sststr

bugle: This is a use of the word I was not familiar with myself, but turns out this word can mean an ornamental tube-shaped glass or plastic bead used in beadwork for clothing and fashion accessories. The picture used is an illustration for this story by Sidney Sime. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13821/13821-h/13821-h.htm#woman And again with the bad editing dropping out clauses and words. This is the second publisher I've come across now with just terrible editing. Tsk.

Beaver hats would have been most in vogue in the early 19th century, coming primarily from the New World, where beavers were still around in large numbers but were barely still existent in the Old World. Work smocks would have been a thing primarily in the 18th century. The Stuarts, as monarchs of the entirety of the British Isles, would have been roughly the whole of 17th century. recondite: little known; abstruse To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13821/13821-h/13821-h.htm#milkman

All the places in this story, Lingwold, Mallington Moor, Uthering, all appear to be made up. There is a village of Lingwood a bit east of Norwich in Norfolk county, but 'wold' means an upland area, typically a moor, which is quite different from a wood, so clearly the one is not a substitute for the other. Uther, of course, is famously the father of King Arthur, but there's no place named Uthering that I can find. Although Tetherington... There are several places in England by the name of Tytherington, and it is entirely plausible a shift in spelling occurred in the past 100 years. There's one in Gloucestershire close to the border with Wales in the south, and another in Wiltshire, also on the west side of England, and a third one in Cheshire, close to the border with Wales in the north. Interesting that all three are located so close to Wales! "Where the waiter spoke English": As opposed to? What else would it be in 1916? I suppose if his starting location is in or close to Wales, perhaps Welsh? Hmmm. Strange comment to make without elaboration. Or were there workers brought in from overseas to help with wartime production? But if so, we would expect them in the cities to work factories, not out in the country running the inns. Very strange comment indeed. Any Brits out there have a thought on this? Mal Lieu: Bad place Heather covered heathland, it appears, is common to England. Or at least was historically, it appears the extent of it has been enormously reduced over the past century. Pity. unresisted invasions of German bands: Recall this was published in 1916, so the Great War was raging on, and apparently there were sometimes rumors of Germans having landed in the UK. We encounter such rumors often enough in the writings of Arthur Machen as well. One pint is very nearly half a liter. Indeed, in the present day you would get exactly 500 mL instead of a pint in places that use metric, while in places that don't, you get the pint instead of 500 mL (not just the USA, Liberia and Burma, in the UK you still order your drinks by the pint at the pub!), they are close enough to be interchangeable for most non-scientific purposes. Indeed, I have a bottle of water in front of me right now that claims it is 16.9 fluid ounces (1.06 pints), 500 mL. So there you go, that's a real life commercial conversion rate for you right off the product label. A few hundred yards: for you metric folk, for this purpose here, 1 yard = 1 meter is close enough, so a few hundred meters. wicket gate: a pedestrian door or gate, particularly one built into a larger door or into a wall or fence. The picture used is of a heathland of purple heather in a sunset mist. Not sure where the heath is located, but it should capture the essence of the place well enough regardless. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13821/13821-h/13821-h.htm#moor

