The Willows (Horror Classic)
()
About this ebook
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 Wendigo (Unabridged): Horror Classic - A dark and thrilling story, which introduced the legend to horror fiction 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 stars4/5Incredible Adventures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bright Messenger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Christmas Library: 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Willows (Horror Classic)
Related ebooks
THE WILLOWS: A Supernatural Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Willows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Willows: A Tale of the Supernatural Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Willows (Unabridged): Horror Classic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Insanity of Jones and Other Tales: The Ultimate Collection of Supernatural Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Horror Collection Vol 2: The Turn of the Screw,The Call of Cthulhu, Carmilla, The King in Yellow... (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wendigo and Other Tales: The Collection of Supernatural Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 Best Short Stories by Algernon Blackwood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Danube from the Black Forest to the Black Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPictures of Sweden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Tour Through the Pyrenees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea (La Mer) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPictures of Sweden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFootprints on the Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLodges in the Wilderness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe - Selected Stories: The Black Cat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeart of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chita: a Memory of Last Island Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Moravian Night: A Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Afloat (Sur l'eau) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeaward Sussex: The South Downs from End to End Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRound Anvil Rock: A Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBUS-RIDE Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Encantadas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Romance of Gilbert Holmes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn the Frontier 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 Willows (Horror Classic)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Willows (Horror Classic) - Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood
The Willows
(Horror Classic)
Horror Classic from one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories and early modern supernatural tales
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info
2017 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-272-0008-5
Reading suggestions
Table of Contents
I
II
III
IV
I
Table of Contents
After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word Sumpfe, meaning marshes.
In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their underside turns to the sun.
Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence.
Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.
Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters—sure sign of flood—sent us aground on many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszony) showed against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sandbanks, and swamp-land beyond—the land of the willows.
The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.
Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and we at once began casting about for a suitable camping-ground for the night. But the bewildering character of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood carried us in shore and then swept us out again; the willow branches tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a yard of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a great sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to beach the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting