Welcome, dear souls. For your delight – rural horror, a mythic film and an M R James card game. You find us in the middle of interviewing the Great and Good across the land. Between planning searing exposés, and hauling longdogs through endless mud, we’re feeling our age. And there’s writing to do, of course. So this is one of our traditional mid-week medleys – traditional except when we forget and do them on a weekend.
Longdognews is thin on the ground this afternoon, apart from the fact thatDjango has taken to rushing out into the garden at two in the morning and barking madly for no apparent reason. As he is normally a no-bark zone, this has us puzzled. Either the garden is filled with a malign presence which threatens our very reality, or the local cats are trying it on. If we become hollow shells filled only with the desire to corrupt and defile, we will know the answer. We will have become cats ourselves.
the true face of evil
Weird news, on the other hand, is plentiful. Our first mention goes to the endless saga that is our attempt to write about scary tales author, H R Wakefield. Never has an article divided our brain cells so dramatically. However, we did find something very interesting from old HRW which touches nicely on folk-horror and the supernatural in rural settings:
‘And don’t despise the rustic intelligence,’ exclaimed Palliser. ‘Its apparent sluggishness is often a sly pose. Those who divide the peasant often get a rude awakening, for there is a virtue and a mystery in his fields and streams unknown to the Nathans of Throgmorton Street. Frankly, the country often puts the wind up me, the Townee’s uneasy sense of intrusion. There is always something highly charged and formidable about the primitive. As we drove down today, we passed a wide meadow running up to the margin of a wood. There was a scarecrow in the middle of it—I never quite like scarecrows. If some mocking fellow who knew his runes dressed one and whispered in his ear as he set him up, he might scare more than birds. I wondered if that drôle in the field there was such a one. If so,’ he went on excitedly, ‘I’m not sure I’d like to walk out to him on a not quite dark night, fancying, perhaps, he had beckoned, so that you felt you had to pay him a visit. And when you reached him, gingerly tilting up his battered billycock, and—well, what might you find underneath, and how would you address such a one?’
H R Wakefield, The Alley (1940)
And we will be having folk-horror features on and off over the next few weeks.
####
The 77 Pages
Our second delight is from someone who is rapidly becoming the greydogtales Argentinian editor, Diego Arandojo of Lafarium. His film Las 77 Paginas, made in collaboration with Mauro Savarino, is now available for the first time with English subtitles. This 40 minute film is a fascinating mixture of myth, mysticism and fantasy which is hard to describe. It is at times surreal, at times quite moving.
Adapted from the official site:
“The Earth is in a dangerous geologic process: all the continents are moving back to the original Pangaea position, the first continent that arose more than 200 billion years ago. This will end in the extinction of the human race… A group called The Necessary Council presents itself before the UN, claiming to have the key for the salvation of the Humanity: a strange book of indeterminate age, which possesses on its pages the great secrets of the History and Science.”
Made primarily in Spanish, Las 77 Paginas nevertheless includes Hebrew, Mandarin, Latin and other languages, and has a weird vibe all of its own. We feel it proper to say that Las 77 Paginas is available to purchase as a DVD, so if you’re feeling virtuous, you should have a hunt around at:
There is a lot of weird and fascinating stuff there. Gradual Hate Records was founded in order to provide a breeding ground for Darkwave, Neo-Classical, Medieval, Dark Folk, Dark Ambient and Industrial music and related genres in Spain and the World.
Naturally, if you want to see what you might be getting, we have the English subtitle version right here, but don’t forget to support the creators if you find yourself into the scene.
####
Third out of the hat: A card game based on M R James, Monsters and Miscreants. Hmm, that’s different.
Basically you play an out-of-shape antiquarian on a bicycling holiday. One afternoon in Suffolk, you find an old manuscript inside a curious whistle on the beach. The runes on the manuscript, written by an 18th century Danish scholar, lead you to a cathedral full of hirsute spiders wearing unpleasant-smelling binoculars… no, we’re lying, as usual.
We have no idea how it works. We don’t even know why it works or what it’s like as a game. But we like the illustrations on the cards. That’s how simple we are.
