Lilith the Demon Diva

As any writer of horror stories knows, nothing beats a good demon. And there are plenty to choose from, drawn from every religious tradition known to mankind. Of course, picking your demon carries with it a responsibility of a similar nature to that held by a writer of historical fiction. While you can bend history, distort it, and use a modicum of poetic licence, no historical fiction writer worthy of the name would create a Vlad the Impaler who was a sweet, socially reforming angel, kind to small furry animals.

So it is with demons. Readers of the genre don’t want them to be the sort of beings they could take for tea at Claridge’s or even down to their local pub for a pint of Guinness. 

Worse than that though, would be to commit the grievous sin of taking a famous demon and having them behave contrary to widely held myth. Take Harpies, for example. There are three of them – no more, no less. Introduce a fourth one and you are entering the Zone of Disbelief. We even know their names (Aello, Celaeno and Ocypete) As far as their characteristics are concerned, you have a couple of options. At one time, they were described as beautiful, winged maidens. Later they became winged monsters with the faces of ugly old women and equipped with crooked, sharp talons. They carried people off to the underworld and tormented them. Those persons were never seen again. You can write a great story featuring Harpies but change any of the known details at your peril.

If you want to play safe, you can always create your own demon because the rules are then pretty much what you make them. I have done this and I know many others have too.

And then there's Lilith.

Lilith features in practically every ancient tradition from the Hebrew, to the Babylonian, Sumerian, Assyrian and ancient Greek. Her name is thought to mean ‘female demon’ or ‘wind spirit’ or more particularly, ‘female night demon’ and she is probably best known for her role as Adam’s first wife. Unlike Eve, it is said, she was created out of the dirt, as Adam was, and was intended to be his equal. She refused to lie with him because she would not take the expected recumbent position. Move over, Kim Kardashian, if you want a real diva, Lilith’s your woman.

And, if you want plenty of variety in your demon’s story, she is also well worth a closer look.

 In some traditions, far from being created after Adam, she is portrayed as having been created before him, or at the same time, or indeed to have been created within Adam. Another states that she was attached to his side and when God separated them, she flew off to the Cities of the Sea and began to attack humankind. She is also said to have been the first of the four wives of the demonic archangel Samael. There are any number of permutations and this is just a small selection.

 A commonly held tradition is that she and the serpent in the Garden of Eden were firmly linked (maybe even one and the same) and pictures of Lilith often show her entwined with a snake. As a result, she is said to have tempted Adam into evil by whispering words of encouragement to Eve about the beneficial effects of a certain apple.  When Adam separated from Eve for 130 years, Lilith lay with him each night.  

 She was said to visit men sleeping on their own and have her wicked way with them. She was also said to steal and kill babies. Another tradition has it that she gave birth to thousands of her own little demons. Yet another, that she was the handmaiden to the Goddess Ishtar. The Kabbalah says that she could transform herself into a beautiful blue butterfly. She was even purported in some traditions to have vampiric tendencies. And, by others, to be able to enter women’s bodies through mirrors.

King Solomon even suspected the Queen of Sheba to be Lilith – because she had hairy legs!

So there you have it, a versatile demon diva who can enchant, possess, tempt, corrupt, steal, kill and possess. Just pick your tradition – or even mix them up a bit – and away you go. Just don’t make her subservient to any male – demon or otherwise. That is likely to make her angry. And all the traditions agree about one thing. An angry Lilith is never a good thing…

 

There are ghosts and devils and paranormal activity in my novella The Demons of Cambian Street. Here’s what to expect:

Sometimes evil wears a beautiful face...

After her illness, the quiet backwater of Priory St Michael seemed the ideal place for Stella to recuperate. But in the peaceful little town, something evil is slumbering, waiting for its chance to possess what it desires. When Stella and her husband move into the long-empty apartment, they're unaware of what exists in the cupboard upstairs, the entrance to an evil that will threaten both their lives…

The Demons of Cambian Street is available in paperback here; 

Amazon

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Also available widely in ebook versions

Come and meet me at Blackwell's Bookshop, Tuesday February 20th 2024 at 6p.m. (GMT)

Free Tickets

Unit 2-3 Crown Place, Peach Street, Liverpool L3 5UH 

Tel: 

0151 709 8146

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Crossroad Press 

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Phil Larner

 

M.R. James - Master of the Ghost Story

 

I am often asked whose influence has had the greatest impact on my writing. This is a difficult question because, over the years, so many great authors have impacted me, and overtly or subliminally, my writing has been influenced by them in one way or another.

One of the earliest of these was undoubtedly the master British ghost story writer, M.R. James.

Montague Rhodes James was born on 1st August 1862. He was an academic - medieval scholar, provost of King's College Cambridge (1905-1918), and subsequently of Eton (1918-1936). He grew up in Suffolk, which he subsequently used as a location for many of his stories. To this day, he is widely respected for his academic work. This included his discovery of a fragment of a manuscript which led to excavations of the ruins of the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, where the long-lost graves of several twelfth-century abbots were discovered. He also catalogued many of the manuscript libraries of the colleges of Cambridge University and translated the Apocrypha of the New Testament.

