Hello and welcome to another episode of Is This Just Fantasy? The podcast where every other week two nerds get together to rate, read and review a long lost piece of fantasy media. I'm your host, Geordie Bailey. And I'm the man who's actually visited Gibbet Hill, Duncan Nicoll. Oh, so this is an actual Gibbet Hill. It's not just a generic Gibbet Hill. No, this is an actual place. The Devil's Punchbowl. It's all real. It's all in the south of England. Everything. The grave, the cross.
These are real locations, Geordie. Oh, no kidding? Because my grandmother, before she passed, lived next to a hill that had a Gibbet. I don't believe it is this specific Gibbet Hill. Well, I'll tell you the exciting stuff of the reality and we'll compare it to the fiction when we get to the main event. But before that, Geordie, before we dive into this long-lost piece of fiction and the amazing story behind it, have you been reading anything else?
I actually think, Duncan, that we really should introduce this thing properly, if only because if someone's like on the commute and auto plays this episode, I think we really need to give them a reason to listen to this one. Fair enough. Geordie, what's the story behind Gibbet Hill? Okay, so we were supposed to be doing The Woman in Black. This is our, oh yeah, I guess this is technically a book club because this is still like a Halloween special even though it's coming out in November.
But this was supposed to be The Woman in Black. We were going to read a horror story. But whilst I was reading the opening chapter of The Woman in Black, I heard this amazing news story, a long lost piece of work by Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, had been discovered. No one had ever heard about this before. And someone just found it in a Dublin newspaper archive. And suddenly, like scholars didn't know that this story existed. And now it's available for anyone to read.
It's absolutely incredible because as far as I'm aware, this is a Dublin newspaper. And it wasn't like someone was going through and like scanning old copies. Like this had already basically been archived and being scanned through and just no one had really looked at the page. No one had cared. No one had said, hmm, Bram Stoker, that sounds familiar. Just fell through the cracks. And now it's being dug up. And it's incredible because people probably aware, this doesn't happen.
Long lost works that we've never heard of just don't tend to appear. Yeah, and especially not by like world renowned authors who've had books written about their bibliographies. And so this brings up a lot of interesting questions. We've got kind of why it fell through the cracks. I do believe the story of why we found it has been pure luck. Someone saw it. Someone saw the name Bram Stoker and went, excuse me. Excuse me. But mister, this, this isn't on any of the bibliography lists.
So yeah, let's get into that. Let's talk about this, the detail of its discovery and then actually like review the story. This came out like it's been unearthed like six days before recording the episode. We could be some of the first human beings to do a review of it ever. That is actually so thrilling. I'm not going to say we're quite on the level of like a lost Shakespeare, but something from Bram Stoker.
I mean, I just, I'm finding it just incredible that we're even here and I'm emphasizing how incredible the story that got us here is. What we dive into the short story itself. So Geordie, before we talk all about Gibbet Hill, should we just do the boring stuff, you know, the extra reads that we've also done around the side? Because this was not a long read that should be noted. It was not a long read.
So we have a little bit more time to commit to the thing we often do, which is what have we been reading in the meantime? Would you like to go first? I'd absolutely love to. So Geordie, I said, this was a real short one. I had a bit of extra time. I've been on holiday. I've been in North Wales, lovely place called Langrockland, which is probably not how you pronounce it. I'm sorry to all the Welsh people. Great town.
I remember someone I got back from holiday at work and they were like, oh, did you go on the train? I went, yeah. They went, did you go with the upper dock? I went, yeah. And they went, do you go on the like, oh, what are they called? Long boats? I went, yeah. And they're like, yeah, that's effing to do in that town. I went, great. Glad I did it. This is a classroom as well. So had a great time. You min maxed your holiday. Absolutely. If I go to town, I'm like, right, I'm not coming back.
Let's find everything touristy to do. Great time. Ate an orgy, had fun. Also read some books. And one of the books I read, I picked up in a charity shop while I was up there and it's by Bernard Cornwell, the Harlequin, the first in his hundred year war, long Bowman story, historical fiction, one of the lesser known, not lesser known, less praised works from. Yeah. He's best known for the Winter King, the Saxon story and Sharpe, but he has like random other stories thrown in there as well.
He certainly does. I think he's done some like American Civil War ones or I've definitely heard that. Yeah, maybe there's like a Revolutionary War one. Maybe, is that what we're thinking of? Potentially. I love calling it the Revolutionary War. It's like a little dig. Don't call it the War of Independence. Just a revolution.
Anyway, yeah, sorry, you've English longbowman and I'm not going to lie, Geordie reading this, one I realized I like Bernard Cornwell, but also I realized I see why this one isn't talked about as much. I see. Did you finish it? I did finish it, but I think maybe, I don't know, am I just older? Am I just a little bit more hardened to sort of more tropiness of it? Have I just read a lot of Bernard Cornwell?
But reading this, I was just like, gosh, I just see everything I know you do and I'm not quite going along with the ride regardless. The main character is just so perfect. He's just the best guy. He's just a cool dude, isn't he? He's got the long black hair. He's meant to be, you know, he's the best guy with the bow. He's really physically fit. All the ladies love him, but he's a great guy with the lads.
He knows how to have a fun time, but also he's a scholar and he has studied at the best university. Just like dear God, you're such a perfectionist. It's aggravating. That's really interesting because I feel like something that works about the protagonist who I've seen so far of Derfel and Uhtred from his Winter King and Saxon stories is that both of them are like Derfel is a little too perfect, I guess. Like he's very loyal and stuff and a bit unimaginative and I guess a tiny bit dull.
But at least he's like got like in a conflict is like, oh, I'm not sure whether I should do this or not. But Uhtred is just reprehensible. He's just an awful person. It's so fun to be like, wow, you just you're just going to screw everything up. You're making so many bad choices. Oh my God. I think that's why those characters are a little bit more beloved because they're not perfect. This guy just came across almost annoying. Like he's chivalrous, but in the only in like the right ways.
And he's also a terrible guy because you know what they're like there. You know, when he goes out with the war band, are they pillaging and burning? But that's always that's always just off page a little bit when we see him. He's he's being super nice. And I just found the wrong way. I also felt like how Bernard Cormann was writing about not like like sexual violence and war, particularly towards women. Yeah, he does that. I don't know what it was because obviously I've read his Sharpes.
