Salem finds its way into Lovecraft’s fiction
“I lied when I said she had gone away. I killed her. I had to. It was sudden, but we were alone and I was in my right body. I saw a candlestick and smashed her head in. She would have got me for good at Hallowmass. I buried her in the farther cellar storeroom under […]
A history of winter tales and Christmas ghost stories, to make the blood run wintery cold
CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES were a traditional part of the season’s festivities, and was greatly influenced by Washington Irving, most famous for his tale set in Sleepy Hollow. Above is Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, a place Irving incorporated into his own tale. “When I returned to the drawing-room, I found the company seated around the […]
