{"id":3159,"date":"2016-10-31T14:58:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T14:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=3159"},"modified":"2017-02-01T11:50:24","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T11:50:24","slug":"all-saints-eve-some-seasonal-scares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/all-saints-eve-some-seasonal-scares\/","title":{"rendered":"All Saints’ Eve: Some Seasonal Scares"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Haute Auvergne in France, three resting mountain herdsmen hear a hunting horn call from the ravine below. It is 1710, and the tale which follows will include death, passion, treachery and sacrifice. It is ‘All Saints’ Eve’,<\/em> by Amelia B Edwards<\/strong><\/span>, and it seemed fitting for today’s post, a mere three hundred and six years after the story is set. Oh, and we have news of The Arte Mephitic<\/em>, a new project by Phil Breach<\/strong> and Russell Olson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Ms Edwards first. We’re not going to give too many spoilers for the murder mystery which unfolds in ‘All Saints’ Eve’.<\/em> We first came across it in the Wordsworth collection of the same name (cover above)<\/em>, eight or so years ago, and that led us onto more of Edwards’ fiction. As these things go, we had previously thought of Amelia B Edwards<\/strong> (1831-1892) as an Egyptologist, which she was, and had paid little attention to her stranger fictions.<\/p>\n

“It was, in truth, an unburied corpse; part of the trunk only above the surface. They tried to lift it; but it had been so long underwater, and was in so advanced a state of decomposition, that to bring it to shore without a shautter was impossible.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

from ‘Was it an Illusion?’<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She was quite an admirable character, Amelia – forthright in her views on women’s suffrage, the leading female Egyptologist of her day and celebrated in that field long after her death. She travelled widely from the Upper Rhine to Abu Simbel on the Nile, and wrote extensively of her travels. A Thousand Miles up the Nile<\/em>, published in 1876, was widely admired and considered a definitive work on Egyptology. She was convinced of the need for scientific archaeology, rather than digging out sites to destruction, as so often happened. Rather fittingly, her grave in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Bristol, is an obelisk with an extremely large stone ankh set into the ground next to it.<\/p>\n

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Her private life seems to have been as lively as her professional one. Acquaintances said that she was involved with more than one other woman (in one case, she seemed to have formed a menage a trois). The eccentric, melancholic John Addington Symonds<\/strong> (1840 \u2013 1893), poet, historian and critic, said that she had spoken openly to him of her lesbianism. Both lived in Bristol for some time.<\/p>\n

Symonds, on the other hand, wrote on ‘Greek’ love for private circulation, had crushes and affairs with various blokes, and may be the first writer to use the term homosexual in English literature. This was in the 1890s, mind you, when you were supposed to keep that stuff out of the papers. Symonds shared many poetic works with Edwards, and his poem \u201cTo a Friend Leaving England in September\u201d<\/em> was originally dedicated \u201cTo A.B.E.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards wrote both novels and short stories. Our interest is in her odder stories, which vary from thrilling tales of dark deeds to the out-and-out supernatural. In some cases these are blended in the same tale. Perhaps her most well-known story is ‘The Phantom Coach’<\/em>, which concerns a young man struggling through the onset a snowstorm. Finding temporary shelter, he is advised of a local coach which might take him back to his wife twenty miles away \u2013 but what will he meet on the road?<\/p>\n

There are plenty of ways to find out. The Phantom Coach and Other Stories<\/em> is available on Project Gutenberg, and contains:<\/p>\n