I've read the Saxon stories. But something in this one just made me go you're being a little bit too cavalier as an author and narrator. I'm OK for your characters to not see how messed up this is. But you're you're writing it a little bit too off the cuff. And I don't know. I just felt like maybe I'm not the 15-year-old angsty teenager anymore. And it just wasn't vibing with me. Did you get over? Did you read anything else on your holiday?
Yes. This is going to be the story of how I didn't like things, which probably like aren't that bad. So on my holiday, I've really recently discovered that if you want to get into Shonen Manga, it's really expensive because there are hundreds of volumes of one page, hundreds of volumes of Naruto. And they all cost, you know, maybe you can find it cheap. Four pounds cheap. Yeah, that's a good deal on a volume. But that is a good deal.
Yeah. You're spending six to seven and when there's a hundred of them, you're looking at a thousand pounds, which is a lot of money. So guess what? Shonen Jump have an online subscription service similar to Marvel Unlimited, where you pay like three pounds a month and you don't get unlimited, but you get access to all their content digitally. Geordie, can I actually just ask you right? Yeah. So Shonen Jump, you get access.
So people online, I see a couple of posts where people are moaning that you don't get unlimited. You get like a set number of chapters. Sure. How many chapters? So if I said you got access to a hundred chapters, what would you say to that? For how much? For your three pounds. Three pounds? That's really fucking good. Now Geordie, that does sound really good. Here's the real kicker though, because I was like, oh, three pounds for a hundred chapters, that's pretty good.
No, no, no. That's three pounds for monthly subscription and you can read up to a hundred chapters a day. A day?! Why have the limit? Who's topping that out? That's ridiculously good. Yeah. I mean, I just opened up my copy of Demon Slayer number five. That's eight chapters. So a hundred per day is like over 10 volumes. It's about 12 volumes. 12 volumes a day. 12 volumes. Yeah, it's 12 volumes. I just like... So you can read Demon Slayer over the course of two days because it has 24 volumes.
I know. I mean, honestly, when I first looked at it, I was like, this seems almost like too good a deal, but that's what it is. It's incredible. So highly recommend the subscription if you're interested in Demon Slayer, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, Naruto, any of that. What I don't recommend is what I actually spent my time reading, which is the original Dragon Ball, because I was really curious. I didn't really watch it as a kid, but it's one of those like tent poles of like the Shonen genre.
Geordie? This is another one where I was just gonna be like, maybe it was more appropriate at the time and for the culture, but the original was... How many pages in do you think you have to... No, yeah, yeah, pages. How many pages until you get your first young child penis on the page? It's like, it's like page five, I guess, right? Because it's Goku living by himself. Yeah, five or seven. How long do you have to read until you get the first woman flashing her underwear?
Well, that's what I thought you were gonna bring up, because that's like page eight. Like he meets Bulma, she shoots him with a gun, they decide to hang out, they crash in her little pill house, and then he sneaks in and slaps her on the vagina, because he doesn't know what a girl looks like. I was not prepared for this. And how about the scene a few chapters later, where he takes off her underwear without her realizing and then she flashes her full nudity at an old man?
Yeah, that's pretty standard early Dragon Ball stuff. I mean, I don't really understand what the issue is. Isn't this what you signed up for? I just, I do not know anything about Dragon Ball, only that it's a shounen and that I've watched Naruto and that's a shounen. So that was just sort of the vibe I was expecting. And so I want to be clear, I actually have enjoyed reading it, what I've got up to so far. But it did shock me a little bit.
I was like, oh, I wasn't, I thought this was pitched younger, or I don't know where this is going. And I just want to, the culture, the times, I'm just gonna crack on because when it's actually got some action going down, it's actually quite good. And some of the jokes are really quite funny. So do recommend, be prepared. You're totally right. It is a different time. It is a different culture and like, yeah, those standards for stuff like that's appropriate for kids.
It's just different in Japan. Like I remember once I have a very vivid memory as a kid. Like watch, I used to like, I was eight years old, I was watching the Kirby anime, Kirby: Right Back At Cha. And my friend and I were watching it. And then we happened to look up another episode online because the episodes were just available on YouTube. It was a crazy time to be, to have access to YouTube. And we got the Japanese sub instead of the dub.
And we watched this scene, which we'd already seen before, of these characters running away. A little kid runs away. And in the English version, he goes like, “oh no.” And in the Japanese version, the original, he goes, “crap!” And it's like, wow, we just burst out laughing because we couldn't believe this kids show had swearing in it. That is, it is a great, I love if you look up so many animes in the get dub, they didn't just change like the lines for things like that.
There are loads of examples back when I never liked the Sonic one. I think One Piece of Naruto was the same. Like full on they would redo bits of the animation to make it more, you know, air quotes here. Yeah, 4Kids is very famous for making those weird changes. That's a whole other discussion. We'll do that if we ever decide to talk about Naruto or something. Yes. I'll move on from Dragon Ball if you don't mind. Geordie, over to you. Which does, it's less weird shortly in the future.
It's always going to be, you know, anime, which is gross and weird a lot of the time. But you know, it's, once you get past a guy shrinking down to watch a girl poop, like that's really as weird as it ever gets. What have you been reading so we can get back to our classic gothic horror? My reading experience has also actually been quite negative on the whole. So this is a very whiny episode so far. I read two books. I don't, didn't particularly like either of them.
I'll dabble with the first one quickly because I'll get way more into it later. I finally finished Priory of the Orange Tree. It's been about two months but I finally finished it. Congratulations, round of applause people. This one almost basically defeated me. Yeah, yeah. I have so many thoughts on it but I am going to save it. Spoiler alert. In a month's time, when it's my turn to pick again, I will be picking Priory of the Orange Tree. I already picked it after all.
So I will be, we will be doing an episode on it and I will be getting into it and discussing my complicated feelings about it. But something I will get into now because we're not going to do an episode on this ever. I have finally finished, this is also a long-term project, I've been working on this since 2022, Citadel of Forgotten Myths, the latest Elric story.
