The Wendigo (Unabridged): Horror Classic - A dark and thrilling story, which introduced the legend to horror fiction
()
About this ebook
This thrilling story is based on Blackwood's experience's hunting in the backwoods of Canada. A group of men deep in the Northern wilderness are visited by a terrifying creature from Native American legend…
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre.
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was an English journalist, novelist, and short story writer. Born in Shooter’s Hill, he developed an interest in Hinduism and Buddhism at a young age. After a youth spent travelling and taking odd jobs—Canadian dairy farmer, bartender, model, violin teacher—Blackwood returned to England and embarked on a career as a professional writer. Known for his connection to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Blackwood gained a reputation as a master of occult storytelling, publishing such popular horror stories as “The Willows” and “The Wendigo.” He also wrote several novels, including Jimbo: A Fantasy (1909) and The Centaur (1911). Throughout his life, Blackwood was a passionate outdoorsman, spending much of his time skiing and mountain climbing. Recognized as a pioneering writer of ghost stories, Blackwood influenced such figures as J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and Henry Miller.
Read more from Algernon Blackwood
The Willows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 4 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 1 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Famous Modern Ghost Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Christmas Stories: 120+ Authors, 250+ Magical Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Victim of Higher Space Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Bright Messenger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Classic Christmas Stories Vol. 4 (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Willows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best British Short Stories of 1922 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ultimate Christmas Library: 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIncredible Adventures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Wendigo (Unabridged)
Related ebooks
A is for Antichrist Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If It Bleeds: Charitable Chapbooks, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBoom Town Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Darkness Waiting Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Devil of Echo Lake Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Godland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strange Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Conformity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Time I Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Slasher Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Forest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnly the Devil Is Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sacrament Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jabberwock: Nowhere USA, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret Sex Lives of Ghosts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNightmare Magazine, Issue 104 (May 2021): Nightmare Magazine, #104 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Psychological Thriller) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pilo Traveling Show Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5666 Gable Way Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Circus Oasis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHusk Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Curfew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notches: A Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jigsaw Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shibboleth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End Is All I Can See Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Moving House: A Prequel to Ghostland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nothing Untoward: Stories from "The Pumpkin Pie Show" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Horror Fiction For You
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Am Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Good Indians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Needful Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Misery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Sematary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hollow Places: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hidden Pictures: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Different Seasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchers: a spine-chilling Gothic horror novel now adapted into a major motion picture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe Complete Collection - 120+ Tales, Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Best Friend's Exorcism: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Firestarter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5H. P. Lovecraft Complete Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Wendigo (Unabridged)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Wendigo (Unabridged) - Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood
The Wendigo
(Unabridged)
From one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories, also known for Jimbo, The Willows, The Human Chord, The Education of Uncle Paul, John Silence, The Wave, The Listener and Other Stories…
e-artnow, 2015
Contact: info@e-artnow.org
ISBN 978-80-268-4361-0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Text
The Wendigo
Table of Contents
A considerable number of hunting parties were out that year without finding so much as a fresh trail; for the moose were uncommonly shy, and the various Nimrods returned to the bosoms of their respective families with the best excuses the facts or their imaginations could suggest. Dr. Cathcart, among others, came back without a trophy; but he brought instead the memory of an experience which he declares was worth all the bull-moose that had ever been shot. But then Cathcart, of Aberdeen, was interested in other things besides moose—amongst them the vagaries of the human mind. This particular story, however, found no mention in his book on Collective Hallucination for the simple reason (so he confided once to a fellow colleague) that he himself played too intimate a part in it to form a competent judgment of the affair as a whole.
Besides himself and his guide, Hank Davis, there was young Simpson, his nephew, a divinity student destined for the Wee Kirk
(then on his first visit to Canadian backwoods), and the latter’s guide, Défago. Joseph Défago was a French Canuck
, who had strayed from his native Province of Quebec years before, and had got caught in Rat Portage when the Canadian Pacific Railway was a-building; a man who, in addition to his unparalleled knowledge of woodcraft and bush-lore, could also sing the old voyageur songs and tell a capital hunting yarn into the bargain. He was deeply susceptible, moreover, to that singular spell which the wilderness lays upon certain lonely natures, and he loved the wild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost to an obsession. The life of the backwoods fascinated him—whence, doubtless, his surpassing efficiency in dealing with their mysteries.
On this particular expedition he was Hank’s choice. Hank knew him and swore by him. He also swore at him, jest as a pal might
, and since he had a vocabulary of picturesque, if utterly meaningless, oaths, the conversation between the two stalwart and hardy woodsmen was often of a rather lively description. This river of expletives however, Hank agreed to dam a little out of respect for his old hunting boss
, Dr. Cathcart, whom of course he addressed after the fashion of the country as Doc
; and also because he understood that young Simpson was already a bit of a parson
. He had, however, one objection to Défago, and one only—which was, that the French Canadian sometimes exhibited what Hank described as the output of a cursed and dismal mind
, meaning apparently that he sometimes was true to type, Latin type, and suffered fits of a kind of silent moroseness when nothing could induce him to titter speech. Défago, that is to say, was imaginative and melancholy. And, as a rule, it was too long a spell of civilisation
that induced the attacks, for a few days of the wilderness invariably cured them.
This, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the last week in October of that shy moose year
’wa yup in the wilderness north of Rat Portage—a forsaken and desolate country. There was also Punk, an Indian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting trips in previous years, and who acted as cook. His duty was merely to stay in camp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a few minutes’ notice. He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him by former patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, he looked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stage negro looks like a real African. For all that, however, Punk had in him still the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his endurance survived; also his superstition.
The party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week had passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself. Défago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad humour, reminded him so often that he kep’ mussing-up the fac’s so, that it was ’most all nothin’ but a petred-out lie
, that the Frenchman had finally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely to break. Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhausting day. Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under the lean-to of branches, where he later also slept. No one troubled to stir the slowly dying fire. Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky quite wintry, and there was so little wind that ice was already forming stealthily along the shores of the still lake behind them. The silence of the vast listening forest stole forward and enveloped them.
Hank broke in suddenly with his nasal voice.
I’m in favour of breaking new ground to-morrow, Doc,
he observed with energy, looking across at his employer. We don’t stand a chance around here.
Agreed,
said Cathcart, always a man of few words. Think the idea’s good.
Sure pop, it’s good,
Hank resumed with confidence. "S’pose, now, you and I strike west, up Garden Lake way for