The Quiet Terror of Hallmark Holiday Movies: Folk Horror, Small Towns & Christmas Miracles

During the Before Times, I went to Smith College in what would end up being my last continuing ed travel adventure for some time. Located in a picturesque northeast coast small town of Northampton, this college has long been held as a bastion of liberal intellectualism and safe haven for scholastically-inclined women. I should have been excited, but nothing could explain the slow sense of unease that crawled over me during the long cab ride to that town. Sure, it could have been exhaustion from travel and so, so many delays. But there was no denying the quiet dread I felt as the sun set and the darkness seemed to swallow all sense of direction. I couldn’t help thinking, watching the treeline turn into dark, jagged teeth against the horizon in the fading light, that this was the perfect opening scene for a folk horror movie. 

I was in Stephen King Country, no doubt about it (which to my mind, is any vaguely east-coast small-town dotted landscape). Hey, I’m a desert woman through and through, and too much time on either coast leaves me longing for a landscape I understand and that understands me.

Thankfully, I arrived safely. Everyone was quite nice and the little town was small enough and safe enough for me to walk alone at night in search of dinner. I was grateful considering that I was one of the few people of color in the town (albeit white-passing) so, by horror movie standards, that would make me one of the first to go when things went all Children of the Corn.

As I strolled around the next day, however, I couldn’t shake this sense of unease, despite everyone, and I mean everyone, talking about what a perfect place Northampton was to live in. So inclusive! So harmonious! So happy! Just one look at the Black Lives Matter signs decorating the streets should have told me as much! Still, as I strolled around the neighborhoods on my conference break, it occurred to me that the beautiful little painted houses looked like the perfect setting for a Hallmark movie…or a B-horror movie. And then I found myself, quite literally, on Gothic street! The signs couldn’t have been clearer…something was not quite right.

No, I’m not here to roast Smith College, at least not any more than I do the rest of the Ivory Tower Collective otherwise known as academia. I left Northampton with gratitude for the experience and an even deeper gratitude for a public education and a life in the Land of Enchantment with wide open skies, a landscape I knew intimately, and adobe houses that, while not specter-free, were at least the kind of architecture and history that I knew how to make myself at home in. 

But I also couldn’t shake the overlapping similarities between small-town romance and small-town horror, the shades and echoes of which followed me throughout my stay in Northampton. As someone who loves romance and horror, it was hard not to see the small town setting as a nexus for exploring our fundamental humanity—and, in the case of the gothic, our darkness. Like academia, a college campus is its own kind of small town, and a remote rural setting is a focused place that, for its compactness and isolation, magnifies the light and dark of the human experience. And, like in academia, one person’s “safe space” is another person’s nightmare of gatekeeping, performative allyship, and tone policing. 

Radcliffe’s Quiet Terror…

I returned to these musings one year while binge-watching cheesy holiday movies. As I waded through tales of struggling Christmas tree farmers and city girl grinches, gingerbread artists and CEOs who’ve lost that Christmas magic, and more cookie decorating contests, tree lighting events, and neighborhood caroling than should be considered legal, it occurred to me that these films had an awful lot in common with folk horror. The quiet terror in the Scrooge-like protagonists was palpable as those big city fishes out of water in small, out-of-the-way towns were asked to endure local traditions and participate in timeless rituals until the ultimate culmination of all these ceremonies: The burning of the Wicker Man, I mean, the yule log, I mean, the lighting of the Christmas tree.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to the joys of cheesy holiday films filled with Santas masquerading as reindeer ranchers or plucky businesswomen teaching princes how to be down with the people and put up a Christmas tree or whatever. But if folk horror stands out for illuminating the darkest corners of the collective unconscious—and the collective urge to conform to the status quo—then holiday films are conspicuous for their absolute lack of darkness. Childhood traumas, and deaths of beloved family members, from parents to spouses, are quietly swept under the rug, used only as window dressing to make our plucky protagonists relatable, interesting, or otherwise worthy of redemption. Any meaningful discussion of those traumas is forsaken in an effort to get to the snowman-building party on time. No, those traumas are quiet, hidden, and like in folk horror, kept just out of sight (until the end of the horror movie anyway).

When I think of folk horror, I think of Anne Radcliffe’s definition of terror. It’s often quiet, eerie, and seemingly innocuous—until it’s too late. Radcliffean terror is frightening simply because it is the thing we cannot see—it plays at the edges of our sight, fueling our imagination and making us fear the unspoken, the unseen, suppressing the unsettling feeling that something isn’t quite right. And, while some folk horror often descends into actual horror—the in-your-face violence and traumas that you can’t look away from or ever unsee—it all begins with Radcliffe’s quiet, uncanny terror.

Folk horror is also a genre adept at exploring the terror of how white supremacy, oppressive social norms, and heteronormativity, to name a few issues, are quietly reinforced and any expression of otherness stamped out. Of course, folk horror critiques these things, showing them as the evil that they are. In contrast, the quiet terror in Hallmark Christmas movies—excuse me, holiday movies—was, for a long time, the suppression of queer relationships and BIPOC characters with skin dark than a paper bag, not to mention anyone who wasn’t conventionally religious. This was Candace Cameron Bure Land, after all, where everything must remain snow white, candy-cane sweet, and cleaner than a born-again Christian’s heart. And while it’s true that much of that is changing thanks to new network management (more on that later), there was a long time when issues of race, sexuality, and other “taboos” were silenced in order to keep the network a “safe space” for the Bure’s of the world.

Terrifying! 

—but also not unlike the small, insular communities in many a folk horror tale.  Let’s take a closer look…

Is it Christmas Magic…or the Call of Cthulhu?

For the purposes of this essay, I’m going to focus my reading on a handful of movies that I feel best represent the folk horror genre, old and new, and the holiday movie genre typified by Hallmark movies (hey, I’m not above using the network name a clickbait title, but let’s be real, they aren’t the only ones doing these sorts of movies). Both The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsummer (2019) are iconic films to the folk horror genre and speak to what is quietly terrifying about insular communities, not to mention the slow-burn gothic elements that signal things Will Not End Well. 

And, dearest readers, I must be honest and admit that I completely blanked when it comes to naming specific Hallmark holiday movies to compare these two folk horror films, although, in retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised. All the movies are so similar that it is impossible to tell them apart. But, since I’m on a roll roasting Bure for her bigotry, I’ll use two of her movies that have become Hallmark staples and defined the holiday movie over the last decade, Let it Snow (2013) and Christmas Under Wraps (2014). But, seriously, I could be describing just about any small-town holiday movie as you’ll see with the other films I list.

Now, let’s take a look at what these genres have in common so you can decide if the magic behind these stories is a Christmas miracle or the byproduct of the cult-worshipped Cthulhu, an octopus-like monster whose dreams shape the very fabric of our existence!

Timeless Traditions…

Both The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsommar (2019) center around warm-weather holidays, respectively Beltane and the summer solstice, and, until recently, most holiday movies centered around Christmas. Let it Snow (2013) focuses on a variety of holiday traditions from around the world and Christmas Under Wraps (2014) deals specifically with the joys of the Santa Clause myth.

