Welcome to the Mythopoeic Society's first Online Midwinter Seminar: The Inklings and Horror: Fantasy's Dark Corners.

Here are welcome messages from:

Megan Abrahamson, Chair, Mythopoeic Society Council of Stewards

Leslie Donovan, co-sponsor, MythCon 52 in Albuquerque, NM, July 30-Aug. 1, 2022

Janet Brennan Croft, Editor, Mythlore, Organizer, 2023 Online Midwinter Seminar

Dr. Diana Lovell, President, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Phillip Fitzsimmons, Archivist, Mythopoeic Society Council of Stewards

Folk Horror, although being identified as a cinematographic genre quite recently, sinks its roots in an undeniable tradition of English writers who used English rural landscapes, ancient beliefs and culturally differentiated communities as humus for their prose and poetry. From the literary tradition of the 8th Century on, creatures and beliefs belonging to dark times have left their mark on our literature, traditions and folklore. Tolkien, as a philologist, was well aware of the hints and bits of these almost unknown legends and creatures left in our language, in the form of loose words, etymologies and fragmentary texts. In this presentation, Sanz will set the characteristics of Folk Horror and, taking into account the folk-horrific literature that Tolkien himself read in his lifetime, will identify the passages and characters from Tolkien’s works that fit into the Folk Horror genre. Tolkien wrote many terrifying passages, and terror is present throughout his prose and poetry, but this presentation will focus only on the Folk Horror phenomena, also setting parallelisms between the Professor’s works and some movies belonging to this cinematographic genre, as well as some of the literary pieces that preceded and nurtured it.

The proposed essay aims at comparing J.R.R. Tolkien’s Nazgûl and barrow-wights with the white walkers (also known as “the Others”) and wights from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. To begin with, the folkloric/mythological templates for these sub-created monsters would be scrutinized. The introductory ascription of source material would be followed by an analysis of these creatures as horror monsters and gothic elements within the fantasy worlds of Tolkien and Martin. This analysis would also be linked to addressing the question of how the gothic/horror genre influenced the fantasy worlds of both authors, and as in how far the scenes relating to these creatures could be viewed as instances of (gothic) horror within these fantasy novels. Additionally, the essay at hand would follow up on the originally planned but later dispensed with connection between barrow-wights and Ringwraiths in Tolkien’s work and would propose that the two creatures are nonetheless still congeneric, the Ringwraiths being a special kind of barrow-wight bound not by the treasure of a hoard but by Sauron’s rings. Finally, the essay would inspect the symbolic significance and function of these horror monsters, pursuing the question what they might represent when viewed as motifs commenting on key themes within the novels of Tolkien and Martin.

In our Primary World, “unnatural” conception and birth give rise to monsters, according to myriad mythological traditions, including the Polish strzyga and the Indian tradition of “eclipse babies.” More modern versions can be found in the Frankenstein tradition, in which the male scientist perverts the natural process of procreation, with monstrous results. Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher series of fantasy novels and short stories adapts and reenvisions both deep-rooted ethnic superstitions and cautionary tales against the over-reach of the “masculine” and “paternalistic” view of science prevalent since the Scientific Revolution that, as described by ecofeminist historian of science Carolyn Merchant, has led to the “‘rape’ of nature for human good.” In Sapkowski’s tales, the “eclipse girl” Renfri becomes monstrous not due to the unearthly circumstances of her birth, but the actions of her stepmother and the mad scientist Stregobar, while the princess Adda is born a strzyga as a result of a curse placed upon her mother by a spurned male suitor rather than her incestuous conception. While the sorceress Yennefer turns to folk medicine and forbidden magic in a vain attempt to cure her infertility, myriad male characters routinely engage in magic-enhanced genetic engineering to give birth to monsters and cause children to be “reborn” as monster-hunting mutants—the Witchers themselves. This paper examines specific examples of monstrous masculine-mediated birth (and attempts at birth) in the Witcher-verse, situating this Secondary World as both what Carl Malmgren terms a “science-fantasy world” and a Tolkienian faërian subcreation.

Charles Williams has always been one of the more overlooked members of the Inklings, and the continued neglect of his poetry and “supernatural thrillers” suggests that he is not likely to experience a dramatic increase in popularity anytime soon. Similarly, Russell Kirk is an American historian who will always be better known for writing The Conservative Mind in 1953 than for any of the dozens of short stories and novels he wrote, many of which deal with ghostly or supernatural themes. In fact, Kirk acknowledged Williams to be an important influence on his fiction; this influence is perhaps most evident in Kirk’s final novel, 1979’s Lord of the Hollow Dark. In this “Gothick romance,” as Kirk described it, a group of pilgrims gathers at a dilapidated mansion in Scotland, at which various satanic rituals are performed in the week leading up to Ash Wednesday. The novel features ghostly apparitions, psychological and spiritual horror, and a mingling of the supernatural and material, all of which calls to mind Williams’ first, unforgettable novel, War in Heaven. The neglect of both authors has led to a lack of interest in the obvious thematic links between these two books, which this paper is intended to address. Aside from these links, I shall also discuss how the authors’ respective religious views contribute to their differing approaches to certain subjects, such as time and the nature of Hell.