Bromley: in this case, the town, not the borough of London, which is 9.5 miles (15 km) southeast of Charing Cross. Sydenham is a district of south-east London, and home to the Crystal Palace (destroyed in a fire in 1936). "China fought Japan" - Given this book was published in 1916, it must be referencing the war of 1894-1895, fought primarily for hegemony over the Korean peninsula. Aubusson carpet: Aubusson is a commune in central France, and it famous for its tapestries and carpets since at least the 16th century. A lot of terms in here specific to fox hunting, which I imagine not many people today would be much familiar with: - Field: The field can be any number of riders, but on rare occasions, fields of more than 100 can show up on weekends or special meets, such as Opening Day, the day after our Hunter Trials, New Year's and the Blessing of the Hounds. Many hunts have a first, second or even a third field, each of which has a Field Master. First Flight: The first field consists of the riders who stay closest to the huntsman and hounds. They stay with hounds as they gallop over all obstacles, through water and all types of terrain. The first field should always consist of experienced riders with safe horses accustomed to hunting. Second Flight: The second field is usually mounted foxhunters who prefer a slower pace, or have green horses that need to be trained to foxhunt. The second field can go around obstacles but tries to stay up with hounds whenever possible. The primary goal of second-flight riding is viewing the sport. Third Flight (Hilltoppers): The third field is often called “hilltoppers” because they’re usually positioned on hills or places that give them maximum viewing opportunities. This group of mounted followers doesn’t jump or gallop. They mostly walk or trot from one location to another and, unlike the second field, they’re in no hurry to stay with hounds. Often the group consists of older members, very young children on lead-line ponies, inexperienced riders, or riders on green horses. - Whip: assistant to the huntsman. Their main job is to keep the pack all together, especially to prevent the hounds from straying or 'riotting', which term refers to the hunting of animals other than the hunted fox or trail line. So it appears the speed of a fox is nearly as fast as the speed of a horse. At maximum speeds a well trained horse can be a little bit faster, but over long distances they are both probably going to trot in the range of 8 to 10 miles per hour. As this is a 20 mile chase, that's 2 to 2.5 hours of chase. They make it sound like it took the entire day long. Even at a slower walking pace for a horse of 4 or 5 miles per hour, that's still not going to be the whole day long. Something's off here... (For the metric folks, 20 miles = 32 km, so 10 miles = 16 km, 5 miles = 8 km) I mean, it does sound like they were, at least at first, taking time to investigate various nooks and crannies here and there which would have slowed them down considerably, but still, it sounds like it was a 10 to 12 hour chase!?! But then I've never been fox hunting, so I have no idea how it goes. The picture used is "The Fox Hunt" (1875) by Edward Benjamin Herberte. I believe his fox hunt scenes are from various hunts in North Warwickshire, so not exactly Kent, but it will just have to do. At least the time of the painting is very close to what we want, so there's that. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13821/13821-h/13821-h.htm#thirteen I don't really know the geography of the British isles at all, but talking about chalk cliffs of Kent made me wonder if perhaps the White Cliffs of Dover are also in Kent? And lo, they are! So now that's my visual for this fox hunt...

desiderate: to entertain or express a wish to have or attain. All definitions of this word that I can find say it is a verb (which the definition given is for the transitive verb form), yet in this story it is most definitely used as an adjective. We should assume it retains a comparable meaning such as 'desirable'. The picture used is from Le Livre d'Or des Voyages, tome : Asie, par Louis Mainard, Paris : édité chez Argand, Baraduc & cie, Imprimerie Générale A. Lahure, sans date (circa 1890) This book was published in 1916. We don't know what timeframe this particular story is set in, but I would hazard to guess it probably isn't meant to be too far distant in time from its writing. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13821/13821-h/13821-h.htm#london Well that's quite a dream-version of London, eh? *boggle* So, today's lesson, kids? Stay away from hasheesh! Turns out the editing of my book is not great. There were two spots in this rather short story where the syntax was utterly nonsensical, as if entire lines of text were missing. In the end I fixed these problems in my recording using the online version linked to above. In every other respect expect those two spots the texts were identical, so I expect the online text is correct. No idea why my physical book missed so many times like that, I didn't have any troubles whatever with "The Book of Wonder", and it's literally the same book, they put both that and this book into the same volume. That does not bode well... Also a couple of places that really could have used a comma or two to help parse the sentence into cogent clauses! Elementary school mistakes from a professional author and/or editor?! Tsk.

Published 1890. In 1890, the words 'introvert' and 'extrovert' did not yet exist, those would come along soon enough, in 1909, but not quite yet at the time of this writing. But clearly that is what the narrator is describing. It is generally agreed that this story was de Maupassant's last story before his madness overtook him. Yet it is a very clearly written and elegant story, so the madness must have overwhelmed him very suddenly. Signad: I can't find anything about this, not even if it is a play or an opera. There is, unfortunately, a business by the name of SignAd, which occupies all the results from google when searching for it. There is an opera by the name of Signa, but its first performance was in 1893, after this story was already published, so that's not it. Regardless, I gave the word as French a pronunciation as I could manage, not knowing anything about it. Eau de Robec: There is indeed a small tributary of the Seine by the name of Robec that passes through Rouen. chasuble: a sleeveless outer vestment worn by the officiating priest at mass Louis XIII: King of France from 1610 to 1643. That's a legit antique, even for 1890 - at least 250 years old! Henry II: There was a Henry II of England from 1154 to 1189, but also a Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Since the story is set in France, let's go with the French king. That makes the table on the order of 350 years old! The picture used is a post card depicting Rue Eau-de-Robec, Rouen To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/593/593-h/593-h.htm#chap11