Fourth and last today, a nod to another UK blog/website we discovered recently – Horrorblog, by Carrie Buchanan. Carrie is an audio artist who provides reviews and commentary on the world of horror. She also has dogs, which is a good start. We should warn you that one or two of the illustrations are a tad gruesome, but if you fancy a look at her reviews and so on, click below:
At the end of this week, a jolly interesting interview with folk-horror artist Paul Watson and lots of weird illustrations. Do call in, and remember – if you subscribe to greydogtales or follow me on facebook, it makes me no money whatsoever. But it does tell you what we post when we post it. So there’s that…
Lurchers for Beginners has always been fearless in its expose of the truth about lurchers, and so this time we face up to that stuff they have all over them – fox poo. No, we mean hair, but fox poo will come into it. What is dog hair, why should you care and what might you find in it?
The Hair Itself…
Many lurchers have a single layer of hair, and thus technically have hair coats rather than fur coats. A fur coat on a dog means two layers, the soft linty undercoat and the stiffer topcoat of ‘guard’ hairs. Or an owner with too much money and no respect for those passing mink.
a typical “smoothie”, dogs trust
This single layer is typical of greyhound/whippet ancestry. Such dogs have a short coat with limited shedding which needs little maintenance. Whilst anyone can be allergic to any dog, short-haired lurchers can be a good choice for the slightly sensitive amongst you. They are not, however, hypoallergenic like those fancy expensive animals produced by pointing a over-sexed poodle at another dog and letting go.
Short-haired lurchers are especially good for those people with inefficient vacuum cleaners. Most vacuum manufacturers have apparently never had more than one small hairless dog, despite the claims in the brochure. We’ve already lost two Dysons in the struggle, though we admit that they lasted longer than most. A wounded Dyson is a dangerous beast to confront…
Of course, as you can produce a lurcher simply by putting a sighthound and any other dog of the opposite sex in a motel with romantic lighting and free sausages, you could have ended up with a lurcher who has a full fur coat.
a typical “roughie”
Greyhounds bred with terriers or collies may produce all sorts of tangly rug effects, whilst the presence of deerhound often provides a sort of ‘wiry’ look to the coat. We once had a Bedlington, greyhound and godknowswhat cross who managed to shed both long grey hairs and soft white ones absolutely everywhere. This produces small lurcher clones in every corner of the house (more of which another time). Grooming is even more important in such cases.
“greyhound brindle coat”, scott robinson
Even short-haired lurchers benefit from a regular brushing down. This keeps the coat clean and remove some of the hairs which would later be shed – before they clog the vacuum filter. With the longer haired lurcher, grooming also allows you to find missing lego, bubblegum, sticking plasters, houseplants and other detritus – maybe even that remote control for the DVD.
The downside is that with no real undercoat and thin skin, lurchers can need extra wrapping in winter (and on those family trips to the Arctic Circle to work out where all the penguins went*). It is now extremely easy to purchase a second ‘coat’, which has many benefits. Your expensive designer dog jacket will:
absorb mud and stinky water much better than your dog, and cost more to clean;
amuse passing pedestrians, who seem to have far more opinions about your dogs than they should have;
come halfway undone and trail along after your dog, gathering additional mud;
give your male dog hours of fun pulling it off because he doesn’t like the strap near his bits.
Also remember that lurchers are a Funny Shape, as someone put it. Standard dog coats will not fit, being either too tight over that deep chest or too loose around that narrow tummy. And lurchers who do zoomies require well-fastened coats, or you will find the two parting company in seconds.
It may sometimes be better to shove your lurcher into an old pullover and abandon dreams of style. Please remember that early experimental techniques such as spraying dogs with a layer of teflon, or covering them entirely in saddle-wax for three months of the year, are no longer recommended.
We did once consider using squirrel-fur coats for winter protection, in order to produce a lurcher which chased itself 24 hours a day, but we relented at the last minute.
*they’re at the Antarctic, silly.
Variations in hair/fur colouration deserve an illustrated essay in their own right, so we’ll ignore them for the moment. Unless you’re obsessed with adding highlights and blue-rinses, we consider whatever nature provides in the way of dog hair colour to be quite adequate. Brindled, merled, saddled, spotted and unicolour make no difference to the quality of the hair coat and what you find stuck in it (although we do love a brindle).
