Historically accurate or otherwise, it would be madness to deny the impact the Arthurian Legends have had on folklore and literature throughout the UK and Europe and other parts of the globe.

So, I thought you might be interested to discover that some historians believe that they may have discovered Arthur’s legendary ‘Round Table’ — except, that it’s not a table…

But rather than it being a piece of furniture, historians believe it would have been a vast wood and stone structure which would have allowed more than 1,000 of his followers to gather.

For the whole article, vist: Historians locate King Arthur’s Round Table, Daily Telegraph

Aside from making me very thankful that I have never had to spend a night on an island like Shutter Island, the movie got me thinking about why islands feature heavily in scary stories.

What is it about islands that makes scaring the pants off people such an easy task?

Far away from anywhere familiar…

To begin with, scary stories are usually about isolation.

This isolation isn’t always necessarily physical – at times it can be emotional or psychological – but in most scary stories the main characters are cut off from the ‘normal’ world in some way.

Perhaps they work late at night in a spooky building when everyone else has gone home; or perhaps they took a wrong turn down a country road and they are now far away from anywhere familiar. Regardless of exactly how the story delivers the characters into the scary situation, one of the basic rules of many scary stories is that the characters must be cut off from the world they understand.

Islands, then, are a perfect setting for a sense of isolation. What could be more isolated than being physically broken off from the ‘normal’ world by savage and dangerous seas? Being stuck on an island means that any real escape is much more difficult, if not entirely impossible – and so the characters must make a stand against the menace that is threatening them.

The only rule is that there are no rules…

Another common element of scary stories is that the ‘rules’ are changed. The characters can’t expect to be able to solve problems in simple, ‘normal’ ways. They must cope – or, in stories where characters are killed one-by-one, fail to cope – with the fact that they can’t rely on familiar mechanisms to save them.

In scary stories set on an island, it’s very easy to change the rules. All you really need is a very bad storm, and suddenly an isolated setting is entirely cut off from the outside world.

When the bad storm hits the island, the phone lines are down, the seas are too dangerous to navigate, the power generators have been destroyed, help can’t reach you for hours or perhaps even days. You are stuck on the island and there is simply no hope of rescue.

The rules of the ‘normal’ world no longer apply, and you must now fight for your very survival [1].

Like the back of his murderous hand…

And a final element that makes scary stories set on islands even scarier is the fact that the bad guy often knows the island much better than the main characters.

Because an island represents a limited landscape, the bad guy can move from place to place with relative ease. He knows exactly what to do to eliminate any remaining remote chance of escape or rescue [2]. He knows when to attack, and where to hide when the tables are turned. He can fade like a ghost into the forest, and he can make his way into locked rooms through secret tunnels and passages that everyone else has forgotten about.

For most of the story he is seemingly invincible, and the island almost seems to conspire with him to eliminate the characters, one-by-one.

Back on dry land…

For all that islands often represent a menacing locality in books, television series and movies, the comforting reality is that very few psychos have gone about murdering entire island communities during very bad storms.

In fact, after trolling for a couple of hours through newspaper databases, I haven’t been able to find a single reference to a situation that seems anything like the standard ‘remote island, bad storm, psycho gets stabby with everyone,’ plot.

When you think about it, that’s probably a good thing, because something like that would be hell on tourism.

That isn’t to say that there have never been any disquieting mysteries relating to islands. If you’d like to explore the topic further, you might like to read about the entire colony that vanished from Roanoke Island, North Carolina, somewhere between 1587 and 1590, or perhaps about the mystery of what, exactly, is buried on Oak Island, Nova Scotia.

Footnotes:

1.	In fact, the plot device of ‘the very bad storm is on its way’ is so common in scary stories that if I lived on an island, I think I’d be pushing my boat into the water and heading for the mainland on any days when it was even just slightly cloudy…
	Return
2.	The two-way radio is destroyed, the boats in the harbour are sunk, the lighthouse has been disabled.
	Return

Linkage: Murray’s Google Buzz Profile

Footnotes:

1.	Despite my inexcusable neglect of it over recent months! Seriously, it amazes me that anyone still visits…
	Return

I thought I’d share a poem I was asked to read at my Father’s funeral service on Christmas Eve, this year.

It’s called Where the pelican builds its nest, by Mary Hannay Foott.

It speaks very much of my Father’s lifelong love of Australian poetry, and also gently tugs at a deep sense of longing and perhaps also of regret.

Where the pelican builds its nest

by Mary Hannay Foott

The horses were ready, the rails were down,
But the riders lingered still —
One had a parting word to say,
And one had his pipe to fill.

Then they mounted, one with a granted prayer,
And one with a grief unguessed.
"We are going," they said, as they rode away —
"Where the pelican builds her nest!"

They had told us of pastures wide and green,
To be sought past the sunset’s glow;
Of rifts in the ranges by opal lit;
And gold ‘neath the river’s flow.

And thirst and hunger were banished words
When they spoke of that unknown West;
No drought they dreaded, no flood they feared,
Where the pelican builds her nest!