A Welcoming Community & an Outsider who Becomes Part of the Family…

Both Let it Snow (2013) and Christmas Under Wraps (2014) feature a Big City Bure who doesn’t have time for the frivolity and festivities of Christmas until she is welcomed into the quirky small town of Garland, Alaska (Let it Snow) and learns that it just might be the home base of Santa Clause! In Christmas Under Wraps, Big City Bure learns that not everything needs to be about corporate bottom lines and efficiency. Sometimes, it’s about waffles and ice fishing and cute inn owners. There’s no way she can go back to city life after that!  

Similarly, the young adventurers of Midsommar are welcomed with open arms to the Love and Light commune of the Hårga in backwoods Hälsingland, Sweden. Likewise, the upstanding Sergeant Howie is treated like a special guest when he lands on Summerisle in The Wicker Man. That’s old-school community charm for you!

Singing and Dancing…

Let’s not forget the hearty welcome Police Sergeant Neil Howie receives when he visits the island of Summerisle and gets a boisterous round of song and dance at the local pub and inn. Who doesn’t enjoy uncomfortably suggestive songs with equally repulsive dance moves about the landlord’s daughter with both the landlord and his daughter present and clearly enjoying themselves? This festive song and dance pales in comparison to the maypole dancing of Midsommar where the only thing more extra than the flower adornments is the aggressive twirling. Fun times! As for holiday movies, well, there is always a caroling scene. Always. The Christmas Cottage (2017) is just one of thousands of examples. 

An Annual Festival…

Like caroling, there’s always a party to be had! And, if you’re (un)lucky, you just might be roped into participating. It may be May Day or it may be Christmas—either way, it’ll be a party you’ll never forget!

Precocious Children…

Who can forget that precocious little school children or that audacious little girl, supposedly “missing,” who leads the sergeant on a merry chase in The Wicker Man? Then there are the young girls in Midsommar who aren’t above a little mischief as they spike drinks and plant a little something extra special in the food of their esteemed male guests. See A Princess for Christmas (2011), A Crown for Christmas (2015), Switched for Christmas (2017), and Picture a Perfect Christmas (2019) for kids who are just a little too clever for their own good and not above orchestrating a romantic entanglement for their adult counterpart(s). Thrown in Children of the Corn (1984) and The Bad Seed (1956), and you’ve got a neat set of stories that show just how cute—and quick-witted—little kids can be!

Quirky Courtship Rituals…

Mingle All the Way (2018), The Christmas Cottage (2017), The Engagement Clause (2016), A Bride for Christmas (2012)…seriously, so many wedding/bride/engagement Christmas movies! Clearly, you will cease to be a valuable member of these insular societies if you aren’t marrying and reproducing. But they are nothing compared to the joyful communal copulation in The Wickerman, not to mention the naked dancing around a fire in that movie, or the maypole dancing and “forced seduction” of your soon-to-be-ex boyfriend (to put it VERY euphemistically) by a group of fertile young women in Midsommar. 

Delicious Treats!

See any holiday movie with “gingerbread,” “cookies,” “baking,” “sweet,” or “candy canes” in the title. A Cookie Cutter Christmas (2014), The Sweetest Christmas (2017), Christmas Cupcakes (2017)…you get the idea. Seriously, is it even a holiday movie without a cookie-making scene or a baking contest? Of course, we have the delightful post office/drugstore/candy shop in The Wicker Man where jars of dried foreskin and hard candies sit side by side, or the tasty cakes with a special ingredient (pubic hair) of Midsommar. Yum!

Traditional Values…

Like the heartwarming community in Midsommar, many Hallmark movie small-town communities are known for their cozy conformity, sparkling eugenics, and dazzling white supremacy (see previously mentioned Bure movies). They too, want to welcome you into their loving arms—so long as you have blond hair, blue eyes, and light skin. Dani, in Midsommar, survives because she looks just like everyone else, whereas Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man doesn’t survive specifically because he isn’t like everyone else (he’s a Christian virgin, not a sex-positive pagan). Hey, it’s important to maintain the old ways!

A Festive Makeover…

Take any holiday movie about royalty and you will most definitely get a glamorous makeover moment where the nanny/reporter/basic bitch will be transformed into a princess with the coaxing of helpful staff, a sparkly dress, and a can-do attitude. A Princess for Christmas and A Crown for Christmas are just two examples. Although the heroines’ transformations in those films from ugly ducklings into princess swans are nothing compared to Dani in Midsommar as she gets a glamorous dress made of flowers with a glorious crown to top it off. Royalty, indeed! Even Sergeant Howie gets his time to play dress up, first as a fool and later as a sacrificial lamb. What joy!

Holiday Miracles…

Let’s circle back to the Bure stories here. Both Let it Snow and Christmas Under Wraps end with the Big City Bure learning to love the small-town charm and festive holiday spirit—with a side of love! She’s also able to save Santa—and Christmas—in Christmas Under Wraps and figure out how to keep a small inn in the black while also highlighting what’s unique about it in Let it Snow. Take that corporate cookie-cutter holiday!

Wait, that’s a different movie. I think.

Finally, we learn that the sergeant in The Wicker Man was specifically called to this secluded island to help solve the problem of failed crops—he’s their only hope! And Dani, in Midsommar, finally finds the family, love, and acceptance she’s always craved by the end of the movie. She will never be alone again. Heartwarming!

A Lit Ending…

Folk horror and holiday films always end the same way: LIT! It could be with the lighting of the Christmas tree (I’m not even going to bother listing specific holiday movies here—see all the Hallmark holiday movies ever made); the cleansing fires of the Hårga that help you release the negative things in your life, like bad exes; or the wicker man himself, where you get a staring role as kindling!

See? Folk horror and small-town holiday movies aren’t so different after all.

A Walk Down Gothic Street…

In the end, you might be wondering why I’m taking the time to write about small towns, holiday romances, and folk horror. It’s simple: Stories shape us. Stories inform. Stories help us explore and reflect on our life experiences, such as why a visit to a prestigious college would feel strangely triggering. 

There’s a fine line between cozy community and frightening insularity, powerful belief in something bigger than us and violent zealotry, divine miracles and human monstrosities. And, sometimes the most horrific things are candy-coated, all the better to make the social conditioning easier to swallow.

As for Smith College, well, I finally figured out the gothic stain on this idyllic supposed sanctuary. Like so many other (dare I say all?) higher education institutions, it struggles to take its anti-racist agenda seriously and take its other inclusive agendas beyond the performative. Allyship is about active inclusion and meaningful reparations, not pretty words. Academia is much like the small towns I’ve been writing about: Sometimes a safe haven for those in search of like-minded souls, sometimes an incestuous cult that silences outsiders who question the status quo and don’t actively worship Cthulhu.

Yet there is still hope.

In perhaps what some would consider the surprise of the century, Hallmark is being aggressively more inclusive, including more stories with queer and BIPOC characters. It’s a REALLY BIG DEAL, in case you didn’t know this, to see them centering these traditionally marginalized identities in stories of joy, love, hope, and a holiday bake-off. But if you still want that back-woods Midsommar charm, you can find it on GAC Family Channel, where Bure and her friends like the criminal Lori Loughlin, are holding court. Perhaps we can all write a letter to Santa asking him to get Elon Musk to buy the channel. He would be the perfect CEO Scrooge to run GAC into the ground.