Right, now this is one that I have not read which is incredibly bizarre because I saw one that kind of kicked you off on your Michael Moorcock Elric journey to see that you kind of gone further than me, Geordie. The student has become the master. Well, was it worth it? Was it worth what you went through?
No. God, no. I have since discovered, and this makes a lot of sense, that essentially what basically happened here is that in 2021 the Elric books were being republished in those big editions which I've purchased so far. I own volume one and volume two and I have no interest in volume three because that has, it's the whole Elric saga. It's Elric of Melnibone, it's up to Sailors on the Seas of Fate, then it's Stormbringer. and Bane of the Black Sword and all that.
It's even got Revenge of the Rose or whatever it's called. I haven't read any of it because it seems really bad. For the record, the Elric saga has been written since the 1960s and effectively the author Michael Moorcock, he wrote sort of the original outlier of short stories, then took a break, then wrote some more stories, then took a break, then wrote some more stories and took a break. And when I say took a break, I'm talking decades.
And in my personal opinion, every time he's come back, although it's always been up to this point, very nice to see Elric again, the writing style of the author has changed so much that it can be very jarring. So where are we at, Geordie? Where have we left off the most recent revisit? And thank you, Duncan, because that's important context to give because when these books came out, these republications, I think the publishers said, we're republishing these, we want to generate some hype.
Can you please write another Elric story? And he said, well, I have some some notes or like some pre-written drafts I already have written up, I could just string all of these together and turn them into a new novel. So the book is a collection of three short stories, which is really familiar for Elric. You know, that's how that's how you know, weird of a white wolf is published. It's how Bane of a Black Sword is published. How The Vanishing Tower was published.
It's even almost how Elric of Melnibone is published. That's kind of three separate stories, right? Well he's done the same thing again, except the first two appear to have been written in the 70s. And this latest one was either written in like the 90s or was written like in 2020, because the tone and the writing style is drastically different. The first two stories, the first one's quite bad. The second one's really good. And the third one is abysmal. The first one is mostly set up.
It's like Elric and Moonglum have journeyed to a new location to and they've met Elric's aunt. And she's a dragon and she makes them go on a quest. Okay, Elric's going on a quest. It's kind of confusingly written. It's not that engaging, but it's pretty basic stuff. The second one is classic Elric. Elric, goes to an exciting location on a quest. There's going to be complications. You're going to have to struggle with whether to use Stormbringer or not. Lots of drama, lots of excitement.
Yeah, just really good pulp fiction. That's the first two stories. They each are about 30 pages long. And the subsequent 200 pages is all one narrative after that. Which is so weird and turgid and dragged out and long with these big rambling nonsensical sentences. The antepenultimate chapter is from the perspective of the villain. And I listened to this as an audiobook. And it was 45 minutes of literal complete gibberish. I'm talking just going in circles. Like just rambling.
It genuinely felt like sitting on a bus next to a mentally ill person. Just hearing the same nonsense over and over and over again. I just want to highlight that if I've learned anything over doing this podcast for the last three years, Geordie, is that when you truly despise something, when something really has hit the rock bottom for you, the word “turgid” comes out. That is, you say that word with such a powerful disdain. It's like, oh dear God. That's a good word.
It, that must be, it's the worst. It's a foul, foul word. Yeah, strong anti-recommendation if there's some way to just get the middle story. Which doesn't even have a snappy title. It's like, “in which Elric goes and finds a lost kingdom.” Come on, at least give it a cool name. If you can somehow do that, read that one. Don't read the rest. Thinking about short fiction that maybe was written many years ago and I recently seen the light of publication. That's pretty good.
That's pretty good segue actually. Gibbet Hill by Bram Stoker. So the main piece of the episode Geordie, this is not a long read. I'm almost inclined to say that if you're listening to this and you have not read this short story, you can get it for free online. It's public domain. Mm-hmm. You can find a copy. So take the 15 minutes and then maybe you might want to come back and then you can, you know, more part of the conversation. Or enjoy us first because we might advise you not to read it.
Oh, who knows? I reckon at this point, by the time this episode comes out, you could even go on YouTube and someone will be able to read it to you. It will take you 15 minutes to listen to that. It's like a short, very old episode of the Magnus Archives. I did not bring up in my opening that I've been listening to the Magnus Archives. I'll talk about more of them another day. Sure. Anyway, you missed your chance, man. It was Halloween. I know. I feel such shame. I should finish it first.
So Gibbet Hill, as alluded to in the intro, this is a lost story. It's a short story that was originally published in a newspaper. And from what we can generally gather by history, Bram Stoker published this. He probably only published it the once. In this paper, he probably got paid and then probably the whole world, him and everyone else forgot about it. It did not leave a massive impression.
Which is, and this is important to us as big fans of pulp fiction, that's how a lot of works are supposed to go. We did a whole episode on the history of Conan the Barbarian. That kind of should have happened to Conan. He should have been forgotten. He wasn't supposed to be preserved. That's weird. It definitely speaks something to things like H.P. Lovecraft’s work and obviously Robert E. Howard. They're in Weird Tales, the pulp magazine from the 1920s.
And they're preserved because they are the names, they're the authors we know about. But there are probably so many other people who wrote in those pages who probably, I'm going to go out there on them, if we just looked story to story, you'd probably go, yeah there's much of a muchness. But we don't know their names. They're probably our- That's right. You know, like, you have to be singled out for a reason. You know, we know C.L. Moore because of Jirel of Joiry.
And I'm sure much, much more talented authors than her have been forgotten. Shots fired, but I quite agree. So this isn't, I don't think this is odd. I don't think anyone should come to this being like, oh my god, why was this lost? Why was it buried? Well, it is a bit odd. It is a bit odd because it's Bram Stoker. Geordie, something that I neglected to do in the run up to this episode, which I definitely should have, is where this short story came out relative to Bram Stoker's other successes.
Dracula, to be clear. And to be honest, we haven't actually explicitly said that. Like I think some listeners might not have immediately put those names together. Because Bram Stoker is the author of Dracula, like one of the most influential novels of the 19th century. I mean, do I need to give an introduction to Dracula? You do not, I shouldn't think. I can tell you now that Dracula came out about seven years post this short story. That's what I was about to say, yes.
