Benson can be a pious bore, but though his tale has a strong Christian flavour, it still manages a couple of disturbing moments. The title and reviews made me think that "folk horror" was the rural equivalent of "urban legends," scary stories told by people in rural areas as if they were true. And what wonders could be dug from the soil of Africa, Australasia, and Scandinavia and rendered with the imagery of Richard Wells? Ez azonban nem változtat azon, hogy a legtöbben annyit fognak fel ebből a gondolatmenetből, hogy vidéken tisztább, szebb és derűsebb az élet, az emberek mind szeretik egymást, a családtagok összetartanak, a halált és a születést egy körforgás részeként, harmóniában élik meg, az egyénieskedő elhajlásokat jótékonyan megfékezi a hagyományokon őrködő közösség, az agressziót pedig kiélik kapálás közben.

A richly illustrated anthology which gathers classic short stories from masters of supernatural fiction including M. Also interesting seeing past centuries' perception of Halloween, and some folklore/practices I was not aware of such as sin eating. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, Arthur Machen, Edith Nesbit, Shirley Jackson, Robert Louis Stevenson y Robert Aickman. Primarily working in the television industry, he has provided graphic props for the likes of Poldark, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and the 2020 BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I'm quite surprised to see other reviews mentioning small typeface or other issues with clarity, as to me this looks great, a really attractive book with clear care and attention to layout, font, font size and so on.

Lots of the stories were completely new to me, which is great: a personal favourite now has to be Man-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit, a ferociously economical, chilling little tale of history intruding upon newcomers who don't know how to play by the rules. When I heard it was being crowd-funded I was a bit wary of what the quality would be like, but there’s no complaint here.

Relatos ambientados en aldeas remotas, castillos abandonados e islas perdidas donde habitan extraños personajes, cultos paganos y dioses malévolos. A couple were written in such thick dialect they were difficult to read and a couple just seemed to meander off and not go anywhere. Illustrated by the editor's great woodcut-style drawings, Damnable Tales is a first-rate anthology of stories that fall under the wide folk horror umbrella. The book includes a foreword by the author Benjamin Myers, amongst whose gritty novels The Gallows Pole has made an impression on many folk horror revivalist readers (and which has been adapted to screen by Shane Meadows and the BBC), and that’s another box ticked in its favour.It has the feel of a genuine folk narrative, and shows that Le Fanu wasn't finished after 'In a Glass Darkly'. The Withered Arm was also a very interesting story, with almost a time travel/sensing the future paradox of the two main characters harming each other unintentionally, in ways that depend on the actions of the other. Wicked witches, bad fairies, and the restless dead be damned, for those who are looking to fill up their folk horror fiction shelves, Damnable Tales is a must-have. One star off for the misleading title, and for the structure of the book: very thick and square, making it difficult to open wide enough to read the stories without breaking the binding.

And while the hustle and bustle of modern life means we often think ourselves far removed from a world haunted by pixies and ghouls… Are we really that far from horror?I had never seen a Folk Horror anthology before, and especially one that was so beautifully illustrated. Sheridan Le Fanu's dark fairy tale, 'Laura Silver-Bell' is also hard going on a first read (even the narrator apologises for the Northumbrian dialect) but stick with it. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. There are 23 short stories in this volume, and each is accompanied by its own newly commissioned woodcut style lino print at the beginning of each tale.