What a Christmas miracle that would be!

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

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How to Tell if You are a Heroine in a Gothic Romance

It’s no secret that one of my favorite genres is gothic romance. It perfectly blends two of my greatest loves: the romance genre and the gothic (duh). Like the traditional courtship novel, the typical gothic novel deals with young women finding their way in the world, usually when marriage is not an option for them for one reason or another.  They must join the workforce, typically in someone else’s home.

Where the domestic sphere is often seen as a sanctuary or safe space from the outer world, the gothic romance explores the quiet terrors of the home, specifically when you have limited agency, and that home is not yours. It explores women’s place in a world that is equally filled with unspeakable terrors and infinite possibilities. Best of all, we get some sort of resolution, sometimes a HEA (Happily Ever After) or sometimes the catharsis of bringing previously hidden traumas into the light. The terrifying domestic space becomes a sanctuary once again.

The gothic romance also deals with something far more transgressive and, dare I say, terrifying to the status quo: female sexuality. In these stories, women are not just navigating the strange world within the domestic sphere but their own sexual yearnings and psychological landscape. I say ‘female’ because the genre historically centered women’s lives in a man’s world, so to speak. That said, the genre also centers on other non-het-cis male perspectives. Gaywyck, published in 1980 and largely considered the first gay gothic romance, was written by Vincent Virga because he wanted to show that “genre knows no gender.” A lovely sentiment since the genre explores what it means to be human, magnifying our desires, our fears, our hopes…all the hidden, unmentionable things frowned upon by polite society. I think that what makes this genre so powerful is that it shows protagonists who are often at their weakest grow into themselves and become empowered simply by daring to bring what is covered in shadow into the light.

Of course, it is never that simple, certainly not when giant ghost helmets fall from the sky, killing your betrothed (Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, 1764) or when an evil Marquis tries to force you into marriage or mistress-hood (Ann Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest, 1791). Or, you know, you are VERY attracted to your boss, and IDK, he seems to like you but also has a ton of secrets (Victoria Holt’s The Mistress of Mellyn, 1960). Life gets so much more complicated when you’re the long-lost illegitimate love child of your employer who hired you under suspicious circumstances (Dark Shadows, 1966-1971). Suffice it to say, the truly juicy parts of these stories are the telenovela-worthy plots filled with romance and intrigue. Plus trap doors! And hidden rooms! And prophecies! And problematic employee-boss relationships! And maybe ghosts, if you’re lucky!

The genre has a rich history, which you can learn more about via the New York Public Library’s Brief History of Gothic Romance. If you want a more in-depth study of the genre, Romancing the Gothic - 300 years of Gothic Romance with Lori A. Paige, is a fantastic video lecture that details the origin of the genre from the 18th century and its resurgence in the 20th century via category romances and television. Lori A. Page is probably one of the most important scholars in the field. Her book, The Gothic Romance Wave: A Critical History of the Mass Market Novels, 1960-1993, is a feast for any connoisseur of the genre. Read it and thank me later!

My deep and violently passionate love for this genre has made me do many a thing, including purchase my own billowy gothic nightgown. Who doesn’t want to traipse around a gothic castle in a thin billowing white nightgown on a moonless night? Just me? It has also led me to ask the following very important question to my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook followers: How would someone be able to tell if they are a heroine in a gothic romance novel (heroine meant in the most inclusive of ways, of course)? For REASONS.

So, if you, too, have been wondering, as the nights get colder and darker, and your prospects seem slimmer and slimmer, if every macabre happening or strange summons could be because you are, in fact, a heroine in a gothic romance, here are the tell-tale signs:

• You are an orphan. But you are also plucky, so are resolved to forge your own way in the world.

• You are also very beautiful…or very plain.

• You are in need of work, so you must go a-governessing.

• You frequently have candles go out in dark corridors. Useless!

• You discover a wife in the attic of the home in which you are employed (whose wife is anybody’s guess).

• You are fearful of—and in lust with—the lord of the manor…he is terrifying, in a sexy way.

• You are subjected to many sexual advances from your boss, his rivals, and/or others.

• You a befriended by a noble stranger (he, too, is an orphan, though don’t be surprised if he ends up being the long-lost son of a rich and noble family. Cha-ching!).

• You keep falling through trap doors, stumbling upon hidden passageways, or generally finding secret rooms that aren’t on any blueprints of the house.

• You are approached by a strange woman from the village who warns against the evil haunting the house you now inhabit.

• You are a little afraid of the child you are hired to care for. You don’t know if you should nurture them or run from them. They are strange, very strange.

• You are prone to gazing out windows, especially if it is raining out.

• You often feel that someone is watching you, especially when you pass the portrait of the old patriarch of the estate whose eyes seem to follow you as you walk down the forbidden corridor.

• You are in a state of chronic isolation, as you live in a remote location and you have zero friends, save the raves who live in the tree outside your window and caw ominous portents.

• You repeatedly wake up to your bedroom window being open, though you could've sworn you closed it.

• You are forbidden from entering a specific wing in the manor, which, naturally, only makes you go explore it.

• You try desperately not to fall in love with the master of the house but do so anyway. The heart wants what the heart wants (even if he is a little sus)! What can you do? HE GETS YOU.

• You look suspiciously like the woman in the hundred-year-old painting over the mantle in the drawing room.

• You must to some distant, inhospitable location to find love/yourself/meaning in life.

• You are offered marriage by a "nice" but incredibly bland guy, who you turn down, so he is free to marry an equally nice but bland person, and you're free to be wooed by the handsome, brooding guy you really like who might also be a vampire.

• You have a tragedy in your past—

• You are fleeing said tragedy, which is how you ended up at a remote estate that no one else dared willingly enter.

• You are the queen of innocent but curious sexual tension. You may not know what’s what, but you have STIRRINGS.

• You are going to be married off against your will until you run away. Anything is better than being forced into a loveless marriage!

• You might even have a creepy “uncle” or strange family friend who keeps alluding to your inheritance in the form of "husbandly care" for all your needs. Definitely time to hit the road.

• You often run through castles barefoot in a long white gown during the witching hour.

• You encounter one terrifying ghost who is actually just trying to help.

• You are prone to fainting fits and fits of melancholy.

• You are far too curious for your own good.

• You can quickly pin up your long flowing hair, except for that one pernicious lock that always falls loose and can only be brushed from your face by the inquisitive fingers of the lord of the manor.

• Your lock locks also easily tumble from said pins and cascade around your nubile figure at inopportune moments.

• You are frequently haunted by the aroma of fresh-cut heirloom roses that may or may not be of supernatural origin.

• Your sleep is often disrupted by a cloud or shadow passing in front of the moon, which then leads you to discover the french doors to the balcony in your bedroom are ajar. A lone bat might perch on said balcony.

• You succumb to a mysterious ailment while your employer is in the city on business, at which point he makes a hasty return, dreadfully worried about you, his employee, which he absolutely does not have FEELINGS for (spoiler alert: he does).

• You suspect the housekeeper is hiding a secret that will lead to your or your master’s demise.

