The Watcher in The Woods by Charlotte Bond
Publisher – Black Shuck Books
Published – Out Now
Price - £4.99 paperback
A series of micro-collections featuring a selection of peculiar tales from the best in horror and speculative fiction.
One of the most interesting trends I’m seeing is how people are regenerating the concept of a folk tale. Folk horror as its often referred to is a reminder that many of the old tales were quite dark and threats lurked in nature and the unseen. Our fears of the dark, the wild and what lurks out of the corner of our eye have not nearly as crept away as fast as the old ways of living in villages. In the excellent micro-collection The Watcher in The Woods by Charlotte Bond we get five tales riffing off these tales and providing something really resonant to modern audiences too.
Hessian Sky – this tale is set-in modern-day Iceland where we join Petra a Creative Solutions Architect who suffers a car failure in the middle of nowhere. She manages to find a pub and they have a room left for the night. A rumoured haunted room but she needs a break and ends up fighting for her life in a battle of wits with the Devil. This tale plays on a very old folk tale but its refreshing both to have the lead role with a woman and its got a nice mix of the traditional tale and yet an unnerving sense of horror of her fate if she doesn’t win.
A Wolf in The House – this is more a period tale set in the distant past where we follow the teenage Purdey increasingly troubled by her new stepfather’s behaviour towards her. A fortune teller leads her to a potential solution that she daren’t try. I always enjoy tales that remind us the real monsters aren’t always magical and this tale really gets the balance right.
The Wild Hunt – another tale that tackles a well-known legend sees Sally and her daughter Katy going for a retreat in the Scottish Highlands and a very remote village with some strange traditions. I loved this story because its added lots of little dimensions giving extra depth to what could have been just a very simple folk tale; we get the emotional depth of the reasons for Sally’s escape from it all; a Wicker Man style atmosphere of a village where the newcomers are getting some strange glances and finally a tense race through the night. Really enjoyable.
Teeth in The Shadows – A more Mediterranean style period folk tale with the penultimate tale of a town where the King is looking for a new wife; but his new suitors are meeting a terrible fate while he keeps talking to the severed hand of the previous Queen. I really enjoyed the growing atmosphere of something not being quite right here it felt more a modern horror tale than just a revised version of a folk tale. It weaves ghosts and revenge with curses to never quite let you work out where the story is going while we watch the young noble Chiara work out a way to solve things and stay alive.
The Watcher in the Woods – this is a brilliant tale that manages to be weird, haunting, tragic and bittersweet. The story focuses on Fergus who is a mechanic near a strange forest up in Scotland. He is writing a tale about his other role as a Watcher. The Woods call people, and the Watchers try to stop these guests before they become something known as the Lost Ones. It’s a really impressive building of a strange place building on our fears of those dark places building up a place full of legends and then just as we know to fear the place we have to go on a late night trip that has a personal cost for Fergus. A story that feel eerie and uncomfortable as we start to wonder exactly what is lurking behind this place.
This is a very impressive collection of stories that trads the balance between old and new worlds really inventively. Tales not all horrific but all a pleasing mix of the strange and the unusual. Well worth a look!