Important note for new lurcher owners: If you have a lurcher with saddleback markings, and he or she is gaining a lot of weight, do make sure that you haven’t been sold a porker.
this is not a lurcher (champion from s h ashcroft)
Which is where we come to the second half of today’s entry…
… And Things You Find In It
1) Fox Poo
It’s hardly fair to blame lurchers for this one, but they do have a magnetic attraction to the stuff. The classic sign is the ‘shoulder rub and slide’ on a piece of grass, which means that your dog is happily smearing odiferous fox droppings into its coat. If you’re fortunate, the fox will have been constipated. You will see the fox walking in an awkward manner and searching back-gardens for discarded packets of Ex-Lax. The poo will be firm and of limited interest. If not, as happens with so many urban foxes who eat random bin contents, the poo will be messy or slimy, and ideal for spreading.
a fox hunting for the toilet paper
One added advantage of the ‘shoulder rub and slide’ is that the poo also gets on the underneath of the collar, but you miss that bit. You wash the dog itself, but then spend days wondering where the stink is coming from.
Rather obviously, pet shampoo is a must. Fox poo really does linger. Despite suggestions that tomato ketchup works wonders, a lurcher (and house) smeared with tomato ketchup is still a major cleaning job, so you might as well just deal with the fox poo directly.
2) Half the garden
‘Half the garden’ can be broken down into three easy sections:
2.1) Mud
The lurcher is God’s way of moving your flowerbed into your living room without divine intervention. Due to constant charges into the night and excited zoomies, lurchers are particularly efficient at churning up a mud path and then bringing it in to show you.
Mud from your garden is normally just mud. Wash it off, rub it off with a towel or let it fall off. We rub it off because washing towels is easier than washing three dogs.
Mud from the world outside your garden may not be just mud, and is therefore best washed/rubbed off straight after walkies. You don’t know what’s in it.
Our dogs are constantly coming home covered in goosegrass (cleavers etc) seeds and other burr-like things which are quietly using the lurchers as a transport system to get away from their parents and breed somewhere else. Even goosegrass doesn’t want to stay with its mum all its life. Apart from invading your garden or sticking to your cardigans, most of these are Harmless.
2.3) Seeds That Can Be Horrid
kirk mckoy/los angeles times
On a more serious note, do watch out for certain grass seeds, such as those of foxtail and similar grasses. Some of the hairy pointy ones can get caught in sensitive areas and burrow under the skin, hurting and eventually doing serious damage. Three key areas to check are:
Between the pads of the paws. The seed can tangle with soft fur and go through the thinner skin there, causing pain and inflammation.
The ears. If a grass seeds reaches the ear canal, it will do the same thing – working its way in towards the ear drum, again with nasty consequences if it gets embedded.
The nose. They can get stuck up there after your dog has been snuffling in long grass.
Don’t panic, though. At the earliest stage, where you can see most of it on the surface, gently pull the seed out and clean the affected area. Best to get professional help if you think a seed may have got stuck somewhere sensitive and is really getting in there. Don’t leave it too late, because grass seeds don’t show up on X-rays and it’s hard to work out where they’re going.
Other things found in hair are relevant to most dog types, but we feel obliged to mention the common ones below.
3) Paint
Some lurchers, lacking an undercoat, try to make their own using Dulux. Our dogs have the unerring ability to find any bit of wall or skirting board we have recently painted and rub against it. Warm water, patience and occasionally a pair of scissors are the answer.
4) Flakes of Dandruff
There are two main brands of dandruff.
– Stationary dandruff, seborrhea, usually means dry skin, but we’re not vets. If your lurcher gets a lot of it, ask a professional. Human anti-dandruff shampoos are too harsh, but you can get doggie ones. And brushing can help move natural oils around and encourage oil production.
a mite photo of no real use – but if you find a mite this actual size, do ring the police immediately
– Moving dandruff is much more exciting, and means that your lurcher has mites. Known as Cheyletiella, these mites amble about on the surface layer of the dog, raising flakes of skin. Very contagious, though not often serious. We’ve never had them, but they can be treated with various commercial preparations. They do need treating because they will spread to all the other animals, and can even hang around for a while on people.
5) Fleas
Fleas are great fun and can easily be trained to ride miniature bicycles and work long hours in flea circuses before getting unionised and demanding health care…
No, wait a moment, that’s in stories. Real fleas are a damned nuisance who make the dog itch, you itch and lay their eggs all over the place. They can spread tapeworms, and they start itchy patches which can later become sore and infected.