• You will likely find yourself in a disorganized library on the property at some point, where you will get yelled at in then kissed in later.

• You will then unexpectedly meet the young lady who is your lord's intended—you know, your boss and the man with dark secrets that you are in love with—and you will spend the remainder of the night wondering about that kiss! And that other woman!  And those mixed signals!

• You hear hysterical laughter in the middle of the night from a mysterious source and grab a candle to investigate it, your bare feet chilled against the floorboards.

• You hear references among the staff that your (super handsome and grumpy) employer was engaged once. No one knows what happened to her, only that she adored the pianoforte. Cue "eerie lullaby" by the phantom of the Yorkshire moors.

• You, conversely, know that the lord of the manor was once married, but absolutely everyone refuses to talk about what happened to his wife. Maybe he murdered her. Maybe she ran off with a lover. Maybe she haunts this castle still.

• You often look to the estate as you return from your country walk (you love a good country walk) to find a window curtain twitching as if someone has been watching you.

• You find the house you are in doesn’t seem to like you. Or worse, it REALLY likes you…and never wants you to leave. Ever.

• You are subjected to the cruelty of the lord’s mother who intends to ensnare her son in a most unsuitable but practical marriage if she can just get you to stop distracting her son with your sexy little threadbare governess clothes!

• You often hear and see strange things that the rest of the house insists aren't real.

• You were raised by an unloving guardian, or you were raised by one who loved you quite a bit.

There you have it. If you can relate to most of the signs in this very formal and thoroughly researched list, then you are most certainly a heroine in a gothic romance. Be warned! And prepare yourself for your fate by reading (or rereading) some of these delightfully thrilling tales…

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that stories are magic & true magic is in the everyday…or your next good read, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment.

Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

Ghost Hunting Before the Victorians…with Tim Prasil

When it comes to occult detectives, ghostbusters, and monster hunters, the casual gothic appreciator can point to the Ghostbusters franchise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural…you know, the movies and shows that put monster hunting on the pop culture map. Or they can take the classic route via Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing, the parapsychologist and vampire hunter—and Dracula’s nemesis.  

But this genre of slayers and experts in all things spooky has a long history in literature and film, dating all the way back to the Victorian era, thanks to the Spiritualism movement and the budding mystery genre. What better way for Victorians to enjoy their love of the supernatural and literary detectives than to combine them in the figure of the supernatural sleuth? In fact, any connoisseur of the genre can find a treasure trove of wonderful tales involving ghost hunters and supernatural sleuths throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, ranging from the spooky to the silly to the downright terrifying!  

And that’s not even getting into the history of real-life ghost hunters and occult practitioners that inspired this sub-genre of gothic literature. It should come as no surprise that our relationship to the unknown and the spirit realm is as common as it is timeless, which only leads us to conclude that the idea of ghost hunting must also predate the Victorian era.  Luckily, where there are paranormal investigators and investigators, there are also investigators of those paranormal activities, namely, scholars.  

One such literary historian, Tim Prasil, author of the Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mystery series, was kind enough to walk us through some of the early histories of ghost hunting before the Victorians. He was kind enough to share an excerpt of his latest book, Certain Nocturnal Disturbances: Ghost Hunting Before the Victorians, that explores the world of paranormal investigators that predates what we’ve previously considered to be the starting point for the genre. In this excerpted introduction, Tim gives a brief overview of the origin of the term “ghost hunt” and the history of the early ghostbusters in fact and fiction.  Enjoy!

Introduction: Ghost Hunting Before the Victorians

The Victorian era began in 1837 and ended in 1901, the years that Queen Victoria ruled what was then called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In this time and in this place, the question of why ghosts have tantalized and baffled humanity across the globe for millennia garnered serious, scholarly attention. Among those voices calling for such study was Catherine Crowe, who gathered a wide variety of reports about supernatural and occult experiences, then organized them into a surprisingly popular book titled The Night Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers (1848). Meanwhile, around 1850, a number of Cambridge University students began to meet with the intention of examining reports of hauntings. Apparently, not much came of the project, but it inspired the more formal Ghost Club, founded in 1862—and this led to the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882. The latter two organizations still exist today, and neither has confined its focus to only ghosts. Along with mesmerism, clairvoyance, and similar topics, both groups were especially motivated to validate or debunk the phenomena occurring at Spiritualist séances.

Consider, too, the contribution the Victorians made to the literary ghost-story tradition with writers such as Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), Charlotte Riddell (1832-1906), and Edith Nesbit (1858-1924). It’s little wonder, then, that in the early 2000s, we envision the ectoplasm of ghosts swirling with the fog of Ripper-era London and sense something charming—yet slightly chilling—in those cornices, cupulas, and other ornate flourishes of houses built during the 1800s. One might reasonably conclude that ghost hunting started in the Victorian era.

But there’s a substantial history to this noble quest that predates the Victorians. In fact, the term ghost hunt and its derivations ghost hunting and ghost hunter(s) appear in pre-1837 publications with some regularity. The longer I look, the farther back in time I go, but so far one of the earliest uses I’ve unearthed is in Elizabeth Gunning’s 1794 novel, The Packet. There, a character named Sir William Montreville interviews people who claim to have seen a specter at the local church. Though he’s skeptical, Sir William joins with his servant to form what Gunning calls a “ghost-hunting party.” Late at night, the duo patiently hide in one of the pews at the haunted site to conduct some nocturnal surveillance, the time-honored practice of ghost hunters. Other documents that use the term include 1804 newspaper and magazine articles about that year’s Hammersmith Ghost case (covered in Chapter Seven of this book), an 1808 play, an 1817 book about premature burial, and an 1820 family history. Remember that the term ghost hunt was quite likely spoken before written. Figure in any documents using it that have been lost or that remain untouched on dusty library shelves or in decaying trunks. With this in mind, I suspect various forms of ghost hunting were fairly well known with that label in Britain for about four or five decades before the Victorians.

Ghost hunting teams have a history that reaches back even further. They certainly looked differently than how we see them today on television, YouTube, and elsewhere, but Chapter Four addresses how assembling a committee to investigate claims of ghostly phenomena dates back at least to 1534. That’s the year Francis I, King of France, appointed a group—a mix of clergy and lay people—to investigate claims that a church graveyard in Orleans was haunted. One of the most famous paranormal investigative teams was assembled in 1762, when a ghost was purported to be visiting Cock Lane in London. I discuss this in Chapter Four.

Side note: You can also read more about it on Tim’s blog here.

All along, ghost hunters have had to position their work against those who insisted that phenomena being misinterpreted as supernatural or paranormal were, in actuality, entirely natural and pretty darned normal. Indeed, as we’ll see, many important ghost hunters were among those seeking to debunk a haunting. It’s misguided to assume that “everyone back then believed in ghosts,” a sweeping generalization often aimed at people in some vague part of the past. An example of this appeared in 1863, when George Cruikshank described people of a century-and-a-half earlier this way: “The gullibility of the public was much greater at that time than now, and they would swallow anything in the shape of a ghost.” As discussed in Chapter Three, Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) was carefully debating such things about the time Cruikshank indicates. Even Pliny the Younger—a man born when years had only two digits and who died when they had three—retold the story of a ghost hunt to someone he knew might think it questionable, if not complete baloney. (This ancient investigation is discussed in Chapter One.) In other words, debates about whether or not ghosts are real seem to be almost as old as recorded encounters with them. It is as if disagreement is embedded into the DNA of humanity.

