Maps of the Lost volume 10
...from that hollow in the woods
in the hollow, a gift
In a forest in Shropshire, not far from the Welsh border, a gentle walk through a forest near John Osbourne’s old home comes to an end by a fence. If rather than retrace your steps, you cut off the path to the left, you will find a natural amphitheatre, a hollow in the ground surrounded by trees like sentries. The kind of place, you think, where primitives would have worshipped their old god. And you’d be right. And she’s still there. So, do not leave without making some kind of offering - a stick, a chocolate bar, your gloves, it does not matter. But if you leave without making one, the bracken will start to shiver and the bushes will start to rustle and the trees will begin to shake and you will never find the path again, not ever.
Notes From the Cartographer
Hi everyone. Happy (belated by the time you get this) Beltane. If you’d like to share this newsletter with anyone, please do. Link at the end.
The Maps podcast has seen a real jump in numbers this week, thank you if any of those are you. Also had a lovely review in a newsletter about audio fiction:
“Maps of the Lost is carried by its lush, creepy descriptions and deep voice alone, at least in its podcast form. However, this is a multimedia experience, alongside a blog with more English folk horror, social media accounts that deal in Twitter-length horror fic and haunting images, and a newsletter. It's an enticing digital adventure”
After a couple of new stories this week, I worked out that what I’ve written for Maps has hit 50,000 words (and approaching 300 stories). That’s a good way towards a full novel, but have written several, writing Maps feels a lot more like play and a lot less like one of those Japanese endurance challlenge game shows that were popular a couple of decades ago.
I don’t think that when I started it that I’d still be coming up with new stories after that many, but it feels like fertile ground, and the fact that writing it comes easy and feels fun tells me something important about the longer work I ought to be writing.
I took a little time to do a bit of mind-mapping about recurring themes and images and preoccupations that come up a lot in Maps, and so here’s a list of some. You may find that some of these come up in your favourite Maps stories, or you might recognise some of them as popping up every now and then.
What this all says about my subconscious is anyone’s guess.
the party
Walk down a Manchester street in the late evening, and you might pass a closed down shop between another selling phone cards on the one side, and a scruffy travel agent on the other. There’s a flat above it, lit up, the sounds of a party coming from open windows, and the door to the street is ajar. It sounds as if everyone is having a grand time, and you may be tempted to go in, and to climb the stairs to the party.
Don’t.
A few days later you may be glad of this advice, when your work happens to take you down that same street, and there it is, between a shop selling phone card on one side, and a scruffy travel agent on the other, just a gap like a mouth with a tooth missing where a building once was, old foundations overgrown with weeds
mary of the mud
The local children have a legend that they tell about the boggy ravine, down in the park, which is full of mud and plastic bottles and brambles. They say that if you go down there on a full moon and chant the name Mary of the Mud, Mary of the Mud, Mary of the Mud three times, just like that, while spinning round anti-clockwise, Mary will come up from the mud where she lives and if you’re not quick, she takes you.
Sometimes the kids dare one another, and there is much squealing and screaming and they’re all much more afraid than they’d ever let on, but Mary of the Mud never appears.
That’s because she only comes up from the mud, sticky and terrible, when there are no witnesses, and she doesn’t need any chant to summon her, only the smell of a lonely person.
Maps Traced By Other Hands
If you’re interested in British folk tradition seen through a modern artistic vision, then I’d really recommend checking out Ben Edge. Ben’s a figurative painter interested in folklore and storytelling, who has been working on a series of paintings inspired by a Druid ceremony he witnessed in London, which has sent him travelling up and down the British Isles producing a body of work titled 'Frontline Folklore' which will be ‘exhibited alongside a carefully curated selection of objects from the influential set designer, Simon Costin's remarkable 'Museum of British Folklore' collection that will be taking place in 2021’.
You can see Ben’s art on his Instagram and website (which also includes a shop where you can buy prints, postcards, badges (pins for our US readers), and a very tasty Art 4 Folk foliate head t-shirt which I’ve got my eye on. Lovely stuff.