Dealing with the dog is relatively easy, with a range of specific products available. Dealing with the rest of house, dog bedding and other items can be achieved by pouring petrol over everything and living in a caravan in the garden for the rest of your life. If you have an allergy to petrol, try the more boring approach of washing the bedding, vacuuming madly and using safe flea treatments – dusting powders, topical applications and repellents.
Due to quantum physics and the speed of light at sea-level, or perhaps something else, flea infestations hang around for a while. There will be flea eggs, elite Special Forces fleas who can hide for longer in dense carpet undergrowth and so on. Keep on top of it, or you’ll be scratching again.
Do we need to say that we don’t mean the petrol bit? This is, of course, extremely unsafe, especially if your lurcher knows where the matches are kept…
6) Ticks
We don’t like ticks. Sheep-ticks and other varieties (such as deer ticks) are found on moorland, in long grass, bracken and some woodlands and gardens. As lurchers run around actively, often where you don’t want them to, ticks are worth a mention. The last one we found was on a tortoise, which was surprising as we didn’t realise that he knew any sheep, or that he went fell-walking. His circle of friends was clearly wider than we thought.
Ticks embed their mouthparts in your dog’s skin (or yours) and feed on the blood. When they’re full they drop off. Charming. They can be harmless, but some carry nasty bugs like Lyme Disease.
Never squeeze or put pressure on the main body of the tick, as they have a habit of throwing up. The blood and digestive juices which result can carry infection into the dog’s bloodstream (or even yours). Ticks are a pain. Despite various folk-lore suggestions, the best thing to do is to use a tick-removal tool or a pair of narrow-nosed pliers, grasping the tick around the forebody right behind the head.
esccap photo
Check out somewhere like this site for actual advice:
Hmm – that last bit wasn’t very funny, was it, listeners? We considered adding jokes about how many sheep-ticks it takes to change a light-bulb and so on, but they didn’t quite work. So It’s Just Not Fur! has its limitations. We don’t get paid for writing this, you know. As always, don’t take our word for anything. Double-check it or find a friendly vet.
If you do have further questions about lurchers or longdogs, feel free to send them in. We’ll decide what to do next:
If they’re interesting questions, we’ll answer them on here in our usual inadequate way. We may also be sarcastic or drift off topic, so you have been warned.
If they’re serious medical questions, we’ll have no clue what to say and tell you that you’re on the wrong web-site. Most of our dogs reach old age by being stubborn, not because of our genius-level knowledge.
Next time: Weird odds & sods that didn’t fit into the articles. Sorry, what we meant to say was: A magical miscellany for your entertainment…
We like history. We like real history (if there is such a beast), and we like weird, invented history as well. So today’s broadcast starts with Santiago Caruso, the talented Argentinian illustrator mentioned on here before. Why? Because of Sir Edward Grey. We are greydogtales, our first new Carnacki story was Grey Dog and we’ve just completed the novella A Study in Grey. We couldn’t resist this one.
This post will go backwards. It may make more sense than our forward ones. The other day our enormous South American intelligence network (OK, mostly Diego Arandojo and Sebastian Cabrol) alerted us that Santiago Caruso had illustrated an edition of the comic Abe Sapien from Dark Horse. Abe Sapien #30 – Witchcraft and Demonology, to be precise.
As far as we know this is Caruso’s first major comics project, and it looks fabulous. Much of his main body of work is dark, even surreal, and his style really suits the comic.
santiago caruso
But who or what is Abe Sapien? Comics enthusiasts will know the character from Mike Mignola‘s various series concerning Hellboy, who first appeared in 1993 in a promotional short produced with John Byrne. Abe Sapien himself had his own first spin-off comics outing in 1998, in Drums of the Dead.
santiago caruso
Film fans will know him, in a slightly different version, from the original 2004 Hellboy film and the sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008).
Abraham Sapien was born as Langdon Everett Caul, became a scientist in Victorian times, and ended up the way he is because of experiments performed on him after an encounter with an aquatic deity/monster. These occult experiments were conducted by the Oannes Society. There are two great things about this information.