The opposition faced by those working to prove the existence of ghosts leads to the need for sound, convincing evidence. A conscious pursuit of exactly that also comes before the Victorians. The above-mentioned Glanvill was an investigator who strongly believed in interaction between the supernatural and natural realms, but who also valued reliable, firsthand testimony supporting the reality of that interaction. We’ll see that he applied this method to his investigation of a case commonly called “The Drummer of Tedworth.”

Even the notion of the purposeless ghost—a ghost with no clear mission for manifesting and no special message to convey—appears prior to the 1800s. This has been presented by some ghostlore scholars as something unique to the nineteenth-century. However, in Chapter Five, I make the case that the Hinton Ampner haunting of the late 1760s features exactly this kind of phenomena despite various attempts to make the haunting fit the traditional pattern of a ghost returning to, say, guide the living to a hidden deed or to serve as observable evidence of the cursed existence following a sinful life.

In a nutshell, then, ghost hunting—its key methods, its main challenges, even the term itself—all predate the Victorian era.

Defining “Ghost Hunter”

Side note: You can read more about this on Tim’s blog here.

Of course, all of this talk about pre-Victorian ghost hunting depends on clarification of who exactly constitutes a ghost hunter. The definition used in this book involves individuals who fit the following criteria:

1. Ghost hunters are not themselves the haunted party. Rather, they learn of a stranger’s alleged haunting, travel to it, and make the necessary arrangements to investigate. A slight exception here is John Jervis. He investigated weird phenomena at Hinton Ampner, his sister’s haunted manor. He didn’t permanently reside there, but unlike most of the other ghost hunters I’ll discuss, he was related to the residents. If this compromised his objectivity in any way, it might have been counterbalanced by his co-investigators, John Bolton and James Luttrell.

2. While some of the ghost hunters to be discussed have a clear bias for or against the possibility of spirits crossing between the dimensions, they all are open-minded enough to bother investigating a situation in which such a crossing is suspected. Belief in ghosts might best be understood as existing on a sliding scale. Those on the far ends are so convinced, so rigid, they probably wouldn’t bother confirming their convictions or risk having them challenged. The ghost hunters in this book might lean one way or the other—but they do so from somewhere in the middle of that scale.

3. They apply the basic, time-tested strategies of paranormal investigation. This often means interrogating witnesses and/or closely examining the site by listening to how sound travels through walls, vents, or chimneys; looking for evidence of rodents or similar animals; checking the pipes, etc. Almost always, it involves those overnight stakeouts that I call nocturnal surveillance.

My hope is that each of the historical figures I present reflects more than a glimmer of how ghost hunting is understood and conducted now in the early 21st century. Indeed, tracking the evolution of ghost hunting across the centuries might stir feelings of connection between ghost hunters still living and their very long, very fascinating heritage.

Notes:

1. Elizabeth Gunning, The Packet: A Novel, vol. 4 (Printed for J. Bell, 1794) p. 5. Regarding the Hammersmith case, see “Melancholy Accident,” True Briton, January 6, 1804, p. 4, and “Domestic Incidents,” Universal Magazine 1 (January 1804) p. 63. The play is D. Lawler’s The School for Daughters (Printed for the author by R. Juigné, 1808) p. 50. The books are John Snart’s Thesaurus of Horror: Or, The Charnel House Explored!!! (Sherwood, Neely, Jones, 1817) p. 166, and Henry Nugent Bell’s The Huntington Peerage (Printed for Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1820) p. 251.

2. George Cruikshank, A Discovery Concerning Ghosts; With a Rap at the “Spirit Rappers” (Frederick Arnold, 1863) p. 6. The actual dates of Pliny’s birth and death are circa 61 CE and circa 113 CE respectively.

3. See Andrew Lang, Cock Lane and Common-Sense (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894) p. 95, and R.C. Finucane, Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation (Prometheus, 1996) pp. 194-204.

Guest Contributor Bio

Tim Prasil writes ghostly mysteries; anthologizes quirky, old fiction; and explores historical ghostlier. He also reads (aloud) Tales Told When the Widows Rattle on YouTube.  You can find out more about him at www.brombonesbooks.com.

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that stories are magic & true magic is in the everyday…or your next good read, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment.

Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

Joy as a form of Resistance: Talk Transcript from Folklore and Resistance Roundtable - The Carterhaugh School

Last month, I had the wonderful honor of participating in The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic’s wonderful panel on Folkore and Resistance, along with an incredible lineup of scholars, folklorists, and creators, including Dr. Jean Jorgensen, Dr. Margaret Yocom, Daisy Ahlstone, and Terri Windling. It was a celebration of community, storytelling, and more than a little magic!

To keep the magic of this event going, I’m posting the full transcript of my talk below and the full recording, which is so worth the watch—my fellow panelists had so much joy and wisdom to share. Enjoy!

Joy as a form of Resistance: Conjuring Change by Rewriting Trauma Narratives to be Narratives of Hope

Storytelling has always been one of the most profound acts of magic-making, the most beautiful and healing of spells, the thing I turn to when I need to conjure a new way of being in this complicated, fraught world. As a New Mexican mestiza, a woman of mixed raced heritage, so many stories about people like me are ones of trauma, be it ancestral, generational, or rooted in systemic oppression. And, let’s be real, sometimes we go through things in life that can make us feel closed off, perpetually trying to protect the self from further injury—but that’s no way to live. So when I put pen to paper, I conjure change, a shift away from these trauma narratives towards narratives of joy and hope. And this can be especially important when perpetuating trauma narratives can be a way to reinforce systemic oppression. 

As I explain the spell work of writing in the short prose poem “My Joy is My Resistance,” in my first book Everyday Enchantments, “I let my hands relish the feel of my dreams being coaxed to life between my fingers like the red clay of my beloved desert. I mold the clay and I love the earth and shape it into stories they do not want me to tell: the ones of hope.  The ones of healing. The ones that remind us of the moon's power and our own capacity for abundance and possibility.”

In fact, all of Everyday Enchantments was written because I was trying to figure out what happiness looks like and what FEELS like day-to-day and to do that, I had to reimagine my life as a sort of fairytale, a place where the mystic could be found in the mundane, where synchronicities and archetypal messages were as common as fairy-godmothers and enchanted objects.  In essence, I started focusing on life as a form of lived folklore. Like the fairytales and stories I grew up reading, I was on my own journey of discovery, only instead of saving Middle Earth, traveling to Narnia, or making friends will all the animals of the forest, I was relearned the magic of everyday life. 

So folklore and the imagination became a lifeline for me, a way to imagine happiness and fulfillment in a world that doesn’t want people like me to have it.  One of the ways I conjured this sense of joy in a fraught world was by examining my relationship to pleasure.  It can teach us so much about ourselves. Think about.

