This is a story to savor during our Halloween to Christmas journey. Algernon Blackwood: The Willows ( BBC) Horror Retrospective 3.71K subscribers Subscribe 5.7K views 11 months ago The narrator and his buddy are camping on a desolate island. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. “The Willows” chills us, and profoundly entertains the reader about existence itself. 'The Willows' is one of Algernon Blackwoods best known short stories. Blackwood’s story truly frightened me, unlike most stories of ghosts and evil influences. Here’s a story reminding us that our short breath of life is surrounded by the supernatural. Will he step onto another small island via a tiny land bridge that crumbles moments after his crossing and lose his way back to his friend? Or will their canoe and island be ripped away from them as they sleep? It’s a summer night, the wind raging, and I fear for the main character collecting fire wood on their small island of shifting sands. (The dwarf willows pictured at the back of my pond are the shrubs dominating this universe.) Wind and water continually erode and reform the swampy expanse. The river rises from summer flooding, losing itself in an enormous marsh of rushing channels and sandy islands full of low willows. After reading 'The Willows' I'm now starting on Blackwood's John Silence stories, and have been amazed. “The Willows” begins with two fellas canoeing on the Danube, just inside Hungary. Having read a great deal of Lovecraft, including his essay on gothic horror, I decided to pick up Blackwood's 'The Willows' which Lovecraft called perhaps the greatest weird tale in the English language.
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