(And, for music fans, Ben’s gorgeous ‘Burryman’ (also the subject of a Maps story) was the cover art for a Fat White Family single).
The Ooser Speaks
(taken from the wonderful Readers Digest 'Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain')
There used to be an inn called Spital Inn near North Stainmore, although it has vanished now. Late one night at the end of the eighteenth-century, an old woman called at the inn and begged to be allowed to stay the night next to the fire. The kindly landlord agreed, and went to his bed. There was only one of the household still awake, Bella the housemaid. Bella was suspicious of the old woman and sat hidden on the stairs, watching her through the bannisters.
She was wise to be suspicious: the old woman fumbled in her cloak and produced a dried human hand. She inserted a candle between its withered fingers, and then went to unlock the doors of the inn. Bella knew what was coming, and went to wake the landlord before the thieves arrived. But the magic of the Hand of Glory, a candle made of the fat from the body of a hanged man held in the fingers of the hand of a hanged man, kept him fast asleep, so she could not wake him.
It was lucky for all in the inn that Bella knew the ancient remedy. She poured a dish of milk, and threw it over the hand, putting out the candle. The landlord woke straight away and came hurtling down with his blunderbuss, just in time to fight off the thieves who were approaching.
The hand that was left behind, was a popular attraction for many years after.
how pepto bismol keeps the devils at bay
In a pleasant cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Lincoln lives a middle-aged man called David who is a sin-eater. When someone dies, David is called to eat a ritual meal from a small bowl placed on the corpse. In doing so he consumes the sins of the deceased, letting them go into the next life as innocent as a new-born.
Beware the pleasant cul-de-sac if there are outbreaks of norovirus in the area, or you learn that David has had too much to drink at a wedding.
Because if he vomits, the sins of all the dead will be visited upon the street and those who live in it will be doomed to repeat them.
Secrets The Wind Whispers
Most of the audio I’ve mentioned in the newsletter before has been modern, made in the last few years. There’s a treasure trove out there of older audio and radio drama that’s well worth exploring. One of my favourites is from the early 80s - the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s ‘Nightfall’, which ran for 3 seasons, from 1980 to 1983, for a hundred episodes, all of which are floating around online, including here or here.
Most of the episodes were eerie, spooky horror, though there were a few which were SF, fantasy, mystery, or just plain drama. It’s a mark of how good the series was that CBC apparently got lots of complaints about many of them.
Many were originals, but there were also good adaptations of classic stories - The Monkey’s Paw, a great adaptation of Robert Aickman’s Ringing The Changes (but also see here for a terrific BBC adaptation), and stories by Carmilla by Le Fanu, Balzac, Sir Walter Scott, Edith Wharton and many others.
Some of the originals I liked most: The Porch Light, Weather Station, The Road At The End Of The Sea, and Gerald. But dive in…
mr nobody
You might find yourself in South London, trudging through the snow, head down as more sleety flurries turn into larger flakes, when you notice something very strange. Even though you are the only person on the street, you can see footprints forming in the snow, just a few steps in front of you.
You stop, and the footprints stop appearing. You look at them, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary about them, just an average sized shoe print of no discernible type. You wipe snowflakes from your eyes, and think how tired you must be. Of course, the footprints were there all along.
But when you start walking again, you know, because you see them, forming in virgin snow, keeping pace with you, just a little way ahead.
You can say, “Good afternoon, Mr Nobody,” out loud and if it is Mr Nobody then you will not see the footprints again but you will have good luck all day and all the rest of the week. If it’s not Mr Nobody though, it’s probably the nameless thing that when it hears your voice will stop, turn back, and eat you.
Beyond This Point There May Be Dragons
You’ve been reading Maps of the Lost. Or have you? It’s hard to tell. Maybe this is all just a dream. Or a prophecy, or a forewarning. I hope you enjoyed it. Feedback is always welcome, as I’d really like to shape this newsletter to be what you’d like to read and hear. So, ideas, suggestions and comments welcome. You can just reply to this email if you like.
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I'm so excited to read more of your work.