In a world that always feeds the negative, which our own fears can magnify, we have to remember that pleasure is a valuable healing tool. It’s something we have to actively nourish and celebrate, like 12 dancing princesses sneaking off each night to dance in a magical kingdom (although I’m simplifying that tale quite a bit). It’s also something we can feel disconnected from when we go on autopilot in a effort to cope with the world around us or our own inner turmoils. Healing our relationship to pleasure can help us process difficult emotions and get real about what we want in life: abundance, meaningful relationships…you name it.

You see this play out in my gothic fairytales, too, like Weep, Woman, Weep, based on the Legend of La Llorona.  For those of you who don’t know, La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman is an urban legend that terrifies most Hispanic communities…she is the spirit of a woman who drowned her children in a fit of rage and now sends all eternity roaming the Rio Grande trying to get them back…she just might take you.  I have my own spin on this tale in Weep, Woman, Weep, where La Llorona only drowns girls so that they come back and live lives as sorrowful as her own.  La Llorona wants to perpetuate the trauma she had to live through in her own life.

The protagonist, Mercy begins her story by telling us, “I am built for tears. It’s in my blood. The women in my life don’t know how to have a life without sorrows.” In the story, she survives an encounter with the Weeping Woman. Mercy survives but doesn’t come back quite right—her tears now have the power to hurt or, she later finds, to heal. She starts in a dark place. She’s dealing with generational trauma, ancestral hauntings, and history of colonization and enforced cultural assimilation written in her blood. 

But she chooses to define herself outside of those things. Through her focus on pleasure, the things that make her happy, the things that define and shape her outside of these traumas, she comes into her own—and, eventually, finds a love so strong that not even La Llorona can break it.  

Mercy’s pleasures are small, like trashy novels and pretty rocks, really really good turnips and old records. And they’re big pleasures, too, like building a thriving farm from the ground up and nurturing her magical ability with plants. They’re unexpected, like the sweet lemon balm soap made for her by a man who is half-Angel, half-wildcrafter. And sometimes, her pleasures allow her to process her pain as she reconciles herself to the fact that La Llorona has irrevocably changed her life but that she still has a life to live. Through these experiences of pleasure, she learns that she is not just some weed but a seed.  By the end of the tale, she is no longer a victim of La Llorona or the often whispered about reviled figure in her small town of Sueno, NM, but Miracle Mercy, the woman who can change fates, the woman who has turned her grief into joy. 

This transformation sneaks up on her. She’s been working toward it every day, but she’s never quite able to see the big picture until after she’s developed some magical relationships. There’s a moment, near the end of her story, where she sees this wonderful abundant life she’s created for herself—Mercy’s been so focused on the small little pleasures and the small acts of moving forward from her family’s history of trauma, that she hasn’t quite seen all she’s accomplished, the big picture, until now. 

As Mercy says near the end of the story, reflecting on what it’s taken for her to find her joy:

“[La Llorona] was the Weeping Woman, sure. But I was the woman who made rainwater out of tears. I would use them to water my crops through this drought. When people bought my fat turnips and sharp radishes and long, thick carrots, they would taste of freshly turned earth and freshly turned futures, hope, and the bittersweet taste of things past, and the salty tang of possibility. This I would do to remind others that we are the seeds we plant, not the histories forced upon us. This I would do to wash away the sorrow from my soul.

Was I scared? You bet.

But nothing makes a woman brave except living.”

So here we have at the end of this gothic fairytale, another transformation.  A girl turned weeping woman turned miracle worker through the simple act of turning away from feeding and perpetuating trauma and learning, one small step at a time, what it means to embody joy and abundance.  

In fact, the joy of folklore is that it can be a form of resistance, of changing the kind of stories we tell about ourselves and our communities.  It helps us choose magic and possibility over stifling conventions that would regulate our bodies and our minds.

So in closing, I want to leave you with a meditation or ritual to help you when things get difficult, to remind you that you are the author of your own story and nobody can talk that from you.  Or, as Mercy puts it, “that we are the seeds we plant, not the histories forced upon us.”

This exercise is fairly simple, but it helps me a lot when I get too in my head and need to ground myself. Think about something that brings you joy, specifically a simple pleasure.  It can be anything. For Mercy—okay, and me!—it’s listening to old records and reading trashy novels.

Now visualize that simple pleasure as sacred.  It’s not just something you do for fun.  It’s not a bonus.  It’s a necessity.  Resist the temptation to trivialize it!  There is no room for guilty pleasures here. You can either visualize this or write down details about it, depending on what works best for you.  As you do, imagine the story it tells about you.  How does it soothe? Heal? Transform?  What emotions emerge as you meditate on this pleasure? They don’t always have to be pleasurable, either. Sometimes enjoyment can give us a safe space or relax enough to process difficult emotions.  

Lastly, imagine yourself as your favorite fairytale character—I’m personally very fond of thinking of myself as a hobbit—or who you would be as a folklore protagonist.  Imagine it down to the last detail, including how your sacred simple pleasure fits into your quest. What magic does it offer you?  What wisdom or insights to help you conquer your foes or inner dragons?  How does it help you transform your tears into rainwater?  

In closing, always remember to reword Mercy a bit, “nothing makes a person brave, except living.”

And, to add to that, miracles don’t happen unless you show up, every day, ready to work magic.  

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that stories are magic & true magic is in the everyday…or your next good read, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment.

Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

Eldritch Gothic with C.M. Rosens...Bonus writing prompts included!

CWs for discussions of darker Gothic tropes, including cults, sibling incest, and mentions of body horror, medical/surgical horror. 

I was invited to write a blog post about the Eldritch and the Gothic, which is such a big topic that I struggled to narrow it down! So here’s a brief outline of what I think of when we use these terms, and how I choose to play with this in my own writing.

‘Eldritch’ means weird, sinister, ghostly. The old Sussex dialect term ‘ellynge’ to mean ‘eerie’ might also be cognate, which is from the Old English word el-lende, ele-lænde; adj., for ‘foreign’ or ‘strange’ (Bosworth-Toller Old English Dictionary), and can also be used to mean ‘uncanny, lonely, solitary’. Some think the word is linked to ‘elf’, and reflects the fear of Otherworldly spirits, evoking images of spectral mists, the lure of inexplicable music in the night, and the dire warnings of certain death to those who harm or insult these uncanny creatures.

It certainly has come to Otherworld connotations, and in a cosmic horror context has come to be associated with ‘Eldritch Gods’, beings beyond human imagination and understanding. Such beings are typically insectoid, or appear to come from the Deep Sea, or sometimes both. They generally relate in some way to H. P. Lovecraft’s mythos, and the concept of an Eldritch Abomination is now understood in the following way (at least, according to TV Tropes):

The Eldritch Abomination is a type of creature defined by its disregard for the natural laws of the universe as we understand them. They are grotesque mockeries of reality beyond comprehension whose disturbing otherness cannot be encompassed in any mortal tongue. ... Reality itself warps around them.

It is fairly obvious why Weird fiction – a subgenre that has almost as much debate around its scope and development as Gothic fiction does – overlaps with the Gothic and often uses the same kinds of tropes and themes. Weird fiction was, naturally, an offshoot of Gothic fiction to begin with, in much the same way that the wide umbrella of ‘Horror’ owes its many lives to the Horror Gothic and Terror Gothic novels.