Bram Stoker wasn't, or probably wasn't, you know, maybe some people heard about them. I don't think they were anywhere near the name that they were going to be. Let's have a quick look at Bram Stoker's bibliography. Let's get a sense of what people might have known about him. Like in 1890, was he completely unknown? Let's have a look. Let's see. So I'm seeing, very interestingly, on Wikipedia, this story has not yet been added to his Wikipedia entry. Let's have a Wikipedia entry.
It had one, I checked, an hour and a half after the article I read came out. Like someone was just like, I'm on it. I have to get in there. I have to make an article about this. Anyway, from what I've seen of this, his novels, he's written one in 1875, another in 1875, that's the Primrose Path and the Chain of Destiny novella. And he wrote something else that's been recorded in 1890, the Snake's Pass. Another snake story, that's interesting.
Apparently that one centres around St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. Oh, that makes sense. Oh wait, no, I just scrolled down. It's just in a different section. Uncollected stories, including Gibbet Hill. Okay, it's now been added to the list. So this would be his one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eighth published story including novels and uncollected short stories. Jody, just looking over Bram Soka's other works, like, Dragon is so well known and so iconic.
Are you a little bit surprised that I'm looking at all his other stuff and I'm literally thinking, well, I think I've heard of the Jewels of the Seven Stars, because that has a mummy in it. The one thing I'm aware of is the Lair of the White Worm, because it is famously one of the worst stories of all time. I've read it through right now, it somehow seems even more racist than the other stories he's written, which is quite impressive to be honest.
He's really like three for three on Bram Stoker’s stories I'm aware of and being extremely racist. Gosh, it's now, now's the time I feel like I just need to throw out there. Obviously, the influence of Dracula cannot be denied. When I read it as a teenager, I didn't like it that much. No, I read it as a teenager too and I couldn't finish it. I got up to, weirdly enough, I always stop reading around when it's getting exciting. My stamina has run out by then.
Every time I get up to Dracula has bitten, not Lucy, what's the other one? Nina. Nina, yes. He's bitten Nina and I'm like, okay, I'm run out. And it's been like that for years. Last year I failed to finish Dracula Daily because I got up to that point where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on.
And to be honest, the chapters after their confrontation with Dracula and Nina has been bitten are really boring because it's mostly them like waiting around, got their hands in their pockets being like more waiting, gotta wait for the boat to arrive. It's pretty dry stuff. But Dracula as a whole, like the early parts, there really is some good stuff in there. There definitely is. Obviously, my preference for short fiction is well documented on this podcast.
I generally think that if you took the opening journey of Harker and his time in the castle and just left, just left, just ended it there, you know, we don't know what happens. Ah, chef's kiss. It's true. I would love it. It's totally true. I always struck me in quite vividly because I read this, I believe after I read this, I immediately went on to read Frankenstein. Obviously, it's another famous work of Gothic horror from a similar time period.
And what really struck me is how much just as a reading experience, I preferred Frankenstein. Like I had no problem flying through that and being like, I am gripped, I am here, I'm with it. Oh, Night and Day. Frankenstein is a great novel. It's extremely readable. But sadly, it is science fiction, so it will not be on this podcast. So shall we actually get into Gibbet Hill then? We've talked a little bit about Dracula. We've talked about some of the connective tissue it has.
And extremely short so we can get into some deep analysis here. Basically what I find most interesting about this story is it really does feel like a classic written in a short span of time. You know, I can imagine Bram Stoker, if he lived in the modern day, spending a lot of time on r slash no sleep, like writing little, short horror stories that like he doesn't really check the spelling punctuation of.
You know, the fact that it starts off with these like lengthy descriptions of how nice it is in the afternoon and how pleasant it is to be outside. It's like this is this is filler, you know, like you can tell he's like, all right, I've got a really short idea for a story and I need to jam this out there so I can sell it to the newspaper so I can afford to buy milk and eggs tomorrow. Let's just get it out there. I 100% agree with you.
This does have the sense of there is a word count, so I'm going to go overboard on description and this plagues, I think, the whole story. But then again, if you didn't have it here, it wouldn't be a story. It would be a micro story wouldn't be a short one. I'm not necessarily against all this. It is a little over the top and it is a little bit obtuse. But to be honest, like it's not completely overly done. You know, you can it's completely legible.
You can read through and, you know, I don't feel exhausted by the end. Again, it's very short. It's like 15 pages long. Something I do really appreciate and this I know I alluded to at the start of this episode is that I actually think he does really capture the real world place.
I would strongly believe that this is a walk that Bram Soaker probably took himself and has done this journey and knows, you know, I don't know for a fact that the in reference to the start, I'm like, yeah, it's probably a real place because so many of the sites visited in this short story are real and you can visit them today. So that was incredibly exciting, particularly someone who's been to the area. You're like, oh, this is a real world connection.
Yeah, there's a lot of crime novel set in Cambridge, so I definitely have the advantage in some people. So let's get into this. So this story is sent around a young gentleman, well, older gentleman with no name is going to no name that they're not important. They're one of you. They don't have a character. They're silly. And they're going to see the I did it countryside. They're getting out of London. So full of smog. Terrible.
So she's going to enjoy the countryside as a late era Victorian man does. And he goes along and we and things start out beautifully. But then as he's going around the devil's punch bowl, real life location on the road that goes from London to Portsmouth again, really did exist and only has been dismantled in the last 10 years. Fun fact. Thank you, Duncan. This is important information that our listeners, they need to know.
No, what's fun is that if you do enjoy that, you can actually walk the road now because they obviously it was a, you know, a modern road tarmac and everything. They shut it down because they built a tunnel through the countryside instead. So what they're doing is they're tearing up the road, but obviously because it's still flattened, you can walk then the old road. You can still walk through this area as nature is coming back in. That's actually quite nice.
And on this walk, he sees a gravestone. Or does he see some children first? Gosh, I can't, how can I forget this? And it's so short. Gravestone first, then children. No, no, no. Well, he recognized he sees them at the same time. Whatever. He sees some children by gravestone and the gravestone is talks about a man who was murdered by I believe it was highwaymen. And there's some creepy children by it. And not only the children creepy, but Ramsoke has some creepy racism to go along with them.
