SCOTTISH SEA MONSTER HORROR: ‘The Kelpie’ By Manly Wade Wellman
‘What was that Thing that rose up out of the little aquarium?–a brief tale of horror.’
— Weird Tales, July 1936
Welcome ….to…. Dweller of the Dark!
‘What was that Thing that rose up out of the little aquarium?–a brief tale of horror.’
— Weird Tales, July 1936
Welcome ….to…. Dweller of the Dark!
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
–Edgar Allan Poe (Annabel Lee)
I’ve broken the laws of man and God,
I’ve flung my gauntlet forth to the world.
I’ve turned from the ways that in youth I trod–
Yonder the Skull Flag flies unfurled.
–Robert E. Howard (A Buccaneer Speaks)
I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. –Lord Dunsany
#halloween #sea #love #horrorstories #witch #witchcraft #werewolf #books #booktube On winter nights, island folk whisper, when the waves roar and the oaks sway in the winds, The coppery moon heaves as a haunted galleon upon golden waves to roam, The beach trail weaves as a moonlit strand over the skull-white dunes, And the Sea Witch […]
‘For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.’ –Edgar Allan Poe (Annabel Lee)
I saw through the folds of animated jelly a great reddish sucker, or disk, lined with silver teeth. —Frank Belknap Long (The Ocean Leech)
“She’d turn her gaze briefly out at the frosted marshes and the drifts of snow which glittered on the beaches and estuaries. Then, those furnaced, ice-blue eyes returned to the sea with the fiercest intensity in her gaze. ”–Jeffrey LeBlanc (Curse of the Sea Witch)
Night, black as pitch and filled with the wailing of a dead wind, sank like a shapeless specter into the oily waters of the Indian Ocean, leaving a great gray expanse of sullen sea, empty except for a solitary speck that rose and dropped in the long swell.–“Stragella” Hugh B. Cave
I had faced death and weighed my chances in many a desperate venture, but never in one of this nature. I can swear I am no coward, yet this proposition of journeying back and forth across the borderland of death put the yellow fear upon me. –Jack London
Darkness came on; the wind moaned; the tide rose even higher, Round and round among the piles, swirling and gliding, went two grotesque shapes, two old friends, bobbing and nodding together at the bottom of the tomb-black pavilion,–Joseph Payne Brennan
The origin story of a classic cinema monster!-JL
The aged mariner may proclaim, “And on the first winter breaker…of Grand Isle’s coldest winter, Pierre Santiny plunged into the sea and was seen no more.”
Then, the teller of the tale may pause with haunting eyes as the fires crack in the bonfire, the sea roars, and the wind howls with possibly an ancient chime. With a whispering voice on the third crash of a wave they may even say, “But none on the island will ever say he died.”–JL
A legend haunts the town of Grand Isle. Aged mariners proclaim by roaring bonfires along the coast, “And on the first winter breaker…of Grand Isle’s coldest winter, Pierre Santiny plunged into the sea and was seen no more.”
Then, the teller of the tale may pause with haunting eyes as the fires crack in the bonfire, the sea roars, and the wind howls with possibly an ancient chime. With a whispering voice on the third crash of a wave they may even say, “But none on the island will ever say he died.”
Will Marty Santiny—son of Pierre Santiny, discover what really happened to his father? Or will the town continue to fear the legend of “The Mariner of Caminada Pass”?
It snatched beyond his reach at one fell swoop all that he most loved and enjoyed, destroying a thousand dreams, and painting the future a dull drab colour without hope. He was an idealist at heart, hating the sordid routine of the life he led as a business underling. His dreams were of the open air, of mountains, forests, and great plains, of the sea, and of the lonely
places of the world.