Something ‘eldritch’ is meant to inspire fear, while the Gothic doesn’t always have to do that. Something can be Gothic but its effect could be horror (in the sense of deep disgust, discomfort, and shock) rather than fear or terror – something does not have to be frightening in order to horrify you. The Gothic can be a vibe, an aesthetic, and carry a sense of familiarity – the Addams Family are undoubtedly a Gothic franchise, but they play with both bathos (where the tone lapses from the sublime and highbrow to the trivial or ridiculous, often with comedic effect) and pathos (evoking pity or sadness). The Gothic can be hilarious to make a point – dark humour can be deployed to throw the horrific things into stark contrast, let the reader catch their breath at a crucial moment, or to force the reader into complicity with the horror by making laugh.

So what happens when you blend the eldritch with the Gothic as vehicles for themes and tropes that have been done to death?

Some of the things I like to play with (hopefully you will come up with more)…

1. The Eldritch Abomination as a metaphor (in my case, metaphors for class struggles, and the monstrous beings people can become when they engage in particular modes of behaviour and ideologies relating to class and status). I like to play with ‘the eldritch horror among us’ (like Lovecraft’s THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH or THE DUNWICH HORROR), but have them blending with the mundane. The site of horror is not necessarily the weirdness of the monstrosity, it’s the toxic cycles of abuse they perpetuate, with their upwardly-mobile middle-class aspirations at the root of that behaviour. 

2. Real or Not? I enjoy playing with tropes where the protagonist questions their reality. In THE CROWS, the only person who was genuinely haunted by the (completely unanswered) question of ‘is this supernatural or not?’ was the Gothic Horror Monster figure, who can’t figure out if his taxidermy creation is alive in its own way, or if that’s a figment of his imagination, a hangover from his childhood where he was an abused and neglected creative child. This is a question that haunts him through the novel and acts as a reminder that even as he experiences a lot of destabilisation of his world and worldview, his world was never stable to begin with. 

3. The Gothic Horror Monster/Antihero. In my novels, the soothsayer figure is also an Eldritch Horror who regurgitates tendrils like carnivorous air-roots from a mouth at the back of his skull, the lips of which look like scar tissue. In his human form, he can see the future and conducts blood sacrifice and entrail-readings in the manner of an Etruscan or Ancient Roman haruspex, is self-taught and fluent in Old English, and does bone readings. He doesn’t think twice about human sacrifice, and believes he is destined to ascend to Eldritch Godhood. He’s also 5’5” in his human form, is chronically lonely with disordered eating issues, has depression and social anxiety, dresses in a tracksuit and grey hoodie complete with arcane tattoo sleeves and gold signet rings, is on the aromantic and asexual spectrums and so has no interest in either being the love interest or being a sexual aggressor, and is undersocialised to the point that he struggles to appropriately gauge boundaries and express his emotions. I also set him against the very human toxic abusive ex-boyfriend, who is more of an active threat to the main character than he is. 

There are so many other tropes I like to play with too - THE CROWS has Gothic tropes as chapter titles - and in making the eldritch (in the sense of Eldritch Horror/Cosmic Horror, or as eerie, strange, uncanny) the focus of a Gothic tale, rather than an element within it, you can do a lot more fun things with staples of the genre! Particularly as what’s now considered ‘uncanny’ or ‘strange’ is different from the Gothic novels of the past, and it is possible for different people from all kinds of underrepresented backgrounds/identities to take control of these elements and make them their own. 

Writing Prompts

If you’ve been inspired to try writing something with a Gothic aesthetic and eldritch elements, here are some ideas! You could brainstorm the tropes you get to see how they might be updated for a modern setting and readership, but also how they can be problematic and ways to avoid this or subvert this. 

You can spin the wheel linked here to see what you get (simply click on the image to get started). If you want to pair up your elements (X + Y) you can uncheck the box next to the one you landed on first (DON’T click the red cross, that deletes it!) and spin again to get a different result. If you find any options unchecked for your first go, make sure you add them all back in!

Liminal Spaces: if you land on this, remember that liminal spaces are spaces of transition from one state of being to another or from one place to another, they are not inherently weird or eerie. Your task here is to think about how to make it so. For example, something as simple as an open window could be classed as a liminal space, with the windowsill becoming both inside and outside. Cats often occupy liminal spaces like this! If you’re thinking in terms of the Gothic, however, a liminal space might be a crossroads or a graveyard. Who or what occupies such a space and why are they there? What happens when they travel through it, or get stuck? Is this physical or metaphorical, or both? How might this work as an eldritch (strange, eerie, uncanny) element? How might it work as a Gothic setting or aesthetic? 

Uncanny Valley: if you land on this, you might immediately think ‘What has SciFi got to do with the Gothic or Eldritch?’ If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the ‘uncanny valley’ is the hypothesised relationship between an image of a person and how closely it resembles a human being WHEN IT IS KNOWN NOT TO BE, and the strength of the [negative] emotional reaction to it. Where the line on the hypothetical graph dips further down to the “more revulsion” axis before it starts to rise again, all images that inspire those levels of revulsion dwell in the ‘uncanny valley’. In this case, I’m using this label as a shorthand for a situation where the human protagonist is faced with something they know isn’t human, but very closely resembles one, and the emotional reaction is visceral and negative. It doesn’t have to be robotic or computer-related here, you can bend and reshape it however you like, but try to figure out how to make it Gothic! (Sci-Fi can be Gothic too, of course - look at Alien as the obvious example!)

Human-Passing: Unlike ‘uncanny valley’, this is where a character is believed to be human but they are not. Or - not quite. Perhaps there’s something very subtle about them, perhaps they have a second form, perhaps they turn out to be something very different and Other, or perhaps they never really existed at all. But when the protagonist and/or the reader meets them, they pass as human, and the journey of discovering they are not is the one the reader is set on. 

The Unexplained: This is an element in the story which might never be explained to the reader, because it’s never explained to the protagonist. Something that defies explanation, that is never resolved, that leaves the reader with a sense of being haunted by the mystery after they have finished the tale itself. Perhaps a creeping, eerie feeling that the tale itself is eldritch. 

Mysterious Cult: A staple of the German tradition of Gothic fiction, featured in the Shudder novels (Schauerroman) of the late eighteenth century, cults are also a staple of Weird Fiction, a spin-off of the Gothic but also its own, equally hard to define, genre. Whether the cult was something from the past worshipping beings that came from … Elsewhere, (could be aliens, could be elves, who knows), or whether it’s more of an intimate family affair, the Mysterious Cult can solidify the protagonist’s position as an outsider. Films like Society (1989) play with a lot of Gothic tropes but not the aesthetic, setting it in Affluent American Suburbia and turn it into a metaphor for capitalism and corruption in the (very white) inward-looking, inward-loving, homogenous suburban elite. There’s a lot you can do with this. 