The creek at the ford was but fetlock deep
When we watched them crossing there;
The rains have replenished it thrice since then,
And thrice has the rock lain bare.

But the waters of Hope have flowed and fled,
And never from blue hill’s breast
Come back — by the sun and the sands devoured —
Where the pelican builds her nest.

Probably the most striking difference I’ve discovered thus far is that unlike many folk stories I’ve previously read, these folk tales don’t seem to particularly mind what you might think of as an unfair outcome [2].

A wonderful example of this comes from the tale entitled And Seven! [3], which recounts the story of a fat and lazy young woman who is courted by a young man. The young man gives his prospective bride 3 tasks to do, with the promise that he will marry her if she completes all 3 tasks. Being fat and lazy (so the story goes), the young woman doesn’t even attempt any of the tasks, but at the very last moment before each task is due to be completed, a different powerful witch [4] arrives on the scene to save the day. Each of the 3 witches asks only one thing in return — that the young woman remembers the witch’s name, and calls her on the wedding day to join in the feast. They each promise the young woman that they will reveal the secret that she did none of the tasks herself if they are not so summoned.

Of course, when the wedding is due the young woman has completely forgotten the names of the 3 witches and it is only because her groom recounts to her a story of meeting 3 witches, who called each other by name, that she is able to summon the witches to the feast, thus keeping her bargain with them.

The story ends with the fat and lazy woman living happily ever after, without once in the tale behaving in a way in which she might have earned that life.

∗∗∗

There are other tales with surprising outcomes in the collection — a favourite of mine so far is the tale of Dauntless Little John, who, though tiny, is so fearless that he spends the night in a cursed castle in which all others who have braved a stay have been found dead of fright by the next morning.

By living through the frightening experiences of the night, Dauntless Little John inherits the castle and a vast treasure and lives happily, until one day he sees his own shadow and… dies of fright! [5]

∗∗∗

If, like me, you have a love of folk tales from around the world, keep an eye out for Calvino’s collection. It appears to be filled with stories of the charming and unexpected; and, after all, what more could you ask for from a book?

Footnotes:

1.	Though some are quick to point out that it’s difficult to define ‘Italian’ in a folk sense, since historically what we think of as ‘Italy’ was in fact a number of distinct provinces with their own folk traditions and tales.
	Return
2.	Not that there aren’t also plenty of tales in which the hero faces adversity but wins the day!
	Return
3.	The title comes from the fact that the young woman is so gluttonous that when her mother is making soup for her, she eats bowl after bowl, while her mother counts them aloud, reaching a total of 7 bowls at each meal.
	Return
4.	All 3 of whom are sisters.
	Return
5.	Reading this story made me wonder if something frightening had happened to Dauntless Little John’s shadow during his stay in the castle, or if this was just meant to be a surprising and darkly humorous outcome given Dauntless Little John’s fearlessness about everything else. Sadly, the tale itself leaves the story at that point, and doesn’t explain why he died of fright from seeing his own shadow.
	Return

Okay, another book to go onto my ever-increasing reading list.

Greg over at Book Obsessions writes:

Devil’s Footsteps by E.E. Richardson offers up a dark and entertaining tale reminiscent of Stephen King’s It, the Candyman movies and of course the Bloody Mary urban legend. Speaking of the latter…After reading this book, I felt compelled to do some research on the Bloody Mary legend. The version of the legend that I have always heard requires the person who is summoning Bloody Mary to say her name 13 times while holding a candle in front of a mirror in a dark room. After the 13th utterance of the name, Bloody Mary will appear in the mirror and basically stare you down. However, I learned through my research that other variations of the legend include Bloody Mary scratching off the face of the person who summoned her, driving the person mad, or even dragging the person through the mirror to live with Mary for all eternity…Yikes!

If you’re a fan of the Bloody Mary tale, then Devil’s Footsteps sounds very much like a fun, scary read!

If you have already read it and you’d like to let us know whether you enjoyed it or not, please share your comments below.

Just wanted to quietly let everyone know about a new blog I’ve launched – or, more accurately, co-launched.

It’s called Voodoologic.org and it’s a collaborative effort between me and a man who’s been one of my closest friends for almost 30 years [1].

If you get a chance, pop on over. It’s still a work-in-progress, but probably always will be, so that’s okay.

Season’s greetings to one and all,

Murray

Footnotes:

1.	And it will be interesting to see if things stay that way now we’re writing a blog together.
	Return

A little while became a year, and a year grew into 2. However, as I said back on that day, I knew a time would come when I would want to start again.

The time has come. I want to start again.

Last time, my goal was to build a reference library of urban legend research. This time, I intend to kick back, relax a little, and explore the things that catch my interest. I have this desire to share these things with the wind and the rain, and because the wind and the rain never remember, I will share them here, too.

I hope you’ll join me for a journey into the things we sometimes believe. Leave comments, disagree, share with others.

Most of all, I hope you enjoy the time you spend here, and that you’ll come back occasionally, to see where the journey has taken us.

Much warmth,

Murray @ ULblog.org