Published 1887. The picture used is "Café Terrace at Night" by Vincent van Gogh. There's a fantastic black and white photo of the steps of Montmartre, by David Clapp, but I don't know what the copyright status of it is. I believe David Clapp is still alive and active, so probably fully copyrighted, but I just don't know. I would have used it if I could have figured that out, but since I can't, you'll have to look it up for yourself. To follow along: http://maupassant.free.fr/textes/anglais/night.html The editor of the collection I'm reading from has been taking some liberties with the titles of the stories, which up to this point hasn't been a big deal, the liberties taken so far are well within artistic license for a translator. However, this specific story, for some reason, he entitled "A Queer Night in Paris". Now what the narrator describes in the story may well be a very queer night in the city of Paris, but the problem here is that Guy wrote a completely different story with that exact title. And we can see the French title for this story, "La Nuit", is clearly just "Night", so why use the title of a different story for this one? How bizarre. Definitely outside the scope of artistic license, that's just bad editing. C'est la vie. At least I caught it and corrected it here for my own recording purposes.

Published 1890. Marquis d'Arville: appears to be an entirely fictional person/title? St. Hubert, a.k.a. Hubertus: a Christian saint who became the first bishop of Liège in 708 A.D. He is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metalworkers, and known as the "Apostle of the Ardennes". Baron des Ravels: apparently another fictional person/title? battue: a hunting party arranged by driving game toward hunters by beaters The picture used is "Battle at the Mountain Pass" by Seadraz, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3080/3080-h/3080-h.htm#link2H_4_0016

Published 1875. Earlier we had a story entitled "The Hand", which is awfully similar to this one, but this story here came first, and its likely the later story is merely an evolution of this one. Trappists: the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a Catholic religious order of cloistered monastics that branched off from the Cistercians, who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are named after La Trappe Abbey, the monastery from which the movement and religious order originated informally in 1664, and then formally in 1892. breviary: a book of the prayers, hymns, psalms, and readings for the canonical hours I couldn't figure out what a French pronunciation of Bourdean should have been, I'm not entirely sure it is a French name at all, so I just used an English pronunciation :-P I mean, I could see where it might be related to, or derived from, any of several French words, but Bourdean itself just doesn't look properly French to me. Is it the same name as Bourdain, just spelled differently? I have no idea. The picture used is of an insane patient at a French asylum, from an etching of the book "Des Maladies mentales considérées sous les rapports médical, hygiénique et médico-légal" (About mental illnesses, concerned in medical, hygienic and forensic medical relations), 1838, by Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol. To follow along: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605861h.html Felt like much of this was read in a bit of a hurried manner. I was tired, and being tired I am more likely to revert to my naturally faster manner of speaking. Oops. And I can tell how utterly exhausted I was by the very high rate of errors in such a short story that required my re-recording for a number of spots. Although at least one, breviary, I would never have guessed a long e sound for that first e, even were I at my most alert. What a strange pronunciation for that word...

Published 1883. Not your typical ghost story! To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3083/3083-0.txt No link directly to it, but it's the last tale in the collection so easy to find. They use the French title of Apparition, so look for that rather than Specter.

Published 1885. The initial recording of this one didn't bother me overly much, but when I went to do the editing, I found it extremely repulsive and distressing. Ick. The picture used is a promotional poster for the 1963 movie adaptation of this story, staring Vincent Price and Nancy Kovack. The film starts out with the diary being read at the judge's funeral, but then it becomes some a weird merger of this story (with a different murderer, obviously) and the Horla after that. To follow along: https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-diary-of-a-madman

Published 1882. Donato: 19th century Belgian hypnotist Alfred D'Hont. Charcot: Jean-Martin Charcot, a 19th century French neurologist, one of the leading pioneers of the field. Despite his work on hypnosis and hysteria. The picture used is a promotional poster for Donato from around 1880. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17377/17377-h/17377-h.htm#MAGNETISM

Published 1890. lugubrious: looking or sounding sad and dismal The picture used is "The Little Stream" (1889) by Vincent van Gogh To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3082/3082-h/3082-h.htm#link2H_4_0009 This is one of those pieces that's really just about the atmosphere, not much action to speak of.

Published 1884. orris: Orris root (Rhizoma iridis) is the root of Iris germanica and Iris pallida. It had the common name of Queen Elizabeth Root. It is commonly used as a fixative and base note in perfumery and as a botanical in gin. And everybody clapped! LOL!

