31 Days of Halloween : Bedtime Stories
- AuntieWicked
- Oct 24, 2012
- 3 min read
31 Days of Halloween : Bedtime Stories
by A. Wicked
There’s lots of favorite things to have about Autumn. The tastes, the temperatures, the last splash of colors, the spooky decorations. I think one of my fondest favorites about the holiday is the fashionable return of spooky stories, the sort that I insisted were read to me as a child. I had love for sad or gruesome Grimms Fairy Tales, and the strange ambience of haunted stories. Here is a short collection of must-have spooky shorts you can pass on to you and YOURS this fine fabulous Holiday season.
Acting With Certainty
This, sadly, is not yet a classic, but I have a feeling it most decidedly should be. The author of the words is Stanley Donwood, a pen name for Dan Rickwood, who is an artist, writer, and sometime collaborator with the group Radiohead. Happily his faintly dark, dreamlike writings (and other things!) are available to see a& read on the internet at Slowly Downward. The youtube video is animated with World of Warcraft skins by Paus, and the over-all effect is really quite lovely.
(suggested by Aunt Maude)
Poe, Poe, Poe : Ulalume
Poe is necessary, a life blood the morbid decaying gateway of dreary dreaminess. You, you darlings can choose any Poe. There is The Raven by James Earl Jones , Annabel Lee by Marianne Faithfull, The Black Cat by Diamanda Galás, The Tell-Tale Heart by Iggy Pop or even Masque of the Red Death by Gabriel Byrne (SWOOOOON!). But, I choose Ulalume, by Jeff Buckley. His tender haunting voice translates even to spoken word, and there is something strung tight and otherwordly to this send up. Not to mention, Ulalume is not a Poe oft chosen for this time of year. I present :
Text : Ulalume by Edgar Allen Poe
Annabel Lee
(Suggested by Uncle Perhaps)
Le Vampire, Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet, and one of our favorite Darkling literary figures. He’s modernly gothic in his blunt rejection of the nature-loving Romantics in favour of decadence, townie-tude, and individualism. Happily he was also a grand lover of Poe, and responsible for translating him for a wider European audience. Despite the poem being a dirge of love, I feel that its super apropos’ as a spooky bedtime story. I’ve chosen a French Version, despite the fact that I can’t savor understanding in every word, there is something really lovely about it in French.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, By Washington Irving.
This story is very much the “Night Before Christmas” of Halloween. The tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horsemen is not only classic, but really necessary in terms of stories. MOST happily there is a version on youtube that is public domain, in its full glory. Do enjoy, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service
(read by Johnny Cash).
Not sure if its my Western upbringing, but this was a bedtime fable that dates back almost as far as the Raven in my own baby bedtime stories. It makes me warm and fuzzy just by the timber of the prose, and the marvelously morbid, tall tale content. Something like the voices of adults when you are a little kid sleeping on the couch at a Holiday party, warm and distant. If you’ve never heard it, welcome to this treat, read by Johnny Cash, beautifully.
So read read! Read to your babies and your baby, to the stars or to the internets! And enjoy, enjoy this lovely lovely time of year!
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