It's so true. It's really fascinating the way in which he's trying to create horror. So I recently wrote a short horror story, you know, as a like a writing exercise, I did it for fun. And what I was trying to do is like, all right, to make this scary, even though things are not here at once, I'm going to lay down the classic, like, you know, dramatic irony. My character knows how the story ends, and he can't help but bring up that dread and sprinkle it throughout the story.
It shows that like, oh, he has all this weighing on his mind, he can't escape it. But it also keeps the reader interested. They're like, okay, something scary is going to happen. I'm not going to get bored. I'm going to say, all right, there's something worth sticking around for. It's really fascinating that the first two things that Bram Stoker lays in here to to get the reader to know this is going to get spooky is there is a gravestone. That that's the first one.
That's pretty scary stuff, right, dunk? Like I got a little chill down my spine. I said, whoa, there's a there's a slab here with text on both sides. And the other thing was the both sides is weird descriptions of foreigners like. And to diluvian styles of racism, the text, it's I'm going to read something aloud. It's not strictly speaking offensive in of itself, like it doesn't have any slurs, but it is genuinely like it's so cartoonishly awful that it's kind of funny.
There were only children, but of types that were not common to a young Indian girls of an age which by the slower development of English girlhood would be about some 13 or 14 years being, however, of Eastern birth, they were probably much younger. What the fuck does that mean? This is a Victorian thing because I have never heard this before. What a strange stereotype. I've never heard this before.
Like I don't consider myself wholly naive into sort of the views and opinions held during the Victorian era. I've consumed a lot of media. To be fair, Charles Dickens didn't write about it. Maybe I wouldn't have heard about it. But what is this? What is this that these Eastern people grow up faster? That's so it's just so strange. And it's a weird assumption to me because he doesn't even know that. He doesn't ask them their ages. It's never going to end the story.
They look like you're about 13 or 14. Probably weren't though. I don't know, Bram. Maybe they were. Who knows? And there's some creepy stuff here. It's so weird. You know, they both have bad eyes. And then he goes on to go, they were both very pretty of their type. And their slim girl is figures with draped in black or some shoring material. I do like the bit where it says like there's some kind of dark material round around their head and acting as headgear.
And it's like, okay, so it's really fascinating that like, you have absolutely no ability to make any assumptions based upon their dress, about their background. Like you, I read that I'm like, okay, so that's probably a hijab, right? And so you might actually be able to like draw some more conclusions about that. But you really get the impression that this is literally just Bram Stoker saying, I have a vague idea that in India, some people wear head scarves, but I have no idea why.
And I don't need to interrogate why in order to be able to tell this story. No, he has no idea why he doesn't have an idea. He doesn't use the word. He just says to interact around their heads. He's literally just got this vague idea of what I don't want to say myself. What like a child of Eastern descent looks like. That's it. And that's it. No further context. But it's that's not what that's not the point, Geordie. The point is, is that they're out of place for this South of England tale.
It does really highlight to me, like I always kind of put this aside in Dracula, because there's obviously so much obviously scary stuff going around, like profane beings, blood drinking necromancy. But you really do forget that like the first signifies of horror in that story is just the counts foreignness. Like he literally has hairy palms. What a weird thing to believe about Romanian people. So I'm really struggling to even give I suppose I said that's part of the times.
And no, I just don't like it's not pleasant to read about. I think what's interesting in this particular case, unlike say something like HP Lovecraft, where there seems to be a bit more like venom and disdain. This just reads to me more, as we said, clumsy and ignorant. And I feel like I felt more bewildered. That's exactly that's why I laugh about it. Like I've never laughed about the racism in HP Lovecraft stories, because they're so vile. But this is just so buffoonish.
It almost feels like an like an something like Alan Partridge would say, you know, I now needs like Alan Partridge to do a reading of this story. Get that done. I'd be happy. It could genuinely be an anecdote, like he could say, like, can you not imagine him talking about snake charmers? So he goes up the hill. Finally, the main character does not have to speak to these two Indian girls, because amongst them, there is a little boy who is explicitly white. He's blue eyed and blonde haired.
So he can talk to this child, a child who this is my best competition. They have is that like, first of all, the child at first doesn't speak remotely like a human being. He says like, can you tell us anything about this stone, sir? We are strangers. And you're like, OK, that's a bit weird that you talk like that. But then the next thing the kid says, as they're walking up the hill together, he says, what have you got in your hands? And he says, I've got worms.
And he shows him a handful of worms and he explains why he likes worms. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's what kids are like. He's totally on it. Never mind. This isn't creepy at all. This is totally normal. Obviously, I think there must be an element of like, yeah, this is meant to unnerve you. You're obviously meant to know something's off with these children and the children like, who's very tear or what's this? And the guy goes, oh, this guy was he was murdered.
And they're like, and and again, we return to like this sort of pastoral scene. It feels very much like, yeah. And this is obviously very deliberate. Like he's contrasting the peacefulness of this place with the horror to come. So like he has a nap on top of the hill. And it's always talk about like him relaxing because he has to work so hard in London, blah, blah, blah. He identifies some of the characters who will show up later.
And then when he awakens, it's just classic, absolutely classic bog standard, forgettable, short fiction horror. He happens to see something weird and he sneaks up to get a better look. Like this is exactly how so many forgettable micro fictions of horror occur. Like it's bog standard, like radio play, you know, cop horror copypasta you found on Reddit. He sneaks up in the bushes.
So whereas there's very little description about how our point of view character is experiencing horror, you know, there we don't get the description of how they're scared or how the hairs are raising on the back of their neck or they feel that kind of coldness sweep through them. As soon as we get to the scene, it's just, let me explain to you this weird little performance. So that's an interesting thing, Duncan.
And I think that you're right that that feels absent and it does make the horror feel a bit more sterile and unaffecting. And I think the reason that he's done this is that he kind of expects us, you know, thinking that we're going to be this Victorian, I guess, you know, Victorian Irish audience. He's going to be so expectant that we will take as given the stuff he's going to describe and that this is a real threat that could happen.
That he doesn't really need to describe why it makes the character scared or how it makes the character scared. Just showing it should be enough. Fair enough. Show don't tell. Isn't that what we always say? What is he showing? I mean, listen, we can just, he just tells us what happens in this so we can just tell our audience and they should be terrified.