Published 1883. Saint-Cloud mystery: I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I assume it is a reference to a real, historical event, but I don't know French or Parisian history well enough to know what. If you know, please leave a comment below. The picture used is a Hand of Vecna prop, found on the r/DnD sub-reddit, made by ScaryisGood. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3082/3082-h/3082-h.htm#link2H_4_0007

Published in 1890. Shower bath: as best I can find, this is taking a cold shower followed afterwards with rubbing the whole body well with coarse flannel? I'm not entirely sure, and it's not an easy topic to research given the banality of the term "shower bath". bromide of potassium: a salt used in the 19th century as an anti-convulsant and a sedative. "belonging to the Mornet": I have no idea what 'Mornet' is in this context. If you recognize it, please leave a comment below! Herrmann Herestauss: I believe this is a fictional personage? theogony: the genealogy of the gods Even in 19th century Paris, some businesses had to put iron bars on the windows. What a shame. There never really was any time in the past that was better than the present, eh? Hence the saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21327/21327-8.txt

Published in 1890. Would you believe there really is a Berghotel Schwarenbach in the Swiss Alps? Built in 1742. And that Guy de Maupassant had stayed there. In fact, all the locations mentioned in the story are real! Which you would think would make name pronunciation real easy, just find examples of real people saying the real names. Alas, as much as people like to share videos about these places, THEY NEVER SAY THE NAMES! They just show panoramic views of the place, typically set to some obnoxiously loud music, and they never say the name. So, in fact, I had very little guidance on pronunciations, despite these being real place names. Mostly I was forced to listen to google translate, which isn't great. Fortunately German is a language I did learn in school, from actual Germans, so hopefully I did alright with the German names at least. Although I learned it from German Germans, not Swiss Germans (well, I had one teacher who was Austrian, but still not Swiss) so the pronunciations might not be quite right from a Swiss perspective, but at least it's German of some form or another. Except, rather curiously, the name Loëche, which appears to correspond to the present day name of Leukerbad. The name Loëche was in use 100+ years ago, although seemingly not so much today? Except you find the French name for it as Loèche-les-Bains, so it remains in the French, but obviously gets a very different pronunciation than what it would as a German word. Given how incredibly confused it all is, I had no idea what kind of pronunciation to use for it. But since it looks like a German word (due to the umlaut, you see...), I gave it my best attempt a German pronunciation. Whether or not they would have done that in 1890 I cannot even begin to guess. *sigh* Jean Hauser - for the life of me, I could not tell from the text whether Jean was the matriarch of the family or the patriarch. It's really confusing. Given the time period being written in and the way the name is used, you'd expect it to be the patriarch, but there are enough suggestions in the text that it is the matriarch that you really have to scratch you head and wonder what is going on. It matters for purposes of pronunciation - as a male name I would give it the sound more like John, but for a woman more like Gene. And it turns out Jean can be a form of Jane as well. What a name! Authors, if you are going to use such gender-neutral names, unless it is a specific plot point for it to be ambiguous, please make it clear exceedingly whether the character of that name is male or female. Gawd, name selection by authors really is the bane of narrators. It's no problem if you are just reading it for yourself, you can fancy whatever pronunciation you like in your own mind, but a narrator has to pick something. Since authors NEVER give any hints as the pronunciations they have in mind, it can become painfully difficult in many cases to know what to do. Ugh. crupper: a strap buckled to the back of a saddle and looped under the horse's tail to prevent the saddle or harness from slipping forward brisque: an 18th-century, French Ace-Ten card game for two players played with a 32-card Piquet pack. It is a member of the Marriage group of games in which the 'marriage' of a King and Queen earns a bonus chamois: a species of goat-antelope native to the mountains of Europe. I don't know what pronunciation to use for this animal, we don't have it in North America so I've never heard of it before now, but I decided to go with the French as it is a French word. Watching some clips on youtube it seems there's a variety of pronunciations used, so seemingly nobody else knows what it should be either. Words like this should just be retired and new words of obvious pronunciation used instead :-P 18F = -8C, almost getting chilly! 5000 feet = 1525 meters gimlet: a small tool with a screw point, grooved shank, and cross handle for boring holes palliasse: straw mattress The picture used is of the Schwarenbach in 1880! Obviously not in the winter, but anyways, a picture of the actual locale during the actual time period of the story! To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21327/21327-8.txt No link directly to the story, they apparently couldn't be bothered with hyperlinks to each individual story from the TOC, but it's near the bottom. So, shades of The Shining? King didn't write his version until 1977, but it's not obvious that the similarity of setting and general theme of madness through isolation is enough to say King had read or was inspired by this. It seems like an obvious enough trope on its own. And King went the supernatural route with his story, while this story does not have any supernatural element to it. So, which is the more terrifying?