Tainted Bloodline: This is the most obviously problematic storyline, and it was used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to explore anxieties around hereditary mental health conditions and racial ideologies. H. P. Lovecraft was particularly prone to this one, with two of the most obvious examples being The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror. Edgar Allan Poe explored these themes too, particularly in The Fall of the House of Usher. It’s a coded reason behind the madness of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, since she’s from Jamaica and colonial British and European families who had been there since the 1600s were suspected of having ‘tainted’ blood through their ‘relations’ with their slaves. Heathcliff’s origins are mysterious but he is explicitly a Romani child, and the novel implies that this is the reason for his early wildness as a child and then aggressive and abusive behaviour as an adult in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights: he never ‘belongs’ to society, and becomes monstrous when set against it. 

Moving away from this to anxieties around ‘changing DNA’ or forced experiments and/or procedures which can create mutated or monstrous offspring, extreme body horror novels, like Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, play with this in terms of genetic mutations, sometimes caused by radiation poisoning (sometimes on purpose, in grotesque experiments), and focus on more modern anxieties around nuclear technology, nuclear warfare, medical experimentation, and cosmetic surgery or other kinds of surgical horror. Arguably, Arthur Machen’s classic, The Great God Pan, falls under this kind of category, as the female antagonist is the result of a doctor’s cruel experiments upon his wife’s brain. 

Other kinds of tales that fall under this are stories that deal with this involve (often tragic) histories of sibling incest (so many of these, but the Irish film The Lodgers (2017) is one example, as is Crimson Peak (2015)), bestiality or offspring of a monster (La Bête, a 1975 French erotic horror film written, edited, and directed by Walerian Borowczyk, banned in most countries after its release). With this one, you might want to not use it but consider if it is possible to move away from these problematic usages, and dig into how it can be used to express other anxieties, or if you do use it in a fiction prompt, think how it can be subverted to reimagine other, potentially better ways of being.

Tentacles: A tongue-in-cheek one to end on, but take this to mean a symbol of something that does not belong in our reality, that warps reality to shape itself, that may have recognisable components but is not a whole that can be easily described or comprehended. It doesn’t have to be a cosmic horror scale story. Tentacles can show up in unexpected and mundane places, warping our perception of that place and turning everything we thought we knew upside down. See what you can come up with. 
Guest Contributor Bio

C.M. Rosens (she/her) is a dark fiction author with an academic alter-ego, podcaster, and blogger. if you’d like to know more about her work, you can find her links (including Newsletter, Website and Podcast) here: cmrosens.carrd.co.  

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that stories are magic & true magic is in the everyday…or your next good read, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment.

Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

The Food of Witchcraft in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, with A Gothic Cookbook’s Alessandra Pino

“They had the coffee and cake in the kitchen, Mrs. Castevet refusing to let Rosemary disturb the living-room on her account. ‘Listen, Rosemary,’ she said, swallowing cake and coffee at once, ‘I’ve got a two-inch-thick sirloin steak sitting defrosting right this minute […] Why don’t you and Guy come over and have supper with us tonight, what do you say?’”  ~ Rosemary’s Baby, Part One, Chapter Four

Isn’t this inviting? How often does food, either an abundance or lack thereof, mark the beginning of an innocent hero or heroine’s journey to cross over to the dark side? 

Time and time again at the heart of the Gothic lies an unsuspecting female protagonist, beckoning readers to follow her on an odyssey of malevolence, betrayal and hardship. Such is the story of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967), in which a young woman is tricked, abused and manipulated into bearing a terrible secret. A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, this novel exemplifies the most intimate fears of betrayal, contamination of the body and oppression by potent forces of evil. And food guides us, giving us the crumbs to follow, revealing what lurks in the shadows of neighbourly politeness and social pleasantry.

It's 1965, and newlyweds Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse have taken a beautiful apartment at the Bramford in a deal that is too good to be true. It’s not like they weren’t warned though; their old friend Hutch tells them over lunch that the building was also ‘where the Trench sisters performed their little dietary experiments…’ (Part One, Chapter Two). The Trench sisters were two Victorian cannibals who cooked and ate young children, and are now said to haunt the apartment building, where witchcraft is rife. This unsavoury piece of information does cause Rosemary to hesitate over her melon dish starter, but it doesn’t discourage her from wanting to move into the new place, driven by the desire to start a family with Guy, perhaps due to not having strong ties to her own.  

The Woodhouses' eccentric old neighbours, Roman and Minnie Castevet, make themselves a daily feature in the couple's lives soon after they move in, and food is their point of entry. Not-so-tasty offerings become a recurring excuse to worm their way in, and the door is opened to them.  After all, why wouldn’t Rosemary trust a friendly face and dishes of homemade food? And yet, Rosemary’s thoughts about her own husband set the tone for all the horror to come: ‘He was an actor; could anyone know when an actor was true and not acting?’ (Part One, Chapter Nine). Guy, arguably her real enemy, right beside her all along, arouses that sense of the Uncanny in the reader: that which is unfamiliar in the familiar. But it is a dessert – the chocolate mousse Minnie brings straight to her door in a seemingly sweet gesture – that gives us an insight into exactly how Guy controls Rosemary and ultimately betrays her trust:

‘The mousse was excellent, but it had a chalky undertaste that reminded Rosemary of blackboards and grade school. Guy tried but could find no ‘undertaste’ at all, chalky or otherwise. Rosemary put her spoon down after two swallows. Guy said, ‘Aren’t you going to finish it? That’s silly honey; there’s no ‘undertaste […] eat it.’” (Part One, Chapter Eight). 

Guy, initially a struggling actor, gains popularity and abandons Rosemary, leaving her to take refuge in the company of the other women in the apartment block. These women gather in domestic areas of the home like the kitchen, and a distinction is drawn between men and women, husbands and wives. The kitchen, part of the female domestic sphere, is typically a site of trust and as such the food produced is, by default, considered nutritious by Rosemary initially. This renders her open and vulnerable to unspeakable monstrosities – and the insidious witchcraft of her neighbours, who cast their spells through food.

The success of Rosemary’s Baby shows how we are still haunted and fascinated by ideas about witchcraft, inherited from previous centuries. Modern culture has its own use for witches now, particularly in expressing the role of women in society. Minnie’s ‘miniature greenhouse in the kitchen’ (Part One, Chapter Three), for everyone to see, is evil hiding in plain sight. This is a recurring theme in the other novels which feature in A Gothic Cookbook; from Jane Eyre to Rebecca the real dangers are in these women’s own home, often right beside them.

About A Gothic Cookbook

This fantastic cookbook, illustrated by Lee Henry, and written by Ella Buchan and Alessandra Pino, has 13 chapters, each focusing on a different Gothic novel or short story, with a blend of literary discussion, recipes and hand-drawn images. Stories covered include Rosemary’s Baby, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

The cookbook is signed with crowdfunding publishers Unbound and you can help make it a cloth-bound reality by pledging for a copy, along with original artwork and other merchandise, here.

You can also follow them on Twitter and Instagram.

I can’t wait to get my copy!

Guest Contributor Bio

Alessandra Pino is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Westminster, studying Gothic literature and anxiety with roots in food. She is co-writing A Gothic Cookbook, a celebration of food in Gothic literature, with food journalist Ella Buchan. Follow Alessandra on Twitter at @foodforflo.

The Bruja Professor, a witchy take on literature, the occult & pop culture, is the scholarly sister to Enchantment Learning & Living, an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you.

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