As a society, we are used to the concept of “mother” as a symbol of nurturing. Usually seen as a performance of femininity, the ideal mother is the caring and supportive figure who enables the child, with loving encouragement, to become whatever or whoever they are destined to be. Occasionally, however, we are confronted by a “mother” that transgresses these ideals and subverts the norms of the maternal role. Grotesque, yet recognizably female, Tolkien’s terrifying spider-creature Shelob exemplifies the image of Julia Kristeva’s abject mother in her twisted perversion of the feminine. Shelob’s “otherness” lies in the combination of her non-normative expression of gender and her perversion of the maternal, in which she mates with, then consumes, her own offspring. Instead of nurturing others, she nurtures and nourishes only herself, using her bodily fluids to poison and paralyze rather than to support and sustain. In the tradition of Grendel’s Mother, Shelob is depicted as a monster that acts upon desires that are seen as transgressive, for which she is condemned. Drawing also on theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Jack Halberstam and Judith Butler, this paper explores the character of Shelob as a representation of what Barbara Creed has termed the “monstrous-feminine.” In doing so, it examines Shelob’s presentation within the text as not only identified as female, but more specifically as a mother, queering this gendered space.

Tolkien incorporates horror in his legendarium through the twisting of the natural world in order to signal upcoming dangers to his characters. This creates a dichotomy between the idyllic natural world that represents good in his works and the twisted natural world that has been tampered with by evil. Most of the focus on Tolkien’s portrayal of nature looks at the conflict between nature and technology; the natural world of Middle-earth is portrayed as more complex than merely all nature being good. His natural settings take on an eerie tone to convey a sense of horror to the reader as his characters are placed in greater danger. Examples of this can be seen in Thangorodrim, the Barrow-downs, and Mirkwood. In each of these settings the natural world has been corrupted by evil which poses a danger to the characters passing through. Thus, in contrast to settings like the Shire or Valinor, which are meant to reflect the “goodness” of nature, Tolkien also includes settings, such as the above examples, where nature has been twisted or no longer follows the natural order of the world. Tolkien’s use of horror in his worldbuilding is through the corruption of nature, turning what was intended to be good into something darker and more dangerous.

In her introduction to Reading in the Dark: Horror in Children’s Literature and Culture, Jessica R. McCort defines horror for children and young adults as a hybrid genre, one having its roots in both the gothic and the nineteenth-century fairy tale. She explains that the exploration of dark forces in children’s books is often not limited to those tropes traditionally associated with the horror genre for adults: “Think of the books that are considered children’s classics. The best of them contain dark forces of one kind or another, as well as internal battles between the light and the dark: (21). C. S. Lewis’s Narniad makes liberal use of such dark forces. The series includes conventional characters from the horror genre such as bats and a werewolf, while the White Witch, Uncle Andrew, the Green Lady, and the giants of Harfang either represent or embody the monstrous. Lewis’s distinction between real life and imaginative fear is, in part, a response to the impact of such dark forces: “in imagination, where the fear does not rise to abject terror and is not discharged in action, the qualitative difference is much stronger” (9). The Narnia Chronicles rarely allow for an unmediated experience of such imaginative fear. I want to argue that Lewis incorporates elements of horror throughout the Narniad while regularly intervening on behalf of his child reader at moments of heightened intensity, mediating such moments in such a way as to both shield his child reader and undercut the imaginative impact of such elements.

In the 1130s, Geoffrey of Monmouth originated the character of Merlin, setting him upon the world stage as a wonder-working youth fathered (in the tradition of Greek and Latin authors of the past) by a daemon. However, later writers of the Middle Ages, beginning with Robert de Boron, reconceived Merlin within a more Christianized world, altering his heritage and transforming his sire into a demon from Hell. This shift from benign daemon to malevolent demon has impacted the representation of the wizard of Camelot for centuries. Contemporary fiction for the page as well as for the screen has adopted and adapted these two versions of Merlin’s origins in unique ways that remain largely unexplored by enthusiasts of the Matter of Britain. This presentation will build upon my previous research and highlight how both the Galfridian and Boronic traditions remain alive in depictions of Merlin in modern fantasy film and television produced for children and young adults. My focus will be in mapping out the strategies for the ways Merlin’s parentage has been received, packaged (alternately ignored, alluded to, altered, or accepted and embraced), and disseminated to audiences.