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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 1, December 1943
Page 6
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 6 A shuddery tale indeed is "The Outcast", wherein is related the events occurring in a small town where a reincarnated demon, in human form, dies and will be received neither by the sea nor the earth. And "In the Tube" is a capable vignette of the spectre of one long dead. But of the most powerful tales in the volume we must deal in more detail. "The Horror Horn" certainly takes its place in this class; a more ghastly example of the weird in fiction would be difficult to discover. A chance Alpine tourist discovers that his guide habitually avoids a certain peak in the region where they have been climbing, Ungeheuerhorn. Close questioning elicits the information that local legends credit the area with being inhabited by remnants of some wild primeval race, dwarf-life but of tremendous strength, who inhabited higher reaches of the mountain, but occasionally were seen at lower altitudes, whence they descended to forage for food or to capture stray wanderers from the near by village. Little daunted by what he regards as a provincial superstition, the traveller one day skis about the region, encountering nothing. Sunset finds him well off the beaten trails, and, on breaking into a small clearing, he sees before him one of the dread denisons of the peak: it is a female of the horrible species: She was enveloped in a thick growth of hair grey and tufted and from her head it streamed down over her shoulders and bosom...never had nightmare fashioned so terrible a countenance; the beauty of the...beasts of the field and the kindly race of men could not atone for so hellish an incarnation of the spirit of life. A fathomless bestiality modelled the slavering mouth and the narrow eyes... Benson's description of this creature's attack upon a chamois and her subsequent discovery and chase of the helpless traveller through the silent snows of the forest in the last rays of the red and dying sun is done with a consummate artistic touch, and the picture of loathesome doom conjured before the mind's eye is unforgettable. Equally effective is the tale "Negotium Perambulans..."; here the reader is introduced to Polearn, an isolated hamlet on the Cornish coast. On a panel of the pulpit in its church was once a strange carving of a priest facing a terrible creature "like a gigantic slug" upreared before him, with the accompanying legend "Negotium perambulans in tenebris"---which, feebly rendered, is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"---a pestilence more deadly to the soul than to the body, "the Thing, the Creature...that trafficked in the outer Darkness, a minister of God's wrath on the unrighteous" and against which there is no protection save a firm faith and a pure heart. But the owner of the land had pulled the church down, keeping the pulpit-carvings, and dining and playing dice upon the former altar. But as age overtook him he kept the lights on all during the night; yet once a gale conspired to extinguish them, and servants answered his yells of fear to find him dead, a huge black shadow crawling from a bloody throat. A like horrible fate overtakes the present tenant of the house, a debauched artist; once dusk falls unexpectedly soon---he cannot light the lamp in time--- the thing had entered and was now swiftly sliding across the floor toward him, like a gigantic caterpillar. A stale phosphorescent light came from it, and an odour of corruption and decay, as from slime that has lain long under water. It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was hairless and slug-like in shape and texture. As it advanced its forepart reared itself from the ground, like a snake about to strike, and fastened on to him...
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 6 A shuddery tale indeed is "The Outcast", wherein is related the events occurring in a small town where a reincarnated demon, in human form, dies and will be received neither by the sea nor the earth. And "In the Tube" is a capable vignette of the spectre of one long dead. But of the most powerful tales in the volume we must deal in more detail. "The Horror Horn" certainly takes its place in this class; a more ghastly example of the weird in fiction would be difficult to discover. A chance Alpine tourist discovers that his guide habitually avoids a certain peak in the region where they have been climbing, Ungeheuerhorn. Close questioning elicits the information that local legends credit the area with being inhabited by remnants of some wild primeval race, dwarf-life but of tremendous strength, who inhabited higher reaches of the mountain, but occasionally were seen at lower altitudes, whence they descended to forage for food or to capture stray wanderers from the near by village. Little daunted by what he regards as a provincial superstition, the traveller one day skis about the region, encountering nothing. Sunset finds him well off the beaten trails, and, on breaking into a small clearing, he sees before him one of the dread denisons of the peak: it is a female of the horrible species: She was enveloped in a thick growth of hair grey and tufted and from her head it streamed down over her shoulders and bosom...never had nightmare fashioned so terrible a countenance; the beauty of the...beasts of the field and the kindly race of men could not atone for so hellish an incarnation of the spirit of life. A fathomless bestiality modelled the slavering mouth and the narrow eyes... Benson's description of this creature's attack upon a chamois and her subsequent discovery and chase of the helpless traveller through the silent snows of the forest in the last rays of the red and dying sun is done with a consummate artistic touch, and the picture of loathesome doom conjured before the mind's eye is unforgettable. Equally effective is the tale "Negotium Perambulans..."; here the reader is introduced to Polearn, an isolated hamlet on the Cornish coast. On a panel of the pulpit in its church was once a strange carving of a priest facing a terrible creature "like a gigantic slug" upreared before him, with the accompanying legend "Negotium perambulans in tenebris"---which, feebly rendered, is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"---a pestilence more deadly to the soul than to the body, "the Thing, the Creature...that trafficked in the outer Darkness, a minister of God's wrath on the unrighteous" and against which there is no protection save a firm faith and a pure heart. But the owner of the land had pulled the church down, keeping the pulpit-carvings, and dining and playing dice upon the former altar. But as age overtook him he kept the lights on all during the night; yet once a gale conspired to extinguish them, and servants answered his yells of fear to find him dead, a huge black shadow crawling from a bloody throat. A like horrible fate overtakes the present tenant of the house, a debauched artist; once dusk falls unexpectedly soon---he cannot light the lamp in time--- the thing had entered and was now swiftly sliding across the floor toward him, like a gigantic caterpillar. A stale phosphorescent light came from it, and an odour of corruption and decay, as from slime that has lain long under water. It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was hairless and slug-like in shape and texture. As it advanced its forepart reared itself from the ground, like a snake about to strike, and fastened on to him...
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