Listen, if you listen to this late at night, you might want to be ready because this is some pretty, there's some pretty messed up stuff here going on, Dunk. Yes, but this is horror. And they're playing music. And as they're playing music, he feels a large snake of the blind worm species to be Pacific. Don't think it's any other type of snake. It came straight towards him and actually pass over his feet.
Yes. Now, to be honest, I just jump in here and say like my sister is absolutely terrified of snakes. That might have scared her if she heard read this. So, you know, maybe that is effective horror. Like the idea of like a snake touching you. For some people that is going to be like, oh no. Maybe. So as this happens, the snake approaches until it gets to the feet of the little fair haired child and it curls itself up into a little spiral and begins to hiss.
And the boy looks down and the girls turn their eyes towards him. The music does not stop. On the contrary, it grows something quicker. Then the snake twined itself around the child's ankle and began to climb its way up his body, wriggling around and around his leg and thigh and up and up till it last it crawled on the arm that held the flute. Then suddenly the music stopped. Actually, I don't know. When I read it, I think it's a little bit creepier. It is a little creepy.
Like the animal is acting in a way it's not supposed to. There could be something unsettling about that. I think the thing that's really supposed to make alarm bells ring in the readers head is that this is this is snake charming. It's called snake charming in the text. And obviously the idea is that this is something that they do. Like this is like foreign oriental magics. And that is supposed to just be kind of unsettling and scary and represent this foreign menace.
And since that sort of supposed to be the root of the horror, it just feels a little embarrassing to be honest, like, oh, that's it. That's what's supposed to be scary. And you know, this is a very common trope of the era that other cultures, other cultures, when I say other cultures, I mean not British imperial cultures. Well, they can't they worship weird dark gods and their whatever they do, their voodoo is evil and you shall fear it as a good Victorian Christian soul.
And it's just I get the fear is meant, you know, at the time is born out of complete ignorance. People were not well learned. I don't know people, people, the general consuming demographic, as I've been led to believe with Victoria Britain, were not well learned in other cultures. So it's filled with the unknown. And they're like, oh, that's strange and out there. But from a modern perspective, it just has nothing. Yeah. Very, very specifically, racist.
It not only is it racist, this is this is colonialism, Apologia, which is interesting for an Irish author to be due to be writing this to be like, well, we have to colonize these people and, you know, like, get them to think like us, because the stuff they do, the stuff they would be doing if we weren't making them be British would be this weird unsettling magics. And not only is it weird and unsettling, it's actually like menacing and evil.
So after this, the boy holds the snake and it turns to stone. The girls put their hands like do a little bit of a ring ring. The roses around the boy. There's some evil dark chanting, some slow movement. And then it sort of just stops. I was wondering about this. I read this through and I was like, and I write and I couldn't really figure out, like, how does it transition? Because he does go back to the bottom of the hill like he's leaving.
And that's where like the last part of the story kicks off, right? It's by the gravestone again. Yes. But it just sort of goes there. Like he doesn't. Yeah, he goes, he goes, that was weird. And then walks off back to Gibbet Hill. So look, there's some other bits, obviously talking about the basic based on racism.
There's this terrible line at the start of one of the paragraphs, then began some questioning between them in a language which I was presuming to be some form of Indian, which I did not understand. Both voices were sweet with a peculiar pronounced, no penetrating power. But one of them I seemed instinctively to fear. Yeah, yeah. Um, okay. Maybe that. No, no, no. Like, yeah. Right. That is gross. Like that is like saying like, oh, them speaking their own language is unsettling to me.
Like that's not even like archaic racism. That's up to date, modern, normal racism. You're in England, speak English love. And I read that back and I go, well, could I, could I come make an argument? Listen, he's just making a point that, you know, they're saying something that I didn't know and that was intimidating and the voice could have been scary and it's so right. And I'm just like, I just don't want to make an apology for Gibbet Hill in 1890s from Soka short story.
No, I mean, it's, it's considering the rest of the story. There's no other way it could be read. Like strictly speaking, there's nothing wrong with the line. They were speaking some Indian language. Like you could absolutely write that in a modern book and say like, I wasn't sure whether they were speaking Hindi or Bengali. Like the character doesn't know what it is. There's nothing innately menacing or offensive about that line. It's the context in which it's written.
It's the fact that them speaking another language is framed as being in its own way, scary and indicative of a lack of morality. So anyway, the final part of the story is like the one bit that actually is like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a horror story. Like there's actually potential for this to be scary. Firstly, like I said, our character then goes on to finish up his stroll. He actually says, I've got the line now. How? Um, so the children disappeared from view.
Then I rose up from the bracket and where I lay, I could hardly believe my eyes and thought this must have been, I must have been sleeping and I've dreamt it all. But there lay the dead snake and before me a powerful evidence that I had beheld a reality. And then he basically goes, the sun was high in the west.
I had, and when, yeah, so the sun was far in the west when I had finished my stroll through the laneways and copses upon the Whitby side of Hind Head and found myself once more at the highest point of Gibbet Hill. So he continues his fucking stroll. He sees this scene. He's like, ah, whatever. Why? What is this? This is what he meant about him being scared because he seems very unaffected by this. We're meant to be scared as a slightly racist Victorian, but the main character isn't.
Yeah, I'm reading it through now as well. And you're right. He's just unbothered. He just really doesn't care. And it definitely does detract from the story. Like if he was running for his life and being pursued, that's scary. But if he's like, well, I was fucked up. I'm out of here. And he just gently walks away before being ambushed.
Yeah. Okay. So the last part of the story and the only bit that is like properly potentially unsettling is that he gets grabbed from behind and he gets grabbed from behind with like inhuman force. Like, it's stronger than a person. And so when it's revealed, oh, and I almost thought for a second, like, hey, this bit, I guess like it's scary for non-racist reasons.
But actually I just glanced at it again and I realized that no, no, no, no, even this bit is scary for racist reasons because he gets like blindfolded by a scarf. And you realize that it's the scarf, it's the head scarf of like of one of the Indian girls. So it's like, oh, she was attacking me with her foreign garments. Ah, exactly. And this is when we know, I mean, we already know, you know, something is off with these children and they tie his hands.