The first is the old sailor’s legend that people born with a caul around their faces will never drown (the caul is part of the birth membrane, and occasionally has to be removed from the new-born). These were once prized by mariners, who thought they brought good luck and protected them from death at sea. Given that Abe Sapien is amphibious and potentially immortal, the surname Caul was well chosen.
mike mignola (we think)
The second is that Oannes is, of course, another name for Dagon, beloved of H P Lovecraft and those who wrote after him – and a Middle-Eastern deity who had the form of both fish and man. Dagon is also the God of the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible. Oannes was supposed to rise from the waters and bring artistic and scientific gifts to mankind.
As part of Mignola’s Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence, Abe, Hellboy and others protect America from paranormal and supernatural threats. And in that role they encounter, yes, you guessed it, Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder. You knew it would make sense, didn’t you? No? Oh well.
We have a declared interest in characters who survive beyond their natural years through one method or another. We always loved Adam Adamant, the TV series where an Edwardian adventurer was frozen in a block of ice and thawed out in the 1960s. It had a great theme tune, too, sung by Kathy Kirby – and Juliet Harmer as Georgina Jones was gorgeous, too.
Our own Last Edwardian and erstwhile friend of Carnacki the Ghost Finder, Henry Dodgson, is still around today, but without the intervention of occultism, paranormal experiments, aliens, genetics or involuntary refrigeration.
Anyway, Sir Edward Grey. Another Victorian, like Abe, and more commonly known as the Witchfinder, Sir Edward is not only an occult detective but gifted with supernatural powers of his own. The Witchfinder comics began with the five part In the Service of Angels, written by Mike Mignola and drawn by Ben Stenbeck, published in 2009. If you don’t know this, Kim Newman, that well-known critic and author of the weird, took hold of some of the writing reins in 2014 for another five-parter, The Mysteries of Unland, written with Maura McHugh.
In short, after some occult detecting of his own, Sir Edward is asked by Queen Victoria to become a special agent of the crown, looking into the paranormal, supernatural and downright icky. He is knighted after foiling an assassination attempt on the queen, and goes on to investigate the foul activities of various warlocks, witches and vampires, becoming increasingly concerned about the plans of certain occult brotherhoods.
After leaving the queen’s service, he has his own occult detective practice in London, and is active there during the Edwardian period. We have a sneaking feeling that Sir Edward should have (and may have) met Carnacki, although their techniques would have probably had them at odds.
Unlike Carnacki, who definitively disappeared after “the incident” on Roulston Scar (that’s our story, and we’re sticking with it), the Sir Edward Grey of the comics reappears a century later. This time he seems more of a supernatural figure himself, masked, robed and mysterious with some cracking warlockian powers. In this incarnation he can be found in Hellboy in Hell, an ongoing series scripted again by Mike Mignola, with art by Dave Stewart.
But Edwardian is our game for the moment, which links to our next, slightly more real Sir Edward Grey (1862 – 1933), who was the UK’s Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, – and thus in Government at the time when William Hope Hodgson was writing. He was also there when Henry Dodgson, Abigail Jessop and our other characters were carrying on the work of Cheyne Walk, of course.
Rather excitingly, our novella A Study in Grey completely fails to mention that the background of the Balkans crisis (discussed therein) would have been coloured by Sir Edward Grey’s negotiations with Russia. Sir Edward hoped that Britain, France and Russia would provide a brake to the ambitions of the Germans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Had we dwelt on this aspect, of course, much snoring and bored muttering would have occurred. So we left it out.
There is a chance you already know him, but probably not by name. This is the chap who stood looking out over a London evening at the outbreak of World War One and uttered the famous words:
“The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”
A Liberal politician and, we think, the longest serving Foreign Secretary in British history. Thrilling, eh? Nothing like a bit of period detail.
So who is the third Sir Edward Grey? That’s the easiest of the lot. As you will have been taught in school, Sir Edward Grey (c. 1415–1457) was the father of Sir John Grey of Groby, whose wife Elizabeth Woodville later married King Edward IV of England. Got that? There will be a test next week.
lady jane grey
Such a lineage makes Sir Edward, yes, the great-great-great-grandfather of Lady Anne Grey, who at the age of sixteen or seventeen managed to be Queen of England for nine days.