But the wider world remembers him for his wonderful short stories, which were originally published in four collections: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925). In 1931, they were first collated into one volume: The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James .

M.R. James taught me the power of the short story. Some of his are only a couple of pages long but they pack a whole story into precious few words. Many of his stories were written with an eye to being read aloud, in small intimate gatherings, with the candlelight flickering and the fire crackling. His style is in keeping with that of an author writing in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, yet is perfectly accessible to us now. His stories are original, lacking the clichéd settings of some of his contemporaries. He puts ordinary people (many of them academics like himself) in extraordinary situations and sets the scene around them. 

Rather than presenting graphic descriptions of the 'monsters', he evokes terror with the minimum of detail and lets his readers give vent to their imaginations. Here’s an extract from A Warning to the Curious:

We were a couple of hundred yards from the hill when Long suddenly said to him: ‘I say you’ve left your coat there. That won’t do. See?’ And I certainly did see it — the long dark overcoat lying where the tunnel had been. Paxton had not stopped, however: he only shook his head, and held up the coat on his arm. And when we joined him, he said, without any excitement, but as if nothing mattered any more: ‘That wasn’t my coat.’ And, indeed, when we looked back again, that dark thing was not to be seen.

The stories cry out to be filmed and many have been made - both for screen and TV. One of my favourite films, Night of the Demon is based on Casting The Runes (with a great deal of license being taken with the original tale). But probably the most famous adaptations, certainly in the UK, were provided by the BBC between 1968-1978. These half-hour episodes were broadcast late at night on Christmas Eve and became a 'must-watch' seasonal tradition. While not exclusively M.R. James stories, the series could hardly have existed without him.

M.R. James died on 8th June 1936 in Eton and is buried in the town cemetery. His work lives on - providing perfect examples of the British ghost story at its most chillingly entertaining.

I had recently immersed myself in M.R. James' work when I wrote my Gothic, ghostly novella Linden Manor. This was the story that changed everything for me - winning me a publishing contract and introducing me to world-renowned editor of horror Don D'Auria who published it as part of an anthology of four Gothic ghost stories.

Now the lovely people at Crossroad Press have produced a paperback edition of Linden Manor and it's out NOW. Here’s a flavour:

Have you ever been so scared your soul left your body? 

All her life, Lesley Carpenter has been haunted by a gruesome nursery rhyme—“The Scottish Bride”—sung to her by her great-grandmother. To find out more about its origins, Lesley visits the mysterious Isobel Warrender, the current hereditary owner of Linden Manor, a grand house with centuries of murky history surrounding it. 

But her visit transforms into a nightmare when Lesley sees the ghost of the Scottish bride herself, a sight that, according to the rhyme, means certain death. The secrets of the house slowly reveal themselves to Lesley, terrible secrets of murder, evil and a curse that soaks the very earth on which Linden Manor now stands. But Linden Manor has saved its most chilling secret for last. 

 Find Linden Manor in paperback here:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

also available widely on ebook and audio

Come and meet me at Blackwell's Bookshop, Tuesday February 20th 2024 at 6p.m. (GMT)

Free Tickets

Unit 2-3 Crown Place, Peach Street, Liverpool L3 5UH 

Tel: 

0151 709 8146

Images:

Crossroad Press

Shutterstock

Evil Runs Deep In Mordenhyrst Hall...

 

Wiltshire, England, 1928. When Grace Sutcliffe first sets eyes on the imposing Gothic edifice of Mordenhyrst Hall, she is struck with an overwhelming sense that something doesn’t want her there.

Within hours of arriving. her fears are realized. Her future as the new Lady Mordenhyrst is threatened on all sides. Her fiancé’s sister heads a coterie of Bright Young Things whose seemingly frivolous lives hide a sinister intent. Simon, Grace’s fiancé, is not the man she fell in love with, and the local villagers eye her with suspicion that borders on malevolence.

A new friend, Coralie Duquesne, has psychic powers and the ability to communicate with ancient and powerful spirits. She convinces Grace of her own paranormal gifts – gifts Grace will need to draw deeply on as the secrets of Mordenhyrst Hall begin to unravel.

But these secrets are rooted far deeper than the foundations of the ancestral home. The entire village is infested with a legacy so evil, it transcends the laws of nature.

In a world where nothing is as it appears to be, Grace and Coralie must seek out and find the truth – whatever the personal cost.

Those Who Dwell in Mordenhyrst Hall

published by Flame Tree Press February 2024 - available for pre-order now:

Flame Tree Press

Bookshop.org

Amazon

Simon and Schuster

Waterstones

and other online and high-street booksellers

Come and meet me at Blackwell's Bookshop, Tuesday February 20th at 6p.m. (GMT)

Free Tickets!