He's leaning up against, I think it's like a, I don't know if it's a tree or it's like the stone cross on top of the hill. So he's tied down to that and the three kids stand in front of him and one of them takes out a knife and kind of just flourishes it for him. Oh, with, she just sort of messes with him. She's just like, she's just like waving it around. Genuinely though, the one bit that actually is like, whoa, it made me go, oh, baby, it's scared.
It goes, and non, she would dart towards my eyes so I could feel its cold point actually touching my eyeballs. That's, that's scary. That is actually scary. That's the only thing in his book that affected me. I'm glad you got impacted by that. I, to be fair, no, that, that does that. It gives that sense of like, oh, quick moment. I can, I can imagine it happening. Um, and I know there's meant to be magic in this, but then he kind of falls asleep.
I think it's because they've put the spell on him. I think this is rape sense. It's not, it's not like he's like, oh, I'm bored now. I'm going to take a nap. Like it's part of the magic. No, you're right. I'm weakest still at length. My eyes closed. I tried to open them, succeeded, tried again, failed, succeeded, failed at length and consciousness passed. No, at length consciousness passed away from me. I actually like that. The, the use of sentence structure there.
I found that was actually quite good and impactful. The, the, the, I'm here, I've got it. Nope. Uh, nodding off. No. Oh, good. That, that gets a thumbs up from me. Well done, Bram Soka. The narrator is then found by like some bystanders he saw earlier and, um, like they're picking him up. It, it, it's over with so quickly. It's literally like the last page would probably, it's just like a couple of paragraphs and, um, they're picking him up and they're like, oh man, you fell asleep.
You're in a bad way. And the narrator keeps complaining about his heart, which is icy cold. Okay. So again, this part actually has a potential to be scary, except it's just so let down, I think by the final line. Okay. So he keeps complaining that his heart is cold and it's like in pain. And then as the, the, these people have helped him, uh, like fussing over him. All right. Here, here's how it ends. My heart, my heart. I cried out again, for there was a coldness which seemed to numb me.
The man put his hand over my heart, but quickly tore it away again with a cry of terror. What is it George? What is it? Almost shrieked the lady for his action was so sudden and unexpected, but it thoroughly frightened her. He stood back and she clung frightened upon his arm. Oh good. Repetition of frightened brand. That's really great. As a large blind worm wriggled itself out from my bosom, fell on the floor and glided away down the hill into the copse below. Cops should be cops. Excuse me.
And that's it. That's how the story ends. Duncan, what do you think actually happens at the end? Cause I've read it through like three times and I have like four different ideas. A sodding clue. Like he's clearly alive when they wake him up. The creepy children, by the way, the couple that find the man like nearly frozen to death on the hilltop say, Oh, they saw these sweet children riding away on a tricycle. I don't know why that happened. All three of them. All three of them. And they would.
That's so weird. Did the guy die? Did a snake, did they infect him with a snake? Were they trying to charm him like a snake? Yeah. The first thing, my first reading of this was literally just, there was a snake in his shirt like that's the reading I got my first instinctive reaction. It's like, Oh, he had a snake on him. That's weird. And then I was like, Oh no, it literally crawled out of his chest. So that's unsettling. But now I'm later, I'm like, is his heart transformed into a snake?
Like that's how it ends. Like his heart turns into a snake. It slivers out of his chest and he dies. Is that how it ends? It's interesting. Cause he doesn't say what's the last actual words he says. It's just my heart, my heart, my heart, my heart. Yeah. We're good at self out for my bosom. I fell on the ground and got away from him. I don't know, Geordie. I really don't know on this one. I thought I generally took your first impression when I first read it.
I thought it is it just in his shirt was just really cold and it just like he, the snake didn't realize and just struggled in there. Vigorous self out from my bosom. Yes. Is it actually from his chest? Yeah bosom can just be coming out. I don't know. It certainly didn't leave me with a pang of fear. And I'm meant to go. The children are no, Oh, as a church, it went down the London road on a tricycle. Well that they're off to London. They're off to strike again.
I'm really enjoying as we're talking now, I'm just flicking through the like extra writing it's in this book. So there's a bit section Bram Stoker, mast of a serpent tie. And I, what I'm loving about it is how much of an emphasis like, Oh yeah, this is a really good story. You can see how, how cleverly things are set up in here and the gradual increase of, of the horror through the boy sadism with the worms. I'm like, wow, you, you were really affected by this story, huh?
I just, I know what you're talking about when people seem that they have to big up the author they're writing about, you know, and the influence and how we've all been impacted, but this story was forgotten for a reason. Oh, oh, oh, strong words from Duncan. I don't think it was necessarily forgotten for a reason. I mean like to my understanding, I mean, I haven't read it, but I did a brief read through of the layer of the white worms description on, on Wikipedia.
And it sounds way more horrible than this one. But yes, that's my point. This one fell through the cracks. And it's, it's fascinating as a sort of window into this past and like this anachronistic racism, which it's so easy to forget. Duncan, have you ever read the sign of four by Arthur Conan Doyle? No, I have not. It's the second ever Sherlock Holmes story.
And it's like the racism and it is so weird and surprising and in that typical colonial way, like, like it's just the villain is just an African and he's just unsettling and weird and unfortunately ape like in the way he's described. And it's just gross and disgusting. You're like, this is so weird and unsettling. Why are you, why does this exist? But it is, it's insightful. It really goes to show the ways in which narrative is used in order to justify colonialism. Like it's fascinating.
That does sound fascinating. I wouldn't call what we see in Gibbet Hill enough to be fascinating. I just, before I get really negative, I do want to just say I liked this line. Then the air grew colder and the silence became perfect. It's not amazing, but that was quite nice. That mood. I think why we want to do, cause we're very clear that the racism is not amusing. It's a bit baffling. It's not like, it's not, I say it's not the worst.
I don't mean to put it on a scale, but it's just stupid and unpleasant. And it isn't the worst. It's not as, it's not as disgusting as some of the other ones you've experienced. What I do want to also make a point of talking about the setup and how it doesn't carry the fear and the bizarre ending.