Published in 1882. This story is sometimes published under the title "Fear". The author uses the word 'Onargla', but there is no such area. There is, however, Ouargla, a province in present day eastern Algeria, and contains a part of the Issaouane Erg, which is itself part of the Sahara Desert. So this is surely the area intended. Spahi: light cavalry the French army recruited primarily from the Arab and Berber populations of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The use of this specific term tells us this story can be set no earlier than the 1830s. And recall this tale of Africa is 10 years prior to the present temporal setting of the story. There continues to be one regiment of Spahi in the French army in the present day, and it is not just ceremonial, they fought in the Gulf War, they continue to be a modern fighting force despite their reduced numbers. I wasn't sure what meaning the word 'buffet' takes here, thus was unsure of which pronunciation to use for it. But since this part of the story is set in France, I decided to go with the more French style of pronunciation regardless of meaning. The picture used are: 1) Moonlight over the Mediterranean Sea, by calperman, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en). 2) photographie personnelle prise en décembre 2004 représentant des dunes du Grand erg oriental dans le Sahara tunisien près de Ksar Ghilane, by Elcèd77, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en). 3) La Voie Royale, by Philippe Manguin, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en). To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12758/pg12758-images.html#fear

Published in 1884. Well that was cruel. It is rather shocking how many of these stories are lacking in suitable on-line versions. The best I can do for a link to the story is this monstrosity of a URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=vHEbAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT3511&ots=85Ff_J8DuD&dq=%22am%20i%20insane%20or%20jealous%3F%20%20i%20know%20not%20which%2C%20but%20i%20suffer%20horribly%22&pg=PT3511#v=onepage&q&f=false

Published in 1883. The picture used is by Georges Lemoine, or possibly by William Julian-Damazy, I can't quite figure out what's up with it. Regardless, it's actually an illustration for "The Horla", but it fits well enough for this story as well. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21327/21327-h/21327-h.htm#Page_152

Published in 1890. Lucifer match: a friction match winding sheet: a burial shroud To follow along: https://shortstoryproject.com/stories/was-it-a-dream/ Now this is my kind of story! I absolutely loved narrating this one :) Unfortunately it's a couple weeks too late for Halloween, but still feels very appropriate for November even so.

0:00:00 Chapter I 1:00:03 Chapter II 1:41:57 Chapter III 2:29:00 Chapter IV ---- The pictures used are: Chapter 1: Shepherd's Bush tube station, London, 1903 Chapter 2: The picture used is of Hampton Court Park, England, a photochrom print taken between 1890 and 1900 Chapter 3: The picture used is "The Departure of Abraham" (1850) by József Molnár Chapter 4: The picture used is of the Llanllawer Holy Well in Pembrokeshire, Wales, taken by Tracy Campbell (a.k.a. TheAntonine). Obviously it's not going to be the same Well of Life, but it is a holy well of reputed healing powers that is located in Wales. It's the closest thing I could find. To follow along: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700361h.html

How convenient all the miners were replaced by immigrant labor that didn't speak English :-P The picture used is "Mine Entrance - San Bernardino County, CA, USA" by Ron Kroetz, used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/). To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm#link2HCH0029

The picture used is of collapsed blocks, near the Boneyard, northwestern corner of the Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns, by James St. John. To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm#link2HCH0028

amour propre: self-esteem Sir Philip Sidney: 16th century poet, scholar and soldier. The picture used is by angelamaps, of a Drow city (https://angelamaps.com/2022/08/17/drow-art-pack/). Some neat stuff there. Of course most of the pictures have a decidedly evil look to them which doesn't quite fit what we want here, so I went with something that felt more neutral. I was just looking for an underground city-scape without enough open space above for flying. I had no idea what else to do for a picture here, there's not much to work with in this chapter! To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1951/1951-h/1951-h.htm#link2HCH0027 A little bit of a cliff-hanger here!