Unit 2-3 Crown Place, Peach Street, Liverpool L3 5UH Tel: 0151 709 8146

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Nik Keevil and Flame Tree Press Studio

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Slipping Into The Past

 Ever had the feeling time was playing tricks on you? 

Perhaps you have visited somewhere for the first time - only to find you knew your way around because somehow, somewhere in the deepest recesses of your brain you had the distinct impression you had been there before. Or maybe, even stranger, you have suddenly had a sense of being out of time in some way. As if everything had taken a step backwards...maybe more than a step. Perhaps, in common with a surprising number of people, you have seemed to pass through a portal in time, back ten, twenty, a hundred years, or more. Maybe it was only fleeting and, even though you were aware of it happening, your mind still cannot process it and you have the hardest time believing you didn't somehow have a bizarre waking dream.

Then you discover you were not alone in experiencing that timeslip. They have gone through the same thing. Exactly the same thing. It is as if, in that particular place, forces come together to create a door to the past and, when conditions are right, it slides open.

So what causes these apparent timeslips? 

It seems a lot depends on how you view that whole dimension. In history, we talk about timelines, assuming time is linear. What is past, stays in the past. The present is where we are now and the future is an unknown country. Yet many eminent scientists, from Einstein to Professor Brian Cox, challenge the finite nature of time and suggest it may be a lot more flexible than we were led to believe at school.

Certainly, an extraordinary number of accounts from seemingly perfectly sane people attest to some very strange experiences that defy conventional explanation.  Some may have involved a trigger factor – such as being keenly interested in historical aspects of a particular place. 

Here's an example:

 In Leeds Castle, Kent, Alice Pollock was exploring Henry VIII’s rooms, touching objects and trying, mentally, to project herself back in time to experience events in that room from an earlier age. For a while nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the room changed. Instead of a modern comfortable space, it became cold and bare. Logs burned on the fire, the carpet had vanished. She saw a tall woman, dressed in an old-fashioned long white dress, walking up and down the length of the room. The woman appeared to be unaware of her visitor and seemed to be concentrating hard on something.

Then, as quickly as it had happened, the room changed back to its original state.

Alice conducted research and discovered that the room had been part of a suite used to imprison Queen Joan of Navarre, Henry V’s stepmother, whose husband had accused her of witchcraft.

Did Alice touch some object that resonated with this era? Did she just will herself into some kind of hallucination? Or did her enthusiasm set of a trigger of some kind, allowing her to glimpse a snapshot of a time long past.

Joan Forman, author of a number of books on ghosts, mysteries and the supernatural, wrote of a Warder at the Tower of London who had an extraordinary experience when he was on duty in the Byward Tower. One night he saw five or six Beefeaters seated around a log fire, smoking pipes. They appeared to be from a much earlier era and the whole room had transformed. Unnerved, the warder left the room, but returned moments later whereupon it had reverted to its original state. There was no sign of the Beefeaters.

Forman wrote of many other experiences, and then had one of her own. At Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, she paused to admire the surroundings. Suddenly she saw four children playing outside. She watched them, especially captivated by the oldest girl, who had blonde hair, wore a high Dutch hat and a long green-grey silk dress with a white collar. Clearly not of this era. She was certain she was watching them with some kind of inner vision, rather than with her physical sight. Believing that the little girl might actually have existed, she searched the ancestral portraits until she found her. She succeeded and found herself looking at a portrait of Lady Grace Manners who died in the 1640s.

Through her own experience and those she documented, Joan Forman became convinced that the theory of a trigger factor, instigating the ‘timeslip’ was true. She had been caught up with the atmosphere of the place, had let her mind drift for a second or two and allowed the past to slip into the present.

Whatever the truth of the many well-documented occurrences of apparent timeslips, they simply won’t go away and accounts are found from all over the world. With scientists telling us that bending time is indeed possible, who knows?

In my latest novel - The After-Death of Caroline Rand - Alli Sinclair is staying in an ancient historic house for the weekend when she experiences a timeslip. Hers takes her back to 1968 - to Laurel Canyon and the start of a whole chain of events that bind her inextricably to the house and the fate of a woman she has never met...

At a weekend house party at ancient Canonbury Manor, Alli is caught between fantasy and reality, past and present, in the life of Caroline Rand, a famous singer from the late Sixties, who reportedly killed herself in that house. Alli soon learns that evil infests the once-holy building. A sinister cabal controls it, as it has for centuries. Before long, her fate will be sealed, and she will learn about her role in the after-death of Caroline Rand.

It begins with a chilling greeting: "Welcome to The Columbine, Miss Sinclair. You are expected."

 The After-Death of Caroline Rand is available here:

Amazon

Flame Tree Press

Barnes and Noble

Bookshop.org

Simon and Schuster

Waterstones

and all good bookshops - in the high street or online

And - while you're reading (or contemplating reading) why not listen to this playlist to put you in the mood:

Spotify - The After-Death of Caroline Rand

and - with the year drawing rapidly to a close - read about my three favourite books I have enjoyed this year, over at Shepherd.com

Images:

Shutterstock

Flame Tree Press