Even the racism aside, even the context of the times it was written and the audience it was written for, just to be clear, when I say that, I mean, you know, they were racist and they would have noticed the racism because they themselves racist. They still probably would have thought of this story as being pretty bad because I don't think it functions that well anyway. Doesn't have a good setup. The point of view character doesn't seem to be bothered by the apparently scary things happening.
There's not nearly enough context for me to be getting engaged. And to be honest, the main point of the story, also such a missed opportunity, because the whole point of the gravestone that he visits and Gibbet Hill is this scenario that people were like, you know, murdered by highwaymen. And I'm like, oh, is this going to be like a ghost story about highwaymen? No. What a letdown.
Yeah, there was, yeah, again, that's it feels like it's just like a means to set up the idea that something scary is going to happen. That something scary happened there once a long time ago. Completely irrelevant scary. I generally believe the children at the start, like those children came along to do something scary and they went, oh, oh, that's that's neat. Completely irrelevant. They were surprised that something other creepy was going on. Imagine they had a turf wall.
Yeah, I guess what I'm realizing. Yeah, what I'm realizing is just Bram Stoker saw a gravestone and when, huh, that's a bit creepy. I mean, he chose to write this story. Yeah, I can see that. He was walking along on his beautiful summer day, saw the gravestone, chill went up his spine. He thought there's something here. And I think there is something there, but it's not this story. OK, I'm going to read something very amusing.
That's the conclusion to that thing I was just reading about Bram Stoker, master of the serpentine conclusion. So ends one of Stoker's most enigmatic and challenging short stories. A very I mean, look, I haven't read his short fiction, so maybe the rest of them are. This is the most enigmatic one, but it does just amuse me like it's very it's ironic, isn't it? Like this is a fascinating story that it would be discovered like this.
And it's exciting to know that it's out there and that this big discovery has been made. It's just to be saying, like it's well worth being excited that a discovery's been made. And from a historian standpoint, obviously, I'm very happy that we have another piece of the grand tapestry of this author's work and the development of fiction in general. That that's amazing. And it also excites me because it makes me go, maybe there's some other stories out there.
Maybe there's lost fiction by other writers. Wouldn't that be amazing? Probably not, because they're probably lost because they weren't that good. Still, that's quite incredible. But this story, from a 21st century perspective, has very little to offer. And from a 19th century perspective, I still don't think was that good anyway. What I can sort of say, though, is someone listening to this work costs. Yeah, you probably should read it.
It'll take you 15 minutes and you get a little bit of history. I agree. I mean, the racism as we discussed, it's so outdated and just farcical that I really can't imagine anyone actually being that offended by it. And like, no one's going to clutch their pearls after reading this story. I think it is worth the very short period of time it would take to read this story, because yeah, it's interesting.
If you are a fan of horror fiction, if you've read Dracula and you've enjoyed it, I think this is worth looking at. Maybe this was buried. Maybe Bram Soka did go leave it when they're like, Bram, success of Dracula, we want to make a list of all of your works. If I can look to this one, just went, I'll sort it, no one needs to hear about that again. I do find it interesting, you know, authors are not fixed in time. As we see with Michael Moorcock, their styles change.
Not every project will be at the same level. Sometimes it's a quirk of circumstance. Sometimes it's just a developing style in your taste. I always loved, there's a story by Terry Pratchett called The Carpet People. In the foreword to the version that I have, he talks about how this is actually a heavily rewritten version from the one he originally wrote because he went back after having more success to get it republished and was just like, no, no, no, no, I can't have this go out anymore.
And he actually phrases it as a collab between his like 17 year old self and his 30 year old self because writers do evolve. And I don't want this to be a knock against Bram Stoker for the legacy that he has with Dracula despite the fact I've already said I don't like that book either. But nonetheless, an important legacy and a book which a lot of people do enjoy. So yeah, let's not hold it against him.
Any more than we would the other blatant racism in Dracula, which is a whole other topic for another day and another year and another Halloween Duncan where we just might read that one. So final thoughts, I don't think it was very good, but I do sort of recommend it out of pure curiosity. Geordie, do you recommend this book? Sure, why not? Well, that's your opinion. So, Gibbet Hill by Bram Stoker, the end of our spooky book club. And it's been a great one this year.
I am looking forward to next year and what other horror stories we're going to get into. People will actually read The Women in Black that time. But for now onwards, let's read something a bit different. Now Geordie, I've got a little thing to admit. I've actually already read the book I'm picking next because when I was on holiday, surprise, surprise, I read another book and it was this one and I loved it.
And we've got to discuss it because we've actually done a sort of another trilogy this year. Yeah, we did the Thrawn trilogy this year. We finished off the Legacy of Orisha trilogy this year. And now we're going to finish off another one because we're going to actually finish this year. The Joe Abercrombie First Law standalone midquel trilogy of Best Served Cult of the Heroes and finally Red Country. Woohoo! Spoilers, I really like this book and I can't wait to discuss it with you.
And I've been enjoying it so far a lot. So yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to recording this episode as well. It's something it's gonna be something a bit different. We love his writing style, but in this upcoming book, he takes his fantasy world and pivots it into more of a Wild West setting. That's new. That's interesting. I don't think we've really done a fantasy Western before on this podcast.
The only one I can really think of is The Second Era of Mistborn, but I would never get a man to read that without recommending the entirety of the original Mistborn trilogy to people. So I likely will get to that one anytime too. But yes, please everyone join us in two weeks time for Red Country by Joe Abercrombie.
Now if you have read Red Country or Gibbet Hill or anything by Bram Stoker or anything we have to discuss or in this episode or any other episode of the It's Just Fantasy podcast, please do reach out and tell us your opinions. The best place is our Instagram IsThisJustFantasyPodcast. You can also do it on Gmail. [email protected]. We always love to hear your opinions, ask us questions. It really does make our day.
And please do, if you're listening to this on any of the major podcasting applications, do drop us a review. It does an awful lot for the metrics and for more people to discover us, which is just sharing joy. Really, you're actually being charitable to other people, not us, by giving us a positive review. So thank you very much. I've been your host, Duncan Nicol. And I've been your other host, Geordie Bailey. Till next time. Bye! Bye!