Rather unfortunately she was executed in 1554, having done nothing wrong except being a Protestant and in the way of the Catholic “Bloody Mary”. Mary’s nickname came from her rather unpleasant habit of burning Protestant dissenters at the stake – almost 300 of them. Luckily for some, Elizabeth I came along not long after, which was extremely handy given that this was the Elizabethan Age. What are the chances, eh?
We have kept our promise. Three Sir Edward Greys, and another record for the greydogtales archives. Thank you for listening, and goodnight.
On this channel next week – a dead author or two, and lurchers. Must have lurchers…
No lurcher posts for nearly two weeks. Boo hiss. Next week we’ll have a new chapter of Lurchers for Beginners. But for now, grit your teeth. We have a really weird special for you – books, paintings, film and music. What connects writers Roger Zelazny and Edgar Wallace, the actor Boris Karloff, Greek vampires, the artist Roger Dean, the composer Rachmaninoff and the most influential Art Nouveau typeface/font? M’shimba M’shamba knows…
This is a trail which began many years ago. For decades we have recommended Roger Zelazny, and in the process cited his novel Lord of Light as one of the most inventive and wonderful SF/F novels ever written. It isn’t exactly written sequentially, it doesn’t base itself on European myths, and how much of it is SF, how much is fantasy, is up to the reader. It’s full of religious and social truths, but riddled with human failings and hopes. We used to buy multiple copies so we could give them to people, on the grounds that they’d never follow up a drunken recommendation at 2 in the morning.
But this article isn’t about Lord of Light. We just had to get it in, as usual. The book we’re on is Zelazny’s Isle of the Dead (1969). Months ago we mentioned those interesting but dubious works of Edgar Wallace, the Sanders of the River stories. And particularly his African God of Storms, M’shimba M’shamba, who strides in thunder:
“M’shimba M’shamba was abroad, walking with his devastating feet through the forest, plucking up great trees by their roots and tossing them aside…”
Isle of the Dead is science fiction, except that it may also be a religious morality tale. Put briefly, it concerns Francis Sandow (who appears in two other Zelazny stories), a man who has bonded with – or become possessed by – a deity from the pantheon of the dying but long-lived alien race, the Pei’ans. Don’t worry, there won’t be questions at the end.
Sandow is a human who has survived through centuries as a result of suspended animation. He is immensely rich, and as a result of his bonding with the Pei’an god, a telepath and worldscaper who can terraform and transform planets. He is the only non-Pei’an ever to have taken on the aspects of a deity. On one of his planets, he re-creates what he calls “that mad painting by Boecklin, The Isle of the Dead.” This island is the scene for the final confrontation between Sandow and his enemies.
Apart from wanting to know more about the painting he mentions, we were struck by the fact that the alien deity involved was Shimbo of Darktree, Shrugger of Thunders, whose powers in the novel seem to be identical to those ascribed to M’shimba M’shamba in the Sanders cycle. Had Roger Zelazny read the Sanders and Bones stories? Shimba → Shimbo? We don’t suppose we’ll ever know, unless someone comes up with a letter in which Zelazny says “Got drunk and bored, nicked Edgar’s god. I have this idea about an island…”
Whatever the answer, Zelazny’s Isle of the Dead is a cracking bit of SF/fantasy if you like a change. It does need more than one read if you want to really take in the Pei’an and religious/moral bits properly. You can either get the paperback second-hand, or get the e-book version below:
Now, back to the Isle of the Dead (the painting), and the key link to everything.
böcklin self-portrait
Arnold Böcklin (1827 – 1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter who produced at least five versions of this painting between 1880 and 1886. A number of his works have a weird vibe, but this one is particularly on our wavelength. Böcklin himself described it as “a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door.” Rather than describe it, here are a couple of the versions to consider for yourself:
The isle is said to reflect two distinct real-life sources. Three versions were painted at and influenced by the English Cemetery in Florence, close to Böcklin’s studio:
The source of the overall image is supposedly the island of Pontikonisi, just off Corfu. Pontikonisi not only fits the outline, but it has an 11th century Byzantine chapel on it, surrounded by cypresses:
pontikonisi
As an aside, in Greek storytelling, Odysseus’s boat is said to have been transformed into the island of Pontikonisi by the sea god Poseidon. Bet you didn’t know that. Or really need to.
