Maps of the Lost Volume 4
….broadcasting to you live from the studio of KAB Radio
stick-in-the-mud
More than a few people have found themselves stuck in the mud in the Stour estuary as it empties out into Sandwich Bay in Kent. It's thick and it's glutinous and many people have left wellington boots behind in it, or had to stand there, while the water rises, until the fire brigade come out and rescue them and politely don't call them idiots. Most of those people will come out of the experience chastened, and wiser to the dangers of the sea and the shore.
Once in a while though, someone will not come out at all. While struggling to free their legs from the suck and the clench of the mud, they will feel fingers in the ooze seize them tight around the ankle, and pull, pull.
Notes from the Cartographer
In last month’s watery, littoral edition of the newsletter, I promised that I’d return to the maritime eerie in film form, so here are some of my favourites. If you have any I’d love to hear yours too. These three films are different but share something in common other than just happening to be set by the sea, and that draw on some of things that I love about coastal towns of a certain kind: that feeling that psychologically and metaphorically you’re on the edge of things, as well as literally and littorally, that sense that it’s a place where rules don’t quite apply as they do everywhere else, an air of bohemianism and folklore, where the raw wildness of nature is right there, pressing in just feel from human endeavours.
1961’s Night Tide was directed by Curtis Harrison and stars a very young and angelic Dennis Hopper. In the film, he’s a young sailor on leave who falls for a mysterious singer in a seaside bar. Her day job is as a mermaid on a boardwalk carnival show, but she has a secret and a strange woman is following her and calling her to return…somewhere. The story’s straightforward (and in some ways a lift from another film), but there’s an off-kilter, dreamy atmosphere about the setting that I really like, and we’re in a liminal, shifting world - I particularly like the chase after the woman which takes Dennis into streets which just seem…off. (For fans of occult history, the strange woman is played by Marjorie Cameron, the centre of the ‘Babalon Working’ (which links to last month’s newsletter about Julian Simpson’s Lovecraft adaptations - everything’s connected) with her husband Jack Parsons, and L Ron Hubbard)
Off-kilter veers sharply into the out and out weird with Messiah of Evil, a 1973 film with a style that reflects the time it was made. Again, we find ourselves in a strange seaside town, with a distinct air of menace. Again, strong on atmosphere, though more explicitly horror than Night Tide, and featuring a fantastic beachside house, where the protagonist’s father should be living - but he has disappeared. Her search for him brings her into contact with a prophetic local, who talks about a blood moon (see more on this later), a very 1970s menage-a-trois, and The Waiting on the beach, who are patiently expecting someone from the sea. It’s eerie, and unsettling.
I’ll end this section with a classic that I’m always happy to rewatch. A DJ spinning records from a lonely lighthouse, while the fog rolls in across the bay…of course, we’re in Spivey Point, and are watching The Fog. A little hokey at times, but full of atmosphere and with a classic, doomy John Carpenter score, it’s the building tension that I love, the fog creeping in, the threat and the obscure menace, more than when the film starts to deliver on what’s in the fog. The credits sequence is a great example of this. The seaside town at night is deserted, jazz is playing from the lighthouse radio station, and then phones start ringing, petrol pumps whirring, items on shop shelves shuddering and shaking…and we know that something is happening.
If I’m being judgemental, if you’ve watched it and not fantasised about being a lonely DJ based in a lighthouse whispering into the mic in the early hours of the morning, you’ve got no soul.
As I said, if you think there’s anything else that fits this feel and atmosphere I’m clumsily grasping for, do let me know.
(I promise to step away from my obsession for a while, and return to more inland matters for a while, but before I do, a plug for a fantastic organisation very dear to me. British Divers Marine Life Rescue is a volunteer organisation that is out on our beaches in the UK, whatever the weather, rescuing poorly seal pups, re-floating beached dolphins and whales, and doing a huge amount of great work, and they’re always in need of support. If nothing else, if you’re in the UK, take their number 01825 765546, put it in your phone and if you find a stranded or distressed marine mammal, don’t approach it, don’t let others approach it, ring that number and the medics will be on their way out. More on what to do here.)
silver, not copper
Glasgow Billy is a familiar figure on the streets of Coventry. He sits on a bench and mutters at the world, then holds out his battered tin mug for a coin. Throw a coin in, and listen to his mutters for you may learn something of use to you. His name is not Billy, and he was born a long, long time before there was a Glasgow.
nothing is as small as it seems
When you are walking in the Peak District, a small, weather-beaten man may pop up over a crest, grin a gap-toothed grin, and challenge you to see if you can roll one of two small stones up to the top of the hill faster than he can the other.
