fragment

''naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any theoretical model. creative minds are uneven and the best of fabrics have their dull spots... moreover, much of the choicest weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast... therefore we must judge a weird tale... by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point... if the proper sensations are excited, such a "high spot" must be admited on its own merits as weird literature,''

h.p.lovecraft, super natural horror in literature.


''every race of people scattered over the plains and mountains of the world has its legends. very jealously these racial stories are guarded, cradled as it were in the hearts and minds of the people. each contry has a different name to define various phenomena, the like of eerie, elusive lights that appear in marshlands, along mountain trails, in the lonely reaches of the bogs, and waver tauntingly among the tall grasses of plains and prairies.

''in delaware, maryland, and the twin carolinas, these lights are called marshfires. ... in the dark fastnesss of the carpathian mountains and all along the dalmation coast, the chief horror is the werewolf. the superstitious peasants wave little knots of dried garlic in front of them when they walk abroad at night. for the skittering lights they see in the fields and forest paths are werewolf-eyes, ... in cornwall, devon, and somerset, strange processions of smoky lights are seen at midnight, winding through moor and wold. druid lights the farmfolk call them. ...

''in ireland, riddled with legend, immediate and part of the daily round are the gloriously colored lights wavering in the western sky, lurking in bogs or glens. they are called the fires of beltaine.''

james reynolds, andrea palladio and the winged device.