Ace Books later commissioned Dean Ellis to do a new cover for Zelazny’s book, drawing on the Böcklin painting for inspiration:
dean ellis
Böcklin’s other paintings vary in their subject matter, but the two below seem perfect as inspirations for ghost stories in the style of M R James or his peers:
campagna romanamondscheinlandschaft mit ruine
Unfortunately his later Isle of Life, painted in 1888, is quite frankly disappointing, proving that the Devil has all the best tunes, or something like that.
Nabokov also references the Isle of the Dead in his novel Despair, but sadly we haven’t read it. And we don’t why anyone would want to know this, but the painting features a number of times in the US TV series Pretty Little Liars, and may be a clue. A clue to what we have no idea, as we’ve never watched it.
Which brings us to the horror film TheIsle of the Dead, starring Boris Karloff. It is 1912, during the First Balkan War, and General Pherides (Karloff) visits his wife’s grave on a small Greek island. As so often happens when you do this sort of thing, someone dies, there is fear of disease, his wife’s tomb is empty and a young girl on the island is suspected of being a vampiric creature called a vorvolakas. We had a Tuesday like that last week. You can see from the screenshot below how this film was influenced by Böcklin.
If you add fear of premature burial, a brooding atmosphere on the island and septicaemic plague to the vorvolakas myth, you get a pretty good horror film, more a moody classic than an out-and-out shocker.
Vorvolakas, or vrykolakas, are interesting in their own right. The Isle of the Dead film is unusual for using this Greek folk myth rather than going for the standard vampire. Because they crop up all over the Balkans under similar names, there are contradictory tales about them being werewolves, vampires or even werewolves who have become vampires.
Note that vorvolakas do not have to be blood-drinkers, and they are not Bram Stoker-type vampires. No capes or pointy fangs. Mentions of vorvolakas in literature go back at least as far as De quorundam Graecorum Opinationibus by Allatios (1645). They are, in essence, part of the widespread fear of dead people rising from the grave to cause mischief or bodily harm to the living.
The animated corpses can rise on every day but Saturday, and on that day they can be killed. Burning was a good way to do that; piercing the heart with iron nails was another one. Prevention was by burying the corpse upside down, or by leaving a coin in its mouth, a metal cross in the coffin or a sickle at its throat, approaches which are echoed across other parts of Europe. A particularly neat legend is that a vorvolakas will knock once on your door, and if you do not answer, will pass by. So always wait for the second knock, listeners.
We promised Rachmaninoff, though, and we shall deliver. Isle of the Dead (Opus 29) is his romantic symphonic poem inspired by seeing a version of Böcklin’s painting in Paris. He saw the black and white version, and wrote his tone-poem in 1908. After he saw a colour version later, he was rather disappointed, and said that he might not have written Opus 29 if he’d seen that one first. Have a listen – it starts slow, but it’s pretty powerful after a while.
If you’re classically inclined, five years later the composer Max Reger (1873 – 1916) also wrote Die Toteninsel as one of four tone-poems inspired by Böcklin.
If you’re not classically inclined, you might be more excited by the fact that exactly 100 years after Arnold Böcklin finished his last version of The Isle of the Dead, the heavy metal band Manilla Road recorded their own. We have, however, no idea if Manilla Road were Böcklin fans at the time. Perhaps they wandered into an art gallery whilst stoned and had one of those “Oooh!” moments.
Our final major rabbit from the hat (approved by Animal Welfare) connection is that in 1904, Otto Weisert produced the typeface called Arnold Böcklin, which went on to become the best known Art Nouveau typeface and font, one you will have seen all over the place on posters and book covers. It was also used by the SF, fantasy and album cover artists Roger Dean.
By the way, there is even a Giger metallo-organic version of Isle of the Dead, which really has to be included here.
In light of all of this, we can only end by saying “Thanks, Arnold.”
####
End-Note Thingy: As often happens in these excursions, long after putting this article together bit by bit, we discovered a site devoted to looking at some of the influence of The Isle of the Dead painting – Toteninsel.net. This would have been a Good Thing to find before we started, and would have made life a lot easier.
That’s it. We are so weighed down by writing commitments, interviews we’ve haven’t planned out properly and being dragged through six-inch deep mud by longdogs that we have no idea what is to come next time…