If you murmur thank you but no, thinking to yourself what a ridiculous idea, why would I even want to do such a thing, he will produce a gold coin from his pocket, and offer it as a stake. If you're also a man, he'll say this in a tone of voice which implies you're only refusing because you're weaker than he is, and although you don't like to admit it, this spurs you on as much as the gold. But even though it's only a small stone, on a small hill, and he's a small man, do not be tempted.
Once you start, you'll find out that the hill's a very long hill indeed, and there'll never be an end in sight.
Maps Traced By Other Hands
I’ve covered a couple of great zines here before, but just come across this one: Black Dog. I’ve not had a chance to get my hands on it yet, but it sounds well worth it. According to Colours May Vary, where I came across it:
“Black Dog joins a burgeoning scene of publications which passionately explore the weird history of these isles. Black Dog resides in the most easterly region of the United kingdom, bringing us the folk legends, history and nature of East Anglia.
Inside this issue, you'll find a 4,000-year-old sea henge, the history of the arcane (and delicious) dandelion and burdock drink, the strange ice-formed pingo ponds, the headless skeletons of Whelnetham and Suffolk's most popular graveyard, Sutton Hoo.”
And although some of its content nods towards the classic ghost story tradition, it would be a mistake to think that the terrific Supernatural Tales is just that, and I think that readers of Maps would enjoy the stories that are published there by David Longhorn, whose ST blog is always packed with great content and links.
The latest issue is available in print and ebook.
The Ooser Speaks
(taken from the wonderful Readers Digest 'Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain')
The coal miners of Bilston in Staffordshire in the late 1700s were much troubled by an evil spirit, so they called in ‘The White Rabbit’, a well-known exorcist. He passed his hands over the miners, making various magical signs, and told them to visit the pit at midnight (perceptive readers will note the White Rabbit clearly had no plans to accompany them to confront the spirit), with a Bible in the leader’s right hand and a key in the left.
As the brave men approached the coal face at midnight, the spirit crept towards them, not deterred by their chanting their spell, ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, God bless the errand we’re come on.’ Luckily, one of the miners noticed that their leader Caggie had the Bible in the wrong hand, and shouted, “Caggie, yow idiot! Put the buik in yer right ‘ond.” Caggie quickly swapped the book and the key, and in a stink of brimstone, the spirit vanished, never to be seen again.
just one small silken thread, hanging from a lip
On St Mellitus’ Day, don’t kill a spider between midnight and two in the morning. If you do, every spider in the county will scuttle to your house, in through the cracks, and they will crawl in massed ranks into your sleeping mouth until you choke to death. Then they crawl back out of your mouth, and back out through the cracks, and no one will ever know how you died.
Secrets the Wind Whispers
It’s always a pleasure to catch themes in songs which chime with the preoccupations of Maps of the Lost, and the things I like, but it’s an even greater pleasure to discover a band who return to those themes over and over again. A few years ago, I discovered Oddfellow’s Casino, the musical vehicle for David Bramwell, when he’s not writing for radio, collecting oddities for the Odditorium, putting on events and talks, and organising Singalong-A-Wickerman sessions - and it was like music that had been written just for me.
Stone circles, Penda’s Fen, sound mirrors, Alan Moore, old Roman roads, sovereign sea forts, drowned villages, dark woods at night, lonely lighthouse keepers dancing with the dead, numbers stations, and so much more, all wrapped up in gorgeous, melancholy, misty songs. Oh, and a blood moon. See, told you earlier that everything is connected.
Oddfellow’s have a new album just come out, Burning! Burning! which touches on strange marks in Alan Garner’s house, a recounting of a poltergeist experience, chime children, and the strange, sleeping deaths of hundreds of Hmong people who relocated to the USA from Cambodia.
If you’re wondering, the band are named after a Victorian freak-show host whose moustache David Bramwell inherited. Of course. Here’s one of my favourites (listen out for the numbers station), but go and explore for yourself.
cloudwatching
A lot of people like to sit by the coast, gazing out to sea, which stretches far under an impossibly big sky, watching the clouds form and shift in the sky, watching the inexorable repetition of the waves, wearing patiently away at the land.
You may find yourself doing this on the north Lincolnshire coast, slipping into an almost meditative state, and notice one cumulus cloud forming and changing, its soft cotton wool taking on more shapes as it sails in across the sea. Look away, look at the waves as they hiss up the beach, look at the swell further out, look at the red valerian near where you sit as it nods and bobs in the breeze, or just turn and get back in your car and drive inland.
If you sit there, and look at the cloud, as it warps and reforms, you will see in it the face of someone you know, and that person will meet a sudden and sad end at the moment the high winds pull and tear at the cloud, and it spreads and sheers and their face disappears into the air.
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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Thanks for reading,
Iain.
iainrowan.com
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